spells news
This page is an archive of newsposts in the "spells" 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: Genevieve
Subject: untitled
Date: Sun Jan 3 13:58:06 2010
Reply-Code: 297f
Lines: 5
brew healing drink used to fail to check for waterskin charges prior to
casting. Now it does.
Gene
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Thu Jan 28 14:40:57 2010
Reply-Code: 298f
Lines: 4
The greater identify spell's exp draining function has been fixed.
-Evan
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Wed Feb 3 23:40:30 2010
Reply-Code: 299f
Lines: 10
Since it has been such a pervasive misconception for so many years, I
thought I'd let everyone know that I went through and checked all the
*phobia type spells, including those from primary guilds and such, and they
are indeed working as intended.
Except for the 'misophobia' spell, which has been promptly fixed by
Faeryll and is now also working.
-Evan
From: Ruckus
Subject: Imprisonment
Date: Thu Feb 18 21:51:56 2010
Reply-Code: 300f
Lines: 4
The duration of imprisonment has been reduced to match that of
shelter. It also cannot be cast if there is already an imprison
spell active.
From: Faeryll
Subject: Phobias
Date: Sun Feb 21 14:29:26 2010
Reply-Code: 301f
Lines: 3
All phobia and phobia-like spells have had their minimum and maximum
resistance amount increased.
From: Faeryll
Subject: Sanctify weapon
Date: Sun Feb 21 14:31:34 2010
Reply-Code: 302f
Lines: 3
Sanctify weapon now adds a wisdom bonus as well as holy damage. It will be
threaded to the person who picks up the weapon until boot.
From: Faeryll
Subject: Invoke relic
Date: Tue Feb 23 19:34:38 2010
Reply-Code: 303f
Lines: 5
The invoke relic spell from Inquisitor now only requires the target to be
good aligned. The invoker channels the power of a relic through the item
instead of needing an actual relic. The spell can still only be cast once
per boot.
From: Ruckus
Subject: remove curse
Date: Thu Mar 18 06:27:33 2010
Reply-Code: 304f
Lines: 11
The targetting syntax of remove curse has been changed to allow
targetting of items worn by other players:
remove curse at brooch on ruckus
remove curse at brooch in room
remove curse at ruckus
remove curse at brooch
Should all be valid targets. The help has not been changed since
it already implied this was possible.
From: Faeryll
Subject: Sanctify weapon
Date: Fri Mar 19 00:10:47 2010
Reply-Code: 305f
Lines: 5
The threadable setting when using the Sanctify Weapon spell seems to save
over boot, therefore, making it rather absurd to cast on most weapons. The
setting has been removed from the spell, as it wasn't intended to last over
boot.
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Mon Mar 22 18:24:25 2010
Reply-Code: 306f
Lines: 5
The brew healing drink spell works with nonstandard waterskin components
again.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Tue Mar 23 05:05:22 2010
Reply-Code: 307f
Lines: 6
Rampant vigor gives a nice, noticeable message when it ends. It's also no
longer possible to cast it while it's already up, only informing of failure
after it charges you sps.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Wed Mar 24 03:31:09 2010
Reply-Code: 308f
Lines: 6
AC spells should all properly apply affecting stats to chance of success
now. Most weren't, so you were seeing rampant failures at 90% training and
900 wis, which is silly. Toss me a rep if you find any that I missed.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Wed Mar 24 04:48:10 2010
Reply-Code: 309f
Lines: 7
Some mage spells have had their categories changed to be in line with
other similar spells. Sting is now earth category, maillibs malevolent
arrow is now water category, and hail of stone is now earth category. These
were all previously conjuration.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Wed Mar 24 13:29:14 2010
Reply-Code: 310f
Lines: 4
The animal form spell now properly checks affecting stat.
-Ev
From: Evanescent
Subject: untitled
Date: Thu Mar 25 06:56:38 2010
Reply-Code: 311f
Lines: 5
The bow bond spell has been modified to give its properly intended
bonuses. Spell help has been updated to reflect this.
-Ev
Monsters will now be aware of those who attempt to entangle them.
Wxyz
The summon sledgehammer spell was claiming, in its helpfile, that it used
root chakra as an affecting stat. This was not actually the case. The
helpfile should now correctly report wisdom as an affecting stat.
-Kereth Midknight
The desecration spell should no longer bug out when cast in a room with
hidden, difficult, or otherwise more complicated than the standard exits.
-Kereth Midknight
Water treading now displays its affecting stat properly.
Water treading and water walking now have much less variability in their
durations.
Wxyz
Biomancer humour spells should no longer be blocked by the pexpand racial
ability.
-Kereth Midknight
The greater satiate person spell has had its cap adjusted to better reflect
the cost and level of the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
Minor phlegm's duration has been standardized (aka. no more randomness).
-Rita
Heroism's duration has been modified to be way less random.
Its bonuses have been modified slightly to match its level.
Wxyz
Heroism should now work properly. Probably.
Wxyz
Reincarnation will now properly account for newbies who are
too young to undergo transformation.
Wxyz
Toximancers training the distant weaken poison spell should no longer have
their training automatically converted to training in the biomancer spell
"morbus" at login.
-Kereth Midknight
The focus solar plexus chakra spell was more broadly randomized in its
output than most regen abilities, to the point that it was even possible to
not gain anything as a result of casting (regaining exactly as much sp as
was spent on the spell to begin with). This has been corrected. Output of
the spell should now be randomized in a way more consistent with similar
abilities (scaled appropriately for level, of course).
-Kereth Midknight
When the card trick spell is cast with a full inventory, cards produced
should now end up on the ground, rather than failing to appear at all.
-Kereth Midknight
The demon whip has been dpr'd
Wxyz
The calling card spell should now prompt the caster when they have failed
to specify a message for the card, rather than producing a card with a big
0 written on it.
Also, if there is no room in the caster's inventory, the card will now end
up on the ground, rather than not appearing at all.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the spell "summon hammers" has been updated, in order to
clarify the exact mechanic by which the spell provides a tinderbox
substitute, rather than leading some to believe that the hammers themselves
act as tinderboxes.
-Kereth Midknight
The divine perceptions spell should now give a message to others in the
room upon spell completion.
-Kereth Midknight
The alfreka spell was a nonverbal spell with a spell chant. After examining
the code and comparing similar spells, I believe the non-verbal aspect was
assigned in error. Alfreka has retained its spell chant and now registers a
verbal component.
-Kereth Midknight
The buzzball spell was out of spec for its level and has been appropriate
rebalanced. This involved an increase to the damage output of the spell and
a decrease in spell cost.
-Kereth Midknight
Weapons with colour will no longer spew their colour codes at
you when you cast hardening on them.
--Kellin
Remove scar should now be more reliable and accomplish
its purpose better the more trained you are.
Wxyz
Typos in help for the spell fixed.
--Kellin
The helpfile for the spell "minor protection from good" was incorrectly
reporting an alignment restriction of "Cannot be good" when the actual
restriction was more accurately phrased "Must be Evil." This has been
corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The lesser runic strike spell has been updated.
1. The spell should no longer use a non-existent spell category ("runic"
WAS a skill category a long time ago, but it was never a valid spell
category).
2. The spell should no longer have an inexplicably missing somatic
component, contrasting with the actual messages the spell provides during
casting.
3. The spell should now use standard attack spell code for determining
damage dealt, crits, etc.
4. As such, it should no longer be possible, under the right conditions, to
1.3k dpr with the spell as a level 28 character (or at least 650 dpr at
level 8).
-Kereth Midknight
Addendum: Lesser runic strike has had it's damage increased and spell cost
decreased, to be appropriate to the level and use of expendable components.
-Kereth Midknight
After an ongoing and fruitful discussion with an available representative
of the jomsviking guild, it has been decided to temporarily re-remove LSR's
somatic component while broader issues with the guild are being examined.
-Kereth Midknight
Heal animal, lesser heal animal and greater heal animal
spells will now use an in game skill as a bonus
instead of a nonexistent skill.
Wxyz
The spell cost has been adjusted to reflect its relative power
in terms of the number of effects compared to the other
single-type phobia spells.
--Kellin
Just because I've been asked 3-4 times.
Panphobia itself still does what it did before in terms of
resist debuffs applied.
The change was to how many sps it costs to cast.
--Kellin
The softening skill will now remove the glow from magically
protected items upon completion.
Wxyz
The softening skill has been summarily banished and replaced
with the softening spell. Sorry for the confusion.
Wxyz
The altar created will now glow only if it has been blessed.
Wxyz the unholy holy maker.
Softening should maybe probably work again.
Wxyz the bad bad programmer.
The earplugs have had their spell costs adjusted to match their power.
Wxyz
Hephaestus Spear should now only use gold on a successful cast.
Wxyz
The duration of the protection provided by the paladin has
been made more regular and reliable.
Wxyz
The create fetish spell will now correctly target things on
the ground.
Wxyz
The vengeance spell has a more appropriate failure message
Wxyz
Not being able to target party members is a feature, not a bug.
