Rules clarification and newbie questions

[shoujo]

1) The website says 4 levels by blank (I assume 20), the forum thread says 3 levels by 20. Which is it?

2) Rule 5 says no titles and gives "Razoraxe" as an example. Dwarven surnames (Ironsomething) and a lot of fantasy names (Blah Goldmoon) tend to resemble what would be considered a 'title' under Rule 5. Are names like these allowed?

3) Did a bit of digging around and this PW has a few hard to find game mechanics changes. So far I've found:

Time domain grants cat's grace instead of haste
No persistent Haste
No persistent DF
Stonebody lasts 60 secs

Is there anything else I'm missing?

4) I haven't found any mention of resting restrictions. Are there any in place?

5) Armor and weapons cap out at +3 with plans for +4 to +5 to keep non-casters in line with casters, stat boosters cap out at +2, the only mithral item available is the mithral chain shirt. What about save, skill, and elemental damage boosts? Other mithral items? Adamantine? Cold iron?

6) Ignoring RP, it looks like gishes and battle clerics have a clear advantage over non-casters here. What keeps the non-casters competitive enough to at least pull their weight in a party? So far I've read about mobs that dispel. Anything else?

7) How useful are skills outside of DM events? Dialog skills? Open locks? Disable traps? Stealth? Detection?

8) Are blaster mages viable or do mages typically have to go the gish route or buff tank, stand back, and toss around occasional save or suck/lose route to pull their weight in a party?

9) How much, if any, emphasis is placed on grouping?

[DM Cephas]

1) The website says 4 levels by blank (I assume 20), the forum thread says 3 levels by 20. Which is it?

- 3 levels by 20

2) Rule 5 says no titles and gives "Razoraxe" as an example. Dwarven surnames (Ironsomething) and a lot of fantasy names (Blah Goldmoon) tend to resemble what would be considered a 'title' under Rule 5. Are names like these allowed?

-Dwarven surnames are allowed

3) Did a bit of digging around and this PW has a few hard to find game mechanics changes. So far I've found:

Time domain grants cat's grace instead of haste
No persistent Haste
No persistent DF
Stonebody lasts 60 secs

Is there anything else I'm missing?

-This sounds about right. Can A DEV respond to this?

4) I haven't found any mention of resting restrictions. Are there any in place?

-No rest in some dungeons.
-There are rest restrictions which are at 2 hours and scales up by level (to a certain cap). I forget how. Can a DEV respond?

5) Armor and weapons cap out at +3 with plans for +4 to +5 to keep non-casters in line with casters, stat boosters cap out at +2, the only mithral item available is the mithral chain shirt. What about save, skill, and elemental damage boosts? Other mithral items? Adamantine? Cold iron?

-Crafting isn't fully implemented yet but...
stat boosters can be seen go up to +3
elemental damage goes up to 1d4 currently.

6) Ignoring RP, it looks like gishes and battle clerics have a clear advantage over non-casters here. What keeps the non-casters competitive enough to at least pull their weight in a party? So far I've read about mobs that dispel. Anything else?

-Rest restrictions and some of the spell changes you mentioned help. Some DM's (like me ) use mobs that are totally immune to magic. There are others, but this is the easy list.

7) How useful are skills outside of DM events? Dialog skills? Open locks? Disable traps? Stealth? Detection?

-DM's use them. I even use Appraise and/or search skills to determine gold rewards.

8) Are blaster mages viable or do mages typically have to go the gish route or buff tank, stand back, and toss around occasional save or suck/lose route to pull their weight in a party?

-Blaster mages tend to be more viable at the higher levels but they're viable.

9) How much, if any, emphasis is placed on grouping?

-DM's tend to start events with groups rather than those who solo.
-Grouping also increases your survival rate


My above comments are not comprehensive. It just caught my eye as I was about to go to sleep.

[shoujo]

Thanks for the response

[hnefi]

Now that a DM has responded, a lowly player will add his input.

