skills news
This page is an archive of newsposts in the "skills" newsgroup because the ingame news archive only reaches a few months back. It might not always be up to date, but newsposts should be copied over here before they fall out of the archive in the mud itself.
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Sun Feb 7 13:17:08 2010
Reply-Code: 152e
Lines: 5
The 'magical attunement' mage tertiary skill was previously
nonfunctional. It has been fixed.
-Evan
From: Rayzam
Subject: blind faith
Date: Thu Mar 18 06:02:59 2010
Reply-Code: 153e
Lines: 2
help updated
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Tue Mar 23 06:43:13 2010
Reply-Code: 154e
Lines: 5
The scribe scroll skill will now only work in a library. Some libraries
won't be recognized by the skill until boot. This is normal.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Wed Mar 24 08:49:14 2010
Reply-Code: 155e
Lines: 5
The zapping skill now only checks the user's own personal supply of wands
for the maximum allowed amount of carried wands.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Thu Mar 25 06:44:11 2010
Reply-Code: 156e
Lines: 5
The stone setting skill is now more useful and a little bit more
interesting.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Thu Mar 25 08:26:49 2010
Reply-Code: 157e
Lines: 6
The aimed shot skill's effects have been bugfixed, and an additional
target choice added. Ammo modifying skills which add |sharp| will now give
a separate bonus to certain aimed shots.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Fri Mar 26 06:42:46 2010
Reply-Code: 158e
Lines: 6
Bad math, etc. The stone setting skill is fixed now. Also, contrary to
the implications of my previous post about it, my changes were intended to
be a bugfix.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Sun Mar 28 08:31:07 2010
Reply-Code: 159e
Lines: 6
The profit added from stone setting has been doubled, and the gem
value/quality upper restriction has been removed. Let's see how this works
out.
-Ev
1) Focusing will no longer be subjected to an additional skill check, that
upon failure causes you to not have a "quick chant" skill for the duration
of the spell.
2) Because of how "mancy" skills and flat round reduction skills were being
applied, there were some instances where the flat round reductions were
effectively being negated. This should no longer be the case.
3) Due to a logic error, the ethermancy skill was being ignored. This
should also no longer be the case.
Happy casting,
-Rita Wildfire
Release seal should now have the same rules as mystic weapon.
--Kellin
FYI -
Discerning eye has an affecting stat so it is possible to use it
and get a false negative back...
--Kellin (who's posting this so the diligent bugreppers know)
Now - if you make someone's eye bleed...
They should scream bloodily at YOU and not some random person.
--Kellin
The helpfile for aimed shot has been cleaned up to remove horrible
formatting and to correct some common misunderstandings about the skill.
-Kereth Midknight
Some irregularities in the slot checks of the beheading skill have been
corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Poison potions created with the poison potion skill should now be usable
with the apply poison skill.
-Kereth Midknight
Certain blank scrolls were not being counted as blank by the scribe scroll
skill. This should now be corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The affecting stats for the warhawk chant skill have been adjusted to be
more appropriate to the effects of the skill (agi was replaced with dex).
I can personally confirm that the skill does, in fact, seem to be working,
although the scale and duration of the intended effect does seem absurdly
minor for a skill of its level. That is under review.
-Kereth Midknight
The whip disarm skill should now respond properly when trying to disarm an
unarmed opponent (i.e. it will refuse to work, rather than trying and
bugging out).
-Kereth Midknight
When the release seal skill was adjusted to allow being used on already
"named" weapons but in a different way, it unfortunately stoped working on
unnamed weapons.
This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Hard style monk skill helpfiles should now have
descriptions that are less awkward.
Wxyz
The charge skill has had its skill type and skill targetting changed.
Rather than being a start combat/living target skill, the skill is now set
to combat/nonmelee opponent. As such, the user may now charge anyone who is
not engaged in melee with them (such as before combat has started or from
midrow), rather than exclusively as a way to begin combat.
-Kereth Midknight
The carve iron-cant-bite rune skill should now only work
on objects in your inventory.
Wxyz
Rations produced by the craft bone arrows skill will no longer be
targettable solely by their adjective modifier (i.e. "corpse rations" can
no longer be targeted just as "corpse" or similar).
-Kereth Midknight
The armoring skill's fumble effect was coded to outright delete the target,
bypassing damage resistance and other effects. This never happened,
however, because the code would simply bug out and not do anything at all
on a fumble, beyond giving nice sensitive mind messages.
The skill should no longer bug out on fumble. It should also use normal
damage checks in its attempt to mar or destroy your precious gear.
-Kereth Midknight
The "Ducking" message on nerve strike should now display color codes and
wrap correctly.
-Kereth Midknight
The shield biting skill would still sometimes leave the user unable to
enter melee on the first set of their attacks, even if they would be able
to fit on subsequent attacks. This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Deadeye should now indicate more about what is
happening.
Wxyz
The prayer skill has been tweaked a bit to be less
painful to use.
Wxyz
Handcrafted thundersticks can now be disenchanted correctly.
If there are other items that similarly disenchant strangely,
let me know.
Wxyz
The focused gems should now work properly.
Wxyz
Elementalize ammo should now tag the ammo with the
added damage type.
Wxyz
Elementalize ammo should now correctly fix ids when
one changes the damage type.
Wxyz, the destroyer of all that is good
The bond weapon skill was preventing use with weapons that were magically
undroppable (in the sense of autosticky) when it was supposed to be
preventing use with weapons that were magically undroppable (in the sense
of being unable to be put on the ground). This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Attempting to use hurl molotov cocktail while unwielded will no longer
result in a sensative mind error.
-Rita
When mystic weapon was updated to allow it to work on named weapons, a
check was added for weapons that are designed to specifically block mystic
weapon to be still able to do so. Unfortunately, this was not added to
other abilities that add a weapon's true name, such as carve kenning and
release seal. This has now been corrected. Weapons that are specifically
made not to have a true name added will now not have it added by any means.
-Kereth Midknight
The flagellistics skill should no longer do non-int damage under certain
conditions.
-Kereth Midknight
The photosynthesis and chemosynthesis helpfiles have been expanded for
clarity.
-Kereth Midknight
The skill whip wound will no longer deal floating point damage.
--Kellin
Tripping lash no longer checks whip instead of whipping.
Tripping lash also no longer deals floating point damage.
-Rita
Killing fervor should no longer bug out sometimes when it hits the
demoralizing effect.
-Kereth Midknight
Heads produced by the execute skill should no longer require capital
letters to target properly. I.e. You should be able to target the "head of
guard" as per similar items, rather than having to target the "head of
Guard".
-Kereth Midknight
The scroll lore skill's category and affecting stat have been changed to
mesh better with similar skills.
-Kereth Midknight
Scroll lore should give an appropriate message now when used on something
that isn't a scroll.
-Kereth Midknight
The virkreng skill has been updated. The skill level has been reduced, and
the relevant spell category has been adjusted, with the helpfile changed to
match.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Galdra Gol
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The gormeng skill has been repurposed and rebalanced.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Brew Mead
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The carve kenning skill has had its level adjusted to better match the
effect of the skill.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Flyting
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Two Kings Curse
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The brew mead skill has been updated. The component has been changed to be
more reflective of traditional brewing practices, and a new target option
has been added in conjunction with the addition of other relevant skills
(see the next post).
-Kereth Midknight
The kegging skill has been repurposed.
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Boasting Contest
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The silence and stat penalizing effects of dirty tricks should show up
normally again. While I was at it, I also made the influence of the
affecting stats a little more meaningful.
-Kereth Midknight
Since last update, all further skills/spells in Jomsvikings that are
undergoing (usually minor) changes have received updated versions,
temporarily visible under the same name in helps with the 2 appended. More
significant changes than most can be seen under "help skill carve
iron-cant-bite rune2."
-Kereth Midknight
The divine visions skill, when targetting a player in a castle, should now
show the location of the castle, rather than the contents of the room.
-Kereth Midknight
(The skill is still blocked by ignore, TP, levels and all other relevant
factors, which check for the player's current location where relevant, not
the location of the castle, so stoneshielded castles cannot even be
located, etc. No need to go putting up shelters out front.)
-Kereth Midknight
The help file for the summon horde skill should now accurately indicate the
restrictions on where the skill can be used.
-Kereth Midknight
Attempting to behead something that's not alive (with the beheading skill)
should no longer result in instructions to bug the world arch.
-Kereth Midknight
The etiquette skill has had its functionality slightly expanded, in order
to match its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The kick skill should no longer have a chance to deal non-integer damage.
-Kereth Midknight
Carve rune of dawn should now also require a "sowlio" rune instead of a
"sowilo" rune.
-Kereth Midknight
The new names of weapons (that previously had "names") after carve kenning
has been applied to them should no longer be as long and expansive, nor
include all the tags from any equipment work done prior to the carving of
the kenning.
-Kereth Midknight
Armagg-Odhin has always been generous enough to clean the spit out of
people's kegs at boot. Now, however, he should show some restraint and stop
taking the alcohol content from the liquid as well.
-Kereth Midknight
The throw dust skill somehow got skipped over during the last attack skill
revamp. This has been corrected. It should now have a duration, cost and
effect befitting its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The weatherize skill's success messages should wrap and handle color codes
better.
