The vast bulk of rares that are not in towns can just be picked up and taken if you are the first one there when they spawn, however their are a LOT of rares that require more than just being at the spawn location when they spawn.
The overall direction of the rares in UO seem to be heading away from Spawn locations, and into Items on Tough Monsters in hard to get to places.
The glacial staff for example spawns on the Giant Ice Serpent. In and of itself a Giant Ice serpent respectable, it has a high armor class a ton of hit points, and bites hard. You have to go to the ICE Dungeon and dodge the hoards of Ice trolls, lesser ice snakes, ice elementals, Frost Spiders, and White Wyrms that meander around the Dungeon for no reason other than freeze/poison/club or eat You.
Same thing with Demon bone armor, they spawn on Efreet. An Efreet looks like a red air elemental, and is probably about 33% to 50% Tougher. It's similar to the Ice serpent in a few respects. Its a tough monster, and its also Generally Surrounded by a hoard of Tough Monsters.
And the other new item, the "Special fishing net" which sells for anywhere from 5k to 15k on player vendors. Do you catch fish with this thing? Yep, the things that you catch are to fish what Godzilla would be to a pet store lizard. Should be called "Special Net for summoning ocean going creatures of Whoopass" exercise caution when opening. You generally summon 1-4 creatures, ranging from a sea serpent, deep sea serpent, water elemental, or Kracken.
Yet another addition to the new class of monster spawning rares is the Gargoyles pickaxe, which as far as I know can only be found as loot on Stone Gargoyles. Stone gargoyles are abundant in the western parts of the T2a Desert. They hit hard, and have a HUGE armor class. They are definitely possible for an experienced melee fighter to solo even though the terrain of the western T2a desert heavily favors archers and mages. There are a lot of small Mesas to run up that will still confuse even the new advanced Monster AI(Just about any experienced character should be able to kill one of these if they don't loose their head while fighting it)
In the past I would advise people who wanted to start an adventuring rares hunter to make a character that is Fast, but with the new generation of rares developing its going to take a lot more than just speed.
In addition to those rares found as loot on monsters, there is also a popular past times of treasure hunting, and lock picking the chests in dungeons/camps.
The biggest things to remember when making a new character will be:
You only have 700 Base skill points total to use. It seems like a lot when your are new, and if you really know how to do some things you can make those 700 Skill points go pretty far, But any way you slice it you only have 700 to spend, and you will usually end up giving certain skills up in favor of others to get everything you need un under the 700 Skill point cap on your character.
Tanks, Tamers, and Mages make excellent rares hunters, so I have a template and some info on each of those here.
With all that in mind, here are some possible rares hunter combinations (Skill and Recommended skill level to eventually attain)
Swords(or Fencing):100
The rest is optional (lol its all optional, this is only a recommend that I use)
This will allow you to have an Excellent solo character that can wear plate, and carry a shield which will give you a LOT of survivability when getting to Rares carrying monsters. For some (Specifically Daemon bone armor) it's Much more of a challenge getting through all the other monsters near the Efreets than the actual Efreet itself. (lol the Efreet will still be a challenge don't sell it short!)
Another Excellent character for rares hunting is the mage/tamer:
Taming 100I don't use a character like this, but their are a lot of people who do (or very close). The tamer character is the absolute Lord of PvM (Player Vs Monster). It also makes most PKs think twice about interfering with your plans if you happen to have a white Wyrm with you. Side note about tamers, their is a fire storm of controversy on whether or not Dragons have a place in PvP. My personal opinion is that players should not attack other players with the Nobel beasts, but if they do the other players should Run. Unless the other player is seriously lagged they can usually out run a dragon. Dragons are a fast monster but compared to a person they have a hard time catching people. The people that just sit there and complain on the other hand... lol Their is also a very large (and vocal) population of PKs on Siege who moan about how unfair it is to have dragons involved in PvP. I wont go into the fact that there is a world of difference between PKing and PvP but my personal opinion is, if your a PK and you attack me when I'm out with my dragon, you deserve it when my dragon eats you... :)
A final thing about Dragons in PvP and PvM. People that are not tamers seem to think that dragons are invincible. They are not. They can kill just about any single creature in 1 on 1 combat, but I have lost several dragons by getting too ambitious and getting swamped. In the hunt for Daemon Bone armor I lost 2 dragons over a weeks time. All in all I have probably lost about a dozen dragons to monsters, and 3 to PKs (Who I will immortalize in print, but at the time probably something a tad less polite to say!)
1-Unkonwn group of PKs In the western Desert on Siege. Basically I was new to taming, and I didn't know enough to have the dragon attack the reds. I tried to run, they killed me then killed the dragon at their leisure.
2-Bill gates, Conn Smythe, Vanier, The Nobel Arkon, and one other who I forgot lol. Just outside of Trinsic on Siege, I was coming in from a good run of killing the Lich Lords and Mummies that were still spawning after the invasion of Trinsic when I got an Urgent ICQ from Nemoch telling me to Get inside the City and fast as a Horde of GC was in rout. Bill and Conn lit me up like a Xmas Tree with E-bolts and some other colorful spells, I was dead in about 2.2 Seconds. Then the 5 of them killed the dragon by having one attack and run then annother back and fourth untill it was dead.
