The two things aren't mutually exclusive, you know!

Congrats on the coffin piece! Was it perhaps the piece that I'm missing the item ID from?  Here's a full list of all the special items available:

A Creeping Vine
Message in a Bottle
Recipe
Scroll of Alacrity
0.5 Scroll of Transcendence
(only on Felucca for maps higher than Level 1)
Skeleton Key
Tasty Treat
Treasure Map (Same level or one level higher)

For Level 5 to 7:
Forged Pardon
Mana Phasing Orb
Runed Sash of Warding
Surge Shield
1 Minor Artifact (only Level 6 and 7)
1 Master Skeleton Key (only Level 7)
1 Coffin Piece (only Level 7)

Some of these I forgot to add the item IDs in the original post... work in progress, I say!

I'd compare the Renegade Changeling to a paragon Irk. I never ever ever ask for help on a map... but I had to ask for help to get these guys down. They retarget, hit like a truck against all 70s resists, and are unbardable. You CAN provoke the other spawn onto them, but they tear it up quickly and the barding difficulty felt like 160. You can't lure them off, if they get to a certain distance away they'll reset back to the chest. I ended up having to switch to my tamer and call in another guild mate on his tamer. We invised and let the dragons whittle them down.

I haven't done a level 7 other then the first one in Illishnar, because I didn't upgrade my account to High Seas until recently. Before then I just sold the maps, since you can't decode them without the booster pack. As a general rule I find Malas, Tokuno, Illish, and Ter Mur level 6s to be way easier to solo, so when I get Tram or Fel maps I trade them for maps from those facets. I can't handle the ancient wyrms from the Tram/Fel maps on my bard.

Thanks everyone! I updated with a link to a few useful scripts, added the info on soul stones, and mentioned the satyr trick for training cartography and lockpicking. I keep looking at it and seeing things I overlooked, so this is still a work in progress. 

I'm not sure how rare the coffin pieces are. They drop from level seven chests, and I've only done one so far. I actually wasn't aware of the drop at the time, and I don't fully loot the chest so I might have gotten a piece then and dismissed it without realizing. I'd actually sworn off ever doing another one (the person who made renegade changelings can go right to hell) until I read about the coffin drop. I'll go back later and update the post with a list of special drops from each level of map, so it's more clear what to expect from each box of loot.

I do treasure hunting "in bulk", looting my maps by zone and only looting the good items from each chest. I'm unsure of the gold per hour I make doing this, but it feels pretty obscene. Between imbuing ingredients, mana phasing orbs, relics from unraveling, and of course the gold I think treasure hunting is stronger then its ever been. The loot in the chest itself may suck, but who cares? As it stands the magical armor and weapons inside the chest are secondary to the special items.

     Looking for something new to do? Do you find yourself attracted to the fame and fortune brought by the treasure hunting lifestyle? Perhaps you just like to scavenge. Regardless of your motivations, the first thing any aspiring treasure hunter needs to do is build their character. There are two requirements of a treasure hunting character - the ability to decode and dig the map up, and the ability to defeat the guardians protecting the chest. The only two required skills for the template are Cartography (http://www.uoguide.com/Cartography) and Lockpicking (http://www.uoguide.com/Lockpicking). Cartography is required to decode the treasure maps, and Lockpicking is required to unlock the chests. Treasure chests up to Level Three can be unlocked with Magery (see http://www.uoguide.com/Treasure_Map) but for the purposes of this guide I am going to assume that you want a character that can solo most maps.  With the recent randomization of treasure map spots, the mining skill (http://www.uoguide.com/Mining) is extremely useful to have in a template, since it increases the number of tiles you can be from the location of the chest when attempting to dig it by up to four. With no Mining skill, you must be directly on the correct spot where the chest is buried.