-Kereth Midknight
Flying lunge would sometimes calculate a non-integer total for its damage
output, causing it to bug out on a later check. This should no longer
occur.
-Kereth Midknight
The carve strength rune failed to get updated with the other jomsviking
skills (my mistake) so it was not using the new components or the fixed
damage code. This should now be corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The earlier fix to kegs didn't actually stick. It appears I left out a _ in
one of the variable names. As a result, kegs have still been becoming
alcohol free over time.
This should now actually be fixed ( I've tested it and everything this
time! <.< ). Kegs will start correctly saving the alcohol content of
whatever's put into them next boot at the latest.
-Kereth Midknight
Several bugs with the bone necklace produced by the bone crafting skill
have been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The brew beer skill has been updated for compatibility with the kegging
skill. Of course, one has to have both skills trained for this to be
relevant, but if any jomsvikings or alchemists want to take a few levels of
the other guild to give people new beverage options, they now can.
-Kereth Midknight
Given that scalding of the tongue is one of the most minor punishments
possibly applicable by the arrest command, the duration has been adjusted
to be inconviniently long, rather than permanent.
-Kereth Midknight
While their determination has been laudible, fighters should no longer
occasionally continue their grapples well after their own deaths, nor after
the deaths of their opponents.
-Kereth Midknight
Draining the last bit of beverage from a keg that has not been spat in (or
not been spat in that boot, the status doesn't save) should no longer
result in a sensitive mind error.
My bad.
-Kereth Midknight
The cooking skill has had its messages cleaned up somewhat, removing a
couple typos and allowing them to wrap and handle colors better.
-Kereth Midknight
The taxidermy skill can now be used to produce castle furniture.
The helpfile has been expanded to explain how this is done, as well as to
document one of the existing uses for the skill that had not been recorded
previously in the help (preserving craftables).
-Kereth Midknight
Items created via the convert sling skill should now thread
and save appropriately.
Wxyz
The grapple skill has been updated:
1. Training in the melee endurance skill will now help to reduce the
round-by-round cost of grappling.
2. Renewing an existing grapple will now give a different message than
starting a new one fresh.
3. The math governing who is winning the grapple has been slightly
polished.
4. Unique messages and effects have been added for fails and fumbles of the
skill.
-Kereth Midknight
The holy strike skill was getting no help from its affecting stats in
helping the user more reliably hit its maximum damage. This has been
corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The situation worked like this:
Tim attacks Bob using the grapple skill. Unfortunately for Tim, Bob is much
larger and stronger than he is, so Tim quickly finds himself being thrown
to the ground and smacked silly. As the fight progresses, the following
messages are displayed:
Tim sees: "Bob pummels you hard! (14)"
Onlookers see: "Bob pummels Tim hard! (14)"
Bob sees: "You pummel Bob hard! (14)"
Bob's message is wrong. Bob is not taking any damage, and he is certainly
at no risk of being pinned. He is not pummeling himself.
The above issue has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The bash skill was not applying affecting stats to damage, nor was it
accounting for the knockdown effect in cost or in calculating what the
maximum damage was. Both have been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
It should no longer be possible to use frosty or wet on an item you're
currently wearing. The MUD only applies stats from items at the moment they
adjust and the moment they're removed. Raising the stats while they're
already on you is a bad idea (although the results are fixable by
relogging).
-Kereth Midknight
The sweeping attack skill should no longer make multiple references to
axes, leaving the impression that it is the axe sweep skill. Many of the
messages remain markably similar at this time, however.
-Kereth Midknight
It should no longer be possible to win a grapple while unconscious or
asleep.
-Kereth Midknight
The stun palm, fists of fury and touch of death skills have undergone some
debugging. Most significantly, you will notice that the skills now appear
as separate skills, not as autoskills. The function remains much the same,
however, as these skills are activated automatically and cannot be used
separately. However, you should notice the following changes:
1. The skills can now be interrupted mid-combo, whether by deliberate
action on the user's part or by the intervention of foes.
2. The skills will work together with other effects that measure the timing
of skills in progress, such as the perfect timing skill.
3. It should no longer be possible for mobs or players to sometimes "steal"
one another's combo, as had sometimes occurred.
4. Damage done by the skills should now be properly influenced by the
affecting stats, instead of just being completely random.
5. The skills should no longer have a very small chance to advance to the
next step of the combo even without the required training.
-Kereth Midknight
In an earlier update, I tried to make extract not cause items to disappear
if there was no room for the player to hold them, leaving them on the
ground instead.
I typoed the fix.
The result was that extracted parts would end up on the ground if and only
if the player had room in their inventory. If they didn't have room, the
items would still vanish.
My bad. This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The checks that prevent cut gems from being cut again have been made a
little more robust.
-Kereth Midknight
The release seal skill should no longer alter the names of already-named
weapons when unleashing the power of their true names.
-Kereth Midknight
Tapping a keg then drinking the resulting beverage should now leave one
holding the empty bottle which was originally used to tap the keg in the
first place.
-Kereth Midknight
Drinking mead that was produced by the brew mead skill should now return
the original bottle (Note that blotting already returned a bottle. This
update applies only to normal drinking).
-Kereth Midknight
Likewise, drinking beer that was produced by the brew beer skill should now
return the original bottle (Note that blotting already returned a bottle.
This update applies only to normal drinking).
-Kereth Midknight
While we're at it, blotting will now return the original bottle, if one
exists, rather than always returning a beer-stained bottle. The latter will
appear when blotting with non-player made booze.
-Kereth Midknight
The success messages on the carve shield rune skill should be much cleaner,
wrapping better, handling colors better and so forth.
-Kereth Midknight
Stun palm and fists of fury will no longer bug out and cause loss of
heartbeat if they land a killing blow.
Circle kick has been changed to an untargetted skill (because "hit everyone
by aiming at that guy over there" makes no sense).
Circle kick has also been changed to allow for being in melee. Because
you're hitting them with your feet. You're in melee.
-Rita "hooves of fury" Wildfire
Because of how it was checking, the monster lore skill was only informing
players about skills or spells that the target might use during combat,
ignoring any other spells or activated skills they might now. This should
now be corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Death trance's affecting stats have been changed from dex to int/per.
-Rita
By joint treaty, special planetwide courts have been established for the
trying of criminals in all cases where criminal status can be agreed on by
all local powers but arrests are made in areas outside any clear
jurisdiction. This courts will serve in cases where previous matters of
jurisdiction were difficult to establish. As such, it will no longer be
necessary to try criminals in the court of 0. The court of 0 has therefore
been disbanded.
-Kereth Midknight
Unfurl banner is now useable in combat, much like the banner itself hints
at.
Instead, it now has the requirement that you not be in melee.
-Rita "here's your flag" Wildfire
Due to a quirk in the way it was coded, the carve shield rune skill was
bypassing all the normal rune carving checks that other skills used, thus
ignoring normal requirements for targets to be on the ground, not be
indestructible, etc.
This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The stun palm combo of skills should no longer result in a loss of
heartbeat if you run out of energy or are otherwise unable to continue the
combo partway through.
-Kereth Midknight
Mental translation should now actually work as intended.
-Kereth Midknight
Mobs who are successfully intimidated by an unfurled banner (help skill
unfurl banner) will no longer sit quietly in the face of such an aggressive
gesture.
-Kereth Midknight
Items created by taxidermy should no longer show up as "unknown name" in
the output of certain commands after being left in a castle over boot.
Likewise, future taxidermy items should no longer show up with capitalized
articles during various commands (I.e. You should no longer see "You poke
The stuffed remains of Kumog deeply in the ribs." and instead see "You poke
the stuffed remains of Kumog deeply in the ribs.")
-Kereth Midknight
The clothesline skill has been archived, so people will stop mistaking the
similar message from dirty tricks for that skill. The skill was not
trainable by players, not included in any guild setups for mobs and not
trained by any of the very, very few mobs in game who wielded a weapon of
the required type.
-Kereth Midknight
It should no longer be possible to use stone setting and enchant armor
together to make an infinite cha item.
-Kereth Midknight
(Correction: it was possible to get extra permanent cha that way, but not
actually infinite. Still fixed, anyway.)
Cha bonuses were previously removed from rings produced by stone setting
because the cha bonus was causing the rings to have a lower value than they
would otherwise, thus meaning that merchants could lose gold by setting
rings with anything more than the cheapest stones.
The underlying bug has been addressed, and cha bonuses have been
reinstated. Rings produced by stone setting should now have appropriate
value, regardless of how charismatic they make the wearer, and being
magical will no longer make them less valuable.
-Kereth Midknight
You will now know what you find by scrounging instead of it being
a surprise you find out later.
Wxyz
Surgery and brain surgery use without using examine first would
occasionally restore one more of a stat then the patient lost.
They should now work as intended with or without examinations.
Wxyz
There are two kinds of melee combat skills: those that can only hit the
person you're in melee with and those that can hit anyone in the room.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that there is a standardized difference in
targetting between these two skill types, helpfiles have persistently
listed both as
Skill Targetting: melee opponent
This has now been corrected. As of boot, skills that can target an enemy
other than the one you are in melee with (and thus require a target to be
specified), will display in their helpfiles instead
Skill Targetting: combat opponent
An early example is visible with the polearm strike skill. Other such
skills will convert at boot.
