Asherons Call: An srand-Flavoured Q&A

-Redfist- asks: A Question on Tesseras: If I accidently turn in a tessera for an untrained skill... Does it count as one of my 5? I meant to hand in a cooking Tessera but grabbed an alchemy Tessera. It told me 2 lines of text. The first was akin to "doh - wrong tessera buddy". The second was a lie "you have a gained a point of skill". The NPC didn't give the Tessera back (no biggie). I then gave the cooking Tessera and it behaved as expected. My question is... was my Tessera used count incremented by ONE or by TWO?
srand: Looking at the data, it looks like you are stamped with the quest flag for turning in a tessera whether or not the giving of the skill point succeeds.

Televangelist asks: Are new armor imbues +1% or +1 skill, and can clothing be imbued? So a full suit of 8 armor pieces or so, assuming they're all imbued, would be... +8 to melee defense/missile defense/magic defense? Or +8%? Or, if clothing cannot be imbued, +6 or +6%?
srand: +1 skill, not +1% skill, and no clothing.

The_Arwic_Mafia asks: Will resistance rending just apply to the Protection side? or to the Armor side as well.. i.e. will it reduce the effective al of armor with unparalleled to a certain element? or just reduce the life magic effects of protections?
srand: Resistance rending does not affect armor in any way.

The_Arwic_Mafia asks: Would resistance rending on a wand increase war spell damage on a person with no innate protection level?
srand: I'm not sure I understand your question. Everyone has innate protection levels for all damage types.

The_Arwic_Mafia asks: Also.. what general range would a maxed out stat expect to see from it.. would it remove completely the effects of a level 7 protection.. or just up to say half?
srand: The effect of Resistance Rending weapons scale with your attack skill. The maximum possible effect is right about a level 6 vuln.

srand: [speaking about the above three questions/answers] (By the way, when I saw weapons here, I mean melee weapons, missile weapons, and magic casters.)

vn_scourgeman asks: Might be a stupid question but...will tinkering a DI with leather also turn that item into a no drop on death item?
srand: Leather does not make an item Bonded (ie, no-drop-on-death).

Turbis_Of_MT asks: Will previous atlatls be retroactively "changed" up to their new damage mods, or are we outta luck there?
srand: No, existing loot atlatls will not be retroactively changed. It's just not feasible.

Mbaya_Red asks: Will Resistance Rending come into play when 'using' a war spell on a wand/staff/scepter using the items Spellcraft, or is it just for 'casted' spells?
srand: Rending works with both spells you cast and the inherent spell on the wand.

Arc_DT asks: Is Drain "type" Rending in the list of Resistance Rending imbues?
srand: For July, there are no "drain-type" Rending imbues.

astral_dominae asks: Can I change the convenant wield req too or only the spell activation req ?
srand: The tinkers affect activation reqs only, not wield reqs.

Kai-Ken asks: Do the chances of success for the new imbues cap at 33.33%? Or are they like normal tinkers and only count as an imbue as far as only allowing 1 per weapon?
srand: All imbues have a maximum chance of success of 33%.

Zero_Washu asks: How does resistance rendering worth with missile weapons?
srand: Quite well! (I think you are asking about damage types. Basically, if you have a Acid Rend bow and are using acid arrows, you will see a benefit. If you are using fire arrows in your Acid Rend bow, you won't see the benefit of the Acid Rend.)

Cawk asks: Also, very fuzzy on the Armor Imbues. Does this mean that a suit of Cov Armor *could* get a total of +10m (including shield) to melee defense for the character? Does Defender have any effect on armor now as well?
srand: A full set of Covenenant Armor could indeed be imbued to give you a total of +10 Melee Defense. But the spell Defender wouldn't still doesn't do anything for armor.

Zero_Washu (amongst others) asks: Slayer imbues would have been very nice :)
srand: We prefer to reserve slayer affects for quest weapons.

Madgobbo asks: Will we be able to add a racial requirement to an item if does not have one?
srand: You cannot add heritage requirements.

Mara_the_Mage asks: The LttP gives the list of imbues for Jewelry. Are going to see an expanded list for the August patch? Also, any chances that the jewelry cantrips could be added to armor or weapons?
srand: It's unlikely that we'll add more imbued minors for August -- our plate is already pretty full, and we haven't propped July yet! -- but we do plan to add more in the future. We have not yest decided if we weish to extend the ability to imbue spells to weapons and armor. That partially depends on how well these jewlery imbues are received.

Terahertz asks: Are the wand imbues really going to act like level VI vulns at high level. If so, mages will not need to vuln vs most content if they have the correct wand (heck a lifeless mage with lore and healing works). I only ask this as previous imbues on wands were MUCH weaker than the corresponding weapon imbue. I could also forsee a lot of ring spells being used on apes and bugs.
srand: One of the main reasons that CS and CB work differently for wands than for melee/missile weapons is because criticals work differently for magic. But with Resistance Rending, the effect for both magic and physical damage is the same. Remember that the actual benefit you see will depend on your skill, of course.

