>Some forum personalities carry baggage. For instance, someone
>might really, really dislike "Isildur" the forum poster, and
>let that color their interaction with whatever character I'm
>playing at the time. Or they might really like Isildur the
>forum poster, and pass up an opportunity to
>loot/kill/doublecross my character in-game that they might
>otherwise have taken.

Fair point. Let me bug you with a few more questions, though

>Good work. Let me run down my short list of
>ways-to-avoid-dying:
>
>1. As a healer, never walk somewhere when you can gate.
>Never, ever walk out of your guild after having sat in it for
>any length of time. Ditto for cabal. And your deity's
>shrine.

Mmm, never had someone go through that much to try and take me out, but I'll keep that in mind. I imagine this stuff happens more in the higher levels?

>2. Always, always carry multiple teleport potions in your
>inventory. Don't keep them in a sack. When blinded, you can
>still see potions in your inventory.

>3. If you use a client, set an alias to "quaff teleportation"
> or whatever teleport potion you use). I don't know about
>you, but I don't trust myself to type "quaff teleportation" in
>the heat of battle.

Heh, I already have a bunch of aliases set up, I'll be sure to add this one. Can you use teleportation potions when you can't use the supplication?

>4. When possible, try to carry a "not insignificant" amount of
>gold on your person for sitautions where your own healing
>ability doesn't cut it.

I'll do that. I've noticed that, when curing others, sometimes it can take quite a few attempts to break it. What determins that, the skill of the inflicter, or...?

>5. Keep stuff like sanctuary, protection, flight, protective
>shield, and detect invisible active as often as you can.

My biggest issue here is mp--I tried this once, and I tend to burn through it quickly and most supplications don't seem to last too long. More on this in a bit. I do always keep detect invis, good, and evil up, and sometimes protection. The first three let me know if I need to run at a glance. Heh.

>6. If you use "word of recall" to escape someone, assume that
>he's heading to your recall point as quickly as possible.
>Ideally you want to be elsewhere when he arrives.

Only recently obtained this ability, I'll keep that in mind.

>7. As you continue to rank, you'll find that healers are
>generally pretty hard to kill. But they have their achilles
>heels. A few of them are: assassinate, worldbind and dispel
>from a shaman (or paladin if you're an evil healer).

That's good know. Looking through the abilities of a healer, it looks like there're some rather nice defenses down the road, and some now even. Could you elaborate a little on this, though? Never hurts to know one's weaknesses--e.g., what circumstances allow for a successful assassination, what does worldbind do, and such?

My biggest problem when someone attacks is usually that I don't have much mp to work with. e.g., if I'm with a group in a crypt and a necromancer decides to jump us, my biggest problem isn't that I can't undo whatever he does to the party, but that I only have 30% (though I try to keep it as high as possible...) or so to work with and, if a supplication fails, it can hurt a lot at that point. On the other hand, being with a group usually means I'm a bit safer, and given a healer's fighting ability, I do prefer that.

Any thoughts, or additional advice? And thanks for the tips you've given so far