   There are three basic templates that are capable of soloing high end maps - the Bard, the Mystic, and the Animal Tamer (Author's Note - if you are aware of more please post them here and I will update this with the new information). Here are the basic (unscrolled) skill values for each template:

Bard:

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Mining
100 Musicianship
100 Peacemaking OR Provocation OR Discordance
100 Provocation OR Peacemaking OR Discordance
100 Magery

OR

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Musicianship
100 Magery
100 Provocation
100 Peacemaking
100 Discordance

Mystic:

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Mining
100 Magery
100 Mysticism
100 Focus
100 Meditation

OR

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Magery
100 Mysticism
100 Focus
100 Meditation
100 Evaluating Intelligence

Animal Tamer:

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Mining
100 Magery
100 Animal Taming
100 Animal Lore
100 Veterinary

OR

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Magery
100 Animal Taming
100 Animal Lore
100 Veterinary
100 Meditation

Of course, these are unscrolled skill values and in this post Age of Shadows world some skills will have to be scrolled higher to perform effectively. In order to do this you will need to rely on skill bonuses from items. There are many items available to increase your skills in certain areas. Mark of the Travesty (http://www.uoguide.com/Mark_of_the_Travesty) comes in several different flavors that would complement an animal tamer or bard template. The Crystalline Ring (http://www.uoguide.com/Crystalline_Ring) has +40 total skill points and would help pad out a Mystic treasure hunter's template nicely. Imbuing makes it possible to add a big chunk of skill to one's jewelry. Ringmail Gloves of Mining have a +5 skill bonus and can be imbued to fit into a suit.  A couple of those library talismans have +10 to complementary skills on them. Be creative, and utilize what you have available to you!

     It is possible to decode your maps and swap out Cartography for a different skill. If you want to adjust your template to use this technique, then it is something to take into consideration! You can also do the same with Mining and Lockpicking but it requires an amount of swapping skills back and forth that I personally feel to be very inefficient. However, it may be a good strategy for soloing level 6 and 7 treasure maps if you are having trouble. It is also a good way to utilize already trained skills when converting another character into a treasure hunter. It does require at least two soul stones, one of them dedicated to the character, and isn't necessary to have a strong treasure hunter.

As an example of utilizing skill bonus items in a template, here is what I currently run on my treasure hunter:

100 Lockpicking
100 Cartography
100 Mining
100 Magery (+30 on jewelry, -20 on Jaana's Staff leaving an effective skill of 110)
120 Musicianship
100 Peacemaking (+20 on jewelry)
100 Provocation (+20 on jewelry)

Remember to take imbuing skill groups (http://www.scriptuo.com/index.php?topic=5458.0) into consideration when designing your template around imbued jewelry.

   "What does a fashionable treasure hunter wear?", you may be wondering.  When building your suit you have two basic choices - luck or no luck? Luck does not effect the loot within the chest itself, only the loot dropped from the spawn, so the answer to this question depends on your treasure hunting strategy. If you like to loot every single item from the chest or even milk it for more spawn, go with the luck suit. If you just scoop the good items out and dismiss it, go with the caster suit. Or the luck suit. It's really personal preference. Most of the treasure hunter templates don't have room for meditation, so you will probably need to imbue some mana regen onto your armor. 100% lower reagent cost leaves more room in your treasure hunter's pack for loot and gold. All 70s resists mean you won't get eaten by the guardian spawn in one big chomp.  Imbuing makes it super easy to make the perfect suit for your character, and I recommend that you don't skimp - it is worth investing in good armor!

   Once you've finished your treasure hunter, you'll be needing some maps. There are three basic sources for treasure maps:

1. Monsters! A mostly complete list of monsters that drop maps can be found here (http://www.uoguide.com/Treasure_Map_Spawn). Maps now drop for different facets so if you plan on hunting to acquire treasure maps, take into consideration what facet you are hunting on as well as what kind of monster you are hunting. The drop rate off of monsters said is about 1%, so pick something that you like to farm because you're gonna get bored fast.  Paragon monsters in Illishnar have a chance to drop a treasure chest containing a map one level higher then the map they normally drop.

2. Other players! The price for treasure maps tends to hover around 5k per level - the amount of gold found in the chest. Sometimes they can even be found cheaper! Post on the Stratics trade forums, spam trade, check SearchUO, and peek in the packs of out of the way vendors. Repeat after me - there is no such thing as a treasure map not worth digging up! Don't pass over those cheap level 1-3 maps just because they are low level. They still have a good chunk of gold in them and chances at good items.