*deletes 3 reports about elemental ray being unable to target
party members*
--Kellin
One can now use capture fundamental to determine if the area
has an abundant element or not. See spell help for more
information.
Wxyz
A couple of spell typos have been fixed. Fire rain also no longer has the
spell chant of heatwave.
-Kereth Midknight
Your stats should now show properly under the influence of
Riastarthae no matter how you check them.
Wxyz
Capture Fundamental should now correctly locate sulphur elements.
Wxyz
Frozen river should no longer have a random duration. The duration should
now be steady, albeit still based on training in the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The frozen river spell should no longer bug out on use.
Sorry about that.
-Kereth Midknight
The scythe summoned with the summon scythe spell was supposed to be unable
to be trashed (i.e. in a trashcan), but it was still able to be. This has
been fixed.
-Kereth Midknight
The summon scythe spell should no longer produce higher wc scythes the
bigger (in terms of size stat, not level) the summoner is.
-Kereth Midknight
Reduce gravity now has a one minute warning when it's about to fall.
-Rita
The advance creation spell should no longer allow advancing ones' creations
to a tier of power that one is not currently able to control (thus you can
no longer advance to tier 2 or 3, for example, while your pets are
currently capped at tier 1).
-Kereth Midknight
A handful of typos have been cleaned up in mystic weapon.
Wxyz
The telekinetic spray spell should no longer bug out when cast with no
enemies present.
-Kereth Midknight
The telekinetic spray spell should also no longer bug out 90% of the time
when cast using the last of a stack of ammo.
Furthermore, casting repeatedly with a variety of damage types should no
longer result in the spell gaining damage types (and total damage) for the
remainder of the boot (up to 7x the normal damage if done correctly).
-Kereth Midknight
The death vines spell has been updated.
The spell should now show damage numbers.
The spell should now influence the caster's dpr.
Potential message wrapping issues have been corrected.
The spell's total damage, action duration* and cost have been adjusted to
account for it being an area spell.
The spell's target limitations have been standardized.
The helpfile has been updated to list the target limitations.
Please note that further work will need to be done on this spell at an
unspecified point in the future, as its unusual design still produces a
number of oddities in function.
-Kereth Midknight
Greater identify can now be cast on items in your inventory as well as
those on the ground.
-Rita
The spell lesser runic strike should no longer be able to target party
members or foes who are not meant to be able to be attacked.
-Kereth Midknight
Oak Heart should ACTUALLY be working as intended with natural affinity now
(with varied potentcy based on training %, etc, not switching when you
move). My bad on it being broken these last few months.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting summon wormhole in strong teleportation protection will now have a
message for why it fails to cast.
Summon wormhole will also not cast when there is a wormhole present,
instead of informing you, continuing to cast, and then failing to finish
with the same message.
-Rita
The legion spell has been updated. The effect of the spell has been
rescaled to be more appropriate to its level, particularly when compared to
similar (but not quite equivalent) abilities like catechize.
-Kereth Midknight
(The effect of metus on the skill has been similarly adjusted)
The various evoke (type) spells available in the puppet master terts, if
cast with a pet of too low tier while not possessing enough negative energy
to advance them to the next tier, would previously claim that they could
not be cast due to a lack of negative energy, citing the amount required to
advance to the next tier, rather than claiming that the pet was not
suitable for the spell in question.
This has been corrected. If the pet is unsuitable, the spell will inform
the caster of such, rather than complaining about the lack of negative
energy, and inaccurate ne costs will not be displayed in any case.
The helpfiles for each spell have been updated slightly to clarify the tier
requirement.
-Kereth Midknight
The ropes bought in general stores should now be threadable and count as
valid components for the rope trick spell.
-Kereth Midknight
At least one typo and several bits of outdated information have been
corrected in the help for the reincarnation spell.
-Kereth Midknight
Druids with really bad training and stats could potentially trigger code
meant for force reincs, giving reincarnations that have a consistent level
exp tax, rather than being randomized. Moreover, those which
bad-but-not-too-bad ability could actually hit a sweet spot where this tax
could be consistently at the lowest end of the spectrum, making some low
level druids perform far better at reincarnation than the best high level
druid would be capable of.
This has been corrected. Level exp taxes, while randomized, should more
generally reflect the ability of the druid performing the reinc, without
the ability to outperform them through precisely calibrated incompetence.
-Kereth Midknight
The cook spell and the cooking skill have had their helpfiles updated, in
order to avoid leading players to the conclusion that certain effects are
bugs.
-Kereth Midknight
New spell: Mending Galdr
See the spell help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
New spell: Losesegen
See the spell help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
For the sake of linguistic consistency, "losesegen" has been renamed
"leysigaldr" and had its spell chants updated accordingly.
-Kereth Midknight
So looking at the code, it appears that the oak heart spell wasn't actually
applying any protection at all.
My bad.
It should be fixed now.
Hopefully for real this time.
-Kereth Midknight
Since I'm not clear whether a rep I just checked was sent after or before
the fix yesterday, a point of clarification:
Oak heart provides stun resistance in a way that checks
incident-by-incident on your location. The messages are given on movement
and changes to the environment, but my testing confirms that it is not
necessary to move to apply any modifications, whether from natural affinity
training, gaias touch being applied or falling, etc.
If you cast oak heart in an indoors room with natural affinity trained
during combat, stun resistance is applied immediately, if you cast it in an
indoors room without such training but via gaias touch, it will stop
protecting you when gaias touch falls, etc.
This is the design, and as far as I can tell, it appears to be the case (at
least as of the last fix). If someone can find exceptions to this, all
details would be appreciated as a rep. Let me know!
-Kereth Midknight
New spell: Armageddon
See the spell help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
The runic strike spell has been repurposed. For all practical purposes, it
is now the lesser runic strike spell (the old code has been archived).
-Kereth Midknight
(Okay, last one)
New spell: Establish Mead Hall
See the spell help for more information.
-Kereth Midknight
Lesser runic strike (and runic strike) now have a spell chant, courtesy of
Lightfoot.
-Kereth Midknight
For those disheartened by the relative scarcity of newsposts of late, an
update has been in progress for rune components and spells, along with
related features. The helpfiles for the recent new spells have been updated
slightly, and updated versions of the current jomsviking spells are visible
via "help spell (spellname)2" (for example "help spell thunderbolt2").
Some related work on various carving skills remains in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
The emit spell should still give a message on sucess even when you're
carrying the item.
-Kereth Midknight
The sensitize spell now has a verbal component, to match the fact that it
also has a spell chant.
-Kereth Midknight
The three rune cast spell was looking for a "sowilo" rune when it was
supposed to be looking for a "sowlio" rune. My bad. "Sowilo" was an older,
possibly typoed spelling for the rune from previous versions of carve aett
and is not actually something available to players. It has now been fixed.
-Kereth Midknight
Sticky weapon and chaos lace should look for items on the ground, to keep
them in line with similar spells.
-Kereth Midknight
The new names of weapons (that previously had "names") after mystic weapon
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 casting of
mystic weapon.
-Kereth Midknight
The hex spell should have a spell cost more befitting its level and effects
(spell cost reduced from 75 to 63).
-Kereth Midknight
Spells that dealt disintegration damage and those that dealt physical
damage had the same message on success (the default, generic message in
fact), leading to some confusion about what, exactly, certain spells were
doing under some circumstances.
This should no longer be the case. Disintegration spells should now have
their own message, and the "grins wickedly" line should be reserved, for
the time being, for physical damage spells.
-Kereth Midknight
Mystic weapon's list of whip names should now reflect their use as
something other than sex toys.
-Kereth Midknight
The Feather weight spell has had its targetting cleaned up.
It should more accurately exclude items that cannot be made
lighter.
Wxyz
The gem burst spell has had its cost and maximum damage adjusted to better
match its level (and still accounting for its lack of additional effects
and expendable component, yes).
-Kereth Midknight
Nevermind, that was already the right number on both of those. I'm not sure
what I was thinking there.
-Kereth Midknight
Greater identify, identify, and any similar effects, should no longer claim
that ranged hit bonuses are actually damage bonuses.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting soothe the beast on a target, then logging out (or dying if the
caster was a mob) before it expires should no longer result in the target
permenantly losing HB and being unable to defibrillate, nor in their
receiving a sensitive mind error every (attempted) tick thereafter (such as
when entering combat).
-Kereth Midknight
Mystic weapon should no longer user long elaborate names of items, complete
with all labels and enchantment tags, in its success messages for
already-named items (I.e. no longer "for Mercy labeled SHOPLOOT |hardened|
of ages past has been found" but just "for Mercy of ages past has been
found"). Color tags should also no longer be distorted by speech
impediments or related factors.
-Kereth Midknight
Cromlechs and mead halls should now give messages when you leave them, as
per at least some other spells of that type.
-Kereth Midknight
Description added to help spell toxic bolt, courtesy of Clucker.
-Kereth Midknight
Description added to help spell fireball, courtesy of Clucker.
