Me too, I usually carry 50 pig iron on a short trip (aka not-a-peerless) and 15-20 of everything else, since I think it's fun to arbitrarily wither groups or strangle an annoying lesser creature to death.
My template is:
115 mace
115 bushido
115 parry
110 spirit speak
100 tactics
90 necromancy
70 chivalry
75 anatomy
I always wear a +15 necromancy/+15 mace fighting ring, a talisman of +5 necromancy/+10 spirit speak and a bracelet with +15 necromancy, which accounts for the much-more-than-720 skill points.
My current armor of choice is darkwood armor, but I'm considering changing to something that can take advantage of mace-and-shield (once I can afford it) glasses. My current favorite weapon is wind's edge, which always swings at max speed, no matter what my stamina is, but I also use a diamond mace with hit mana leech and hit lower defense on it. If I could find that mace with 25% swing speed increase, I'd kill my first born to get it.
I don't always stick to wraith form, sometime preferring vampire form, depending on the situation. I wouldn't try paragon balrons without the ability to run away and heal again (for example).
Even with the low-damage fans, I can still go from near 0 to max health in just two hits with curse weapon up, and the combination of curse weapon, EoO and honor is amazing. There are spawns where my normal samurai is hard pressed to stay alive and my necro samurai literally can't die if he's only auto defending and casting curse weapon every once in a while (like Miasma for example).
Anyway, the point. Reagents are good, and you don't have to carry them in large enough quantities that they're hard to get. In the very (extremely) rare occasion that I do die, I simply go to the magic shop in Haven and buy all new reagents while I'm waiting for my mana to go up enough to cast a form (which takes forever and a day if you're wearing darkwood suit and have no focus).