-Kereth Midknight
Hearty laugh will no longer be so easily resisted, and it should no longer
affect any of the party's pets. Also, in the unlikely event that your pet
has hearty laugh, it will no longer affect your party.
-Rita
Hearty laugh has also had its affecting stat changed to cha, and its
resisting stat is now shown in the helpfile.
-Rita
Some skills fixed, other skills broken.
Mostly a bunch of typos fixed.
Wxyz
Create minor potion should drop potions on the ground if you can't
carry them. If there are any other skills/spells that have items
that go poof if you can't carry them, let us know.
Wxyz.
In accordance with similar anti-griefing checks, it is no longer possible
to stab your party members.
-Kereth Midknight
It should likewise no longer be possible to use arterial slash on your
allies. Or on yourself.
-Kereth Midknight
Backstabbing your party members is -also- off limits.
-Kereth Midknight
The nerve strike skill should also not be usable on yourself or allies.
-Kereth Midknight
Aaaaaand blind too.
-Kereth Midknight
. . . and Hamstring.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the deadeye skill has been slightly extended to explain
more clearly what the skill actually does.
-Kereth Midknight
The version of the sword of faith produced by the honorable request skill
should now be droppable (so those who thread it won't be stuck with it if
they change their mind later).
-Kereth Midknight
Relevant bonuses have been adjusted slightly so that a ranger/sentinel with
a max "road" terrain bonus and 100% training in both stalker and
streetfighting won't actually get a decreased bonus when fighting in a city
due to sentinel training (if that part of the city happens to be a road).
-Kereth Midknight
When using an invalid target with the altering skill, the failure message
will now idicate that the item was searched for and not found in the room,
rather than indicating that it was searched for and not found in the user's
inventory.
"You don't see a tunjk here."
not
"You don't have a tunjk on you."
-Kereth Midknight
The altering skill's fail message was accidentally set as "You see a webtj
here." when it would have been "You don't see a weptj here." This has been
corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The effectiveness of the catching skill has been reduced to a degree more
appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The carve shield rune skill should no longer be able to carve runes into
random objects like doors, lampposts, components or food.
-Kereth Midknight
Resizing should no longer produce irregular results (in terms of ingots
produced and used) when adjusting the size of held items.
-Kereth Midknight
A problem in the reverse compatibility code on the resizing skill was
causing ingots to be used an additional time when reaching 0 charges,
rather than vanishing right away. This extra use would not be accounted for
when other ingots with charges were unavailable, causing some irregularity
in ingot costs based on whether the user was carrying extra ingots. This
should now be corrected, and ingots will no longer contain an invisible,
only sometimes used, extra charge.
-Kereth Midknight
The battle cry skill should now check if the user is able to perform the
cry when the command is first issued, rather than waiting for skill
completion.
-Kereth Midknight
Using resizing to reduce an objects size by less than the amount that would
produce a single ingot charge will no longer result in a fully charged
ingot but will, in fact, produce nothing usable.
-Kereth Midknight
The resizing skill should no longer reduce the count of full ingots by one
when doing downsizing jobs large enough to yield more than one fully
charged ingot.
-Kereth Midknight
The armoring skill has been debugged in several ways matching earlier fixes
to the resizing skill.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Calm natural
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
Any training in rapid shot should convert to training in calm natural at
next login (assuming you're not Fumbles).
-Kereth Midknight
Carve rune of dusk/dawn will no longer be usable on items that are already
equipped. Adding stats (including light/dark) to an item you have equipped
will not grant you those stats, but it will remove those stats when it
removes the item. If you find any skill or spell allowing you to enchant
gear in this way, please report it.
-Kereth Midknight
The rapid shot skill has been archived. The helpfile is no longer
available, and the skill will not appear on skill lists on the website or
in other locations.
-Kereth Midknight
The execute skill should hopefully no longer charge focus against an
incapacitated opponent. This could potentially have occurred when the skill
has previously been started against any target using focus but not yet been
successfully completed, when the skill were currently in use with focus by
another sentinel elsewhere in the MUD, or a number of other more esoteric
circumstances.
-Kereth Midknight
The bone crafting skill should now correctly recognize when the user is
trying to apply it to a corpse with no bones, rather than just succeeding
anyway.
-Kereth Midknight
The fading light strike skill has been updated. The cost, displayed level
and actual power of the skill should now be more in line with the skill's
actual level.
-Kereth Midknight
The previous update to fading light strike threw off the ep/sp cost balance
of the skill. This has hopefully been amended.
-Kereth Midknight
After some grumbl- er, feedback from an active shih, the overall ratio of
effects from the fading light strike skill has been tweaked somewhat while
retaining the total power.
-Kereth Midknight
The questioning skill was refusing to let the user interrogate mindless
undead. This was intentional. However, it was treating undead or unliving
creatures with a mind the same as those without, which was not intentional.
This has been fixed. It should once again be possible to question vampires
and similar creatures.
-Kereth Midknight
The mercenary gunner's special attacks show now affect the client's dpr.
-Kereth Midknight
Rita has pointed out to me that I have misread ranged combat code and put
inaccurate information in "help deadeye" as a result. My profound
apologies. I have fixed the helpfile to specify that the bonus is to the
next "round" of ranged combat damage, not just the next "shot."
Praises to Rita!
-Kereth Midknight
Create charm should no longer be usable on threaded amulets. This is to
avoid a potentially costly mistake of using the skill on something you
didn't mean to.
-Rita
Using discerning eye in a shop should no longer result in displaying the
full contents of the shop sign in addition to the list of items that can be
viewed.
-Kereth Midknight
The following skills (and one spell) began affecting mobs with player races
with the recent mob physiology fix. After some examination and discussion
on the matter, it's been decided that this was an unintentional side
effect. From henceforth, sophisticated beings will no longer be subject to
control and manipulation via the following abilities:
Befriend animal
Befriend undead
Calm natural
Soothe the Beast
-Kereth Midknight
The measuring skill should no longer disrupt mirror images. Furthermore, a
line has been added to skill helps (visible for most at boot), indicating
whether or not the skill makes contact, so players should not have to guess
in the future about whether or not a skill will, if used and usable on a
living being with mirror images, disrupt mirror images.
-Kereth Midknight
The honorable request skill should also no longer break mirror images.
-Kereth Midknight
The iocane skill was not in use by any guild or mob and has been archived.
-Kereth Midknight
The chain snake skill was set as a ranged combat skill, despite being
designed for use in melee. Chain snake should now actually act as
described, usable in melee combat.
-Kereth Midknight
The greater herbal poison, curare and invigoration skills have likewise
been archived.
-Kereth Midknight
Chain snake should now only be usable, as intended, if the user is wielding
a whip. Previously it was usable only if the user was wielding some kind of
weapon, and whips were a kind of weapon.
-Kereth Midknight
Flagons of mead should not, in the future, be magically heavier than the
combined weight of the drink and the bottle.
-Kereth Midknight
The last fix to befriend animal, befriend undead, calm natural and soothe
the beast in advertently included a few creatures, such as humanoid undead,
under the heading of "too intelligent to manipulate in this fashion." This
has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The infamy and consider undead skills should now match similar skills in
that they do not make contact or disrupt mirror images.
-
-Kereth Midknight
The help for the resizing skill should now specify that it works on helds.
It also should have an appropriate linebreak at the end.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to an obscure legal loophole, if a person was to declare themselves
legally dead, guards would be legally forbidden to interfere with the
movement of the "corpse" by the next of kin. Coupled with another obscure
loophole that allows ettins to declare themselves as the next of kin (but
worded in a vague enough way to include single headed races), this means
that with the proper paperwork, a person can stroll right past a guard
collecting gate taxes.
This is just a sample of Salmoneous' new book "101 ways to fake your own
death for fun and profit". Tax evasion curriculums everywhere have begun
using it as part of their course material.
-Rita
The cooking skill had several nonfunctioning checks. As a result, it
treated many food items equally, assuming that they were all raw and
cookable until the skill had been applied to them.
This has been fixed. It should no longer be possible to cook things that
have already been cooked or are not cookable (aside from inorganic food,
which was already uncookable by the skill).
-Kereth Midknight
Boltmaking, bulletshaping, and fletching have been updated so that when
ammo is created and you can't carry it, instead of vanishing into the
ether, it will simply appear on the ground.
-Rita
Using gem cutting on a threaded gem will no longer result in the cut gem
being unthreaded. (Even though it would totally make sense to leave it the
way it was and just add a message about cutting the thread.)
-Rita
Retro has long had a "sowlio" rune, which was a typo. Unfortunately, it was
a typo that was used universally and in important places, so everything
needed to have the same typo in order to work properly. The real rune name
is "sowilo." Occasionally, somebody notices the problem, fixes it, and all
relevant skills/spells go offline. This has happened again.
This time, however, instead of putting the rune back to "Sowlio" so that
all the skills and spells that use it will recognize it, I'm just going to
start fixing skills and spells so we can finally have this done properly.
