Save editors are exactly the kind of small, free, Windows program that repackagers love to wrap in installers, adware and worse. The genuine tools in this scene — D2CE, the dschu012 library, GoMule — are community projects with public homes and verifiable files. The fakes rely on you not checking. This page is the checking workflow: five minutes of verification that separates the real file from a repacked one, using D2CE’s real, published checksums as the worked example.

Step 1: Download only from the project’s own channel

Every legitimate tool has one canonical home. For D2CE that is its GitHub project (WalterCouto/D2CE) and its releases there — which is where our download page points. For the dschu012 editor it is the dschu012 GitHub projects. Treat any other source — a random “free download” portal, a video description, a file-share mirror claiming to be the official release — as untrusted until the checksum in Step 2 proves otherwise. Portals also rename versions: “2.2.2” on a download portal is the portal’s formatting of D2CE 2.22, and names like “D2CE 2026” or “D2CE 2.23” do not exist at all — D2CE’s final release is 2.22 from April 2023, so any file claiming a newer D2CE version is fake by definition. The same test kills most fake updates for any tool: check the project’s own release list first.

Step 2: Verify the checksum (the worked example)

A checksum is a fingerprint of the exact file. If your download’s fingerprint matches the publisher’s, the file is bit-for-bit the release they published. D2CE’s genuine D2Editor.exe (21,064,192 bytes) has these verified values, which we confirmed by downloading the official release ourselves:

1. In Windows, open a terminal in the folder containing your download (Shift + right-click > Open in Terminal, or open PowerShell and cd to it).
2. Run: certutil -hashfile D2Editor.exe SHA256 (use MD5 instead of SHA256 for the MD5).
3. Compare the output character by character with the values above (case does not matter; every character does).
4. Match — you have the genuine release file. No match — delete the file and re-download from the project’s own channel. Do not “try it anyway”.

Apply the same habit everywhere: prefer tools that publish checksums at all, and be suspicious of any download page that prints reassuring words instead of hashes. Our FAQ summarises this check in short form.

Step 3: Look the hash up on VirusTotal — as a lookup, not a guarantee

Paste the file’s SHA-256 into VirusTotal’s search (or upload the file there if the hash is unknown to it). You are looking for two things: whether the file is a known, widely seen release, and whether any detections name something concrete. Understand the limits: a clean VirusTotal result is not a guarantee — no such report exists that can certify a tool “100% safe”, and no honest site will claim one does. Small community executables also attract occasional generic or false-positive flags precisely because they are small and unsigned. The checksum match in Step 2 is your primary evidence; VirusTotal is a second opinion, read with judgement.

Step 4: Never whitelist an unverified file

If your antivirus flags a download, the safe responses are: verify the checksum, check the project’s issue tracker to see whether the flag is a known false positive for the verified file, or stop. The unsafe response — the one scam guides teach — is to disable your antivirus or add an exclusion for a file you have not verified. An exclusion tells your protection to ignore that file forever, sight unseen. No legitimate editor needs you to whitelist an unverified download, and D2CE’s genuine file needs no exclusion ritual at all: if your copy behaves differently, you probably do not have the genuine file.

Step 5: Prefer tools you can audit

Open source is a safety feature. D2CE is published under the GPL-3.0 license with its full source on GitHub: anyone can read what the program does, build it themselves, or check that the released binary matches the project’s history — and its 86-star public repository, issue tracker and release history are exactly the paper trail a repackager cannot fake. The dschu012 library is likewise public. For closed tools you cannot audit, raise the bar on the other steps: official channel only, checksum published and matched, no installer bundling, no requests for admin rights or antivirus exclusions. Note that editing your own saves needs no administrator rights at all — the files live in your user folder (see the save file location guide) — so a tool demanding elevation is a red flag by itself.

Red-flag checklist

• Version names that do not exist on the project page (“D2CE 2026”, “D2CE 2.23”).
• Download portals, file-share links or “premium installer” wrappers instead of the project’s releases.
• Instructions to disable antivirus, whitelist the file, or “keep anyway” past a browser warning for an unverified file.
• Promises of online-character editing, or “100% safe / undetectable” guarantees — see why online editing claims are false.
• Requests for your Battle.net credentials. A save editor never needs them. Ever.
• A checksum that does not match the publisher’s — full stop.

