cheating

[Harlequin]

You've just explained why it can happen. No, you can't modify files on another hard drive, but you can modify the information sent to another client within the game. So a cheater "fixes" up another character, which at the time is loaded in memory, then during the next save process Diablo overwrites the save information on the legit's harddrive to match the character information in memory. Messed up character. I've had it happen on several occasions, even with people I thought were trustworthy, hence the reason for keeping a backup.