General Questions

[Yemin]

Ta

[Zorinar]

I believe specialists do. I can't find it right now but I swear I came across a thread saying something to that measure.

Honestly at this point I think the current system makes mages better to the point that the only way to give specialists a genuine advantage would be so extreme that it wouldn't balance well.

Instead if any serious thought is being put into the future of wizards on FK. I would propose a mix of fifth edition and 3.5 where mages are your basic Masters before you pick a school specialty to do your PHD in and become a full professor.

In short, finish SoW and you become a mage automatically. Then after level 50 you can pick a specialty or choose to remain a mage with each school having no opposed schools. You get the extra spell slot per level for your school and can grand master the spells of your school.

Basically the main issues are that.

Magic in dnd is shoddy. Each spell is a special snowflake that breaks one of the standard rules in some way and because of this, there are too many considerations and uses with most of them that an automated platform like a mud doesn't deal well with them. I genuinely see no point at which simply adding spells will balance out the schools.

It would be much easier to make a standard base for the class and add extra, appropriate benefits for specializing. Perhaps don't gain any spell slots for specializing and just the chance to Gm plus access to greater spellfocus trainers in that guild. Though I'd push for the extra spell slots mostly because as far as I've seen, 9 extra slots are a nice way to push past the extra one and a half tiems more Hp that wizards have to deal with in each mob.

Before all that though. To add something appropriate to this thread. I've seen posts on here about at least balancing out the banned schools as old as 2010 if not before but to date they're still imbalanced with some schools only having 1 banned school and others having 2.

Is there some problem with updating them or is it believed that invokers still somehow merit two banned schools? while conjurers only somehow net one?

I am sure some of those posts were mine, Invokers really get a bad deal here. Although, specialists have advantages that are not readily seen that do make them better than mages in some ways, but honestly the balancing of magic is, well... not very balanced in FK. The HP increase is not 1.5, it is more like 2.5 times higher than normal, but spell damage (mostly) and weapon damage is standard, which causes a lot of the balancing issues. It is always better in the current state of FK to use the broken earth reaver and illusionist spells for your wizardly enjoyment because direct damage spells suffer due to the HP differential. The offset of extra spell slots gives wizards more spells to cast to kind of make up for the weakness but not really due to the fact that it takes more rounds, (Like around 13 empowered GM Chain Lightning's) to take out a tough fighter. Of course, that you are only supposed to get your spells once a day would make playing a wizard impossible so our Meditation system is a boon for wizards. I still feel the balancing issues, though, when playing a direct damage caster. I would enjoy seeing a move to 5th edition, I do like the balance of it where magic is concerned and how they treat specialists, and with most of the other classes as well. There would be some headaches but it would be interesting. But while I am here, I will customarily cast my vote that Invokers get only one banned school as they are dependent on weaker direct damage spells, anyway.

[Alitar]

I would enjoy seeing a move to 5th edition, I do like the balance of it where magic is concerned and how they treat specialists, and with most of the other classes as well.

Fifth is lovely. If it were to happen, I would want it across the board. Paladins and rangers would become less squishy. Fifth comes across as very balanced apart from the few gimmicky rules that interact weirdly.

[Zorinar]

Yay, another 5th edition lover out there besides me!

[Ailyn]

I too enjoy 5th, but it would be a lot of work (I am assuming this. I have not talent with building a mud after all), to change so many of the rules and numbers to match 5th.

[Yemin]

It would, I think though an updating of some design choices like wizard specialisation and paladin smite is what Alitar meant. Instead of doing a whole wipe of all mechanics to it. We have the advantage of seeing new editions of DND come out and pick and choosing what works and what did not. It's an edge that other muds do not have and we should use it as much as possible.

The paladin smite in 3.5 is gross. the one in path finder is better and I like it, but the one in fifth is fantastic and makes as much sense as anything.

[Vaemar]

Another 5th edition supporter here. Also FK anticipated the 5th edition with the ability scores capped at 20. I can't comment on magic, but in general I find that system more balanced than 3.X.

I would however refrain from the setting update, albeit some minor things, like getting back Bhaal and Myrkul, are in my opinion nice.

[Yemin]

What is an average ability stat in FK, is it still 10 or since everyone starts at 10, and some of the humanoid forms vary wildly, is it more like 13 - 14.