Finally, separate file safety from save safety and version honesty: a genuine editor can still corrupt a save if you edit carelessly (so back up first), and a genuine 2023 editor still cannot edit a current save — check the Patch 3.x & Warlock compatibility status before blaming the tool. Blizzard has never officially endorsed save editors, so the honest position is the one this site takes everywhere: offline files only, verified downloads, backups before edits, and your own judgement about the rest.

Not every edit needs a Windows program. The community editor built on dschu012’s d2s library runs entirely in a web browser: you open a .d2s file from your own computer, edit it, and download the result — the file is processed locally in the browser, never uploaded to a server. That design is why it became the community’s default online editor, and it doubles as the converter that moves saves between D2R and classic LoD formats. This guide explains what it does, where its code actually lives, and its honest limits.

Why a browser editor can be private

“Online editor” sounds like your save gets sent somewhere. This one is architected the other way: it is a client-side web application. The page’s code runs in your browser, reads the file you select from your disk into the browser’s memory, lets you edit it there, and writes the edited file back as a download. No account, no upload queue, no server-side copy. You can verify the claim the way you verify any open-source tool — the library code is public on GitHub — and the safety habits in how to check an editor is safe apply to web tools exactly as they do to downloads.

What it edits

Per the project’s own documentation, the editor built on the d2s library covers the standard offline editing surface:

• Character stats — level, experience, attributes, life/mana and gold.
• Skills — viewing and adjusting skill points.
• Quests and waypoints — progression state per difficulty.
• Items — inventory and item handling supported by the library’s item parser.
• Format conversion — converting saves between D2R and classic LoD formats (see below).

Exact screens change as the project changes, so treat the list above as the documented scope rather than a promise about a specific button layout — another reason the GitHub repository, not a screenshot on a fan site, is the reference. Your saves themselves live in the usual place: the save file location guide shows the folder.

Its second job: the D2R ↔ LoD converter

For many players the converter role matters more than the editing. Classic Hero Editor cannot open D2R saves — it predates the format. The documented workaround chain is: convert the D2R save down to classic format with dschu012’s tooling, edit the classic-format file in Hero Editor or another 1.14d tool, then let D2R import the result as described in importing LoD saves into D2R. The d2s library’s version handling is what makes that round trip possible, and it is also why developers build other tools on top of it.

Browser editor or D2CE?

• Choose the browser editor if it is available and you want a quick edit or a format conversion with nothing to install — and you value that the file never leaves your machine.
• Choose D2CE if you want a documented, downloadable program with a written UserGuide, built-in .bak backups and restore, bulk Upgrade tools and a mercenary dialog. The complete walkthrough is our D2CE user guide, and the file itself is on the download page with verified checksums.
• Either way, back up first and respect the version limits below. The side-by-side view is in best D2R save editors.

Honest limits

• 2.x-era formats. The library and editor were built for the save formats of the D2R 2.x era. There is no verified support for Patch 3.x or Warlock saves — the same limit that applies to every classic editor. The current status for all tools is tracked on the Patch 3.x & Warlock compatibility page.
• Offline only. Online characters have no local file, so no browser tool can open them either.
• Availability is not guaranteed. A community-hosted page can be down, moved or rebuilt without notice — as our check above shows. Bookmark the GitHub project, not just the hosted page.
• Backups are on you. A browser editor cannot keep a .bak in your save folder the way D2CE does; download the edited file under a new name or copy the folder first.

Diablo II: Resurrected can import classic Diablo II: Lord of Destruction characters: place a legacy save in the D2R save folder and the game brings the character forward. That one feature is also the bridge that keeps classic editing tools useful — D2CE edits 1.14d saves directly, and the documented community workflow for tools like Hero Editor depends on it. This guide covers the import itself, where D2CE fits, and the one irreversible warning you must understand before you start.

What you need

• A classic Diablo II character save (.d2s) — the workflow D2CE documents is for 1.14d saves, the final classic patch.
• Diablo II: Resurrected installed, with at least one offline character created so the save folder exists.
• A backup of the original classic file, kept outside both games’ folders (see the warning below).

