Equip gear before required level is reached?

[Petryc]

I was away from EQ for several years before I came back about 3 months ago, so I may have once known the answer to this and since forgotten.

I'm currently level 73, just a hair away from 74, and I was lucky enough to acquire a fabled spear of fire (required level 75). Just out of idle curiosity, I tried to equip it, and I was able to do so, it was visible on my character, etc. When I attacked something however, I was just punching it (using hand-to-hand).

Is this normal? I haven't had an item that had a req. level above my own in a long time. Is there something bugged about this particular item? Did I screw something up by equipping it before the req level?

I had expected to get a message to the effect that I wasn't powerful enough to use that item, etc. . .

[Huurgh]

You can equip any gear nowadays regardless of req. lvl. It then turns yellow indicating that it offers no boni at all.

[Hulkling]

aye used to not be able to equip items with req lvl above your current level. But ever since they removed the need to loot your corpse, you're allowed to equip those items (so it all meshes together in case you lost a level and dipped below the required item lvl). And as Huurgh said, you don't get any benifits from those items.