New Player Questions

[*Neiska]

Hello Everyone,

Just a new player to the server, with a few things ive noticed and have questions About. Firstly, I want to say im not complaining or not trying to shoot any holes in anyones work, but I just wish to understand the changes to the Server.

Immunity Spells~ I have noticed that casting some spells arent as effective as they should be. I am wondering if this is just a small number of spells, or a great many number of spells aviable to players.

Example: I cast a Deathward spell. Which one of the things the spell provides, is Immunity to Statistic Drain. Then, you cast a Living Undeath spell, which makes you immune to being critically hit, but it comes with a -2 charisma penalty.

Now, normally you wouldnt see the charisma penalty, if you casted Deathward before, because you would be immune to it.

Now however, the server "removes" your death ward spell, then casts your Living Undeath spell, and then "reapplys" your Death Ward effects at the end of all your actions que.

So, my question is, have all the Divine/Arcane immunity spells been treated as above? (Example: If you cast Freedom of Movement, then Stone Body, does the server remove your freedom effect, then let you cast your Stone Body, then re-apply your Freedom of Movement Effect?)

Item Balance I understand the desire to disable all items with Immunity properties, and many items aviable to players have been changed from default item properties. But a few things struck me as out of place, or suprising that they are sold from merchants.

There are no items whatsoever with immunitys to anything from what i can tell so far, however Weapons with "ruin" property are readially aviable to players from merchants, at a cheap price. This is just suprising to me, considering how powerful those bonus feats are.

For those that are unaware, there are "Ruin" feats in the game, not aviable to players normally except from items with that property. The "Ruin" effect lets you Critically hit things that are normally immune. Such as undead, constructs, plants, elementals, and what have you. But not only that, it lets you sneak attack for half damage, even though there is an epic feat for that.

I am just wondering if the Item Balancing is still being tweaked, or if this is "set in stone" as it were?

Usually, I have always been one to readially accept a server's limitations. I only ask now, because I have already re-started twice due to thing's I have seen, and that was a very big disappointment. With money so difficult to come by, (at least for me), and with no option to rebuild characters, I would like to be aware of all things changed or edited before I spend hours on an idea, only to have it sunk and not work, and have wasted many hours of my time. :(

Anyway, I guess what I am asking is, what all has been scripted/edited/changed?

Examples:

A ) Do all immunity spells get removed when casting a spell with a drawback?
B ) Can you still benifit from spells, such as Hellfire Warlocks with Deathward, to stop the insane constitution drain per round?
C ) Do all epic feats/spells work as they should, or have they been edited as well?

Any information reguarding any of this would be greatly appreciated, before spending days leveling up a character with an idea in mind, only to have found out much later that it wont work.

Again, I'm not trying to shoot ideas or the server down, or poke holes in the system in place, I only wish to understand them, before I spend the time leveling up a character, roleplaying with her for many hours and days, only to find out its all been for a waste. :(

It is a very pretty server, and I do like it alot, even though its sort of difficult meeting people. I can tell many hours of work and effort went into the creation. So big hugs to whomever did it.

XOXO
Neiska

[*pelhikano]

We fixed Stonebody and some other spells that give you some penalty so that Deathward does not prevent the penalty. This includes the movement speed penalty, which can now not be avoided by casting Freedom of Movement first.

The intention of easily available Ruin feat weapons is to make WMs and Rogues not be totally useless against undead and such.

before I spend the time leveling up a character, roleplaying with her for many hours and days, only to find out its all been for a waste.

Well, you got to roleplay for many hours at least, that's not really a waste is it? :lol:

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Howdy Neiska,

Regarding the immunity spells:
- Living Undead
- Stonebody
- Ironbody
(and later on probably other spells that has similar negatives discounted due to buffs might be added to this list)

Are bug fixed to implement penalty regardless of what spells you have on yourself to negate the penalties. (So your Freedom of Movement and Deathward work just fine, it's those other spells modified.)


Item Balance:
Ruin items are cheap, because they are so very specific foe dependant that they are otherwise unused. Unlike said epic feat that allows half-sneak attack against everything without changing weapons.

A ) Do all immunity spells get removed when casting a spell with a drawback?
B ) Can you still benifit from spells, such as Hellfire Warlocks with Deathward, to stop the insane constitution drain per round?
C ) Do all epic feats/spells work as they should, or have they been edited as well?

a) Only the ones listed above, but other ones are likely to be added as well in time.
B) Currently yes, but that can change in future. As it is bug.
c) They work like Obsidian has made them work, but Epic Gate will eventually get good and perhaps neutral variety summon to it.