3. Treasure Chests! All treasure chests have a chance of dropping a map of the same level as the chest, or one level higher. I don't know the exact percentage, but it seems to be a 10-20% drop.  This means that you don't have to hunt Scalis or Corgul to get level 7 maps, because they can drop from level 6 chests.

   There are two areas of note for aspiring treasure hunters seeking to stockpile some maps - Miasma (http://www.uoguide.com/Miasma) and the Dark Guardian (http://www.uoguide.com/Dark_Guardian) room in Doom.  Miasma is a named scorpion located in the Labyrinth that drops locked chests containing a level 6 treasure map. He also drops level 5 treasure maps, decent loot and gold, and Mondain's Legacy minor artifacts.  Miasma can easily be taken on by a dexxer or a tamer.  The Dark Guardian spawns in one room in Dungeon Doom. They spawn two for every player, NPC, pet, or summons in the room, and seem to have a very high drop rate of Level 1, 2, and 3 treasure maps.

   So you've built your character, imbued your suit, and squirreled away a whole bunch of maps. What now? Time to dig them up, of course! A little preparation will make your treasure hunt go much more smoothly, so take the time to decode and sort your maps according to facet and location. The treasure spots are random, but by sorting the maps into piles of maps that are a short run from each other you can hunt much more efficiently and quickly. This is what my backpack and Trammel treasure map pouch look like:



Once you have your maps broken down by area, take each pile and sort them into the order you want to do them. The less running around you have to do, the better!

Don't forget to have the following in your backpack before you go:

- lock picks or a skeleton key
- the map you plan on digging (duh)
- a shovel or pickax - The Delucian's Lost Mine quest (http://www.uoguide.com/Jacob%27s_Pickaxe)  gives you a blessed pickax as a reward

   Now that the maps are sorted and ready to go, it's time to get started. It really helps if you have access to a good rune library. Those old treasure map spots may no longer spawn, but they're often a good starting point when headed out to a map location. Stratics has an excellent treasure map guide (http://uo.stratics.com/thb/info/maparchive/Archive1.shtml) that I use to look up coordinates. If your maps are in Malas, Tokuno, Ter Mur you'll probably have to hoof it at first. I strongly recommend that you take the time to mark some runes for each facet to help you get to that next treasure spot quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately if the map is in Ilishnar you'll just have to walk.

   Pinpointing the correct spot to dig based on the map illustration can be tricky. Here is a graphic that illustrates approximately where the dig site is in relation to where the pin is on the map.



Here is a screenshot of my treasure hunter standing approximately where the pin is located on the map while digging up a chest. The actual location of the chest is visible as a brown dirt patch.



Even with all of this in mind it can still be difficult. A useful tool when pinpointing dig sites is the magnifier located within the accessibility tools in Windows. When viewed on the highest magnification, the treasure maps look very much like the UO Cartographer (download it here! http://vboards.stratics.com/uhall/168538-uocartographer-beta-new-uoam-%5B0-9-8-0-dec-17-re-read-op-first%5D.html) map zoomed all the way in.  If you have trouble with a map, set it aside and come back later - it gets much easier to find the spots with practice!

   Left clicking on the treasure map will bring up a context menu that allows you to target the ground where you want to dig. Alternatively, you can double click your shovel/pickax, target the map, then target the ground. A failed dig attempt gives the message "You dig and dig, but fail to find any treasure." A successful dig attempt gives no message, but you will hear a digging sound.  Once the digging process has started, you will be unable to move around or it will stop. If you attempt to cast Invisibility on yourself you will be automatically revealed UNTIL the chest is fully visible but before the guardians have spawned. The best strategy (assuming you have Magery) is to precast an Invisibility and wait until the chest is fully visible before targeting yourself. A trick to help you pinpoint the exact moment to target yourself is to count the exact number of digging noises you hear from start to finish. You should target yourself with the Invisibility spell after the 14th digging sound. Once the guardians have spawned, dispatch them in a manner appropriate to your template, pick the chest, pop the lock, and loot away!