-Kereth Midknight
Help spell magic missile expanded slightly. Blame Kumog.
-Kereth Midknight
The detect evil spell should now be able to make the important distinction
between being "tolerant" (honor gain for killing) and "considerate" (honor
loss for attacking) alignments (albeit while still keeping the existing
system of messages). If the distinction is important enough to be a matter
of honor, it should be important enough to Sikkar to warn you about. All
other results remain as before.
-Kereth Midknight
Soothe the beast should now have an effect without sometimes having to be
used to initate combat.
-Kereth Midknight
The same should be true of aura of sikkar.
-Kereth Midknight
Soothe the beast and aura of Sikkar should now give a message each round
while they're in effect, at request of the bard leader (the code that gives
the message is shared with the Templar spell. Templars can complain if they
want to not have a message, but it'll take some code wrangling to exempt
them).
-Kereth Midknight
The spells in question should no longer ensure that monsters have a minimum
of one right and one left attack if the monsters previously didn't have an
attack with that limb at all.
-Kereth Midknight
Soulsearch should now display numbers more in line with standard
number decorations.
Wxyz the 1st
The runic strike spell should no longer bug out when used with the argument
"rune" in the place of the desired type of rune. It will simply use the
first rune available.
-Kereth Midknight
The greater summon minions spell needs the owner to be present to
successfully focus the transport.
Wxyz
The effects of the blessed vestments spell should now correctly scale with
the number of slots the target has. Likewise, the booming voice's dialog
should be formatted correctly.
-Kereth Midknight
The kujikiri sha spell was not on spec for its level. The healing power of
the spell has been increased appropriately and the casting time has been
reduced.
-Kereth Midknight
Ritual of binding has had its targeting improved
and its help file updated.
Wxyz
Protective fields produced by the sanctuary spell were counting as a
"field" but not as a "shelter" for purposes of effects that check for such.
This occasionally led to some irregularities and has been fixed. For
comparison, "shelters" are always "fields" but some things, like walls or
traps or snow drifts or dampening fields or so on, are only "fields" and
not "shelters." Complicated. Anyway, point is, it's been fixed, so it
should act more intuitively.
-Kereth Midknight
We have many different cases where we need to get a list of valid targets
for a skill/spell. Some of those cases, we need to get the targets and
aggro them, and other times we want to get the list without aggroing them.
Unfortunately, in certain circumstances, the non-aggro version was still
aggroing.
This was happening when a player or controlled monster (summon) found a
controlled monster or a mount that didn't belong to a party member.
And yes, this would include necro pets.
Fix fully effective at boot.
-Rita
The voltage spell has had its sp cost reduced slightly to more accurately
reflect its power.
-Kereth Midknight
The toxic wave spell has had its sp cost reduced slightly to more
accurately reflect its power.
-Kereth Midknight
The water wave spell has had its sp cost reduced slightly to more
accurately reflect its power.
-Kereth Midknight
The snow cone spell has had its sp cost reduced slightly to more accurately
reflect its power.
-Kereth Midknight
The rockfall and colliquate spells have had their sp costs reduced slightly
to more accurately reflect their power.
-Kereth Midknight
Effective immediately, minstrel's wrath will not be applied to people who
have fearlessness active. No more screaming like a little girl while
striking a heroic pose.
Note: This doesn't currently stop a minstrel's wrath that has already been
applied. (Those act the same as before)
-Rita "AAAAAAAH!" Wildfire
Some spells have resisting stats. This has not been clear from their
helpfiles, however. From now on, spells with resisting stats should say so
in the spell help.
Effective as of boot. For an early example, see "help spell fire arrow"
-Kereth Midknight
Healing spells should now correctly receive the sp cost benefits of
material components.
-Kereth Midknight
The preach spell should no longer require players to target themselves (and
then fail because they're not allowed to target themselves with offensive
spells).
-Kereth Midknight
The spell blessed vestments should no longer allow changing the alignment
of aligned gear.
-Kereth Midknight
The turn undead spell has had bad juju removed from its code.
It should also be more consistent in its application of sikkar.
Wxyz
Invoking mind strength when already protected by emotion song should now
give the invoker a message, rather than giving the message to everyone in
the room -except- the person trying to invoke the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The success message for lesser miracle should no longer be confused about
who, exactly, has been blessed by the miracle.
-Kereth Midknight
Necro-armor's spell cost has been updated to reflect the use of a corpse,
and the helpfile should no longer claim it needs a target, when it does
not.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile should also list the M in the components section, in
accordance with its use of a material component and should be subject to
all modifications associated therewith.
-Kereth Midknight
The party summon spell has been modified to not
attempt to summon people.
Wxyz
What I meant to say, is it won't attempt to summon
peoples if you aren't able to, or are not in a party.
Wxyz
Exp used for greater identify will now be correctly counted
for purposes of session counters.
Wxyz
The bone armor spell should have a spell cost that better reflects its use
of a material component. Likewise, checks that account for material
components in the spell should better be able to recognize the use of one
with the bone armor spell.
-Kereth Midknight
To avoid possible copyright issues, the following spells have been given
(hopefully very temporary) new chants:
Lesser body chi
Body chi
Greater body chi
Lesser chi strike
Chi strike
Greater chi strike
-Kereth Midknight
Beneficiaries of the spell "Body Burning" will no longer be more resilient
to becoming younger on account of being healthy (resisting stat of con
removed).
-Kereth Midknight
The boar charge for heraldic might should now, like other offensive
charges, fail when used outside of combat.
-Kereth Midknight
The frostbite spell should now apply a level-appropriate amount of stat
reduction upon casting, rather than providing a random amount of stat
reduction based on training and capped at. . . 4 (minimum 0).
-Kereth Midknight
The spell should also only provide one message to the target when it falls,
rather than two identical messages.
-Kereth Midknight
The enchant armor spell should now be subject to normal target conditions
and restrictions (you can target by other senses but not target by sight
when blind, etc).
-Kereth Midknight
In the long run, this spell needs to be recoded for various reasons. For
now, electrokinesis will at least show its rather pitiful damage numbers
and have those influence the caster's dpr.
-Kereth Midknight
The reverb spell should now have a power and cost more appropriate to its
level.
-Kereth Midknight
The psiblast spell should now have a power, cost and activation time more
appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The psiwave spell should now have a power, cost and activation time more
appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The project force spell should now have a power, cost and activation time
more appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The psiscream spell should now have a power, cost and activation time more
appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
The paralyze spell has had its math cleaned up a bit. Differences are minor
and may not be noticed, but they include slightly less randomization and a
more precise valuation of training. Mostly you just need to know who to
throw something at if it breaks (me).
-Kereth Midknight
The pyrokinesis spell has been standardized to interract properly with
other damage-over-time related code. It should also show damage numbers,
affect the caster's dpr and do an appropriate amount of damage for its
level, cost, etc. Its action duration has been similarly brought into line.
-Kereth Midknight
The electrokinesis spell has been similarly updated.
-Kereth Midknight
The cryokinesis spell has been similarly updated.
-Kereth Midknight
The power of suggestion spell has been updated to be within spec in all
relevant areas.
-Kereth Midknight
The power of suggestion's helpfile should no longer claim there are no
additional effects to the spell when, in fact, there are, and that's the
whole point of the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The power of suggestion spell should no longer pretend to be a damage
dealing spell that deals no damage. It will still be an offensive spell,
however, and act in all ways as it did before.
-Kereth Midknight
The ego whip spell should no longer claim to have additional effects when
it does not. The spell should be otherwise unchanged, save for a message
appearing in a slightly different place upon success.
-Kereth Midknight
The spirit strike spell should now have a power, cost and activation time
more appropriate to its level.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting chaos lace on a throwing ammo holder should now result in a failure
message, rather than a bug on casting success. Thrown weapon holders
weren't meant to support the kinds of bonuses that spell applies, and it
would frankly do little good on them anyway.
-Kereth Midknight
Brew milk drink should no longer be so concerned with the caster's self
esteem. From now on, when the caster fails to cure a disease, the spell
will tell them so, rather than pretending they did an extra good job.
-Kereth Midknight
The various light spells were meant to only allow the target to have one
light source at a time (various minor bugs can occur when using multiple
light sources at once). There were gaps, however, with certain spells able
to be cast in certain orders that would allow for multiple light sources on
a single individual. This has been fixed. The spells should now check for
one another more robustly.
Affected spells include:
light
darkness
spiritual light
spiritual darkness
faerie fire
witch fire
sparkling coin
burning heart
halo
-Kereth Midknight
The duration of the poison immunity spell should be less random and, with
appropriate training, more similar to that of other prot spells.
-Kereth Midknight
After learning that players don't want this particular spell to have a more
mainstream duration, I have returned the duration to the original range,
only without the randomization.
-Kereth Midknight
The heart of darkness spell has been updated to match those spells in the
earlier list.
-Kereth Midknight
Create fetish should no longer list shamanic ritual as an affecting stat.
