NS4 Change Log

[LinuxPup]

-Implemented a new artifact system... almost any current equippable item can become an artifact... they're similar to the original item but with possible changes or enhancements! You'll know you've found one if its tagged "{Unique}". There are literally millions of possible versions of any one item, so you never know what to expect... however its very likely that if you find one, its the only one of its kind on the server.

WARNING
I'd advise against putting an artifact in the Avendell anvil or selling it... merchants consider it just a regular item, and the anvil will replace it with a regular version.

[LinuxPup]

Some minor updates:

-Redid Demilich's soul stealing ability... please let me know how it works since its hard (impossible?) to test single-player. You should no longer get double XP penalties for respawning. If you get your soul stolen by a demilich, killing the demilich should bring you back to life. You shouldn't be resurrectable while your soul has been stolen by a demilich.

-Prismatic Spray's poison effect now scales up with caster levels and Evocation feats. Used to be fixed at a low level (DC 17) poison.

-Toned down some of the durations on traps... there was one trap (I think Acid Blob) that could paralyze someone for over 200 rounds. Durations are now in the order of 1-5 rounds depending on the trap type and difficulty.

-Anyone level 6 or lower will not lose XP from spawned traps.

-Greatly reduced the frequency of dragon caravan falling

[LinuxPup]

-Toned down Ragnar's Kin Minemaster ability. Was dropping certain opponent's AB by 1 + 1 per 5 levels of minemaster, now its fixed at 4. Also the AB given to the minemaster is capped at 4 instead of 6.

-Added cloak NPC to Prize Room

[LinuxPup]

-Rewrote Timestop (how many times have devs messed with it now?). Causes all creatures near the caster to be frozen in time. Creatures frozen should be pretty close to invincible. Can only be cast once every 5 minutes. A message will appear over the caster's head when the 5 minutes is over, and resting will allow the caster to cast it again without having to wait 5 minutes. Radius and duration increase with Transmutation focus feats:

No focus feats: 7 feet radius, 1-2 rounds
Spell Focus: Transmutation: 8 foot radius, 1-2 rounds
Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation: 10 foot radius, 1 + 1-2 rounds
Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation: 12 foot radius, 2 + 1-2 rounds


-Fixed the illithid/umber hulk psionic attack from trying to control (dominate) someone who's immune to mind spells (like Monks with 20+ levels). Dominated player's summons should attack now too.

Report all bugs and exploits to myself and Lokey

[LinuxPup]

-Protection from Spells now gives a bonus of +2 to all saves vs. spells to the caster. Spell Focus: Enchantment gives an extra +1 (+3 total), Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment gives an extra +2, (+4 total), and Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment gives an extra +4 (+6 total). Bonus is also applied to everyone in a large radius, but its half of the bonus given to the caster.

-Weird and Phantasmal Killer fort save type is no longer a fortitude save vs. death, but a regular fortitude save. Damage (magical) that is applied if the target fails its' will save is magical, and now scales with Illusion focus feats.

-Increased drop rates of Celestia mini-bosses

-Changed level requirements for many scrolls... players were able to cast level 9 spells before they were level 10

[LinuxPup]

-Implemented auto-respawning. If you die you will respawn automatically after 20 minutes, or 5 minutes if you die in a room with a relic cradle.

-Lokey stole True Seeing from the AO guards... I think he gave them some extra hp and better saves to put them more inline with guards from other factions I took their dignity and some other stuff too. L

[LinuxPup]

-Epic Spell: Epic Mage Armor now only gives +5 dodge AC... very similar to its original functionality

[LinuxPup]

-Effectively lowering AC from Pale Master's Bone Skin from +2 to +1 at Pale Master levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, and 28. So for example a character with 10 PM levels should lose 3 AC, and one with 28+ PM levels should lose 8 AC.

[Lokey]

It's been a while. We're working on some new things and haven't done anything worth noting here, just some behind the scenes or minor things like moving a tree a few feet

Fast redo of grenade scripting, it was default and horrible. Made acid flask like alchemist's fire, made choking gas suck (bugfix), everything else should act the same but with a lot less cpu stress.

[Lokey]

Holidays and all, but made a change I should probably tell you about.

These weaps are not single damage type (blunt, pierce or slash):
Halbard: p/s
Heavy flail: b/p (changed yesterday from blunt only)
Morningstar: b/p
Scythe: p/s

Don't believe the descriptions (i.e. short sword is pierce, don't remember if that description was fixed).

I think the only other non-standard thing we do is dire mace = x3 crit, weapon-wise (I think that displays correctly on char sheet). Yes, I keep threatening to make scythe x3, someday I'll get a dm/dev plurality on changing that

Near future is chip away at Elysium so Bril can run his stupid event, there's a few optimization points we want to hit but they're finicky.

[LinuxPup]

-Removed pure bard bonuses... sorry Bards are powerful enough as it is (and Bard is my favorite class), so back to where they were.
-Elysium (new planar area) is open, so give Lokey your feedback and bugs concerning it. All planar areas are now in!

A while back I did add the ability for bards to change area music... its still pretty buggy, and you need at least 10 bard levels but if you're bored try "/playmusic <tracknumber>". I'll post the track numbers for you... I think there are 95 music tracks. Type "/playmusic stop" to stop your custom song.

[LinuxPup]

-Redid healer kit system so that healer kits can only be used once a round. They were buggy too where we've seen dead players still healing themselves.

[LinuxPup]

-Dropped pure barbarian damage immunity to 5% at level 40 for physical damage only (bludge, pierce, slash)
-Dropped DC on cleric protection domain sanctuary ability to: cleric level + charisma modifier.

[LinuxPup]

-Bumped up pure barbarian's physical damage (bludge/pierce/slash) immunity from raging to 10%
-High level dragon wyrm forms (shifter/druid/RDD) physical damage immunity dropped to 10%
-Divine Protection sanctuary ability restored to 10 + cleric level + CHA modifier, however it gets a -15 penalty if the cleric is holding a relic

[Lokey]

-Trident: d10 damage critical threat 19-20. (Still pierce, martial, etc...)
-Banishment does what Dismissal does, no more, no less. That's better than the description