My own suggestion is highly unorthadox. First do all the missions leading up to Yak's bend without doing the quests. Buy new armor in Yak's, then go back and do all of the quests. Then go back to Yak's bend and travel to the next mission zone. Once you reach the zone called " The Frost Gate " do not do the mission. This mission for most people is very upsetting and often disapointing. It's a difficult hurdle especially for someone level (11 by this point) Instead, travel out throught he town's gate to the north east and travel along the mountains until you get to a town called " Ice Tooth Cave"
you know what... never mind.. Ill just draw a map:
Im level 13 and just completed this (started at level 9) :
Click This link To view a huge map
You might need to hold your mouse over it and then click the button that appears in the left corner to resize it, or else download it and then zoom in and around it. Whatever you do, just don't try to take it all in on one screen at a time, this is like a satelite image, after all, so it requires some zooming in by some software and scrolling around. I suggest Windows picture and fax viewer and if you dont have that use MS Paint.
This was really fun and now I've got real pimp lookin' armor
I died about 197 times, but that's because im such a low level [img]tongue.gif[/img]
At one poitn my party got so fed up they all left except for 2 guys and the 3 of us made it all the way to Quarrel falls from there [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I had no idea in all my wildest dreams I'd get to Ventari's refuge before Lion's arch.
Oh and about quests: I did about 20-30 quests along the way [img]smile.gif[/img] Most gave realy great skills. And several of the palces i passed offered skill trainers so if you want to quest for some really unique skills you cant get anywhere else you've gotta' try this some time.
Some of the unique stuff I got:
Necrid Teleportation (Teleports you to wherever a dea body is including up and down hills)
Well of pain (Like well of blood only in reverse for the bad guys)
Two runes, one Major marksmanship, one Minor Smiting Prayres.
A 9-18 damage truncheon with +15 energy rune on it.
3 very good friends who thought it was fun to talk about old episodes of Rocko's modern life and discuss the philosophy of drunk people using time machines.