The skill never actually influenced the spell in any way.
-Kereth Midknight
I.e. not in any way other than how shamanic ritual affects any other spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The various healing spells for different types of elementals have gained
spell chants. Credit/blame can be shared with Daggerbeard, Harry and Kumog,
who were on for the brainstorming at the time. If anybody sees one of the
chants and has a better suggestion, preferably following the same theme,
please feel free to recommend it.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting sticky weapon on a shield did not actually apply the sticky effect,
only the tag in the description, which meant it could be cast over and over
on a shield indefiitely (producing many such tags). This hasn't been a huge
deal, since shields aren't actually subject to being dropped in combat. To
prevent the odd functioning of the spell, however, it will no longer be
possible to cast sticky weapon on shields.
-Kereth Midknight
The various spellname2 Jomsviking spell copies that were available for
testing and preview during the Joms update have been archived, and the
helps are no longer visible. Likewise, some extraneous punctuation should
no longer appear in the spell chants for the newer Jomsviking spells.
Jomsviking mob skill/spell use has been slightly streamlined.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the knock spell has been extended slightly. It should be
clearer when the spell is intended to function and when it is not.
-Kereth Midknight
It should no longer be possible to obtain a rock spirit (help spell animate
rock) while the caster already has a pet of another type active.
-Kereth Midknight
The wicker colossus (summonable by druids) is now a colossus.
-Kereth Midknight
At the request of a few players, the duration of the heavy weight spell has
been somewhat reduced.
-Kereth Midknight
The luck spell was originally a phantom spell. With phantom offline,
however, the spell appears exclusively in the entertainer secondary.
Given this, the helpfile has been updated to no longer refer to the caster
as a wraith. Likewise, fumbling the spell will no longer result in
Harrowings and other shadowlands- and wraith-specific calamities.
-Kereth Midknight
Scarf trick required the user to have a scarf to cast it. Unfortunately, it
didn't require that the target of the spell be that scarf. As a result, any
given object could be turned into a wand of illusion with the spell, so
long as a scarf was in the caster's inventory at time of casting.
This has now been corrected. It should no longer be possible to turn any
given object into a wand with scarf trick, so long as the user possesses a
scarf.
-Kereth Midknight
Engaging banter was designed not to work on ordinary animals, mindless
creatures, or other beings who could not reasonably engage in a witty
banter with the bard. The check was tied to physiology, however, which
created problems with the mob physiology fix. This has now been adjusted to
hopefully be a better match for the intent of the spell's targetting
restrictions. You can once again banter with werewolves and arakun and the
like.
Let me know if you find any mobs who should be intelligent and banterable
but who are not.
-Kereth Midknight
After the recent invasion of the guildhall by wandering undead and foreign
species of rabbit, the druid guild has placed additional protections around
the great dancing hall. From henceforth, wandering animals, monsters,
people and so forth should no longer accidentally stumble into sdoors and
eventually find themselves in the druid guild or the middle of Scotland.
-Kereth Midknight
Greater identify should now show the special hit function chances on
weapons, rather than the hit function chance for the weapon as it would be
in the hands of the caster after level limits were applied.
-Kereth Midknight
Contrary to popular belief, getting frostbite does not give you radioactive
frost powers. It in fact LOWERS your agility and dexterity, and does NOT
give you a catchy theme song.
-Rita "Does this spandex make my butt look big?" Wildfire
Runic strike should no longer bypass mirror images.
-Kereth Midknight
The elemental ray spell should no longer bypass mirror images.
-Kereth Midknight
The create rack and create wand rack spells were set to be inside-only
spells, unlike similar spells, such as create chest. This has been
corrected, as there was no visible reason why they should be set this way.
If I missed some important thematic note here, relevant guild leadership
are welcome to contact me, and I'll happily return the spells to their
original state.
Note that this does slightly increase the spell cost of the spells and that
the spells have not been restricted to use only in a castle (you can create
a rack in a bank and carry it away, for example). It will, however, be
possible to cast in the outdoor rooms of your castle now.
-Kereth Midknight
Masonry has a new option, "reduce regen <hp/sp/ep>". It does what it says
on the tin.
I realize this isn't an option most people will need, but because of the
maximum regen allowed on a room, there are use cases for it, and this will
be a cheaper option than to start over from scratch in another room. Said
maximum regen is also listed in the spell help now.
-Rita
Rampant vigor will no longer spam the room with every single person
healing. From now on, only the person receiving the healing will get the
heal message.
-Rita
The corpophage spell was insufficient to allow drinking-only races
(literally just vampires) to eat corpses and would actually prove
detrimental to the vampire as a result. To account for this, the spell can
no longer be cast on individuals who will suffer from it, due to an
inability to process solid food.
-Kereth Midknight
Okay, after being told for years that oak heart wasn't working right and
multiple fixes, plus lots of me telling people that the math was exactly
the same as iron will, etc, I finally found a place in the code where a
function was actually calling another function of the same name but in a
slightly different place which meant that it was bypassing the oak heart
check entirely and the spell did nothing.
Totally fixed now though.
-Kereth Midknight
Oak heart, feast of souls and subtility have had their durations adjusted
to be more in line with one another, to be influenced by the caster's stats
and so on.
-Kereth Midknight
The previous change to rampant vigor that was supposed to cause it to only
show heal messages to the player receiving the heals was only doing that
for the ending message. That's my bad. I've fixed the fix, and now all
heal messages should only be shown to the person being healed.
-Rita
"help spell glamourie" now contains a reference to "help mirror"
-Kereth Midknight
At player request, "help spell mirror" now contains a reference to "help
mirror" instead of just a rehash of the syntax.
-Kereth Midknight
The help for the weapon resizing spell should no longer claim that the
spell only lasts until boot.
-Kereth Midknight
The targeting code on remove curse has been cleaned up slightly, allowing
it to work with a little less stringent requirements on what things are
called in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
If you're using enchant armor and somebody steals the item you're casting
on, or you go blind, or something else happens to make it so you can't find
the thing you were just about to enchant, it will no longer cause a
sensitive mind error.
-Kereth Midknight
By request, minor choler's message for when you attempt to cast it at
someone who already has choler will now specify who you were attempting to
cast it at.
-Rita
Due to an unfortunate typo - misophobia was not actually
applying its effects.
Fix is deployed to production and verified.
--Kellin
Taunt will now follow the same rules as engaging banter with regards to who
it's usable against.
-Rita
Focus root chakra was using wis instead of it's affecting stat of int to
determine its duration. This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Following up very belatedly on earlier changes in progress, the following
spells have had their level set to 10:
Drain Resistance
Frozen River
Scarab
-Kereth Midknight
The drain resistance and scarab spells now take living targets instead of
being caster only.
Drain resistance's affecting stat has been updated to better reflect two of
the three guilds that get it (sorry lifemasters).
-Kereth Midknight
Players should no longer be compelled to actively resist having energy
transferred to them via the channel energy spells (resisting stat removed).
-Kereth Midknight
They say when you stare to long into the abyss, the abyss stares back at
you. Shih guild trainers finally caught wind of this saying and heard it
has something to do with turning into a monster. Since they don't want
their loyal Shih turning into monsters, they have updated their training
regimens accordingly.
Shih casting the dragon eyes spell should no longer sometimes find
themselves fixing 0 with a piercing gaze.
-Kereth Midknight
Summon mask was asking "can this person wear this" and if the
answer was "yes" then it would dutifully fail because reasons.
This is now resolved.
--Kellin
A few changes have been made to the color of the messages produced by
healing spells.
The change that started this is undead healing had black on black as its
color. This has been changed to yellow.
Secondly, aligned healing was supposed to have their own colors, but were
only using these colors if the target was out of alignment (and therefore
got no healing). From now on, they should use their color while healing as
well.
To accomodate undead healing changing to yellow, good aligned healing was
changed from yellow to hi_yellow. (Evil and neutral healing will also be
using their healing color now, but that color isn't changing from what was
previously set.)
These changes are effective at boot, unless the spell hasn't been used yet
today, or you ask me nicely to update a certain spell.
-Rita "%^black%^Black on black sucks%^normal%^" Wildfire
Runic strike will now recognize attempts to cast it with a "sowilo" rune,
rather than waiting for a "sowlio" rune.
-Kereth Midknight
The second sight spell should now require the "sowilo" rune rather than the
"sowlio" rune.
-Kereth Midknight
The three rune cast spell should now require the "sowilo" rune rather than
the "sowlio" rune.
-Kereth Midknight
Greater identify with exp will now correctly report the hpr now, instead of
mysteriously dividing the hpr by 2.
This also affects "token stats", for you remort folks.
-Rita
Greater identify should no longer report items as having a "bugged" haze
when stats or regen go over 20, such as when you put an spr enchant on an
amulet with a crystal skull or make any spr improvements at all to
wormsleeves, etc.
-Kereth Midknight
Summon mask has been updated to work with the changes to the wear command.
-Rita
It should now be possible to clear the second link target for lifeforce
link by casting the single target form of the spell.
