As listeners of the LOTRO Reporter podcast may know, I am well and truly hooked on PvMP.  My warg feels like an extension of myself, and whenever a coworker is starting to bother me, I wish I could run behind a tree, pop into Stealth Mode, dash out and Pounce them to shut them up, Maul them to really get my point across, and then Disappear to confuse and annoy them…..

Anyway, this post is not all about my confusion between the game and reality!  I am here to talk about the Destiny Points system, a system that may be underused by a large population of players.  Destiny Points (DP) are gained on the Free Peoples  side (that’s dwarves, elves, men, and hobbits) by gaining levels for your characters.  So, if you are an alt-a-holic and are leveling many characters, your DP will go up fairly quickly.  DP is very useful before a big fight to gain temporary buffs, such as increased speed, morale, or power.  I once cashed in a bunch of DP on increased speed so that I could run into the Trollshaws and Rivendell at an insanely low level, leaving my enemy pursuers in the dust.  (That’s not to say that I didn’t squeal in terror like a little girl as gigantic bears tried to chase me down!)

On the Monster Player side (that’s wargs, spiders, orcs, and uruks), the DP is more liberally doled out.  All quests completed as a creep gain DP, since DP is the main source of currency for gaining new skills and abilities for your creep.  Again, DP can also be used to gain temporary buffs to speed, morale, power, and so on.

Now, here is the really cool thing.  Did you know that DP is shared amongst your characters?  All your characters.  Both freeps and creeps.  So, here is the thing, if you want to take advantage of the buying power of Destiny Points, you need to maximize their influx.  Before I became a creep, the DP was coming rather slowly.  I enjoyed using the points for buffs before big boss fights, or for making sure I always had the “rested XP” bonus (a bonus that allows your character to gain experience points more quickly), but I didn’t have a steady supply of them.

But playing a Monster Player changed all that.   As I mentioned, every quest you complete gains you DP, from 125 DP for simple solitary quests to 2000 DP for fellowship quests.  For the quests that give 2000 DP, Monster Players generally keep several alts just to make multiple runs at those quests.  If you’re at all serious about Monster Play, you will spend a lot of that DP on your creeps, but you can save some for your freeps, too!  If you really want to!