Item System Update December 2005

[DM_Kev]

As i suggested in a post I made some time ago, I wanted to see further improvements made to the backbone of our gaming system to play down the idea of magic items and to make combat a much more tense and challenging affair.

This post details the changes which have been made, including the new item guidelines we are using.

In the near future, buffs will be looked at next to reduce the instances of them dominating combat and cleric mass effect offensive spells will be worked on.


New Item Guidelines

- Enhancement bonuses are no longer used

- Attack bonuses replace enhancement bonuses

- A weapon may have a max ab of +3. Special unique weapons may have a +4 ab

- Armour may have a maximum ac bonus property of +5 (Previously +7)

- All other items may have a max ac bonus property of +3. A few items may offer a +4 bonus, in which case they are deemed 'powerful' and are only available to sorcerers.

- Soak damage reduction is no longer permitted on items due to the removal of enc bonuses.

- Some items are now race/class exclusive due to the nature of their design/properties.

- Good/evil variants of many items now exist, though most items are available to all regardless of the variant.

- Weapons will continue to recieve damage bonuses proportionate to the size of the weapon.

Misc

- The default +number naming convention is out for good.

- All stores should be updated

- Loot drops should be updated

- Player inventories will be checked and adjusted by DMs whenever it is possible. If you possess an item which is illegal, the nearest legal equivalent will be issued. EG. A +6 amulet will be replaced with a +3 or a +4 if you are a sorcerer.

- The item system changes are universal. This means that npcs have also had their items updated too - nobody has 'lost out'.

Co-operation

With such a massive module, it is very hard to guarantee that every single instance of old items has been stopped. I would really apprecitate it if you could help me locate any instances of old or illegal items spawning. As soon as this happens, please note what the item is and how/where you got it. This is a bug/error so please report it in that forum. Please dump illegal items in the trash or hand them over to a DM. Thanks.

Please co-operate with the DMs who are doing their job. We want to get inventories updated as quickly as possible now that we have stopped all the illegal items from circulating. DMs may announce when they have logged in to work on inventories, this may be an opportunity to go somewhere where you won't be moving about much so your inventory can be quickly updated. This is up to you of course, but sooner or later it must be done - the sooner the better works best for everyone.

Thanking you for your advance co-operation in this matter.

[DM_Kev]

There are a lot of you playing, so DMs will only be swapping out illegal items for now. (Items with properties we no longer support).

We will deal with items with old names once all the illegal items have been wiped out.

Could I also ask that if you have had your inventory updated, but still possess hoarded illegal items for whatever reason - do not use them as this will imbalance the game and give an unfair advantage/disadvantage to you and other players. This particularly applies to weapons with enhancement bonuses.

Thanks.

[misterroboto2]

About the soak damage: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the ab bonus that helps you pierce the damage resistance /soak and not the damage bonus? If so, there wouldn't be any reasons to boan the soak items (not that I use them, anyway).

[DM_Aule]

That's not the case. Soak damage is pierced by enhancement bonuses, not attack bonuses. A sword with +20 AB wouldn't be able to damage someone wearing a +1/10 soak item.

That's the reason why they're disallowed now -- with no enhancement bonuses on weapons, any soak item would effectively grant invulnerability.

[DM_Kev]

The bearded git is quite right :)

[Silverleaf]

I think NPCs should have their attack bonus decreased by a tad bit.

[SNarfel]

Silverleaf, you haven't even been in combat yet with Valen after the item swap and your asking for this, come on lad. Show some backbone, you'll be fine!

[Kyle Morgan]

Originally posted by DM_Aule
Soak damage is pierced by enhancement bonuses, not attack bonuses. A sword with +20 AB wouldn't be able to damage someone wearing a +1/10 soak item.


I am going with Misterroboto and i think you are mistaken there. With my swapped equipment (+2 attack weapons) i had no damage reduction attacking blue shining spell casters (who should have soak +1/5).

Not that it matters. I was wondering from the very first moment i saw the Mantle of Adventrure why damage reduction is allowed at this server.

[Guyror]

I do believe that the Mantle of Adventrure has now been replaced with something else. But I might be mistaken

[Silverleaf]

There is damage reduction. It means the casters soak the first 5 damage.

[ghost81]

Magical spells will still do some damage soak/reduction whatever term it actually is, but I do believe that these sorts of spells are being looked at by the Dev team.

On the terminology thing form my PnP Hamdbook it works thus:

Damage Resistance - gives a percentage resistance against types of damage. e.g. Damage Resistance 10% piercing - so 10% of all piercing damage is ignored.

Damage Reduction - reduces the first 'x' amount of damage of a given type - e.g most skeletons has 5 damage reducion against slashing and piercing.

Damage soak - works on two figues, but means if not hit by the right thing ignores the first 'x' amount of dammage age. So Damage soak +1/10 means the first 10 points of damage are ignored from any attack without an enhacement of at least +1.

I have notice that there is a tendancy to call both Damage Reduction and Damage Soak both 'Damage Reduction' and this may be where the confusion is coming from.