My apologies to anybody who wanted to do three rune cast or carve rune of
dawn or so on in the meantime.
To start this off and make ut official, carve aett will now recognize
"sowilo" as the target when you're trying to get the rune, instead of
having to target "sowlio."
-Kereth Midknight
The carve rune of dawn skill should now require the "sowilo" rune rather
than the "sowlio" rune.
-Kereth Midknight
When crafting something with multiple identical pieces (don't look at me
for examples. I'm not sure if this actually happens anywhere presently in
game), the skill would only take one of each type instead of all of each
type of piece it needed. This has now been corrected.
As I said, I don't know if this is actually used in game at the moment, but
if something else breaks as a result of this, feel free to blame me. Or
possibly Lightfoot. He was involved too.
-Kereth Midknight
The fishing skill has been updated.
The bonus chance of success from bait should now actually work.
The targetting of the skill has been modified to take
into account bait differences.
Wxyz the fisherbug
Once more with feeling!
I copied in the wrong file.
This has been remediated.
Wxyz the maker of bugs
You know the drill.
Fishing may or may not be working better now.
Wxyz
Fishing will no longer attempt to remove the player from the game.
You can no longer attempt to cook yourself.
You can no longer attempt to elementalize ammo on yourself.
Wxyz
The scan command should no longer check twice for success.
Also, a little training in diagnostics should not overwrite
the highbie advantage.
Wxyz
The following skills will no longer allow repairing items that are
"broken":
Axe grinding
dagger repair
metal mend
repair bow
repair crossbow
repair sling
repair thunderstick
sharpen blade
The remaining skills will lose their repair abilities for "broken" items
simultaneously with the implementation of the new means for fixing them.
-Kereth Midknight
The fuse armor and bond weapon skills should no longer work with broken
items.
-Kereth Midknight
The axe grinding skill should now load properly.
Wxyz
The apply poison skill should now provide messages to others in the room
when it succeeds, in order to let them know you just did something. It
should also wrap its messages more reliably on success and the success
messages should better handle color codes.
-Kereth Midknight
Various skill messages (plus a couple spells and a few other messages)
should better handle wrapping and color codes in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
Output from the deadeye skill has been cleaned up.
Beverages used with the blotting skill will maintain their
kept status.
Wxyz
The Jomsviking guild has declared its intentions to comply with Wysoom
civil rights statute 4817-22b ("Equal Opportunity Profanity Deployment
Status"). As such, Jomsvikings have been instructed to go ahead and just
curse anyway if they get the urge to swear at someone (help skill galdralg)
who happens to be a member of an animal race.
-Kereth Midknight
Using the battle fury skill should no longer render the Jomsviking unable
to use, or receive the positive effects of, morale skills and spells for
the rest of boot.
-Kereth Midknight
The faecraft skill was not in use and has been archived.
-Kereth Midknight
The derring-do skill should no longer go ahead and allow its use anyway
after complaining to the player that no chandelier is present.
-Kereth Midknight
The melancholy skill was an unintentional duplication of an older copy of
the melancholy focus skill. It was not meant to exist and has been
archived.
-Kereth Midknight
cannibalize armor should no longer be able to destroy gear
that has been threaded by gifted ones.
Wxyz
The cooking and cautery skills were not triggering their failure effects
properly. Instead, the skill completion message would appear with nothing
following it, and failing the skills would do nothing at all.
This has now been corrected. Expect failure for these skills to have more
complicated effects in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the flying kick skill should no longer use manual
linebreaks and should be a bit more informative in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
Messages about what armor you're destroying and
what you get out of it have been added for clarification.
Wxyz
Speedsong should no longer register as a level eight skill in its helpfile.
-Kereth Midknight
Some skills do not cause players to leave hiding/invisibility when used.
The following skills have also gained that quality:
Animal lore
Consider animal
Consider humanoid
Consider monster
Consider natural
Consider undead
Golem lore
Identify Weakness
Infamy
Melee targeting
Monster lore
Targetting
-Kereth Midknight
Melee targeting is a combat only skill. As such, it was not possible to use
it while invisible or hiding. It has had its hiding compatibility removed.
-Kereth Midknight
The beheading skill has been updated.
Fixed several issues with damage calculations.
Wxyz
Certain mobs should no longer have trouble (or irregularly have trouble)
seeing themselves when targetting themselves with skills.
-Kereth Midknight
i.e. They should no longer always or irregularly have trouble. They
shouldn't have trouble anymore.
-Kereth Midknight
The practice skill should no longer bug out if used by someone who doesn't
have an instrument.
-Kereth Midknight
"help marts-form" should now include janna on the list of martial arts
forms displayed.
-Kereth Midknight
Summoned watchmen (and watchwomen, unless we're doing the Ankh-Morpork
thing, then just watchmen) should follow and join the summoning sentinel by
default now, as per other summoned pets.
-Kereth Midknight
The boasting contest skill should no longer compel absent party members to
join in the competition. If you want a drink, and you want to participate,
you need to actually be present.
-Kereth Midknight
Cannibalize armor has had some formating issues fixed.
Slugmaking should dump the slugs into the room if you can't carry them.
Some issues with glassblowing items disappearing has been fixed.
Throat kick has been cleaned up.
Wxyz
The flagellistics skill used to have a problem where it couldn't target
"leg" unless the target had a lower leg. Those with only upper legs
wouldn't be affected. A patch was put on the skill so it would look for
upper legs only, since no races had only lower legs and not upper legs, but
plenty had the opposite. Another patch was later applied to the base code
that was producing the problem. Then a change was made to centaur and
unicorn slots, so they had lower legs but not upper legs.
As a result of so many piled up fixes, flagellistics stopped working right
when aimed at the legs under certain circumstances. This has been corrected
(by undoing the first fix).
-Kereth Midknight
The blotting skill should now correctly recognize the ability of some races
to eat who previously could not.
-Kereth Midknight
The "<skill>2" skills (such as "blotting2") that were left over from the
Jomsviking revamp preview were not archived along with the similar spells.
This has now been corrected. Helpfiles such as "help skill carve strength
rune2" should no longer exist.
-Kereth Midknight
It would seem not all repair skills were actually updated
during the installation of reforge.
These skills were already updated:
- axe grinding
- repair armor
These skills are updated and react correctly now:
- dagger repair
- repair
- expert repair
- repair armor
- repair sling
- repair bow
- repair crossbow
- repair thunderstruck
- tailoring
- lapidary
My apologies for the inconvenience - reimbursements were
granted to the parties affected.
If there is an item repair skill not listed above, please
submit it to the staff so we can ensure it meets current
code standards.
--Kellin & The RetroMud Staff
It should no longer be possible to use the eat baby skill against players
named "baby."
-Kereth Midknight
The fishing skill should now work as intended as opposed to just
taking your bait and leaving you with nothing.
Whether this change makes fishing better or worse depends on your
motivation.
Wxyz
Ricochet's helpfile has been updated to reflect it's actual effect. It
does not prevent archery attack skill fumbles as it claimed, but archery
attack SPELL fumbles.
-Rita "pew pew" Wildfire
A faulty karnaugh map prevented those with wings,
who were flying magically, from hitting their
opponent. This should be corrected now.
Wxyz the true
Preserved corpses can now be used to make castle decoration with the
taxidermy skill. For the trophies, a fresh corpse is still needed.
~Nerina
The helpfile for masterful gem cutting has been updated slightly to be a
little clearer about how the skill functions.
-Kereth Midknight
As part of the Druid updates, training in Natural Affinity was updated to
affect the dtype of Force of Nature and Faerie Stroke spells when they're
invoked indoors. This effect is toggleable, see the skill help for more
info.
Additionally the terrain effects have been reviewed and physical dtype
terrains have been changed to a non-physical dtype. Indoor dtypes (when
using Natural Affinity) will match those obtained via Gaias Touch.
~Nerina
If an infighting pass executes, and the user doesn't have any valid weapons
to infight with wielded at that point, it should now tell them so, rather
than telling them they close, giving a blank line, then reported that the
combatants part, with no damage dealt.
(It is also not a bug if you can't infight with weapons whose size is
larger than yours.)
-Kereth Midknight
Because apparently there's been some confusion on this point, the deo
juvante helpfile has been clarified to explain more precisely what it
affects. Rather than just saying "holy offensive spells," it will now
specify "holy damage type offensive spells," to avoid confusion with "holy
spell category offensive spells."
Casting a mixed holy and non-holy dtype spell with deo juvante training
will only cause an increase in the amount of holy damage dealt, not the
amount of damage dealt by other dtypes. If a holy category spell is
available somewhere that does only non-holy dtype damage, it will not be
affected.
-Kereth Midknight
The bash skill should no longer talk about your knowledge of tactics under
certain circumstances if you have no knowledge of tactics at all.
-Kereth Midknight
The bring down skill should no longer talk about your knowledge of tactics
under certain circumstances if you have no knowledge of tactics at all.
-Kereth Midknight
Using Pick Locks on generic boxes should be less irritating.
You'll realize your attempt to pick them will be futile sooner.