[Yemin]

I've noticed around the game that there are doors that are closed on one side but open on others, Should we be bugging them or putting them in the typo thread?

[Harroghty]

Neither. It generally means that the door reset whilst a PC was present on one side or the other, thus preventing the corresponding reset.

[Yemin]

Fair doos, There do seem to be doors that are perpetually open on one side but shut on the other. Even directly after reboots and in places I wouldn't have thought people would idle long enough for this to be the case.

Could be weird luck on my part though.

[Esselwyr]

Non-drow characters resisting magic

One of my prayers echoed a resistance. I chalked it up to maybe my gear, protective spells (no magic resistance), etc. But I tried it on another elf, who swears he's not part drow and he also echoed the resistance. Should I log this as a bug the next time it occurs?

[Areia]

Some helpful spells can be resisted for various reasons. Neutralise poison, for instance, will be resisted if you already have poison immunity active, I think spells like remove curse, cure blindness, etc. echo resistance or something similar if there is no curse, blindness, etc. to cure. And so on.

Depends on the spell you were casting and such.

[Talos]

For the incident in question, magic circle and protection prayers will not stack. One is the mass version of the other.

[Yemin]

Why is there a command lock for brewing and scribing?
As in, why was it designed so you can't do anything after a brew or scribe attempt for some 30 seconds.

At first I thought it was so that if you exploded the ongoing damage would simulate you scrambling around trying to escape... but that doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny. Wouldn't it have been simpler to deliver all of the damage in the initial blast and let you continue? These skills are dangerous I know, but any level 2 resist spell should be able to shave off enough damage to stop you from dying from head or chest trauma.

Just seems weird.

Also, what's the thinking behind not being able to cast spells whilst sitting or kneeling?

In both cases I'm not looking for a change, just curious as to how these things came about.

[Alitar]

I imagine the delay is so you can't pump out potions like the USSR pumped out tanks. It takes time to brew and heat up the materials and cast the spell and bottle it and let it sit the appropriate amount of time. Or something. My guess.

[Areia]

That would be my guess, also. Same thing with scribing, lapidary, tanning, and pretty much every other craft-styel trade/skill I know of. Simulates time taken to create whatever the product is and limits somewhat mass production.

[Yemin]

I see. I suppose this makes some sense. I guess it was easier to make a short 30 second delay than capping magic item creation to 1 item a day like in 3.5 Or was it no more than 1000 gp worth of items a day? can't remember at this point.

P.S. Its not working as a mass produce deterant lol.

[Danik]

What is the difference between the attack bonus (AB) and the hit bonus? On my score sheet I see my hit bonus next to my damage, then above it I see an AB for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc attacks. The AB doesn't seem to change when I change combat mode.

[Yemin]

For the sake of simplicity I want to note that i'm fudging things a little and leaving some stuff out.


Your AB is the base bonus that is added to all your attack D20 rolls.

Your hit bonus is an additional number, usually made up of a combination of your strength, enhancement bonuses, magical bonuses from your weapon and combat mode.

So let me give you an example.

A fighter at level 50 has an AB of +20
That means on the first attack he makes, he automatically gets a +20 added to his roll to attack whether wielding a weapon or not.

If he wields a nonmagical weapon and for the sake of argument let's say he's not using any combat modes and has no feats, you will see his hit bonus is exactly equal to his strength modifier. Which in this case is +4 from an 18 strength.

This means now he gets a +24 to hit on the first attack of every round.

A fighter though, has five attacks per round and whenever your char trains a different attack skill your score sheet will reflect it.

Each consecutive attack is made at a -5 which is already taken into account on your score sheet.

His original AB is 20, second AB will be 15, third AB 10 and so on.

But keep in mind that +4 from your strength is still added to each, so in totals it will be:

First attack 1D20+24
second attack 1D20+19
third attack 1D20+14 and so on.

This is why fighters will almost never miss their first attack, no matter being cursed, blinded or what have you. but wizards with their AB of +10 at level 50 easily miss stuff with a high enough AC.
In essence your AB is derived only from your class and level, nothing els affects it. But your hit bonus comes from a bunch of stuff like your stats and magic that you can affect.

This is pretty much all you need to know about AB and hit bonus. The complicated stuff happens when magic, feats and combat modes get onto the scene but above are the basics.