Free to Play DDO Point walkthrough

What exactly do I need to do to earn the most free DDO Points (DP)? In what order should I go about it? And now that I have DP, what should I do with it? These are the primary questions every Free To Play (F2P) wants to know the answers to. The simple guide below has been provided to help you unlock the most from your game in the shortest amount of time, in order to receive the greatest benefits. However, any areas discussing the DDO Store and current prices can vary, new things may be added and old items and adventures removed.

In the end, it is really up to you, as the F2P player, to decide how to spend both your actual time and DP (DDO Points - a Dungeons and Dragons Online store currency).

Free DDO Points from Favor

 * Note: We won't discuss the mechanics here - see Favor for details.

By far, "Favor" is the easiest way to earn DDO Points for free. It's automatic, but there are some strategies to maximizing it.


 * Play the Game: For every (full) 100 Favor that any of your characters earns, on any server, you earn 25 DDO Points - it's that simple. There are also some additional bonuses for hitting benchmarks (see below). Much later, when that character reaches the point of reincarnation at level 20, they start over from 0 (without 1st-time server account bonuses, naturally), and again start earning 25 DP/100 Favor.
 * Highest Total Favor per Server: For your character with the most Favor on any given server. As above, you get the base 25 DP/100 Favor, plus 1st-time bonuses on every server. It's popular to earn a quick 5, 25, 50 or 100 (or more) Favor on every server, as those are the quickest bonus goals (earning 25 DP/server, 50/, 75/, or 125 DP/server, respectively!).


 * As mentioned, once the character with the highest favor point total reaches the next reward level, none of the other characters on that server can gain those first-time Bonus awards a second time, but they will still get the base 25 DP/100 Favor. The current max is something over 7,000 total favor.


 * Favor Running: Regardless of "total favor" of your highest-favor character, you can start a new character, run up a quick 100 (or 200, or 300, etc) favor, and earn 25 (or 50, or 75, etc.) favor, delete that character, and repeat. This is not something that everyone will enjoy equally, but it can be done infinitely, on any server. (For more info, see below for an example of "how to".)

Other sources of Free DDO Points

 * The Monster Manuals can be a good source. All accounts get the "basic" MM for free, but you need DP to unlock more of them. MM #1 is especially worth an investment.
 * Rare Event Awards - Occasionally DDO gives out rewards during special events.
 * DDO Chronicle - Opens a weekly contest simply by giving your response to a "What do you think...?" style question each week. At the end of the week, a random user who posted in the forums wins 500DP.
 * Note that the DDO Chronicle is currently off-press, as the writer, Cordovan, is currently extremely busy preparing the new forums.

Servers
You probably(?) already have a "main" server, a place to call "home". If not, running a character to 100 favor on each is not a bad way to get a flavor for each server. Deciding early to change "main" servers is not a big deal; although it may seem like a loss, leveling a new character up is relatively easy, and you want to put the long-term effort where ever you are most comfortable.

Choose from the list of 8* servers:
 * (* As of HCL season 3 (June-Sep 2020), the Hardcore League server has been opened to all accounts, including F2P and Premium. When running, this makes a 9th server. Note also that whenever a new season's Hardcore server opens this will be a NEW server. So any favor progress you had from the previous HC server is "forgotten" (you don't lose those DP in your account), and you can start over fresh on this "new" server. Thus, you can make a new character that gets the first time favor each season on the then-current HC server for each new HC season.)

To gain maximum DP for the DDO Store, you'll need to visit every one of these servers.
 * Tip: Each time you create a character, you may want to write down the name of the server, the name of the character, and what class/level that character is. If you don't, you may find yourself spending a lot of time hunting down that character and which server(s) you wanted to use.

Character creation
If this is your first character, see Character creation. If you're just visiting to earn Favor, you can run almost anything you want. However, consider that you may want builds that have solid early damage/survivability (to get through quests both faster and successfully), and that a bonus running speed (to get to/through quests faster) also makes things go noticeably faster.

To that end, Barbarians are popular, both for their ease of building (Strength, Constitution, 2-handed fighting, win) and their bonus +10% run speed, but there are many other possibilities. In the end, whatever works best for you will do just fine, and, since you have 8 servers, you can also experiment with different classes to see what you might like!


 * see also: Example DP Runner

Questing
For any account, the first character on a new server has to run The Grotto - you'll get familiar with this tutorial quest. Any subsequent characters have the option to run The Grotto, or skip it - you get the same starting experience (~1,000) and no favor, either way.

You'll then "...find yourself in Korthos village...", and it's time for your next decision - how much Favor are you going to try to earn (for now)?