Wxyz
Coming soon(TM): targetting generic boxes by state
Targetting the howl skill at yourself should be less likely to bug
out now. Why you'd do this to yourself in the first place is your
own business.
Wxyz
Rings set with stone setting would lose their descriptions (reverting to a
generic one) after being saved and loaded two times. This should no longer
happen. Setting a fancy gem into a ring should result in the ring actually
remembering what stone it was set with from then onward.
-Kereth Midknight
Hides produced with the skin hide skill should now correctly remember what
sort of creature they were taken from. Their descriptions will reflect this
and will carry over boot.
-Kereth Midknight
For those who'd rather spend 5 ep than scroll up (Okay, I'd totally be one
of these people), when discerning eye reaches the point where it will not
produce new information, it will now not only tell you so, but it will also
remind you what the last things it found were.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to a bug, glass vials were accidentally being sorted into two different
"schools" of vials (technically three, but we don't talk about those
self-destructing ones that I accidentally put up for sale in Fenriss. See
forthcoming Sosel news post. Oh, I guess we do talk about them. Oh well).
These included "empty vials," good for things like blessed water, and
"glass vials," good for things like creating poison, but these were
intended to be mutually compatible.
This should now be corrected. All forms of vials should be useful for all
vial-related functions (although not all bottle related functions. That's
still different). Furthermore, they should all have similar mechanical
effects, and there shouldn't be a few vials floating around that can't
actually be used as containers.
Due to the nature of this change, some existing vials may become useless
this boot. Newly created and shop-purchased vials should have no such
issues.
-Kereth Midknight
Upper arm items created by the tanning skill did not follow the pattern of
protection provided for other armor slots, based on the slot, training and
corpse employed. This has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The following skills have been reviewed and updated:
Scourge
Dark ritual
Numbers have been adjusted, and the spells should be slightly more reliable
now.
~Nerina
Crystalmancy should now keep the name of the gem intact, even if the gem
was cut prior to use.
~Nerina
When attemtping to rescue someone, the victim should no longer
completely freak out if you can't seem to help them right away.
However, they are most likely still distraught and may be
unpredictable if you botch your attempt.
Wxyz
The foraging skill and aforage race power have been updated. The abilities
have had their costs increased and have gained a larger number of possible
foods they can produce, in order to bring their average food production
value (when producing food and not something else) up to the appropriate
level. The activation time for aforage has been reduced from 8 to 3.
The other outputs of the abilities have been slightly tweaked. They will no
longer, for example, produce newbie items that disintegrate when dropped
(although they still cannot be sold).
-Kereth Midknight
Oh, and training in the skill/adventuring levels for the race power now
have a more direct result on what can be found.
-Kereth Midknight
The cooking skill has also been updated. The ep cost has increased
slightly, and the skill should actually produce some nutritional benefits
when applied to corpses, not just preserve them and potentially change
their diet type.
-Kereth Midknight
The scrounging skill has been updated in a way that is similar to the
scrounge race power. The different location restrictions on the scrounging
skill (different from the race power) should now be reflected in the
helpfile, and the list of possible foods obtained has been adjusted to
better reflect this difference.
-Kereth Midknight
Using point blank shot, only to have the target die from other causes at
the wrong moment, would cause the skill to bug out. This should no longer
be the case.
-Kereth Midknight
The meat stripping skill has been updated. Among the changes, you should
notice the following:
1. The skill will no longer result in the loss of almost all the
nutritional value of the corpse. The skill breaks down the whole corpse
into smaller pieces, although some small loss may occur if training is too
low.
2. The skill can now be used on any edible corpse. What the corpse is
broken down into may depend on its dietary classification before the skill
is applied.
3. Food produced from corpses should now indicate what kind of creature it
came from.
4. The cost has increased very slightly (from 8 to 20 ep).
5. The duration has increased very slightly (from 4 to 5).
6. Some of the checks may work a little more reliably in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
The foraging skill and aforage race power should no longer report the user
as finding "a pile of 12 0" if they find munitions that completely merge
into an existing stack of munitions.
-Kereth Midknight
The implant skill now correctly reports the maximum level of a brain that
can survive in the creation when trying to implant a brain that's too big.
~Nerina
The customize strongbox skill should no longer throw a sensitive mind error
when trying to use it.
It SHOULD be used to make horseboxes, because they're clearly the superior
choice and I'm not just saying that because I have an anatomy-based bias.
Where would you even get such a crazy idea?
-Rita
The organized reteat skill should now function without requiring the user
to have training in either graceful exit or art of evasion.
-Kereth Midknight
Those leading organized retreats (or failing to lead them) should no longer
get messages about making a "graceful exit stage <direction>".
-Kereth Midknight
Cooking carrion turns it into meat. Unfortunately, this was not happening
for actual corpse carrion. This was due to the fact that corpses were
containers. Long story.
It's fixed now.
-Kereth Midknight
The tattooing skill was supposed to gain bonuses from the puhoro, whakairo
and takitaki skills. Due to an unfortunate bug, this hasn't been the case.
The bug has been fixed, and the previously mentioned skills now correctly
apply the intended bonuses to tattooing. That said, I can't recommend
training them unless you needs some place to store all your free extra exp
and have copious amounts of unwanted gold in your bank account.
~Nerina
The following potions (created with create minor potion) have been updated:
potion of flight
potion of free action
potion of infravision
potion of water breathing
Infravision was using what I suspect was an ancient flag that predates see
in dark/udark, which I don't even know when that went into effect. It
should now actually do what it says on the bottle.
Flight, free action, and water breathing potions had a bug that if you
already had the effect from something else, it would cause the effect to
become permanent.
All of them should have a wear off message now.
(Note: drinking one of these potions while you have the effect active is
intended to be a wasted potion, and is therefore not-a-bug)
-Rita "potions master" Wildfire
Using fading light strike with demonslaying trained against a foe who has
no race set should no longer have a chance of producing a sensitive mind
error.
-Kereth Midknight
The "party bell" option should now be correctly documented in "help party."
-Kereth Midknight
There was a bug where it was possible to begin using a combat skill at a
target (such as monster) then have an unattackable mob for whom that target
was valid enter the room, then have the skill complete, hitting the
unattackable mob and dealing damage to them. This how now been corrected.
It should no longer be possible to damage and attempt to aggro unattackable
mobs in this fashion.
(Note that spells have long since had protections against this)
-Kereth Midknight
The value of crafted items was dependant on the component targetted by
the skill, irrespective of the number of component(s) necessary, the
number of item(s) crafted, nor the value actually set in the crafted
item itself.
I have adjusted this value, but due to the nature of the change, some
things may have unintended values.
I have adjusted this as follows:
If the component(s) have value, the crafted item(s) will be valued
accordingly.
If as is likely, the components have no value, the value will be
determined by the value set in the crafted item(s) or automatically
if a value wasn't set.
Values are subject to change with notice.
These new values will be logged to track any issues.
Bugging items that seem too high or low is appreciated.
Unfortunately, any already crafted items are stuck with their values
as is.
Wxyz
Skills whose general help info includes components as
expendable or (1 charge) etc, should now only use up
the component upon successful skill completion.
Wxyz
Some special code on tinning kits was conflicting with the recent fix for
component use with skills, causing tinning kit skills to not work. This
should now be corrected. Some existing kits may continue to not work until
boot/relog, but newly bought kits and kits of people who had not logged in
this boot prior to the fix should all be working fine now.
The tanning skill should now list kits as using charges, as per other
skills that use tinning kits, even though none of them really use charges.
It's complicated. My apologies.
-Kereth Midknight
The chi casting skill's help should no longer claim that it only affects
non-offensive spells. It affects all spells for the state categories. It
should also correctly report that it affects fire category spells, which it
always has.
-Kereth Midknight
The hunting skill and the racial ability chunt have been rebalanced to
match the other food making skills. Because these skills provide the hunter
with an animal based on the planet they're hunting on, the results are
varied. On average, however, the skill should now produce results
appropriate for its level.
Additionally, the messages of the hunting skill have been fixed to decribe
the hunter using the ranged weapon they were always required to have,
instead of ripping the prey with their teeth.
~Nerina
The fearlessness skill now should notify you that you already have it up
without waiting for skill completion.
-Kereth Midknight
The wizardry, fast wizardry and elite wizardry skills should now have
better formatted helpfiles. They should also clearly specify that they only
apply their effects to hermetic spells, a detail not explicitly documented
previously.
-Kereth Midknight
The level of the fishing skill has been raised to 10, to match the racial
ability rfish. Both of the abilities have also been rebalanced to
match the other food making skills. Because these skills provide the user
with a fish based on the body of water they're fishing in, the results are
varied. On average, however, the skill should now produce results
appropriate for its new level.
Additionally it will be possible to stand on the shore while fishing with a
fishing pole, targeting the adjacent room (check the skill help for
targeting syntax). The chance of losing one's bait will now depend on the
bait quality. The better the bait, the more uses you will likely be able to
get from it.
Note that while the average of food available is same everywhere, different
fish live in different waters. If it feels that only thing you catch is
tiny minnows, it probably means the 300kg tuna has eaten all the bigger
ones.