-Rita
Using gravity to cancel certain flight spells (other than "flight") will no
longer cause you to enter a bugged state where you're permanently flying
when the flight spell would have worn off. (And you would stop flying if
you put on a piece of flight gear or cast a flight spell.)
(Change effective at boot.)
-Rita "I believe I can fly" Wildfire
Corpses of falling cows will now count as animal corpses.
-Kereth Midknight
It will no longer be possible to use lesser party drain to "drain" party
members who have negative sp.
-Rita
It should no longer be possible to use runic strike to hit un-attackable
mobs.
-Kereth Midknight
Some stuff fixed. Other stuff broken.
Also, mirror images should now correctly intercept certain additional
effects as opposed to merely pretending to.
Wxyz
Apparently more broken than fixed. Grammar Guardians have been
consulted as well.
There are still many effects that will require much more
intensive breaking to work.
Wxyz the Bug
Weapon resizing fumbles should no longer bypass normal damage/break code to
outright delete items.
-Kereth Midknight
The instant mend spell should likewise no longer be able to repair items
that have reached a "broken" state.
-Kereth Midknight
The enchant armor spell has been refactored.
It should now allow targetting of eq by its glow.
It is probably broken, so please prove me wrong.
Wxyz
Also, its range has increased.
The hardening spell should be a little clearer on what effect it has on
things it's cast on.
-Kereth Midknight
The establish mead hall spell and boasting contest skill have extended
their "must be in a party of more than yourself" requirement to also
require that at least some of your party members actually be logged in and
with you.
-Kereth Midknight
The glow spell has hopefully had its coloring issues fixed.
Wxyz
Gaias touch should no longer permanently increase the size of default-sized
rooms.
-Kereth Midknight
You should no longer be able to view the standing stones once
the cromlech has fallen.
Wxyz
The floating disc spell has been modified to match its
restrictions and thus targetting is no longer required for
maintenance. You may now attempt to remove it as well.
See also: help floating disc
Wxyz
Protection spells should no longer bypass normal vision/other sensory
target checks when locating the spell's target.
-Kereth Midknight
The reduce gravity spells effects should now be immediately visible with
the inventory command, rather than only becoming visible the next time
something is picked up or put down.
-Kereth Midknight
Certain mobs should no longer bug out slightly and fail when trying to prot
themselves, just because their names are spelled a certain way.
-Kereth Midknight
The spells that restore temporary stat loss shouldn't spam the
caster anymore.
Also, a handful of them would remove the stat loss, but not
remove the notification, so they would build over time,
causing more and more notifications of stat restoration.
These issues should be remedied as well.
Wxyz
Okay, now mobs should -actually- not bug out when casting protection spells
on themselves. My bad. Also, casting a protection spell at oneself while
unable to see should no longer result in being unable to find the target.
Special props to Rayzam and Wxyz for helping track down this bug that had
me stumped for weeks.
-Kereth Midknight
Lesser chi strike had a slightly too high spell cost for its level and
power. The overall cost has been reduced to bring it better in line with
its effects.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for recall weapon has been extended to more fully document the
spell's effects.
-Kereth Midknight
The malign mending spell had a casting time slightly too long for its level
range. This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The legion spell was appearing as an alteration category spell instead of
an unholy category spell. This has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
At player request, the duration of the drain resistance spells is no longer
randomized. It is still based on training, as before, but at high training,
it should be comparable to many similar prot spells.
-Kereth Midknight
The scarab spell has received similar treatment.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to the way an item's power is calculated, greater identify using
a gifted one's expbag would sometime say they don't have enough exp,
even those having millions on hand. This was caused be a sentinel
value that would make the power high enough that it would cost a cool
100 mil to identify and then still tell you the item is bugged.
Instead, It will now ask you to bug the item and add to the report
known enchants and/or alterations made to it that you know about.
Thanks,
Wxyz
The tree spirit spell's helpfile claim that it got a bonus from training in
the botany skill. It did not. This has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
The zeal spell's helpfile listed "root chakra" as an affecting stat, when
it was actually getting bonuses from training in the "telepathy" skill. The
helpfile has been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
It's come to my attention that telepathy is a pathing skill that is not
usually listed as an affecting stat. Zeal has been updated so that it
actually gets bonuses from the focus root chakra spell, and the helpfile
has been returned to its original state.
-Kereth Midknight
Greater identify should no longer treat certain items as being absurdly
expensive when one attempts to identify them with exp.
-Kereth Midknight
The brew milk/healing/revitalizing drinks should now properly acknowledge
the ability of some people to eat/drink who couldn't before.
-Kereth Midknight
The intellect fortress spell will no longer fail to
actually wear off the intended target after the proper
Amount of time had passed.
Psionicists - be warned you may experience a bit of
turbulence in combat next boot as you'll experience
what life is like when this actually falls correctly.
--Kellin, Destroyer of Typo'd API Calls
For those of you who find watching alchemists do the work
of capturing fundamentals fascinating; the spell text
will no longer accidentally misgender female and neuter
characters with the action shown to the room.
--Kellin
Brew Healing Drink should no longer error out in some instances.
EG: When you invoke it.
--Kellin
Piasthas should no longer give messages about attacking things with their
"claws."
-Kereth Midknight
Alright, so I announced the levels of remove poison and related
spells/skills were adjusted to 10, but it looks like I accidentally
adjusted them to level 9 instead. This has been corrected. The correction
didn't cause any further changes in the guilds, because apparently I still
did something right.
~Nerina
Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, nobody has changed the
earthquake spell in any way during my roughly ten years as a wizards.
That said, some of the conditions to the spell didn't match up very well
with the messages. I've tweaked the output slightly to make it easier to
recognize what's supposedly happening, when it's happening and what
conditions allow certain effects to be avoided.
-Kereth Midknight
As part of the Druid updates, the following spells have been reviewed and
updated to better match out current balance rules and their changed level
in the Druid guild.
*Brew Milk Drink - Changed to a poison immunity spell
*Liege of Gaia - Provides protection from holds only
*Force of Nature - level upgraded from 16 to 20, power increased to match
*Staff Infusion - level lowered from 20 to 16
*Gaias Touch - The terrain provided is now non-random, based on the planet
Additionally, following new spells have been created:
*Blighting Frost - single target attack spell
*Appease Geis - Cures magical diseases
For more info, check the spell help.
~Nerina
The fail effects for the vengeance spell should now work as intended.
-Kereth Midknight
To clarify the last post: The vengeance spell was coded to slow the user if
the spell failed (just a failure, not a fumble). Because of a mistake in
how it was coded, however, it just gave a message about slowing the user
but didn't actually do anything (including charging spell points for having
failed a spell).
Yeah, slow on fail instead of waiting for a fumble struck me as weird, but
I haven't had a chance to compare other haste spells to see how normal this
is. For now, I've figured that fixing it produces less weird results than
leaving it as is.
-Kereth Midknight
Manna (from the spell 'manna from heaven') should now have a more realistic
(and level appropriate) amount of nutrition, accounting for its other
bonuses and requirements.
The spell cost has also been adjusted, but not as drastically as the
nutritional value.
-Kereth Midknight
Manna from heaven wasn't as far off as I thought it was (math error on my
part, sorry). It should be on spec now for cost and nutritional value.
-Kereth Midknight
Force of Nature shouldn't bleed color anymore.
~Nerina
Enchant armor should now check that you're able to see the target
upon casting instead of only at completion.
Wxyz
Telekinetic spray will now appropriately charge you the spell cost.
Wxyz
Free action type spells (free action, deliverance, exaggerated movement,
etc)
have been cleaned up and should be slightly more uniquely informative.
Wxyz the vague
Another advguild has been added to the world transport destination list.
-Kereth Midknight
Fine, fine, yet another advguild has been added to the world transport
destination list.
-Kereth Midknight
Brew Milk Drink can no longer be applied to targets who are already poison
immune.
~Nerina
The prefrontal lobotomy spell (along with any other stat modifying spells
out there which might happen to use color in the wear off message) should
now handle color codes on the wear off message properly.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting sticky weapon on a colored weapon that is already stickied should
now have fewer color code display issues.
-Kereth Midknight
At player request, having one's equipment protected from damage will now
register with the 'me' command.
-Kereth Midknight
Glaciers are definately giant ice cubes, and as such, capture fundamental
will now capture an ice fundamental when used near them.
-Rita
Cyllyls freedom will no longer continue to show up in "prots" hours after
it has worn off.
-Rita
Channel Energy has been updated to follow our current balance rules. I've
also added some new messages for occasions when the spell fails and changed
some other stuff that I forgot. Go test it out yourselves.
~Nerina
Refresh Creation and Replenish Creation have been looked through and
received minor tweaks. Let me know if I broke something.
~Nerina
Back when the patches went in with the healing revamp several years ago, a
lot of healing spells started automatically calculating their spell costs,
in order to keep them on par with one another and correctly account for all
appropriate factors.