Feb 2, 2009 0:33:41 GMT -5 shoujo said:

3) Did a bit of digging around and this PW has a few hard to find game mechanics changes. So far I've found:

Time domain grants cat's grace instead of haste
No persistent Haste
No persistent DF
Stonebody lasts 60 secs

Is there anything else I'm missing?

I'm pretty sure the Persistent Spell feat has been removed entirely, except from those that already have it.

4) I haven't found any mention of resting restrictions. Are there any in place?

What Cephas said, though I think the timer is set to 6 hours. Note that "hour" is an in-game hour, which is 2 RL minutes (I think).

5) Armor and weapons cap out at +3 with plans for +4 to +5 to keep non-casters in line with casters, stat boosters cap out at +2, the only mithral item available is the mithral chain shirt. What about save, skill, and elemental damage boosts? Other mithral items? Adamantine? Cold iron?

There are a lot of skill boosting items, particularily for stealth and detection skills. SR items at lower levels are also rather prevalent (though I'm not sure if anyone actually uses them).

7) How useful are skills outside of DM events? Dialog skills? Open locks? Disable traps? Stealth? Detection?

Since there are a lot of stealth boosting items, hide/ms are very useful. There are also a lot of detection boosting items, so spot/listen skills are just as useful since there seems to be quite a lot of stealthers on the server. Open locks and Disable traps are very useful in dungeons. Dialogue skills seem less useful, except Bluff if you're a rogue (both for Feint and getting out of sticky RP situations).

9) How much, if any, emphasis is placed on grouping?

There's a pretty significant XP penalty for grouping, especially in small groups, so at lower levels people tend to solo if they can - though it depends on your class and RP. YMMV.

[adzling]

yes the unfortunate side effect of the current XP party setup is that many people I encounter at my low character level in the UD prefer to fight solo to avoid the xp penalty.

[earthsong]

*waves* hey Shoujo, good to see you again
Just wanted to add that with grouping, if youre talking or emoting while doing anything else, the RP xp script kicks in as well.
Plenty of +1 items have skill and other bonuses, there are quite a lot of options that way. Hopefully we'll have some more +2 stuff like that soon.
And I have seen the dialogue checks used with DMs a bit as well, in fact just about every skill check has been used at some point.
Not to mention that there's just about always some type of event going on each day.
Hope to see you in game

[kar98]

Can someone confirm or deny if persistent spell is a selectable feat? I was planning on taking this for my character later on. (I know it doesn't show up as a wizard bonus feat.)

If it is selectable, what spells are excluded by server rules? So far Haste and Divine Favor have been mentioned.

Thanks!

[broham2]

It has been removed as an option. The Feat is not available.

[simplistic]

Hey Shoujo! Used to travel with you on Talernon waaaaay back! Good to see you showing up here.

Since it was being discussed here.. I was under the impression that +4/+5 enhancements were going to be craftable only? *shrugs*

I didn't really add any helpful input just wanted to say hi

[DEV Akavit]

According to the plans I last heard, any items over +3 will have to be acquired by collecting relics from tough bosses that have yet to be implemented. The relics can be used to purchase the best equipment out there (not implemented yet either). +4 and +5 gear is meant to be very rare and it seems unlikely that any one PC will ever be able to obtain a full complement of +5 equipment.

[shoujo]

Wow, didn't expect to see familiar faces *waves back*

Thanks for the additional replies too Can't wait to actually try out the server now.

[DM haunted]

Keep in mind...We are in Beta still,so changes will come and go until satisfication is reached.

[raenir]

Eldur had told me that Persist was back in, although not hasteable.

[eldur(retired)]

Feb 3, 2009 14:31:19 GMT -5 raenir said:

Eldur had told me that Persist was back in, although not hasteable.

No, persist is not back in, and you may have misunderstood.

Persist is only on those characters that took it before it was removed.

[raenir]

I see, my mistake.