3-I really shouldn't admit this last one *blushes*, lol but it might help out new tamer/rares hunters to understand just what the Limits of a dragon truly are. a Single PK (also on Siege) named Cornpop or Corndog (something like that) Used Archery, Hiding, and healing to Drag my Dragon from the Trinsic Moongates all the way to the Deluca Passage (south of it a little). I would tell my dragon to follow me but he would shoot it run a few screens and Hide, When he came out of Hiding I would shoot him, take a nice chunk from his health bar, but he would apply the bandages, shoot the dragon, run and hide again etc, it was obvious he was leading the dragon somewhere, we passed some houses and 2 Red mages came out of one and corp pored my tail into about 10 Hit points from death. I got away, but without my Dragon (which I'm certain they killed, lol) But that 1 character Cornpop was able to do all that, his friends just shortened the process.
So if you decide to do the taming rout for rares hunting, remember that Dragons and White Wyrms are far from the invincible death machines other players tend to think they are, and that if you loose your head a Group of monsters (all the new rares are located in areas that the spawn can easily overwhelm a dragon), or a Single PK can Take your Pet (and you) Out.
Annother good rares hunting combo is the Rares (hunting) mage:
Magery 100The main advantage of a Rares (Hunting) mage is the different things that they have available to them, and Level 8 Spells. (Summon Daemon comes to mine... lol). There could be an entire book written on playing a mage, but I will try and give the best advice I have summarized here. Don't think of your mage as a "Shooter". If you are fighting a single monster that is fine, but for rares hunting your going to need to think "crowd control", what you can do with the monsters on the screen long enough to allow you to mediate when you need your Mana up, and keeping yourself alive with G-heal and Cure spells as you take damage.
Many of the new rares and presumable ones that are currently on the drawing board at OSI are located in areas that have literally Packs of monsters spawning all the time. Rather than using Paralyze on a single monster learn to ride into a hallway cast poison field and stone wall behind you. Put a blade spirit into the crowd of nasties, or if none of them can cast spells make it an Energy vortex.
Entirely to many mages get caught up in the E-bolt mentality, when they leave PvP or PvM in their favorite spots and go off alone in search of rares they generally come home with nothing or end up dying shortly after they start.
Remember Magery is for thinking and using your head You have 64 Spells. Corp por, In Por Yelm, An ex Por, and (hmmmm Cant remember the Latin) Greater heal are only 4 Spells!. If your into Brute force and using your head be a tamer, if you just want to Bash a few things up and get in then out of the danger spots in your hunt for rares go for a swordsmen/fencer Tank character.
The 02 factor in skill, Such as setting magery at 72 rather than just 70 or 75. With a lot of skills their is a very noticeable effect (if your keeping track of things) in the usefulness of the skill between 1.9 and 2.0 at any skill level (Apprentice, Expert, master etc), 32 and 72 are some of the most noticeable periods for many skills (Inscription, Magery, Lumberjacking, Mining, Swords, Healing. Probably a few more, but of the skills I keep track of those have significant changes in the performance of the skill from between 71.9 and 72). The translation is if your not going to GM a skill don't round it off at 50, 60, or 70, Round it off at 52, 62, or 72 those extra 2 points will make a world of difference.
Its not always best to get your characters to 7x GM status. The reason being is there is so many things that you can miss out on if you only have 7 Skills you use.
On Siege for example, where New players and Veterans alike seem to think that the logical conclusion to any characters development is being a 7x Gm.... *shakes head* lol :) I only use one character, my Wife (to be) has an account, and I tried getting her to put some Mule skills that i wanted on it, but she would have none of it! lol so I was stuck with the Single character on Siege. I play a merchant Banker, PvP Archer, wholesale Lumberjack, Mage, Tamer, and Bowcrafter. (if you get shot with an Arrow on siege it wasn't me... but the odds are good it was a bow I made that it came from! :)
Lumberjacking 100
Archery 100
Tactics 100
Bowcrafting 100
Animal Lore 100
Taming 88.6 (and climbing!)
Magery 72
Veterinary 32
Tinkering 7.4 (and falling)
What was sacrificed?
Basically 3 things
Magic resistance
Anatomy
and the last 26 Points of Magery
Other than Gateing I use magery defensively, healing, cure, paralyze, stone wall, that sort of thing. Anatomy is nice for healing and adding damage to attacks, but even at GM level it only adds 20% Damage (as opposed to GM tactics which adds 150% Damage). Magic resistance is Very effective in Player Vs Monster. For PvP Magic resistance is Nice if you're fighting a single mage. But if your fighting against any other character class (Melee, archer, tamer etc) its not really worth it, and if your taking on 2 mages even GM resist probably wont save you, so I bit the Bullet and gave up magic resist. (Also and interestingly enough, in all my time in UO, there has only been a few occasions where I have been attacked by a single red mage, it happens to be sure but its not as common as one might think. I have certainly been attacked by packs of mages, but never by a -Solo Mage Pk-. The main solo PKs I have been attacked by are 1-Deadly Poison fencers, and 2-Archers. I'm certain their are Solo mage PKs lol just not to many of them.
To wrap it up, take a hard look at what you want your character to be able to accomplish, don't just run out and make the kind of character that everyone says to make. Make one that suits your needs. 700 Skill points does go fast, but you can get your moneys worth out of it! Don't forget, the 4 Most important things for the new breed of rares (in my opinion) are: Ability to travel, Armor, Speed and Diversity!