Step by step: import a legacy save into D2R

1. Back up the original 1.14d .d2s first — copy it somewhere neither game will touch. This step is not optional; read the warning in the next section.
2. Find the D2R folder: C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\ — see the save file location guide if you have never opened it.
3. Copy (do not move) the classic .d2s into that folder.
4. Launch Diablo II: Resurrected and look at the offline character list: the imported character appears there, converted by the game on load.
5. Load the character, confirm inventory, skills and stash look right, then let the game save — and back up the D2R folder again in its new state.

This is an offline feature. Classic saves have nothing to do with Battle.net characters, and importing does not create an online character — the two remain permanently separate, as explained in can you edit online D2R characters?

Where D2CE fits: edit in 1.14d, then import

D2CE is unusual among classic-era editors because its author tested it against both worlds: D2R PTR 2.6 saves and classic 1.14d. It also gained version conversion in v2.16, which exists precisely for moving saves between format versions. A typical workflow:

1. Open the 1.14d save in D2CE (File > Open), following the D2CE user guide.
2. Make your edits — stats, skills, waypoints, quests, items — and save, with the .bak backup option on.
3. Copy the edited save into the D2R save folder and let the game import it.
4. If the result is wrong, your untouched original and the .bak both still exist in classic format.

For Hero Editor specifically — what it can and cannot open, and the converter workaround for characters that started life in D2R — see Hero Editor can’t open D2R saves: the workaround. For moving a character the other direction or editing without any download, the dschu012 online editor doubles as the community’s D2R-to-LoD converter.

Troubleshooting the import

• Character does not appear — the file is in the wrong folder, the game was running when you copied it (restart the game), or the save is not a compatible classic version. Re-check the path against the location guide.
• Character appears but items look wrong — restore the original backup, open it in D2CE, and check for discrepancies before re-importing. Do not repeatedly re-import a suspect file.
• You edited the D2R copy and now want Hero Editor again — you cannot open the D2R-format file in Hero Editor. Either return to the original 1.14d backup or convert down with dschu012 first.

Current-version caution: the import path described here concerns classic-format saves. It does not make legacy editors compatible with native Patch 3.x / Warlock saves — that separate question is tracked on the compatibility status page.

A character that will not load, a save the game no longer lists, or a folder you deleted by accident — all three feel catastrophic, and with a backup all three are routine. This guide works through your recovery options in the order you should try them: D2CE’s own restore first, then a manual or cloud copy, then the honest last resorts when no backup exists. Throughout, the rule is the same: close the game before you touch any file, and never overwrite the damaged file until you have copied it aside — a “corrupted” file is sometimes more recoverable than it looks, and overwriting destroys that chance.

Option 1: Restore from D2CE’s .bak backup

If the problem followed an edit in D2CE, this is your fastest fix. D2CE’s Options > Backup Character Before Save setting (on by default) keeps a .bak copy of the character from before the last save.

1. Close Diablo II: Resurrected.
2. Open D2CE and load the affected character if it still opens.
3. Choose Options > Restore Character to restore the character from its .bak backup.
4. If D2CE cannot open the file at all, do it manually: in the save folder, copy the damaged CharacterName.d2s aside, then copy CharacterName.bak and rename the copy to CharacterName.d2s.
5. Launch the game and confirm the character appears and loads.

The .bak holds the state from before the most recent save only — it cannot undo an edit from three sessions ago. That is what dated folder backups are for. The editor workflow behind this is covered in the D2CE user guide.

Option 2: Restore a manual or cloud copy

If the .bak is missing, too new, or the whole folder is gone, restore a full-folder copy — the ones described in how to back up D2R saves.

1. Close the game completely.
2. Rename the current Diablo II Resurrected folder to something like Diablo II Resurrected — damaged. Do not delete it yet.
3. Copy your backup folder into Saved Games\ and rename the copy to exactly Diablo II Resurrected. For a cloud backup, download the version from before the problem started — version history is the feature that matters here, not just the latest sync.
4. Launch the game and check every character you care about, plus the shared stash.
5. Only delete the “damaged” folder once the restored characters have been played successfully.

Restoring the whole folder (rather than a single .d2s) keeps characters and the shared stash in sync. Restoring a lone character file into a newer folder can leave the stash describing items the character state no longer matches.