Unfortunately, three spells, namely lesser miracle, greater miracle and
binding contract, were very different from the mainstream heal spells but
got caught up with this anyway, causing their spell costs to be reduced as
though they were weak heals which did nothing but patch a small amount of
hp. This was, of course, quite far from the truth.
The spells in question have no been patched and should once again have the
costs their respective coders intended.
-Kereth Midknight
Help spell refresh has been updated to describe how the spell actually
works.
~Nerina
Familiar bite has been reviewed and updated:
Numbers have been adjusted, and the spell won't leave scars anymore.
~Nerina
Some irregularities with the flight spell have been addressed. These
include:
Recasting flight to refresh the duration before the spell has expired
should no longer result in misleading messages about the spell wearing off
before the new duration has expired (the old spell will now be cleared as
the new spell is applied).
Casting flight on a target once should no longer result in it registering
with their 'prots' command for the rest of boot, regardless of whether it
is actually active.
-Kereth Midknight
Following some discussion among the wizstaff, a new, more specific standard
for hunger-placating abilities has been established, in order to make the
relative power of such skills and spells a little less haphazard. The
create food spell has now been updated to that new standard as the first of
its kind.
In practice, this means the listed spell level now matches its location in
the guild where it appears and the nutritional value of the food it
produces has increased.
-Kereth Midknight
The manna from heaven spell has similarly been updated. In this case, it
involves an increase to the spell cost and a sharp increase in the
nutritional value of manna.
-Kereth Midknight
The satiate person spell has similarly been updated. In this case, it
involves an increase to the spell cost and a more stable (and slightly
higher average) amount of hunger removed.
-Kereth Midknight
The lesser satiate person spell has similarly been updated. In this case,
both the spell cost and the amount of hunger removed have increased.
-Kereth Midknight
The greater satiate person spell has similarly been updated. In this case,
changes roughly match the normal satiate person spells (less randomness,
higher average satiation, higher spell point cost).
-Kereth Midknight
The chalice of plenty spell has similarly been updated. In this case, this
means an increase in the total calories provided per cast, as well as the
cost. The spell should also now produce a single, magically nutritious food
item with each cast, rather than a collection of small, low-nutrient food
items, in order to be more friendly to larger eaters.
-Kereth Midknight
The cook spell has also been updated. The maximum contribution to nutrition
the spell can make should no longer be limited to the equivalent of a
single peanut M&M. Other than actually being useful for preparing food now,
the spell remains unchanged.
-Kereth Midknight
Addendum: Action durations have also changed.
Spell: Old duration: New Duration:
Create food 1 1
Chalice of Plenty 3 1
Lesser Satiate Person 2 1
Manna from Heaven 1 2
Satiate Person 5 2
Greater Satiate Person6 3
Cook 4 4
-Kereth Midknight
The grace spell has been updated, lowering its listed spell level from 10
to 6. The spell remains otherwise unchanged.
-Kereth Midknight
The goodberry spell has been updated. The spell cost has been reduced from
50 to 30 and the action duration has been reduced from 3 to 1.
-Kereth Midknight
Food produced with the create food spell should now be magically free of
poison, assuming you haven't fumbled. Fumbling the spell should now be
subtler and more complex.
-Kereth Midknight
The bloodblade spell has been updated. The spell level has been raised to 6
to match its place in the Fallen guild. The base spell cost remains the
same, however the formula for determining the amount of nutrition provided
and how much extra spell points can be charged has been adjusted. Training
should actually affect the amount of nutrition produced now.
-Kereth Midknight
Addendum to previous post: The action duration of bloodblade also changed
from 1 to 2.
A few relevant notes:
1. Praises for the doing the messy book work for this project go to Nerina.
2. Thanks to all who have sent me messages about other spells and skills
that produce food or similar. Please note, however, that I am not done, and
there are so many food producing abilities on this MUD that it will likely
take at least another week or two to get through them all. Nothing has been
"missed" at this point so much as not gotten to yet.
3. Abilities that provide a temporary sustenance effect (as per eq, not as
per the satiate person spell) are not being covered by this project at this
time. Yeah, they may need looking at, but that's a job for another day.
-Kereth Midknight
The black blood spell has been updated. The action duration and spell cost
have increased and the formula for calculating the amount of nutrition has
been changed (some overall drop on this one, depending on various factors.
Sorry. It was way higher than everything else).
-Kereth Midknight
The athames acquired from the "summon druidic implement"-spell had a bug
that caused them (in some cases) deal only 75% of their intended damage.
The 25% physical damage would be left off.
Additionally, storing them over boot (either by threading or chesting)
would revert their wc permanently to 0.
These bugs have been corrected for newly summoned athames. Unfortunately,
I'm unable to fix the existing athames at this time, so if you have one
you've been keeping over a boot and care about its wc, please destroy it
and summon a new one.
~Nerina
So it looks like I broke the major animation spell with my "This bit
doesn't seem to be used anywhere, lets remove it" clean-up. The important
bits have been promptly returned upon finding out that they were, in fact,
being used by something (major animation).
You can again go forth and animate your undead (as long as matching parts
and a brain are supplied).
Sorry about that!
~Nerina
Using command creation to order your blaster pet to use certain damage
skills will no longer cause it to try to use some other damage skill or
damage type.
There's a known issue with undead's natural damage type always being set to
harm regardless of their physiology (avian, aquatic etc), thus all undead
are able to use harm without having the skill for it trained, rather than
some of them being able to blast something else without training.
~Nerina
There was a bug where preserving corpses would cause some loss of corpse
data. Among the actually noticeable effects of this was, at least,
Trabbart's corpse reverting to its old "enchanter" necropart state after
being preserved, rather than providing a "scoundrel" part.
This has been fixed. If you notice preserved corpses acting like
non-preserved corpses for any purposes as a result of this change, please
report it.
-Kereth Midknight
The fix to preserve corpse rendered preserved corpses unable to go into
mystic coffins. This has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Some inconsistencies in the messages given to the room when somebody casts
antidrain on themselves have been fixed.
~Nerina
If you didn't pay much attention to the messages given by the solidity
spell, as well as sorta' let your brain pass over from/form without
resolving which word it was (maybe it was both?), it was easy to assume the
messages made sense and said something along the lines of what they were
probably supposed to.
If you actually read them closely, on the other hand, you might conclude
that they said something about finishing a doctor's visit and being asked
to pay in large demoninations.
This has been fixed.
-Kereth Midknight
Some problems with necromantic fumble effects were fixed. They should now
work (and wrap) better and have less misleading messages sent to the wrong
people.
Let me know if you notice any more problems with them.
~Nerina
New spell: liturgy.
See the spell help for more information.
~Nerina
I'm updating some 'package spells' to separate their effects for more
efficient usage.
The following 'package spells' have had their effects adjusted:
Lesser miracle
Greater miracle
Impassibility (also changed from level 20 to level 6)
Additionally, the following spells have had their levels updated (and their
effects updated to match their new levels).
Manna from heaven (from level 6 to level 14)
Clarity (from lvl 14 to level 16)
The bless spell has had its effects updated to better match its level. It
will also no longer create problems for dispel magic.
And finally, the altar created by the create altar spell (help spell create
altar) has been updated. While the effects are still affected by the
prayer's alignment, there are now more options for possible results. The
more pious the prayer, the more options for blessing there are available,
but Sikkar will give his faithful only what they need. As what people need
is seldom what they want, it is now possible to pray every half-an-hour to
attempt to get the desired answer.
~Nerina
I forgot to change the duration of Manna from Heaven when I raised its
level. My bad. This has been fixed now.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
~Nerina
Blood gout has gotten a couple of changes to bring it more in line with its
description. Specifically: "This spell duplicates the effects of a
vampire's bite, but it does not require the Dakini to actually touch his
victim."
It can now be used even if you have a stat increase active, since this is
not a requirement of a vampire's bite (the suck power).
It was also checking to see if you were in combat, but this check was
presumably because you needed your victim to be unaware in order to get in
close enough to bite them. This is not the case if you don't need to touch
your victim.
The messages were also cleaned up slightly.
-Rita "the bloodletter" Wildfire
The toxicity spell should no longer lose track of who your target is if
they're poison immune.
-Kereth Midknight
Due to several bugs, fumbling the hardening or softening spells would claim
to ruin the target beyond repair but wouldn't actually do anything at all.
This has been fixed. At least, it's been fixed to the point where the
fumbles for those spells should do something sometimes.
The fact that what they do may be very little (far from "ruining beyond
repair"), that they won't affect indest items at all (and what ARE you
casting softening on, exactly?) and that failing may actually be the worse
fate, comparatively, may yet be grounds for review at some point in the
future.
For now, at least be content to know that something happens now. Except
when it doesn't.
-Kereth Midknight
The cleansing earth spell can now be cast on targets who are only
hallucinating, rather than requiring them to get drunk or poisoned before
the spell can be used to remove their hallucinations.