Useful Treasure Hunting Scripts & Programs

BM Automagic Looting - http://www.easyuo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=102743#102743
Chester The Chest Looter - http://www.easyuo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=349225#349225
TrailMyx's CLAW Lite - http://www.scriptuo.com/index.php?topic=17.0
UO Catrographer - http://vboards.stratics.com/uhall/168538-uocartographer-beta-new-uoam-%5B0-9-8-0-dec-17-re-read-op-first%5D.html
CEO TurboCartography - http://www.easyuo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16551&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 old as dirt but still working flawlessly as of January 2011 according to comments
ScriptKing's Lockpicking - http://www.easyuo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=298389#298389 I haven't tried this one but the comments look positive and it was written after the removal of the anti-macro code

If anyone has a good treasure hunting tool please reply to this thread and I'll update this post.


Here is a list of item IDs to add to your looting scripts for picking the good stuff out of the chest -

Skeleton Key : ITY
Master Skeleton Key : ITY
Recipe Scroll : PIP
Forged Pardon : UVH
Talisman (Mana Phasing Orb): YJG
Body Sash  : FZH
Bronze Shield (Surge Shield): GIK
Treasure Map : XVH
Essences : ICHB
Folded Cloth (Abyssal Cloth) : BUI
Top Coffin Piece (North Facing) : PEL
Top Coffin Piece (West Facing) : GDL
Middle Coffin Piece (West Facing) : LDL
Middle Coffin Piece (North Facing) : QEL
Bottom Coffin Piece (West Facing) :
Bottom Coffin Piece (North Facing) : FEL
Alacrity/Transcendence Scroll : TVH

I still need the item ID of the west facing bottom coffin piece, if anyone has one that they can use to check for me.

Random Treasure Hunting Tips :


- Fel maps are the only maps that have any chance at all to drop Scrolls of Transcendence. I have done 500+ Tram/Malas/Tokuno/Ilsh/Ter mur maps of all levels since the changes were implemented and the only chests that ever dropped a transcendence scroll were located in Felucca.

- In my experience the best place to get t-maps is vendors. I check vendors wherever I am, and buy any t-maps being sold for the amount of gold I will get back for doing them. I can usually find them being sold for less. I consistently have more maps then I can do, and I rarely farm monsters.

- "Vintage" t-maps still have the old set locations. If you're scooping up every cheap map you find you'll get plenty, so don't toss out that t-map library just yet!

- If you get a map located on Magincia, set it aside and wait for the spot to reset. That place is a death trap.

-Luck does effect the loot you get from the guardians, but it does not effect the loot from the chest. If you like to "milk" the chest for spawn, wear a luck suit. If you grab the items you want and break the chest then luck is optional IMO.

- Different facets DO have different loot types in the chest. Tram/Fel/Ilsh chests contain standard human pieces.  

- Lockpicking and Cartography both require some playing out in "the field" to get the last 5 points in the skill. The last 5 points of Cartography must be gained by decoding treasure maps and the last 5 points of Lockpicking must be gained by picking static chests or treasure chests. This can be circumvented by using the "Satyr Trick". http://www.uoguide.com/Satyr_Trick

Nice to see a husband/wife team playing the game together, makes me wish my boyfriend would show some interest in good ol' UO. 

A good start on real gold sinks would be increasing the cost of items sold by NPC vendors and increasing player run vendor fees. And yeah there are legitimate ways to make hundreds of mils... between duping and no effective gold sinks this game's economy has serious inflation problems and there is a LOT of money floating around. It's good that they give the option of paying money for this because that's 150 mil that is permanently deleted from the game.

Oh I tramp all over the shard looking for IDOCS and I do periodically bust out my house placement tool to check. I had a house fall that I was SURE I would be able to throw down a keep over but no dice. I really want the satisfaction of placing the house myself, and I REALLY don't want it to be in one of those tract housing areas.