Option 3: No backup? The honest limits

We will not pretend otherwise: a damaged .d2s cannot be magically repaired. The file is a tightly checksummed binary format; once its contents are overwritten or truncated, no tool can reconstruct the character that was in it — not D2CE, not a hex editor, not a paid “recovery” service. Anyone promising guaranteed repair of a backup-less save is selling hope, not a method. Before you accept the loss, exhaust these genuine last chances:

• Recycle Bin — if the folder or file was deleted on this PC, check the Bin before anything overwrites the space.
• Windows File History / Previous Versions — right-click the Saved Games folder > Properties > Previous Versions. If File History was ever enabled, a dated snapshot of the folder may be sitting there.
• Cloud version history — even if you never made a deliberate backup, a sync service watching Documents or your user folder may hold an older version of the .d2s. Check the service’s web interface, not just the local folder.
• Another PC or launcher install — if you played the same offline character on a second machine, its local folder may hold an older but real copy.
• The D2CE discrepancy checker — if the file opens in D2CE but behaves oddly, its checker can flag internal inconsistencies in previously hex-edited files. It diagnoses; it does not rebuild lost data.

If none of those yields a file, the character is gone, and the productive move is prevention (below) plus checking whether the underlying problem was a version mismatch rather than corruption: saves from the current game often simply cannot be opened by older tools, which looks like corruption but is not — see the Patch 3.x & Warlock compatibility status.

Prevention, so this page becomes unnecessary

• A dated, whole-folder backup before each edit session — the habit from the backup guide.
• D2CE’s .bak option left on, always.
• One automatic, versioned copy off the PC (cloud) plus one local copy on another drive.
• Never edit with the game running; never delete the “damaged” folder until the restore is proven in-game.

More fixes live in the guides hub, and the short answers are collected in the FAQ.

A backup is the difference between a bad edit costing you thirty seconds and costing you a character you have played for months. Diablo II: Resurrected offline saves are small files in one folder, so backing them up is genuinely easy — the only way to get it wrong is not to do it. This guide covers three layers that work together: a manual folder copy, D2CE’s built-in per-character backup, and automatic, versioned backup of the whole folder. If you have not found the folder yet, start with the save file location guide.

What to copy

Back up the entire folder at C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\ — every character’s .d2s, the shared stash .d2i, and the small settings files together. Copying individual .d2s files invites the classic mistake: restoring a character without the stash file that matches it, or forgetting the hardcore stash entirely. The whole folder is only a few megabytes.

Method 1: Manual folder copy (do this before every edit session)

1. Close Diablo II: Resurrected.
2. Open the save folder, go up one level, right-click Diablo II Resurrected and choose Copy.
3. Paste the copy into a backups folder you control — for example Documents\D2R Backups\ — and rename it with the date and a note, such as 2026-10-23 — before respec.
4. Keep at least the last three session backups. Delete older ones only after the character has been played successfully.

Make a fresh, versioned copy before each edit session, not just before your first-ever edit. Each session’s backup is a restore point for exactly the changes you are about to make, which makes restoring a corrupted or lost save a file copy instead of a rescue operation.

Method 2: D2CE’s built-in .bak backup

D2CE protects you per character, automatically. In Options > Backup Character Before Save — on by default — the editor keeps a .bak copy of the character every time a save overwrites it. If an edit goes wrong, Options > Restore Character puts that backup back. This layer is fast and convenient, but it holds only the most recent previous version and it lives in the same folder as the original, so it does not protect you against disk failure or accidentally deleting the whole folder. Keep it on, and treat it as a second layer, not your only one. The full editor workflow is in the D2CE user guide.

Method 3: Automatic, versioned backup of the whole folder

Manual copies only exist if you remembered to make them. An automatic backup covers the sessions you rushed, the edits you made “just quickly”, and the day the drive died. Two legs work well together:

Cloud plus local gives you the classic 3-2-1 shape in miniature: the live folder, a local copy on another device, and an off-site versioned copy. Our broader round-up is in D2R save backup solutions.