-Kereth Midknight
Cleansing earth was not employing the "outside only" restriction properly
and thus could have been cast indoors, if you happened to find some indoor
clean water to use for it. This has been fixed.
Cleansing earth and liege of gaia were both applying some of their cost
reduction factors repeatedly, causing their sp cost to be slightly too low.
This has been fixed. Cleansing earth's sp cost has increased from 60 to 72.
Liege of gaia's cost has increased from 202 to 225.
-Kereth Midknight
Several irregularities with the icegrip spell have been corrected. These
include, but are not limited to:
Icegrip no longer has a cost well in excess of similar spells in other
guilds (cost reduced from 480 sp to 125 sp)
Icegrip can no longer be cast on a weapon that has had a sticky or laniard
applied to it.
-Kereth Midknight
The regen provided by the igloo spell has been adjusted to be on spec for
its level.
-Kereth Midknight
Demonic gift has been updated to better match similar spells on similar
levels.
~Nerina
As amusing as it was to imagine snowdrifts in midair, the effect had other
implications, such as melting snowdrifts to fill midair rooms with water,
which could spiral out to even more absurd implications. To put reasonable
bounds on the madness, the snowdrift spell has been adjusted to match other
on-the-ground only field spells, like raise cromlech.
-Kereth Midknight
The 'destroy' command for summoned sledgehammers should now be documented
in the spell help, rather than just in the item description.
-Kereth Midknight
Summoned sledgehammers should no longer be heavier than most players of
their respective size stat. They should henceforth be appropriately
weighted for one handed bludgeons.
-Kereth Midknight
Battle-Rage should now use its affecting stat (con) rather than wis when
determining its duration.
-Kereth Midknight
The intellect fortress spell should now have a duration more appropriate to
its level and effects.
-Kereth Midknight
Wisps left behind by players using the shadowgate spell should no longer be
targettable as "monster"
-Kereth Midknight
The create fetish spell should now have an affecting stat (wis).
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the steal life spell should be slightly more explicit
about what that "life force" nonsense is all about in this case.
-Kereth Midknight
The dues formula for reincarnation was accidentally basing the amount of
dues saved (partially) off of the exp worth of the caster instead of the
person reincarnating. Thus the more you were worth and the less they lost,
the more dues you'd receive, so optimal dues were obtained by a high level
druid reincarnating a low level character, and low level druids would be
hard pressed to earn much of anything at all.
This has been corrected. Druids performing reincarnations should now get
dues based on how much exp they managed to save the recipient, as intended,
with optimal dues obtained when the recipient had lots of exp to lose but
only lost a little of it. Wisdom and training will, as always, help the
druid to achieve this more reliably.
-Kereth Midknight
The following spells should now list in their helpfiles the stats that
affect the wc of the items they summon (No, I'm not sure why size is in
there. I'm just documenting it):
summon scalpel
summon psisword
wand trick
summon hammers
Furthermore, the summon hammers spell has been brought into line with the
others. It is no longer uncapped in its wc possibilities with theoretical
possibilities* of artifact level weapons, but nor is it harder for its
level to get decent wc compared to similar spells.
-Kereth Midknight
* Existing gear and levels put some constraints on exactly how possible
such weapons would be, but they remained in the realm of distant
possibility.
The helpfiles for faerie stroke or force of nature were claiming that the
spells do acid damage if they were checked in circumstances where (barring
the effects of nantural affinity) the spells would actually do physical
damage.
This has now been corrected. The spell helps should show physical damage as
the damage type in appropriate locations (any location where they would, if
they caster does not have natural affinity trained,* deal physical damage).
-Kereth Midknight
* There may exist outdoor areas that do not have a terrain set. If so,
these areas will cause the spells to do physical damage despite being
outdoors and regardless of training in natural affinity. Such areas should
be bugrepped to the relevant world file.
Clarification: Indoor rooms show physical damage, regardless of training in
natural affinity. That is not a bug with the room. There is no need to rep
them. Indoor rooms don't have a valid terrain set because they're indoors.
-Kereth Midknight
Faerie stroke and force of nature's help files have been updated. If
successful skill check in natural affinity is made when viewing the helps
indoors, the resulting dtype will be shown.
~Nerina
Feather weight should now appropriate add the correct
short description spelling, ids and long description.
Wxyz the buoyant
Casting demonic gift on an insufficiently evil target would result in the
spell claiming that the target was "not evil enough to recieve demon's
gift," but then going ahead and letting the spell be cast anyway. This
should now be corrected. When it tells you they're not evil enough, it will
now actually mean it.
-Kereth Midknight
While the feather weight spell effect itself was corrected,
the spell help and other help files didn't get the memo.
If other buoyant like things need a bobbing, let me know.
Wxyz
The spell, eldritch ragefire, was set to be an "elemental" category spell
when by all rights it probably should have been an "earth" category spell.
This has been corrected. Those with the spell trained should notice the
category bonuses affecting the spell shifting accordingly, and prime mages
will likely observe the resulting change in training cost.
-Kereth Midknight
If you are too tired, you won't be able to effectively
recover vestiges from your victim.
Wxyz
Rebalance to make focus heart chakra in line with other level 10 heal
spells.
Help for spell: focus heart chakra
Type: Healing
Base Healing: 500 Animal Healing: 500
Fish Healing: 500 Insect Healing: 500
Plant Healing: 500 Non-Flesh Healing: 500
Undead Healing: 500 Alignment Healing: 0
Casting time: 3 rounds Spell cost: 84
EP cost: 22 HP cost: 0
Spell level: 10 Spell category: psionic
Affecting stats: int Resisting stats: None
Offensive: No Location: Anywhere
Target: caster Range: close
Components: V
Alignment:
-=Spell Description=-
This spell heals the psionicist in exchange for both
spell points and endurance points.
The greater identify spell should now show valid targetting ids for the
item even if the item is wearable or wieldable (whereas previously it would
show valid targets only for non-equippable items).
-Kereth Midknight
The distraction auction spell's check for whether or not the target can
understand the caster should be more akin to similar checks in other
abilities in the future. I.E. the auction will now be understood by
creatures such as vipyrs and centaurs, but it will no longer be understood
by, for example, a giant squid or a gelatinous cube.
-Kereth Midknight
Telekinetic Spray is crazy broken... bugrep sent but hoping this gets
noticed quicker here:
Help for spell: telekinetic spray
Type: Area attack spell
Damage Types:
Physical: 100%
Disintegration: 80%
Fire: 80%
Cold: 80%
Psionic: 20%
Asphyxiation: 80%
Acid: 80%
Illusion: 80%
Harm: 80%
Maximum Damage: 2233
Additional Effects: No
Casting time: 6 rounds Spell cost: 81
Spell level: 13 Spell category: psionic
Affecting stats: Int Resisting stats: None
Offensive: Yes Location: Anywhere
Target: notarget Range: room
Components: S
Alignment:
-=Spell Description=-
The psionicist, once he is able to exert a great amount of control over an
object, becomes able to control multiple objects at once. The psionicist
is
then able to fling them at his opponents wreaking havoc on them.
This spell works on a military unit.
=====================
*** NEW ROUND ***
--- HP:1507/1589 SP:3618/3651 EP:597/711
You hit Hunter 4 times. (11)
You are done invoking your magic.
You let loose a spray of objects at Hunter, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Boar and
Snake!
Chimpanzee is obliterated! (12794)
Boar is obliterated! (12780)
Gorilla is obliterated! (12899)
Snake is obliterated! (12884)
Hunter is obliterated! (12753)
The following bugs with the telekinetic spray spell have NOT been fixed
(fixes forthcoming):
Against certain mobs, the telekinetic spray spell will crash mid-cast,
using up ammo but dealing no damage. This is a complicated issue involving
the mob's settings for who is and is not an ally in the room. Long story.
The following bugs with the telekinetic spray spell HAVE been fixed:
The spell would do double damage with nonphysical ammo, dealing 100%
physical damage, then 20% psionic damage, then 80% nonphysical damage. This
is no longer the case.
If the spell crashed mid-cast due to the earlier-mentioned bug while trying
to cast using non-physical damage ammo, the 80% nonphysical damage with
stay with the spell for the rest of boot and be added to the total damage
for all later casts until that damage type of ammo was cast with
successfully. Best case scenario, together with the second bug, this could
allow for spells that dealt up to 120% + (80 * total nonphys damage types)%
its base damage.
I haven't checked, but it's entirely possible this may have even been going
up to 120% + (80% * total number of times the spell crashed regardless of
damage type) damage, with no upper limit.
Anyway, that one's fixed too. The first bug's fix will come later when I
have time to investigate further. If you notice any other weirdness, please
report it.
-Kereth Midknight
Actually, nevermind, I see the problem with the spell crashing already.
That should be fixed now too.
-Kereth Midknight
Chakra Glow should now take into account the affecting stats it says it
does.
Wxyz
Focus belly chakra should no longer give an extra message about your total
ep/sp after casting before it's done calculating your final total.
-Kereth Midknight
The vengeance spell should now have appropriate fail and fumble effects.