Abilities/skills that might get disabled or modified if they are abused too much:
- Disarm
- Sleight of Hands

Spells that are modified:
- Summon I-IX (good/evil summon varieties)

Spells that are Disabled:
- Glass Doppleganger
- Shadow Simulacrum
(due to multiple bugs and exploits in them)

Spells/Abilities that might get modified:
- Buff Spells that have negative effect which can be avoided with deathward/freedom of movement even though they shouldn't (like Stonebody before our fix as example).
- Summon spells empowered and/or added alignment based varieties.

[*Neiska]

Thank you both for the prompt reply. I do have other questions but i guess i will find them out as I go.

And pelhikano,

If i spend all the time estabelishing her as a character, and leveling her up, only to find out later that my character is broken and doesnt work as intended or as i planned, then yes, i do consider it a waste. Because not only does she not function as i wished, but now i cannot play her, after the time spent leveling her up and estabelishing her with others as a character. So, yes, it would be a loss of time and effort. :(

XOXO
Neiska

[*cryptc]

I accept all suggestions and criticisms :)

We are still beta, so some tinkering back and forth is to be expected, so if you build something to be on the bleeding edge (reliant on one or two specific tricks) it is slightly risky... that said, we aren't planning to rebalance the whole game, we just have some guidelines we've set for ourselves in how we'd like the game to be.

Immunity items we decided in early stage to remove all of, and it is extremely unlikely that these will be put back in.

Max item bonus we will (normally) allow is +5, so aim for odd stats in endgame for maximum benefit.

As for Ruin feats, they are as Pelhikano noted mostly a pvm benefit against monsters, without being utterly uber. Keeping in mind also that these feats exist on weapons only, and in many cases you'll have more important enchants on your weapon than that. Mostly it adds some spice and helps rogues and wms

Which brings me back to the philosophy. We did not start from the viewpoint that we need to nerf things to make things balanced, because we know the game will never be balanced perfectly. Instead what we're trying to do is take less powerful or less used things and make them more useful instead.

Some examples of this is the Warlock Buddy we implemented to make warlocks lives easier, and the custom monster summoning and upped duration of these to make summons a useful addition to a spell users repertoire (although summons will get more changes, re: beta status ;) ... other example of idea we have that we haven't done yet is making poison more interesting to use for players (who has even seen someone use poison seriously in game before?)

Back to your questions... the immunities from spells should all work as intended (as pelhikano said, we fixed a few spells)... hellfire warlock is a special case we've actually already discussed, and using deathward to stop the con drain is not strictly by the book, and we might at some point fix this... that said, we would also most likely make some other reason to have hellfire warlock be used at all then, but I speculate...

Epic spells are currently unchanged, but Epic Gate will most likely be modified when I change summons some more... mainly to give other alignments something else than a fiend to summon...

[*cryptc]

ups, Mr_Otyugh was faster as usual :)

anyways, one more tip Neiska... you can use water from the river Styx in the civic festhall to delevel, if you feel your character has been broken by some change in the server... half the xp you lose are given back to you through our two xp pool systems... also with superior items, relevelling should be simple and perhaps enjoyable experience, also chance to meet new low level chars...

just a suggestion :)

[*Lost and not Found]

Living Undeath is -4 to charisma. I have an Athar, so I know. (The undead ain't actually dead at all, it's just the screed of priests that labels them that way. - Tarragon Balm)

Since the monsters seen on the planes tend to have damage resistances aplenty, accompanied with critical hit immunities, this would usually make the "Power Cleaver" only realistic option for the melee characters to go. But luckily we got the ruin weapons.

And if the NPC prices make you think that you don't have enough of jink, buy couple of those items from players instead and you got enough jink left to be nicked in the hive.

[*cryptc]

The DRs can be pierced with the right knowledge and equipment though... although admittedly we need to review some DRs to make them more consistant and easily understandable...

[*dordon]

It's also worth nothing that there are some very positive changes for players:

- Server time = real time, so spells that say they last 1 hour/level really last 1 hour/level in real time.
- I'm not sure if this is a side effect of the above change, but some spells seem to have been de-linked from the caster such that they can rest after casting them and still have the spell be in effect. Casters can use this to buff an entire party but still have spells slots available for offensive spells.

[*cryptc]

Actually that last part is a bug :P not sure what causes it though, but the moment I can fix that I will :P