~Nerina
Flying fishermen should now be able to cast downward into bodies of water,
rather than having to land or swim. The helpfile for the fishing skill
should now also have a more specific description in the "Location: "
section.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for spellsinging should no longer wrap irregularly, nor should
it claim a restriction to only hermetic spells that does not exist.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the incapacitate skill should now be better formatted and
directly reference the extra energy costs the user may incur upon use.
-Kereth Midknight
The omen interpretation skill should have power appropriate to its level in
the future (which includes an effect actually large enough to reliably
change your luck description).
-Kereth Midknight
The following skills (and spell) from the necromancer drain path have had
their levels raised to 20 to match other tert skills (and spells):
Master necromancy
Create Nexus
Linked Creation
Multiply Lifeforce
-Kereth Midknight
The highbie advantage for 'per' should now give access to the scan command
directly, rather than by immitating the effects of having 100% training in
the diagnostics skill. This will mostly manifest in the lack of an extra
fail chance for the command.
-Kereth Midknight
I have added ten words to the boasting context helpfile in a
probably-insufficient attempt to reduce the ambiguity (i.e. that it is of
the 'boost-melee + resist panic' class of morale effects, not just the
'resist panic' ones). Can you spot which words were added?
-Kereth "HELP PANIC"/"HELP MORALE" Midknight
Aaaand my bad. My fix to my fix made diagnostics stop working unless you
had the highbie advantage. Sorry about that. It should actually work as
intended now.
-Kereth Midknight
Monk combat skills should be extra resistant to being used on your party
members, unattackable mobs, etc, in the future (exceptions to this only
existed for certain skills).
-Kereth Midknight
The appraise skill should now apply to getting "all from <container>" not
just to uses of "get all". Most significantly, this means it should now
apply to looting without dropping everything and picking it all back up
again every so often to filter out the junk.
-Kereth Midknight
The dagger, bludgeon and weapon breaker skill help files should no longer
erroneously claim that they only apply to one handed versions of their
weapon types. They also shouldn't any longer wrap in unusual ways.
-Kereth Midknight
Kereth wrote:
>Flying fishermen should now be able to cast downward into bodies of water,
>rather than having to land or swim. The helpfile for the fishing skill
>should now also have a more specific description in the "Location: "
>section.
>
>-Kereth Midknight
>
This fix inadvertently made it so the fishing skill could be used in cities
but only in cities, despite what the helpfile said (complaining that you
were in a city if you weren't). My bad. It's fixed now. The above post
should now be accurate.
-Kereth Midknight
Skills that strengthen objects will now appropriately tag items
so that they can be referenced by 'strengthened'.
This has also been added to help object handling.
Wxyz
Using carve door rune on a castle door and using carve door rune on
something that isn't a door at all should no longer give identical fail
messages (specifically, it shouldn't claim that castle doors aren't doors).
-Kereth Midknight
The consecration skill should no longer incorrectly report that it
increases the alignment of Templars who use it.
-Kereth Midknight
The following new skills have been created:
aquatic tongue
construct tongue
drakhen tongue
feline tongue
lupin tongue
unliving tongue
drensieqi tongue
dwarf tongue
flynd tongue
gnome tongue
kanku tongue
kizanki tongue
kreen tongue
qookie tongue
valkyrie tongue
ahrimazda tongue
It's not (yet) possible to train them anywhere.
~Nerina the Multilingual Unicorn
There was a bug on snares that caused their effect to end only for the last
person who crossed them. Snares should now only trap one person at the
time, and that person will not remain snared indefinitely.
~Nerina
While I applaud your creativity most sincerely, I regret to inform you that
the ability to load a pet or a mount with gems, kill them, then use gem
cutting on the corpse in order to get a better return on the gem value, was
not a desired mechanic. It should no longer be possible to do this.
Good thinking though.
-Kereth Midknight
Elementalize ammo will no longer add non physical types
to its label.
Ignite ammo will add appropriate ids.
Wxyz
An attached bayonet will now show in the objects' description.
Wxyz
The helpfile for the swim skill has been updated to better document its
effects.
-Kereth Midknight
According to the skill help for examine "An untrained examiner may
not be able to see some of the damage." What this means is that if you have
not trained the associated surgery skill (brain surgery or surgery) you are
unable to diagnose the damage associated with that skill.
It is also possible to misdiagnose someone who is suffering stat damage as
healthy, if the examiner in question fails the skill check due to low
training in examine or bad random number generator roll.
Additional info has been added to the skill help, clarifying that some
training in brain surgery and surgery are needed in diagnosing associated
stat damage.
The skill would also sometimes give no final message when failing to
diagnose stat damage. This has also been corrected. Success/fail mechanics
on the skill remain unchanged.
If your doctor says you're okay, and you suspect you actually aren't, it's
advisable to find a second opinion. Even a knowledgeable doctor may miss
something from time to time, so asking a second opinion from the same
doctor may also work.
~Nerina
The camping skill should no longer claim, in its helpfile, to be "outside
(non-city)" when it affects sleeping everywhere. The tent pitching skill
should now correctly claim to have a location restriction of "outside"
instead of "anywhere."
-Kereth
*** NEW ROUND ***
--- HP:2317/2379 SP:79/243 EP:618/687
You bruise Goat with your hit. (15)
Avoiding being hit, you lose your aim.
You nick Goat doing very light damage. (9)
You swing at Goat and barely scratch it. (8)
You hit Goat with your tail (59).
You hit Goat with your wingtip (38).
Goat nimbly dodges your blow.
You miss Goat with your bite.
Goat hits you and does light damage.
Your mighty scales deflect some of the damage!
Hp: 2253/2379 Sp: 79/243 Ep: 615/687
Goat successfully headbutts you. (44)
*** NEW ROUND ***
--- HP:2337/2379 SP:99/243 EP:677/687
You swing at Goat and hit, doing light damage. (17)
You target a natural weakness.
With a flip of your wrist you catch Goat offguard and HIT! (72)
Goat nimbly dodges your blow.
You nick Goat doing very light damage. (9)
Goat nimbly dodges your blow.
You miss Goat with your tail.
Goat nimbly dodges your blow.
You miss Goat with your wingtip.
You miss Goat with your bite.
You nimbly dodge the blow.
Hp: 2292/2379 Sp: 99/243 Ep: 674/687
Goat successfully headbutts you. (45)
*** NEW ROUND ***
--- HP:2379/2379 SP:131/243 EP:687/687
You swing at Goat and hit, doing light damage. (17)
You bruise Goat with your hit. (15)
You stumble from the force of your swing and miss!
You misstep and miss!
You hit Goat with your tail (30).
You hit Goat with your wingtip (53).
You miss Goat with your bite.
Goat swings at you and misses.
Hp: 2331/2379 Sp: 131/243 Ep: 684/687
Goat successfully headbutts you. (48)
Please give the 'aid dragon' skill an affecting stat of wisdom.
Wet and Frosty will now tag items with the appropriate targets.
Wxyz
Enhance fundamental should now allow charging to the items' limit
instead of a default cap.
Wxyz
The douse fire skill should handle buckets more intelligently in the
future.
-Kereth Midknight
When using the arrest skill with a bail bondsman, the bail bondsman should
now be dismissed, rather than simply deleted (with associated implications
for all that eq you had him/her carrying, etc).
-Kereth Midknight
The rescue skill should register more kinds of invalid targets
(non-prisoner living beings, for example) prior to skill completion, rather
than making you wait until after finishing the skill to find out that they
didn't need rescuing to begin with.
-Kereth Midknight
With the improved hostage negotation training undergone by sentinels (now
including special training in recognizing ahead of time when someone is not
actually a hostage!), their reputation as rescuers has increased. It is no
longer an act of wisdom to be reflexively on your guard any time a sentinel
shouts "Wait, I'll save you!"
-Kereth "That means rescue lost wis as a resisting stat" Midknight
The mix fundamental skill should now handle the new color tags
appropriately. Also, your skill and affecting stats now help
determine how successful you are at containing the explosion.
Wxyz
Wielding a polearm should no longer enable one to grapple with a target
while remaining safely in midrow with a tank between yourself and the
target.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the mage blasting and mage bombing skills should now be
more specific about whether discordian spells are affected (they are).
-Kereth Midknight
The howling rage skill has been cleaned up, debugged and brought up to
date. You should notice the following changes:
1. A problem with the target checks when underwater meant the skill was
unusable at all underwater, not simply unusable by those who are underwater
and unable to breathe, as was intended.
2. The skill should now show damage numbers and affect dpr.
3. A problem with the damage calculation meant that only players with
extremely high con had a chance of doing much damage at all with the skill.
Damage is still variable and high con is a plus, but most users should
notice it being significantly more effective now.
4. A note has been added to the helpfile about how the skill can cost more
when dealing higher amounts of damage. Many users of the skill may not have
noticed this effect, if they were not, in fact, able to deal higher amounts
of damage, but it should now be properly documented.
-Kereth Midknight
The garotte and subsequent belt are both summoned objects, and thus,
shouldn't be threadable.
The items incorrectly showed themselves as threadable, this has been
corrected.
Wxyz
Further formatting issues with hire mercenary have been corrected. All
tells should now wrap and indent like tells.