 * &#8199;&#8199;5 favor on a new server = &#8199;50 DP
 * &#8199;25 favor on a new server = &#8199;75 DP
 * &#8199;50 favor on a new server = 100 DP
 * 100 favor on a new server = 125 DP
 * 200 favor on a new server = 150 DP

So, remembering that there are (at least) 8 servers, earning 5 favor on each is a quick 200 DP, and earning 100 favor on each is a not-quite-as-quick 1,000 DP.

If you're only going for 50 DP (for now*) then you only need 5(+) Favor, so you can do the 3 basic quests in the village on Normal - 2 Favor each, x3 quests = 6 favor, done. If you're going for 75 DP, you can do the 3 basic quests on Elite (for 18) and The Collaborator on Hard (for 8 more) for 26. However, if you're going for any more, it's probably fastest to run all on Elite. Note that you can always come back later and run a quest on a higher difficulty - favor works on the toughest difficulty you ever run.


 * (* You can always come back later and continue earning favor on the same character. Favor earned is not lost over time.)

If you're going for more than 50 Favor (for now), you'll need to do more quests - see below for a suggested list.

Decide on your plan, and run Korthos Village quests. Get a hireling (from Jevan Solidus in the town square) if you need some help, and aim for Elite completions on each of the quests. You can also open the LFM ("Looking For More") screen by hitting o, and either finding a group that is running Korthos or advertising for help.

Once you have finished your current favor goal for this server, or if you need to take a break and want to finish later, you can go to the Main Menu (found by hitting Esc or by clicking the DDO icon in the lower left of the screen), and choose "Quit".

Each time you want to change servers, you'll have to exit the game and reopen the game launcher again, since it doesn't select the server within the game itself. Repeat all of the above until you have completed the process with all servers. If you want, you can always come back to these characters and continue to play using them.

Tips
 * You must run Storehouse Secret, and Heyton's Rest before you can run The Collaborator. You must run The Collaborator before you can go out the gate to Korthos Island and the 4 quests in that Wilderness zone.
 * To get to The Harbor, go to the Korthos village dock and talk to Valeria Sinderwind, and you will land on the (much larger) Korthos dock.
 * Once in in The Harbor, you only need to run a couple of low-level quests before you hit 100 Favor.
 * To gain the maximum favor for each quest, you want to run on Elite (unless they are solo quests). You don't gain any more Favor than the maximum and each time you gain Favor on that Quest replaces the Favor point total for that quest you had earlier. There are plenty of players willing to help out. If you can't find a group, press o button, go to the [Who] tab, and see who else may be running the same quest.
 * To see what quests you have/not run, and at what difficulty, hit the p button.
 * Hitting 100 Favor with this character will give you the base Favor reward of 25 DP (for every 100 Favor pts) plus all the DP bonus first-time awards for 5, 25, and 50 favor (125 DP total).
 * Check your mail in-game to see your DP reward. DP rewards go to the total account and are not dependent on keeping that character. Once you reach the 100 Favor with the 2nd or even 3rd free character on that server, you can then delete those temporary characters. If you don't like any of those you currently have, go back to the character creation screen and create one you're willing to play for a long period of time.
 * If you wish, at any time you can keep creating new characters, raising them up to 100 Favor each, and gaining 25 DP each time, then deleting that character, and repeating. You can only get the first-time bonus Favor awards with the first character to hit that mark, but these temporary characters provide you with a quick way to earn +25 DP endlessly.

Quests To Earn 100 Favor
This is a list of low level quests for efficient earning of quick favor. Some quests are better for this purpose than others, but for characters that will continue on to high levels and not stop at 100 favor, any/all quests should be considered.

Korthos - Introductory Quests
All these quests are Level 1 with the exception of Misery's Peak, which is a long Level 2 quest. While the end reward makes it worthwhile for low-level characters, it is not popular for quick favor runs.

Korthos Village
30 Favor max:
 * The Cannith Crystal* (6 favor)
 * The Storehouse's Secret* (6 favor)
 * Heyton's Rest* (6 favor)
 * The Collaborator (12 favor)
 * * These three quests must be completed first (at any difficulty and in any order) to be flagged for the final quest, The Collaborator. You must complete The Collaborator (on any difficulty) to get out the gate to access any of the Korthos Wilderness quests, listed below.

Korthos Island
The Collaborator (see above) must be completed (at any difficulty level) before a character can pass through the gate to access the Korthos Island quests (and also to the Korthos Island Wilderness Area, which provides no favor itself).