Before a game patch: back up first, always

Game patches are the other moment backups matter. A patch can change the save format — the move to Patch 3.x and the Warlock-era formats is the recent example — and editors built for an older format may no longer open new saves at all. Before you let the game update:

1. Copy the whole save folder (manual method above) and label it with the patch you are leaving, e.g. pre-3.x backup.
2. Confirm the cloud backup shows a recent version of the folder.
3. Only then update the game — and check the Patch 3.x & Warlock compatibility status before trying to edit a post-patch save with any tool.

A pre-patch backup cannot make an old editor read a new format, but it preserves the character exactly as it was, which keeps every other option open.

Backup checklist

• Whole folder copied — not just one .d2s.
• Backup renamed with date + reason (“before respec”, “pre-patch”).
• D2CE “Backup Character Before Save” confirmed on.
• Cloud version history enabled for the save folder.
• One copy exists off this PC (cloud or external drive).
• You know how to restore: see restoring a corrupted or lost save.

Affiliate links — see our affiliate disclosure. Prices and offers change; check the store for the live price before you buy.

Every editing guide on this site starts with the same instruction — back up first — because a D2R save is a single local file (.d2s per character, plus the shared stash .d2i) in your Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected folder. Lose it to a bad edit, a corrupted write or a dead drive and the character is gone. There are three legs to a proper backup habit; the strongest setup combines at least two of them.

Leg 1: Manual copies and the D2CE .bak (free, built in)

The baseline costs nothing. Copy the whole save folder to a dated folder before you edit, and turn on D2CE’s built-in protection: Options → Backup Character Before Save keeps a .bak copy per character each time the editor saves. Manual copies are immediate and free, but they depend on you remembering, they keep only the versions you remembered to make, and they usually live on the same drive as the original — which is why they are a leg, not the whole stool.

The step-by-step version of this workflow is our walkthrough: how to back up D2R saves.

Leg 2: External SSD snapshots

Copying dated snapshots of the save folder to an external SSD adds the two things manual copies on the same drive lack: separation from the PC’s internal drive, and room to keep many generations of snapshots without thinking about space — a full D2R save folder is small, so even a modest portable SSD holds years of dated copies. The habit is simple: plug in, copy the folder with today’s date, unplug. The drive only protects you while the copies on it are recent, so pair it with a routine (before every editing session is a good trigger).

See portable external SSDs on Amazon (affiliate link).

Leg 3: Cloud versioned backup

Cloud backup is the automated, off-site leg: point a backup service at your save folder once and new copies are kept as you play and edit, including earlier versions you can roll back to after a bad edit — the scenario our guide to restoring a corrupted D2R save walks through. pCloud is the service linked from this site: it offers automatic backup of chosen folders and sells lifetime plans alongside subscriptions, so a one-payment option exists for readers who do not want another monthly bill attached to a save folder.

See pCloud (affiliate placeholder to the pCloud homepage; check current plans and prices there).

The three legs compared

Our recommendation: local + cloud combined

Use the free leg always (folder copies plus the D2CE .bak), then add one of the other two — and ideally both. Local copies restore fastest after a bad edit; the cloud leg is the one that survives a dead drive, a stolen laptop or a folder deleted in both places. Local + cloud combined means the two most common disasters — “I edited the only copy” and “the drive died” — are both covered, for the price of one habit and, at most, one plan.

Every offline Diablo II: Resurrected character on PC lives in one Windows folder:

C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\

That is the standard Windows location, tied to your Windows user account — not to where you installed the game, and not to which store you bought it from. Battle.net, Steam and Game Pass installs all use the same Saved Games path for offline saves, because the save location is per Windows user, not per store. This guide explains what each file in the folder is, how to reveal the folder if you cannot see it, and why online characters never appear there at all. Once you have found the folder, back it up before you edit anything in it.

How to open the save folder

1. Press Windows key + R, type %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected and press Enter — this opens the folder directly, whatever your user name is. Or open File Explorer and navigate manually:
2. Open This PC > Local Disk (C:) > Users > your user name.
3. Open Saved Games, then Diablo II Resurrected.
4. If you do not see Saved Games, enable hidden items in File Explorer: View > Show > Hidden items (Windows 11) or the Hidden items checkbox on the View ribbon (Windows 10). The folder is not normally hidden, but a tidy Explorer view can hide parts of the path.

