Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[Crystalion]

1.  The character build should be unusual enough that most people wouldn't have played or seen it before.

2.  The character should use underutilized skills and make the most of them.

3.  The less the twinking of items, in both quantity and quality, the better.  A completely untwinked character is a huge bonus.

5.  The rules of the character should be easy to follow and not change.

6.  The character should have an interesting character background story that motivates the build.

7.  Right now there's a big interest in changes in 1.10, so characters that use skills and/or items that have changed between 1.09 and 1.10 are interesting.

8.  The more humorous and ridiculous the build, the better.

Of course, probably no character build will have all of these properties perfectly

Here's a simple but odd restriction: character_name the Skill-less. Poor thing was cursed at birth: the moment s/he uses her own skill, s/he will perish.

Thus no investment of skill points (a known but uncommon variant) and no skill may be used (passively or actively) that is enabled by +skill if that skill is of your own class. (This eliminates the utility of all the +skill "(class only)" items, such as rods, scepters and staffs, and thus levels the playing field, so that Necros/Palys/Sorcs/Assassins can't just laugh at the build restriction).

Additionally no use of "normal" attack (melee, ranged, thrown--except throwing potions). S/he must always rely (apart from the throwing potions, which, fyi, you can "repair" but selling to shop and buying back--so don't combine stacks) on using granted skills. This would be from charged items and all the sets/uniques/runewords that grant skills. This forces the character into "insane" variant-land, as a "skill-less" character that just uses normal attacks and therefore relies on high damage weapons has been done and isn't very colorful.

(edit: tech note: "combining" stacks of throwing potions is okay, as long as you don't lose a stack by having it be completely absorbed into the other stack. Indeed "topping off" stacks is more cost effective than sell/buy "repairing" them)

In short, when you bring up your skill tree page, ideally no skill should ever show any level at all (unless it is not a passive, and you never key/use that skill, because you really wanted to use an item for some other reason that unfortunately has a +skill to your class). But you will nonetheless typically have many skills available to you, as you make use of items with charges, and, eventually, special items granting skills outright from other classes.

The trick, of course, is to limit yourself to little or no twinking (perhaps s/he can pray to the gods from time to time, for the blessing of an item). So, for example, the Trang Oul set is rather excessive (unless s/he finds it). Actually one good rule of thumb might be: if you (the twinker) sell the item to the shop and the twinkee can't pay for it out of the shop (from money they earned) then the gift is clearly excessive.

The reason, naturally, that such an overwhelming restriction is still viable, v1.10s, is that Attract and Confuse and potions to mercs have all been improved. And there are many other charged items that already worked well pre-v1.10 (necro curses etc.) . Also charges of sacrifice are now useful (as sacrifice is basically calculated as -8% lifetap v1.10s). I believe you also have a reasonable hope of being able to make Passion or Crescent Moon by hell difficulty, so this build should actually be playable then as well.

Naturally the most powerful spell in the game is allowed, as it is "granted" (i.e. Town Portal).

I expect the beginning of such a character is running about looting chests, trying to get money for thorns on an item, or to buy an item of skill level 1 charges for their class (these are typically clvl req 7 for the other classes). Killing Blood Raven will be a major rite of passage.

After that, until you've had a chance to pack rat a bunch of useful items, your life will revolve around your hireling, and money generation (to keep those throwing potion stacks full, and those item skill charges repaired).

I may have to go try one of these right now :)

edit: p.s. example partial listing of available charges of offensive low level skill/req for classes...
(note that affix level may prevent these from being offered when you are level 1 and so
amazon: fire arrow clvl 3 req on gloves (level 40, so a twink)
amazon: power strike clvl 6 req on spears (level 12, so a twink as shop affix level 11 is max possible from norm act 1
iirc)
Sorc: fire bolts, charged bolts, ice bolts clvl 1 (affix level 7, so clvl 3 before shops will offer, iirc)
Nec: teeth clvl 1 (affix level 7, so clvl 3 before shops will offer, iirc)
Nec: poison dagger clvl 6...
Paly sacrifice charges are available clvl 1 req for Palys, clvl 7 req for other classes.
etc. etc.

FYI for those of you that never tried it, repairing spell charges is very expensive. Last I tested, v1.10s, the Ort repair recipe didn't restore the charges on a weapon. Clearly this build must use their charges carefully, only at need or when profitable. Town Portals, healing potions, antidote and thawing potions (for your hireling) are all likely to be very cost effective by comparision. Not to mention stamina potions for yourself, so the monsters can't catch you when you don't wish them to.

edit: p.s.: if you twink, Assassin is an interesting choice, as a Chaos (runeword) claw can grant them Whirlwind (clvl 57 req) and no other class has that possibility.

edit: tech note: if you don't have left/right mouse action assigned to a charge or granted skill, you'll have to have it on "throw", with the restriction that you shouldn't then have a throwing item (other than potion) equiped. This is so as to not accidentally "normally" attack something. On the right mouse button, v1.10s, you have the option of putting unsummon (any class). Also in v1.10s you can use the command /nopickup to avoid accidentally equiping a weapon by clicking on the ground.

edit: test prelim report: have played this way through level 6, past Blood Raven and Mausoleum/Crypt. Realized that until my Str is really high, or I can get a good damage weapon, of Sacrifice is too spendy compared to throwing potions. I don't think I'll be able to buy charges of Dim Vision until Act 2, so the real question is: can I shepard my hireling to get me to the next act with only throwing potion support? I'm untwinked except that I just gave myself a horadric cube (this will allow me to keep my potions on hand--in inven in cube--without losing the "low on potion" icon, which warns me when a stack is about to vanish). I've bought thorns cap, belt and armor, and 10% chance level 3 charged bolt when struck cap, gloves, boots. I believe I'm therefore benefiting from the v1.10s bug with multiple item effects. That's unfortunate, but I'm really enjoying running (to allow monsters to autohit me) around pretending I'm a LEB. :D My "holy grail" at this point, aside from wanting a poison chip for my hireling's bow to up its damage, is to get several skull chips (too much to hope for flaweds) and a three socket shield to put them into (really nice thorns damage--this would be a major twink opportunity for any lowbie, that I hadn't considered before).

BTW, you can read a bit on charged items in this thread.