Wxyz
The hire mercenary skill should have proper formatting in its "tells" and
properly respect custom settings for tell color.
-Kereth Midknight
Several minor resistance spells had their bonus categories set in a way
which was unsystematic and/or counterintuitive and which corresponded
badly, or not at all, to the guilds in which they are placed. They should
be properly organized now. You'll notice the following minor resistance
spells having changed:
Acid: water -> fire
Illusion: nature -> air
Electrical: water -> air
Asphyxiation: air -> water
Cold: earth -> water
-Kereth "I assume I'm going to have to go look at majors now, aren't I?"
Midknight
The major resistance spells have had their bonus categories updated to
match the changes to the minor resistance spells.
-Kereth Midknight
The imprisonment spell has sought help for coping with its colorblindness.
It should give appropriate color messages in the future, depending on the
results of the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
Peril is now an unholy category spell, rather than alteration.
-Kereth Midknight
The object transport spell should be more like other spells in its target
acquisition (for the object to be transported). It should allow targetting
by other senses than sight now, when applicable, as well as actually caring
whether or not the caster is able to locate the object they're casting at.
-Kereth Midknight
The mind saturation spell should now have an affecting stat.
-Kereth Midknight
The suspended animation spell should now actually increase the caster's
regen while it is in effect, rather than just paralyzing them and giving
them a haste effect that lasts as long as the paralysis does (which would
give them extra attacks in combat, were they not paralized, but not
actually make them regen faster).
The paralysis time has similarly been reduced to a somewhat more reasonable
level, and it should no longer be drastically increased with training in
focus crown chakra.
The cost has been reduced to no longer be so high that you're unlikely to
recoup your losses on sp during the duration of the spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The suspended animation spell should no longer give a lasting (until
boot/relog) boost to the user's hpr following each use. My bad.
-Kereth Midknight
The reduce gravity spell should now be refreshable.
A simple recast will renew the effects.
Wxyz
In the unfortunately case of carrying too much stuff, a cultist
invoking evil resurrection should no longer lose their beloved contract.
I suspect that if the signer of the contract were to grab it as it falls
to the ground, the cultist may have little recourse though.
Wxyz
The identify spell should no longer produce sensitive mind errors when
targeting a hashish potion.
-Kereth Midknight
The elementalize spell was designed to scale its effect according to the
stats/training of the user, up to a fairly easily reachable cap. For armor,
this was handled fairly sensibly. For weapons, the minimum requirement to
reach the cap involved roughly 7% training and 0 stats.
In the future, alchemists will find the requirements to reach the weapon
cap to be at least a teensy bit more demanding, assuming you notice the
change at all.
-Kereth Midknight
The helpfile for the summon wicker dog spell has been updated to indicate
the perk it has which distinguishes it from the oracular spirit.
-Kereth Midknight
The chain whip spell should now inform you when it is unable
to handle your target, instead of just silently staring in
judgement.
Wxyz
The following spells have had their affecting stat changed from wisdom to
wisdom and strength:
acid wave
cold wave
disintegration wave
electric wave
fire wave
harm wave
poison wave
unholy wave
The follow new spells have been added to the game:
asphyxiation wave
illusion wave
imbue illusion
imbue asphyxiation
-Nerina
Bearskin was balanced for its new level in Shaman guild, but I forgot to
actually change the level of the spell. This has been fixed.
-Nerina
Fundamental Blast is back online
The hardening and softening spells appear to have had a
very longstanding bug where fumbling these spells would
not execute the fumble function correctly.
A warning that this has been corrected.
Wxyz
PS At this time protect/protect armor/protect weapon do
not currently have any fumble effects. Which may or
may not be intended.
PPS Having hardening/softening making gear unusable
and requiring reforging upon fumbling also seems rather
harsh.
The psychic sensitivity spell should now inform the user when it cannot be
cast for some reason, such as a missing mind link or the target already
being under the spell's effects, rather than just quietly failing to do
anything.
-Kereth Midknight
The help for the intellect fortress spell listed wisdom as an affecting
stat. In actually practice, it was not getting bonuses from any stats, let
alone wisdom. Telepathy and focus root chakra were being applied, albeit to
too small a degree.
In the future:
1. The spell should list "int" rather than "wis" in its helpfile.
2. It should actually get a bonus from intelligence, whereas it never got
the bonus from wisdom at all.
3. The bonuses from telepathy and focus root chakra should be of the
appropriate size.
-Kereth Midknight
The offline spell "mirfos" (basically feast of souls) has been archived and
should no longer appear on the website or with a valid spell helpfile. As
always with clearing out old abilities, there remains a small chance that
some monster somewhere may have trained the ability. If you see sensitive
mind errors upon loading any cultist or cultist-like mobs, please report it
accordingly.
-Kereth Midknight
The subtility and feast of souls spells have been updated. Subtility had a
small cost increase and feast of souls had a more significant cost
decrease. Feast of souls also had its action duration decreased from 5 to
4.
-Kereth Midknight
Casting reduce gravity at the end of a series of prots no longer makes the
target immune to the effects of dispel magic.
-Kereth Midknight
The listed patron power cost of the demon familiar spell should actually be
charged in the future.
-Kereth Midknight
The heat armor spell has been patched up and is back online. Costs, power,
casting time and other effects have been adjusted to be in line with
general standards.
-Kereth Midknight
Elemental damage penalties were applying to nature category spells, but
training in the skill "deadly wrath" (even 0% training) was overriding the
calculation for damage bonuses to those spells. This should no longer be
the case. If you have cryomancer levels, you should see a higher number
when checking the help for "blighting frost" the same as you do when
checking the help for "cold ball."
Please note that no, you still can't actually combine electromancer+druid
blast path for higher cumulative effect with call lightning.
-Kereth Midknight
Softening (seriously? Do you cast softenig on things that aren't indest for
some reason? I'm not clear why this has a risk of damaging on failure.) and
hardening should no longer:
1. Be able to do more damage to an item on a fail than they do on a fumble.
2. Be able to do so much damage to an item that you have a greater risk of
breaking the item by casting hardening on it than you do by using it while
not hardened (assuming that in either case the weapon is properly repaired
in advance).
-Kereth Midknight
Nevermind, softening spell was patched at some point to override all the
relevant code with its own stuff (which does what the helpfile says, which
helpfile I apparently failed to read), so the prior fix only applies to the
hardening spell.
-Kereth Midknight
The activate thorns spell should now use the appropriate component
type as designed.
Wxyz
Casting greater identify with exp on a shield that has nonphysical damage
should, hopefully, no longer result in being told that the shield has a
problem and should be reported to a wizard.
-Kereth Midknight
The help for the spell "summon druidic implement" should no longer falsely
claim that the water skins it provides are already full.
The talking skull spell now has int as an affecting stat.
-Kereth Midknight
The following special traits should now appear for armor when subjected to
greater identify:
See magic
The following special traits should now appear for weapons when subjected
to greater identify:
See in ultra dark
See in dark
See in light
See in ultra light
Mindsight
Enhanced smell
Enhanced hearing
See invisible
See magic
Flight
Wings
Changes should be live for armor immediately. Most weapons will not begin
revealing their powers until boot.
-Kereth Midknight
When someone causes someone else to move (such as guiding the party as the
contingency leader), but that movement is prevented by one of the following
effects, a message about why it failed should now be displayed to the
person attempting to cause the movement:
Chaos shelter
Chi sphere
Cromlech
Faerie ring
Glorious light
Graveyard
Ground shelter
Igloo
Mead hall
Sanctuary
Serene environs
Shelter
Stasis
Teufels tomb
-Kereth Midknight
P.S. I changed some punctuation on the blocked-by-cromlech message. Just an
F.Y.I. in case somebody needs to update any trigs.
The daemon form (obtainable via certain spells) should now have its (lack
of) racial powers indicated in "help race powers."
-Kereth Midknight
The stage experience spell should now list the stat that affects it in the
helpfile.*
-Kereth Midknight
* As such, this stat is also now its "affecting stat" for more general
purposes.
The spiritual healing and closing wound spells have been updated. Both
should get the usual bonuses for being self-target healing spells (not
affected by physiology), and the risk of scarring with each has been, in
keeping with the text in their helpfiles, limited to when the spells are
used in combat. Furthermore, all such risk of scarring can be reduced or
even eliminated entirely with sufficient experience.*
-Kereth Midknight
* Determining what "experience" means mechanically in this case is left as
an exercise for the reader.
The bilocation spell was not correctly listing one of its affecting stats.
That has now been corrected.
-Kereth Midknight
Okay, so it has been pointed out to me that the issue is not that the runes
are seeming vague when they're saying "enchanted" but that they are, in
fact, referring to a different eq work stacking category than they really
use, since they can be put on with "enchanted" effects just fine, just not
with other runes. I've checked into the causes, and rune carving skills
should now claim that items are "already runed" at boot.
-Kereth Midknight
page revision: 1, last edited: 22 Mar 2021 20:59