Tip: create a desktop shortcut to this folder. You will visit it before every editing session, every backup and every restore, including when you follow the D2CE user guide.

What each file is

• CharacterName.d2s — one per offline character. This is the character save itself: stats, skills, inventory, quests and waypoints. It is the file you open in an editor such as D2CE.
• SharedStashSoftCoreV2.d2i (shared stash, .d2i) — the shared stash shared by your softcore offline characters. Note that .d2i is a reused extension: in classic Diablo II workflows a .d2i file was an item export file. In the D2R save folder, the .d2i you find is the shared stash — do not confuse the two, and do not delete it thinking it is a stray export. See editing the shared stash.
• CharacterName.bak — D2CE backup. Created when D2CE’s “Backup Character Before Save” option is on (it is on by default). It is the previous version of that character, and it is what restoring a save uses first.
• Settings and key-binding files — small configuration files the game maintains in the same area. You do not need them for character editing, but a full-folder backup should include them anyway.

Hardcore characters follow the same pattern, with their own character .d2s files and a separate hardcore shared stash. If a character you expect is missing from the folder, check first whether it is an online character (see below) and second whether you are logged into Windows as a different user — each Windows user has their own Saved Games folder.

Online characters have no local file

Online (Battle.net) characters are stored on Blizzard’s servers. There is no .d2s for them anywhere on your PC, nothing to open in an editor, and no way to convert an offline character into an online one or the other way round. Any tool or service claiming it can edit your online character from a file is misdescribing what it does — the full explanation is in can you edit online D2R characters? Console saves work the same way: cross-progression syncs online characters, it does not produce an editable PC file.

Mod saves live somewhere else

Saves created while playing a mod generally live under the game’s own mods subfolder pattern rather than in the main Saved Games folder — typically a mods folder inside the Diablo II Resurrected installation, with a save subfolder per mod. That separation is deliberate: it keeps modded characters apart from your unmodded ones. D2CE’s documentation covers known mod saves such as BTDiablo and Rebirth, but the exact subfolder name depends on the mod, so check the mod’s own documentation before assuming a character is lost. Do not move files between the mod folder and the main folder unless a guide for that specific mod tells you to.

Steam and Game Pass installs

Because the path is defined by Windows (your user’s Saved Games folder), it does not change when the game itself is installed through a different launcher. A Steam library on a D: drive or a Game Pass install in an Xbox Games folder still reads and writes offline saves in C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\. If you recently switched launchers and your characters “disappeared”, look in that folder first — in most cases the files never moved, and the new install simply needs to be pointed at the same Windows account.

What to do with the folder

• Back it up whole — copying the entire folder is faster and safer than picking files. See how to back up D2R saves.
• Edit one file at a time — open a single .d2s in D2CE, save, and verify in-game before touching the next.
• Never edit while the game is running — close D2R first, every time.
• Keep the .bak files — they cost almost no disk space and are your fastest restore path.

New to the site? The guides hub organises every walkthrough by job, and the FAQ answers the most common save-file questions in short form.

D2CE — the Diablo II Character Editor revived by Walter Couto from Burton Tsang’s original editor — is a free, open-source (GPL-3.0) Windows program for editing offline Diablo II: Resurrected and classic saves. Its final release is version 2.22 (April 2023, GitHub tag release-2.2.2), author-tested up to D2R PTR 2.6 and classic 1.14d. This guide walks through a complete edit using only features documented in the official UserGuide. New to it? Start on the download page, where the verified checksums are printed.

Before you start

Close Diablo II: Resurrected completely before you edit. The game holds your save files open while it runs, and an editor writing to the same file at the same time is the easiest way to corrupt a character. Work on offline characters only: online characters live on Blizzard’s servers, have no file on your PC, and cannot be opened by any editor — see can you edit online D2R characters? for the full explanation.

Make sure you know where your saves are. On Windows they sit in C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\, one .d2s file per character. Our save file location guide explains every file in that folder. You do not need to run D2CE as administrator: your saves are in your own user folder, not in a protected system location.

Step 1: Open your character file

1. Launch D2CE (D2Editor.exe).
2. Choose File > Open and browse to your Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected folder.
3. Select the character’s .d2s file — the file name matches the character name — and open it.
4. The editor loads the character’s stats, inventory, skills, quests and waypoints into its tabs and dialogs.