45 Favor max:
 * Stopping the Sahuagin (9 favor)
 * Redemption (9 favor)
 * Necromancer's Doom (6 favor)
 * Sacrifices (9 favor)
 * Misery's Peak (12 favor, level 2)

The Harbor - Level 2 Quests
At the foot of Korthos Village by the water is a small pier. Talking to Valeria Sinderwind will provide passage to The Harbor and on to Stormreach in general. This can be done at any time, and characters can return to Korthos to finish questing or exploring, but will move all future Korthos interaction from Snowy Korthos to Sunny.

Solo quests (easy/fast)
Solo quests can only be run at the base difficulty ("Solo"), and so offer only the base amount of favor. Still, they can be relatively easy.

8 Favor max:
 * Home Sweet Sewer (2 favor)
 * The Miller's Debt (2 favor)
 * Arachnophobia (2 favor)
 * An Explosive Situation (2 favor)

Shorter and/or "easier" quests
36 Favor max:
 * Bringing the Light (6 favor)
 * The Kobolds' New Ringleader (12 favor)
 * Haverdasher (6 favor)
 * Information is Key (12 favor)

Longer and/or "harder" quests
These quests generally take longer for the same amount of favor than many of the above, and/or present specific challenges to some characters. However, doing one or more on Normal or Hard difficulty may be necessary, or, depending on you, simply preferable to one of the above on Elite.


 * Durk's Got A Secret (12 favor)
 * Recovering the Lost Tome (9 favor)
 * Garrison's Missing Pack (12 favor)
 * Stealthy Repossession (9 favor)
 * A unique quest with unique challenges to complete it, so difficulty varies from character to character, but it's rarely "fast" for any at-level character.
 * The Smuggler's Warehouse (9 favor)
 * Walk the Butcher's Path (12 favor)
 * The three-quest chain called A Man Named Baudry Cartamon. While not particularly difficult, the first two are timed (5 & 10 minutes) and the last is fairly long.
 * Protect Baudry's Interests (6 favor)
 * Retrieve the Stolen Goods (9 favor)
 * Stop Hazadill's Shipment (6 favor)

Other quests
These are higher-level, longer or generally more difficult quests accessed from The Harbor, and are included for completeness. They are not recommended as a "fast" or efficient way to 100 Favor (even at lower difficulty levels), but should definitely be considered for any character seeking further development.


 * Kobold Assault (9 favor)
 * Irestone Inlet (12 favor)
 * The four-quest chain known as The Lost Seekers and often referred to as the Waterworks, the "wilderness" area where they are found:
 * The Kobold's Den: Clan Gnashtooth (12 favor)
 * The Kobold's Den: Rescuing Arlos (12 favor)
 * Venn's Trail: Clan Tunnelworm (12 favor)
 * Venn's Trail: Venn's Fate (9 favor)
 * Two quests found in the Wilderness area The Cerulean Hills:
 * The Captives (9 favor)
 * Where There's Smoke... (9 favor)

Example for a 100 Favor Run
100 favor can be gained any number of ways, and "the best" way is up to personal preference. This is a relatively quick, easy series for 100 Favor only, the idea being to grab 100 favor and 25 DDO points, delete the character, and repeat as you need. Depending on your character build and/or player experience, other mixes of quest/difficulty may prove faster. Ymmv, experiment, enjoy!


 * See also Example DP Runner

Note that this suggested mix skips Misery's Peak. Misery's is a good quest, and is recommended for any "long term" character (for the final reward loot), but is not appropriate for what we're dong here - grabbing 100 Favor nice and quick. The mix below is listed in a simple order; after Korthos Village and then Korthos Island, you follow a roughly clockwise path from the base of the pier around The Harbor. However, Ringleader may be the toughest of the quests - if you have trouble with it, skip it at first and come back to it once your runner is more experienced.

If this goes too quickly and/or you want more, finishing Elite on most of the Level 2 quests in The Harbor and The Marketplace, and the Level 2-3 Solo quests there, should get you 200 Favor and another 25 DDO Points (and Character Level 4 or more).

Spending options
The DDO Store has a great number of things you can spend your DP on. There are things you should consider — whether something is just for an individual character, for a server, or your account. Always keep an eye out for discounts, since these can reduce the total cost of an item by 25% or more. From time to time pricing and some offerings change in the DDO store.

Once you open the store, you will be able to see your total DP amount, displayed to the top left of the window.

Main items you should save DP for:
 * Adventure Packs
 * Epic Destinies
 * Classes
 * Races
 * Shared Bank (Item Storage that can be accessed by any character on that account)
 * Monster Manuals

There are certainly other options, depending on your personal preferences, but those are the ones generally recommended and found most useful by the majority of players. Read up on any items, and ask questions in the forums before buying!