Quote (Mystic_Prophet)
Well... My suggestion is to remove them from the normal world entirely and nerf the starting creeps so level 1s can actually level without them. Then you can simply have the tome merchant reappear in chaos when it's actually needed.
Well we could nerf the Forgotten crap majorly so people don't think they need 100k stats to last 3s on them. (That exaggeration isn't THAT big...you need like 2-3 Waug rings to tank them for most heroes, by the time you have 3-4 better items are available.)
Or how about this: Cap is raised...certain boss drops raise cap a bit more for people (like hidden tome things, with a command to see if you have them). Or just helping/being near counts. For it to count...you need the level to use that boss's items. When in normal world you have the lowest cape, entering the Chaotic world gives a higher cap, Demon Prince gives yet another cap (and another reason to kill him), all other bosses give more cap raises. To get "max" stats, you'd have to get all of these cap bonuses. Say...helping to kill every boss including the Forgotten Leader and Azazoth, but you haven't done anything with the Demon Prince...you'd need to kill the Demon Prince to max savable stats. (Specific bosses don't give specific bonuses to stats, each step up gives higher and higher maxes per bonus. Best example I can think of would be something like the Fibonacci Sequence...) Oh...and for costs...would depend on how many tomes you've bought and what "cap level" you're at. (Then I think about this blob of text and realize I just put like 2-5 different ideas/systems there....)
Of course...we're just piling ideas...totally up to DC.