-Kereth Midknight
When using taxidermy "for trophy", the results will now be donatable for
dues like the helpfile suggests. Please note that as part of this fix,
these trophies have also become castle savable objects.
-Rita "fixer of things" Wildfire
Despite changes to the joining requirements of the guild, the exploration
skill was still refusing to function unless the user had a current explore
percentage of 70 or greater. This has been corrected. The requirement to
use the skill has been changed to match the guild joining requirements.
Note that this still checks your current explore percentage, not just that
you were eligible for guild membership at one point. If new content or
similar should happen to push your explore percentage down after training
the skill, the skill -will- become unusable until you get your explore
percentage back up. This aspect of the skill is not new.
-Kereth Midknight
The animal strike skill should be a little more reliable in how it checks
the validity of your target in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
Many non-alchemist potions (including a great many that are offline) should
now correctly report their type when identified, rather than being a
"potion of 0."
-Kereth Midknight
Rank status over the "deadly" threshhold, obtained via the knack for
killing skill, should now -actually- affect melee and ranged combat.
-Kereth "Okay, now it works for real" Midknight
The crimefighting skill should now provide more than a single +1 to melee
damage under common optimal conditions.
As a side note: it has come to my attention that the skill is supposed to
be giving bonuses to ranged combat damage. It does not do this. Fixes in
this area are still forthcoming.
-Kereth Midknight
More previously unrecognizable vials are now compatible with the potion
tasting skill.
-Nerina
The hunting skill was supposed to be getting bonuses from terrain-specific
skills (i.e. forestry, etc) along with other bonuses, but those bonuses
were not being applied. This should now be corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The function of the call small animal skill has fundamentally changed. See
the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The secret signal skill has had its function updated slightly, to be more
appropriate to its skill level.
-Kereth Midknight
The potions from the warlock tower have been added to the potion tasting
skills.
-Nerina
New skill: assess party
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
As the formation doubleline is no longer trainable in any guild, anyone
with training in the skill will have it convert to training in the "assess
party" skill on next login.
-Kereth Midknight
The lesser herbal poison skill has had some. . . problems. There were too
many to list here, but here's a good example of some of the best ones:
use lesser herbal poison at fellblade mix rune,rune,rune,rune
You start concentrating on the skill.
You feel fully healed.
Hp: 1950/1950 [100%] Sp: 239/239 [100%] Ep: 543/559 [97%]
You are done using your skill.
Having to use appendages other than limbs,
you are twice as tired.
You follow the formula and mix the herbs.
The solution turns dark green and you pour it into your vial with caution.
Hp: 1950/1950 [100%] Sp: 239/239 [100%] Ep: 531/559 [94%]
l fellblade
You look at fellblade
This vial contains a dark red liquid made of a herbal concoction.
It is a size 140 broad blade in Incredible condition.
It is threaded to Kereth.
use apply poison at athame with fellblade
You start concentrating on the skill.
Hp: 1950/1950 [100%] Sp: 239/239 [100%] Ep: 539/559 [96%]
You are done using your skill.
Having to use appendages other than limbs,
you are twice as tired.
You apply the fellblade to your athame.
Hp: 1950/1950 [100%] Sp: 239/239 [100%] Ep: 535/559 [95%]
l fellblade
You do not see that here.
Anyway, it should be waaaaay less broken now. Still needs work, but the
example above is now impossible on so many levels.
-Kereth Midknight
Using elementalize ammo on a stack of ammo, later followed by any other
ammo dtype skill or spell, should no longer result in the ammo forever
retaining the dtype-based ids it gained from elementalize ammo.
-Kereth Midknight
All blue vials should now be compatible with the apply poison skill.
-Kereth Midknight
New skills:
carve spring ogham
carve summer ogham
carve fall ogham
See the skill helps for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
To be consistent with the other abilities, rather than the skill they
replace, the new ogham skills will henceforth be spelled "oggham" rather
than "ogham".
-Kereth Midknight
At next login, players with training in "carve ogham" will have it
automatically converted to training in "carve spring oggham."
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Esprit De Corps
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The animal companions of rangers are wild animals. As such, they do not
need to be formally "dismissed" in a traditional fashion. A wild animal
that gets separated from the ranger who called it can generally be trusted
to go back about its business on its own. At that point, the only
distinction in still being summoned or not is whether or not the ranger
still cares enough to try to find it again.
From this point, rangers who get separated from their animal companions can
now "dismiss" (read: stop caring about) them from anywhere, without needing
to inform the animal in person that it is still wild.
Likewise, in keeping with similar bonus-granting pets, ranger small animals
should not be summoned with a set duration and need to be resummoned every
few minutes.
-Kereth Midknight
A small irregularity in the randomization on the strike skill damage
calculations got ironed out at some point a while back, changing the level
of randomness in damage to be more akin to similar skills, and I forgot to
post about it. I still haven't gotten around to working out exactly how big
of a change that was in practice, but now you know.
-Kereth Midknight
A couple of the oggham spellings in carve summer oggham and carve fall
oggham were inconsistent between helpfile and usage (forcing users to
target by plant or other criteria or check the list of valid targets
created by the prompt to find out the right spelling). This has now been
corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfiles for the first tert weapon skills listed one benefit they
gave. "help weapon paths" indicated a different bonus. Turns out it does
both. The helpfiles for those skills have been updated to indicate that
they give bonus +hit and remove penalties for not being the first attack in
the round.
-Kereth Midknight
Creatures successfully befriended through any skill or race power would
decline to attack the befriending individual at remember them in the
future. However, due to a bug, all remembering them for the future would do
would be that they'd not bother repeating their befriending messages, then
go ahead and attack anyway. Furthermore, successfully befriending a
creature would give a message to others in the room, but not to the
individual befriending, leaving them unaware that anything had happened.
All this has been corrected. Those who successfully befriend something
should keep that being's trust (until they betray that trust somehow) and
should not actually be attacked the second time they are seen. Furthermore,
they will actually see the message indicating that the befriending was
successful.
-Kereth Midknight
Items produced by the tanning skill should now actually keep their fancy
descriptions and such over boot.
-Kereth Midknight
Apparently, like a chump, I set training in formation doubleline to convert
at boot/login to training in formation doubleline, instead of to training
in assess party. My bad. Anyone who still has training in formation
doubleline and has not trained assess party should now gain training in the
latter. If you already trained assess party, your skills will remain as
they are.
-Kereth Midknight
Don't expect any miracles here, but the effects of training in the magnum
blade skill should be at least slightly more noticeable in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
Extracted brains should keep labels over boot.
-Kereth Midknight
The elite wizardry skill's help should be at least somewhat more explicit
regarding the fact that it provides a chance (check against special hit
rate) for a staff special, rather than guaranteeing a successful staff
special, regardless of the special chance of the staff.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: blow conditioning
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The sacrifice skill should now correctly look for an appropriate weapon,
no matter how you're holding it. It should now also show the appropriate
messages depending on the weapon used.
Wxyz
q
You plunge your Deathshard into the corpse.
Blood and gore sprays everywhere as you pull the heart out, chanting
praises
to Baal-Ozyd.
The hit function of soul swords who have been subjected to the release seal
skill should now show its damage numbers and affect the wielder's dpr.
-Kereth Midknight
Apparently somewhere in the refactoring and rearranging of checks with the
"assess" command, upon the introduction of the "assess party" skill, the
humanoid-only restriction on the command (for the assassin version, not the
fighter party version) got dropped. This was not a deliberate design
decision and has been corrected. Assassins will once again only be able to
assess humanoid targets.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to a goof eight years ago by me, the hack skill had some problems.
These included unusual patterns of randomization and some logic issues that
caused the damage against plant-based foes to never exceed the maximum
damage for non-plant based foes. These have been corrected.
The hack skill should have a damage spread more typical of attack skills of
its general type (for a given set of affecting stat values, training, etc),
while also actually showing noticeable improvement when targetting plants,
as per the helpfile.
-Kereth Midknight
Using chaos control when blasting a mob whose greatest weakness is a damage
type that is not valid for a discordian spell to produce (such as psionic,
sonic, unholy, etc), should no longer result in the spell defaulting to
disintegration damage, rather than picking the best valid element.
-Kereth Midknight
The challenge skill should be a little more reasonable in how it determines
whether or not the target is intelligent enough to accept your challenge.
Things like werewolves, homarids and treants should now be valid options.
-Kereth Midknight
The following skills had affecting stats set but, due to a bug, weren't
displaying the affecting stats in their helpfiles or applying them during
checks:
Build cage
Create roomal
Detect necromancy
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the vote skill should now be more explicit about current
live mechanics for the skill.
-Kereth Midknight
For clarity, the prayer scrolls sold in the Shih guild are now "prayer
scroll" component type. The component requirement for the inscribe prayer
skill has been updated to match.
-Kereth Midknight
The whip disarm skill's math has been rewritten somewhat. It should no
longer require an overwhelming stat advantage and/or a very small opponent
in order to succeed.
-Kereth Midknight
The extract skill should no longer produce a sensitive mind error when used
on a player corpse.
-Kereth Midknight
Vials of strong poison should hopefully no longer lose their potency over
boot if stored in a chest.