If the file will not open, the usual causes are the game still running, the wrong file type, or a save from a newer game version than D2CE supports — see the compatibility box above and our safety checklist.

Step 2: Edit character stats

The main window shows the character’s core information: name, class, level, experience, strength, dexterity, vitality, energy, life, mana, stamina and gold. Type new values directly into the fields. As soon as you change a field, D2CE marks it: edited fields turn bold, and an asterisk (*) appears in the window title bar to show the file has unsaved changes. That marker is your reminder that nothing is written to disk until you save.

Edit one thing at a time while you learn the tool, and keep values plausible for the character’s level. For focused walkthroughs, see how to edit character stats and how to respec a character.

Step 3: Skills, waypoints and quests

Three dedicated dialogs handle the parts of a character that are tedious to fix by hand:

• Skill Trees button — opens the skill tree view, where you can set individual skills or use the option to set all skills to one value. Useful for testing a build or undoing a mis-clicked point. See also editing skills in detail.
• Waypoints button — shows waypoints per act and per difficulty, with an Activate All option per difficulty. Activating a waypoint does not complete the quests around it.
• Quests button — shows each quest as Not Started, In Progress or Completed, with a Complete All option per difficulty. Use it to repair a bugged quest state rather than to skip content blindly.

The UserGuide also documents a Starting Act option. Treat it with care: changing the starting act only changes where the character begins, it does not complete the quests or waypoints of the acts you skip. A character moved forward this way can arrive in a later act with earlier quests still open, which is confusing if you expected a clean progression state. Use the Waypoints and Quests dialogs explicitly if that is what you want to change.

Step 4: Items, the Upgrade submenu and the GPS converter

D2CE can create, import and export items using .d2i item files, and it has edited the shared stash since v2.14 — see creating items and .d2i files and editing the shared stash. One of its most-used tools is the Upgrade submenu, which applies bulk improvements to items you already own:

• Upgrade gems, potions and skulls to perfect quality.
• Upgrade potions to full rejuvenation potions.
• Set item durability to 255.
• Restock stackable items (such as arrows, bolts and thrown weapons) back to a full stack.

The program also includes a GPS converter / creator for working with gem, potion and skull combinations — converting what you have into what a recipe needs, or creating those components directly. Try it on a backed-up character first.

Step 5: Your mercenary

A dedicated mercenary dialog lets you manage the hireling attached to the character. From it you can hire or resurrect a mercenary, change the mercenary type, and adjust mercenary level and experience — up to, but not above, your character’s own level. Gear the mercenary from the same inventory tools you use for the character. If a mercenary seems to vanish after an edit, re-open the freshly saved file first and confirm the change actually wrote before editing again.

Step 6: Save — and undo when you need to

1. Choose File > Save (or press Ctrl+S) to write your changes. The asterisk in the title bar clears once the file is saved.
2. Changed your mind before saving? Choose View > Reload (or press F5) — Reload discards all unsaved changes and loads the file from disk again.
3. Launch the game and check the character on the selection screen before you delete any backup.

Two Options settings protect every save. Options > Backup Character Before Save keeps a .bak copy of the character before each save overwrites it — it is on by default, and you should leave it on. If a saved edit goes wrong, Options > Restore Character restores the character from that backup. Our dedicated guides cover backing up D2R saves and restoring a corrupted or lost save in full.

The discrepancy checker, and hex-edited files

D2CE includes a discrepancy checker that flags inconsistencies inside the file. It matters most for files previously edited with a hex editor or another tool, where one wrong byte can leave two parts of the file disagreeing. If it reports discrepancies, do not stack more edits on top: restore your backup and start from a clean file.

A safe editing routine

1. Close the game. Copy the whole save folder as a manual backup.
2. Open the .d2s in D2CE and make one group of changes at a time.
3. Save with Ctrl+S, keeping the .bak option enabled.
4. Re-open the game and verify the character loads and plays correctly.
5. Only then make the next edit — and keep the older backup until you have played the character without issue.

For the bigger picture — which tool fits which job, and what no editor can do with current saves — browse the guides hub and the best D2R save editors comparison.