Advice for the neophyte
If you're just starting out, you have to get lucky (you start with 0 magic find, henceforth abbreviated MF). The various caves strewn throughout act I (Den of Evil, the Cave level 2, the Pit level 2, the Hole level 2) are a good place to get some easy rare items (they aren't good rares, being act I normals, but they are a start and some of them come with magic find attributes).
You have to hunt down EVERY MONSTER. I cannot stress this enough (not every monster will drop something, let alone something useful, so you have to kill a lot of them to boost your chances of getting something good). The other night, I was just starting a new necromancer and he happened across the Gull dagger (the damage is pitiful, even for act I, but it has a 100% MF attribute so if there was only a 3% chance of a monster dropping a rare, there was now a 6% chance...doesn't seem like much but it does make a difference).
You have to search EVERY BARREL and EVERY CHEST. Some of these will be locked or trapped (the barrels in the Forgotten Tower and the Jails are often booby trapped with the equivalent of corpse explosion...have potions and fire resistances at the ready to deal with them). You won't get much more than gold from the barrels but the chests can yield godly items or in some instances, absolutely nothing (this will be more common in act I and act II...by act IV, most chests will drop something).
You have to GAMBLE at least once in the game. The odds are against you, admittedly, and the price to buy increases with your level (the price to sell remains dependent on which act you're in while on normal difficulty-5000 max in I, 10000 max in II, 15000 max in III, 20000 max in IV, and if you have the expansion pack, 25000 in V; once you reach Nightmare difficulty, every act has a max sell price of 30000 and once you reach Hell, that max sell price increases to 35000). MF has NO effect on what you can get; only your current level dictates how nice or how crummy the item you gamble for will be (I've wasted 50000 on a +1 to light ring and 50000 on a Dwarf Star unique ring; you never know what you will get).
You have to COLLECT RUNES and GEMS. If you're playing in single player mode, your cube recipes (from the Horadric cube you collect in act II; you can have only one but boy is it useful) are unparalleled in their usefulness (you have both standard recipes and if you have the expansion, you also have ladder recipes). If you're playing on Bnet and you aren't a ladder player, your recipes are a bit more limited. You can also make expensive and valuable rune words (you'll need more information than I can provide for this one; check out
www.battle.net/diablo2exp and click on Rune Words to find out more). Gems are necessary for some cube recipes and if you're in SP mode, they are more useful as trade bait (a perfect gem of any variety can sell for 15000; again, you'll only get this max price from act III normal and above). In Bnet or MP modes, you can either trade the gems to another player (the price will vary by player and items asked for) or use them in ladder only cube recipes (again, SP with the expansion will allow you to use ladder recipes).
Look for SPECIFIC MODIFIERS on weapons, armor, charms (expansion only), jewelry, and jewels (again, expansion only). Look for attributes that boost magic find or, failing that, boosts to monster gold dropped (this is beneficial if you want to gamble or repair an expensive item).
If you follow all of the above advice, you'll be rich in no time (well, several hours, but for some, that is no time at all).