-Kereth Midknight
The gem cutting skill's checks for whether the target was a valid gem, and
its checks to determine which gem to actually cut, did not match. This
meant that under certain circimstances, one could exploit the differences
to cut things that were not valid, cuttable gems (or indeed, gems at all),
manipulating priority order between ground and inventory or whether or not
the items were both detectable to the skill user.
This has been fixed. Note that at present, the skill now uses normal object
targetting skill priorities, favoring ground over inventory when matches
for your string can be found in both places, but it still only allows
corpses to be cut on the ground and gems only to be cut in your inventory.
If you get a valid gem target on the ground, it will now inform you what
object you successfully targetted and of your need to pick it up.
-Kereth Midknight
Although less exploitable, the tailoring skill has now had similar updates
to gem cutting. It should give more consistent messages and use standard
ground-first/inventory-second (and then complaining that you have to put it
on the ground) targetting priorities. It should also always fix the same
item that it checked when determining valid targetting.
-Kereth "probably more of these coming" Midknight
Kereth wrote:
>Although less exploitable, the tailoring skill has now had similar updates
>to gem cutting. It should give more consistent messages and use standard
>ground-first/inventory-second (and then complaining that you have to put
it
>on the ground) targetting priorities. It should also always fix the same
>item that it checked when determining valid targetting.
>
>-Kereth "probably more of these coming" Midknight
>
this is probably undesirable behavior for tailoring and similar eq work
stuff - generally the expectation is that it will target only in room and
not in inventory at all.
Loktai wrote:
>Kereth wrote:
>>Although less exploitable, the tailoring skill has now had similar
updates
>>to gem cutting. It should give more consistent messages and use standard
>>ground-first/inventory-second (and then complaining that you have to put
>it
>>on the ground) targetting priorities. It should also always fix the same
>>item that it checked when determining valid targetting.
>>
>>-Kereth "probably more of these coming" Midknight
>>
>this is probably undesirable behavior for tailoring and similar eq work
>stuff - generally the expectation is that it will target only in room and
>not in inventory at all.
>
The functional difference between what you describe and what's happening
now is only this:
Ground-only:
use tailoring at armor 2
You don't see armor 2 here.
Ground-first:
use tailoring at armor 2
A suit of leather armor must be on the ground before you can work on it.
-Kereth Midknight
The resizing skill has had similar updates. Spoofing options to use the
skill on invalid targets were more limited here. You will, however, notice
some more consistent targeting behavior, and three messages (two of them
almost impossible to trigger) have changed slightly. To be precise, you
should notice only the following message changes under the following
conditions:
No valid target on the ground, valid target in inventory on command entry:
use resizing at armor 2 to 33
Prev: armor 2 is not on the ground.
Now: A chainmail vambrace labeled FIXME must be on the ground before you
can work on it.
No valid target on the ground, valid target in inventory on fumble (edge
cases only):
use resizing at armor 2 to 33
Prev: You don't have armor 2 on you.
Now: A chainmail vambrace labeled FIXME must be on the ground before you
can work on it.
No valid target on the ground, valid target in inventory on skill
completion (edge cases only):
use resizing at armor 2 to 33
Prev: You don't have armor 2 on you.
Now: A chainmail vambrace labeled FIXME must be on the ground before you
can work on it.
Other messages remain as before. Furthermore, the skill and others so
adjusted should no respect non-visual senses when relevant and some edge
case issues of working on items you can't actually detect should be
avoided.
-Kereth Midknight
Oh, hey, I broke resizing completely instead of fixing it. My bad. Fixed
now.
-Kereth Midknight
The power leap is now an anytime, light combat skill instead of a
noncombat, general combat skill.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to a missing =, the compare skill was only showing hit function results
in a case where one and only one of the weapons being compared had a hit
function chance. This has been fixed.
-Kereth Midknight
Catnip patches (from the craft furniture skill) planted in your castle
entry room should no longer cause people who check the castle registry for
your world to get messages about planting catnip seeds the first time the
command is used that boot.
-Kereth Midknight
The incense burning skill should be a -little- bit more reliable in some
respects, such as no longer getting confused if there is unlit incense on
the ground when you use it.
-Kereth Midknight
"help skill backstab" should no longer cause the reader to believe that the
backstab skill works differently than other combat starters with regards to
who may or may not be in combat at the moment it is used.
-Kereth Midknight
The chaotic ammo should no longer givemessages about creating "0" when
targeting thrown ammo.
-Kereth Midknight
Incense blocks have been significantly updated. In the name of
transparency, let me clarify that this is one of those changes that was put
off a lot because it was harder than it sounds like it should have been.
You'll notice the following changes:
Incense can be targetted by a wider variety of options, including the full
name of the object, the type of incense it is (after unwrapping) and so
forth.
Messages should wrap better, capitalization should be neater, etc.
Incense blocks, wrapped or unwrapped, should be threadable or chestable.
-Kereth Midknight
Apparently the psionicist guild has its own incense blocks that were
identical to the blocks in general use, but copied separately, so that my
fixes did not affect them. This has now been corrected. The psionicist
incense, and any incense elsewhere that's using the psi version, should
also be affected by the previous and any future changes.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to a quirk in how the "Is this wrapped?" logic was being processed,
threading and logging out with a incense candle that was still wrapped was
resulting in players logging back in having a "block of 0" incense, which
was useless to them. My bad.
This should be fixed for future incense purchases. If you have already
bought incense this boot, unwrapping it before logging out should be
sufficient to avoid complications.
Or, you know, just burn it. Either way.
-Kereth Midknight
The disguise kit should have a more realistic* weight.
-Kereth Midknight
* This is assuming the disguise kit is a normal, human standard kit. The
fact that you can use the kit to disguise a titan five times over might be
seen as implying an even higher weight than it used to have, but you can
also use the kit up disguising an atomy the same number of times, so
anthropocentrism wins the day for now.
The bayonet skill should have the following updates:
1. It will no longer, in most cases, attempt to deal a nonexistent damage
type. It will, for better or (more likely) worse, use the melee damage
types of the (ranged) weapon you are stabbing with.
2. The skill should offer damage that scales with something other than just
your wc and a random chance, requiring a wc 100 weapon to have a chance to
do competitive damage. Affecting stats, training and other common factors
will now matter.
3. The skill should no longer have some messages and functions which are
holdovers copied from a early Hand version of the stab skill.
-Kereth Midknight
It should at least more often be the case that one cannot tattoo a
component onto a slot which is already covered by some sort of eq, thereby
allowing the target to get double use out of the slot for that boot.
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: tactical foresight
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The fighter guild has gained the skill, tactical foresight, at level 18.*
-Kereth Midknight
* It's the place there was an empty spot in the guild, not a reflection of
what the skill's level was supposed to be. Don't rep me. <.<
The unused spelling ("ogham" instead of "oggham") versions of the "carve
<season> oggham" skills in herbalist should no longer appear in helpfiles
or on website skill lists, showing only one version of each skill in the
future.
-Kereth Midknight
Getting hit by a multi-dtype attack when using tactical foresight should no
longer result in a new message for each dtype. The line about only avoiding
one dtype has also disappeared from the helpfile, as that is not how the
skill, nor similar effects it relates to, actually works.
Note that if your tactical foresight effect remains in effect in later
rounds after attempting to avoid an attack, that would be a bug and should
be reported. The effect should fade after use and need to be reapplied.
-Kereth Midknight
Kereth wrote:
>Getting hit by a multi-dtype attack when using tactical foresight should
no
>longer result in a new message for each dtype. The line about only
avoiding
>one dtype has also disappeared from the helpfile, as that is not how the
>skill, nor similar effects it relates to, actually works.
>
>Note that if your tactical foresight effect remains in effect in later
>rounds after attempting to avoid an attack, that would be a bug and should
>be reported. The effect should fade after use and need to be reapplied.
>
>-Kereth Midknight
>
It does in fact wear off after 1-2 rounds.
I had to reapply it like I would the skill deadeye.
So it is working as intended in that sense.
Mobs should use proper targetting to be able to activate the following
skills correctly in the future:
intimidation
tactical foresight
Due to an oddity in targetting code, certain named mobs were unable to use
skills on themselves. This has also been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to a bug, fumbling word of unbinding had no result. No ep was charged,
no messages were given, etc. Players simply saw a "You are done using. . ."
message and nothing happened.
This has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Other fumble-related skill issues have been uncovered, some identical to
those with word of unbinding, others similar, ranging from skills that had
special fumble effects and did generic ones, ones that had special fumble
effects and did nothing to ones that were supposed to be generic but did
nothing. Affected skills include:
Axe sweep
Bring down
Demonic symbol
Enhance fundamental
Fire bola
Grave-rob
Harvesting
Hire servant
Mining
Net entangle
Net trip
Polearm sweep
Sacrifice
Sweeping attack
Tactical foresight
-Kereth Midknight
The metic surgery skill has been updated:
Skill level changed from level 20 to level 9.
Skill changed from an active skill to a passive skill (now modifying the
effects of the surgery and brain surgery skills).
-Kereth Midknight
New skill: Panacea
See the skill help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
page revision: 1, last edited: 22 Mar 2021 20:54
