Updates

The TL;DR

- Summon Creature buffed, Bless Weapon changed, Invisibility nerfed
- Clerics get Holy Symbols, Sorcerers/Wizards get new starting item
- Multiclass characters don’t get multiple level 1 perks anymore but no longer suffer multiclass penalties for XP
- Behemoths are a little scarier
- New training dummy badge
- Bug fixes (most visibly, some ammo salvaging stuff)
- Lots of refactoring
- NWNX chat logging (Tells included)


Spell Changes

Summon Creature
Summon Creature is a great tool for casters who are otherwise very squishy. With it’s old duration however, it was a last-ditch effort sacrificial badger in the best case, and totally useless in all others. With this change it should be usable both while exploring and during events.

Duration: 1 round/level -> 10 mins/level

Bless Weapon
We’re fairly comfortable with this powerful spell so long as it’s in the hands of the wielder. It starts to get far more insane when a Paladin can toss a few extras to their heavy-hitting Barbarian or Fighter allies. To compensate for the loss of team-wide power, we’re making it last longer.

Now Self-Cast only - casting on an ally will cause the spell to target the caster instead
Non-Paladins cannot equip blessed weapons
Duration: 2 turns/level -> 10 mins/level

Invisibility
There shouldn’t be a single spell that totally nullifies the PvE element of the module, but that’s what invisibility does in its default form. Casters are essentially required to take this due to its power even though it may not be fitting RP-wise for their character. At the absolute earliest it can be taken, it will now last for 9 rounds (or almost a minute) which is still easily enough time to get through that really sticky part of the forest that you dread. The classes affected by this change are receiving buffs in various forms.

Duration: 1 turn/level -> 3 + 2 rounds/level


Class Changes

Cleric
This powerful class was left in the mud at level 1 compared to other classes, as they got no unique module class perks. We’ve removed the Holy Symbol from the priest profession and are now giving it to clerics instead. Yes, this means that the priest profession is borderline-useless now - it’s getting reworked when we redo professions anyways.

Clerics now receive a Holy Symbol as their level 1 class perk.

Sorcerer and Wizard
One of the reasons arcane casters are so unappealing is that they lack spell slots early. The fact that it takes essentially a whole spellbook to kill a zombie leaves them poorly equipped for the module as a whole. To compensate for this, we’re giving them a new starting item to run alongside their Magic Missile Rod: The Tome of Blood Magic. This Tome allows mages to cast Burning Hands, Ice Dagger, Magic Missile, and Shield infinite times per day.
WAIT WHAT? OPOPOP-
Hang on. The item will tell you it’s infinite, but there is a resource - the caster’s health. As they cast from the Tome, it will drain their HP at a rate proportional to their maximum HP. This way it’s an equally useful tool for low level casters who can have as little as 4 HP. Wizards have roughly 20 casts from the Tome (assuming they receive no healing), and Sorcerers have 30. This should also help alleviate some of the pain mages face in drawn-out DM events.

Sorcerers and Wizards now receive a Tome of Blood Magic as a level 1 perk.

Multiclassing as a Whole
On a low level server such as this, multiclassing with small level investments becomes far more appealing than pure-classing in the majority of cases. This gets exacerbated by the fact that characters get the module-specific level 1 perks by dipping into classes as they level up. These perks were part of the original Ronin module, a setting where you rarely ever got past level 1 anyways. To balance things out a bit, characters will now only receive the class perk for the class they took at level 1. For existing characters, this means further perks gained by multiclassing will be removed.
Also fixed an inconsistency - multiclass XP penalties were applying to normal multiclass characters but not to ECL ones. We’ve removed the penalty.

Characters will now only receive one module-specific class perk, regardless of multiclassing. Multiclass characters no longer suffer XP penalties.


As a note: We haven’t forgotten about classes that are hurting! We have a set of neat bard buffs that will come in the next update, and monks are next on our radar for some love.


New Stuff

Behemoths
These tanky giants are lackluster if their attackers have bows. Be careful now, to those who engage them - when they become injured enough, they’ll get angry. Should you decide to engage one you’ll see what this means. As always, survivors - be careful.

Training Dummy
As per Vault’s suggestion, there is a new badge you can get by having your character train with the combat dummy in Sundered Desolation.


Bug Fixes

Barbarian Rage Exploit
Thanks to some messy implementation, something strange would happen if you gave your Barbarian a certain name. This is gone now.

Transitions
It’s nice to be able to go places when you click on a transitionary placeable. We fixed a few of these that were broken.

Ammo Salvaging
This was a two-part fix:
You can now salvage throwing weapons. Previously, you’d be told that you salvaged something but then not receive it. Troll module.
Casting spells while having a ranged weapon equipped no longer triggers ammo salvaging. Tricksy mages can’t make ammo out of nothing anymore.


Clean Up

Lots of systems were refactored. Our quest to purge this module’s messy scripts with fire is a long one, but we’ve begun. Most of this stuff is not something you’ll notice on the client-side, but it will make future development easier, faster, and less prone to strange bugs.

The way XP is awarded for bosses, professions, crafting, survival tokens, badges, and zombie kills was tweaked slightly. It will make ECL XP gain a little cleaner.

The crafting system was massively refactored. From a scripter perspective, we eliminated thousands upon thousands of lines of code and this system will now be far easier to change down the road. This won’t really be visible on the player side, but of note is that ECL characters will now receive crafting level XP properly. A side effect of this is that some characters who were unable to progress in crafting levels (I’m not sure why) can now do so.

The rest system, disease system, and zombie heartbeat scripts were also cleaned up.


General

We’re now leveraging NWNX to log chat of all forms.
We’re excited about this because it means we can grab chat logs for particularly spectacular roleplay sessions.

However, worth noting is that it also means we’re logging [Tell] messages. In order to enforce the rules fairly, we’d like to have an exact record of what is said on the server and what actions happened. Having chat logs will help us protect people and resolve future conflicts of this nature.

We will only review [Tell] logs in the event of formal investigation of a rules violation. We’ll never be reviewing private chat logs just for kicks. If you want to ensure that your conversations remain absolutely private, we encourage you to use third-party software for sensitive messages - that way other IT admins can review them instead.