Az_ asks: On the Minor Health, Stamina, and Mana Gain, what kind of bonus should we expect to see? +5, 10, 15?
srand: The Minor Regen spells are all +15%.

Mara_the_Mage asks: Will the "curve" for effectiveness of resistance rending be the same for casting devices, missile weapons, and melee weapons? In other words, if someone has invested 100,000,000 exp into war magic, will they have same percentage rending as someone who invested 100,000,000 exp into bow? Will the change of criticals when using casting devices be increased to be more inline with that of missile and melee weapons?
srand: The effectiveness curve for the three weapon types (melee, missile, magic) is pretty close to equivalent. We've considered increasing the chance for magic to critical, but haven't yet come to a decision.

aurther-the-leader asks: Will the minor health stack with life giver and other cantrips?
srand: Warrior's Vitality does indeed stack with Life Giver.

Mara_the_Mage asks: Will the mana burn rates and mana tank be affected at all by the imbue?
srand: No, mana and burn rate are not affected by the jewelry imbues.

asks: Any chance you might add a tink in that will add a missile/melee/racial/rank requirement and lower arcane :) ?
srand: A tinker to add a heritage req and drop the arcane lore requirement is not currently being considered.

Thor-Battlehammer asks: Ok, suppose i tink a whole suit of covenant armor to get the +10 to meleed. does this stack with the meleed bonus on my weapon? I'm a bit confused on this. (and excited as i wear a full suit of critter6 cov armor :) )
srand: The defense bonuses and your armor stack with each other (so you can get up to +10 bonus) and stack with any spells or weapon modifiers that you have. This is a whole new category of bonus.

Mara_the_Mage asks: Is the relative frequency of each salvage type going to change to ensure that each of the imbues and new tinkers occurs on a roughly proportional basis?
srand: There are some differences in distribution between different types of tinkers/imbues, but we tried to keep the distribution within, say, the Resistance Renders about equal.

illusion24 asks: Is the "defense bonus" imbue only for melee defense, or will it apply a bonus to all defense skills (melee, missile, and magic d)?
srand: There is one imbue for Melee Defense, one for Missile Defense, and one for Magic Defense.

MoeuhaneLC asks: Does warriors vitality stack with the encrusted bloodstone jewel as well?
srand: Warrior's Vitality does indeed stack with the Encrusted Bloodstone spells.

Vesian asks: Nothing on the LTTP mentioned anything about quests...Primary concern for a few people is the Bobo rewards needing some upping and the timers on the Skill Spec/Sellback quests being separated. Usually they are mentioned on the LTTP, but since they arn't, are they being considered, even remotely, for attention at all?
srand: New quests are never mentioned in the LttP, and revised quests are only mentioned if we feel the change is very important and/or needs to be explained in detail (such as the changes to the Isparian Arms). Having said that, there are no current changes planned to the Bobo quest or to the skill timers.

Hideyoshi asks: Will we ever be able to imbue the same item more than once?
srand: We have no plans at this time to allow double imbuing of items.

Ray_XXX_of_FF asks: With the comming of adding a melee Defence bonus to armor and such. any plans on maybe being able to add mana C bonus to jewerly? like you do with armor?
srand: We have no plans at this time to add a a ManaC bonus to jewelry. That's not a bad idea though. Perhaps we'll consider it in the next round of tinkering.

Ray_XXX_of_FF asks: With the new town your adding in i have a few questions. what is sell/buy rate? what kind of venders will they have (aka all venders?) will there be a portal to this new town? and a lifestone nearby?
srand: The new town will be nice. You'll like it.

Ray_XXX_of_FF asks: The imbueing jewlery with minors is nice, but there is a problem with that i find, though: 33% success is rough when jewelry we have is already outragious hard to find. With just minors any chance of possibly increasing the % of success to like 66%? I mean majors that pop up now are going to be useful with tinkering to what you need.
srand: All imbues have a maximum chance of success of 33%.

Mara_the_Mage asks: The only existing weapon modifiers are for MeleeD. Are we going to see magicD bonuses on casting devices (it would be nice to see them on Baudren, Focusing Stone, and other quest casters) in the future?
srand: Defense modifiers on magic casters: has been discussed, is quite a controversy here *grin*, but I wouldn't count on it any time soon.

Russano_the_Wise asks: How exactly will the Resistance Rending mechanic work? Will it reduce a target's natural resistance to an element towards zero (like an armor rending weapon vs. armor), or will it just increase the damage done to the target by [skill based]%, regardless of how defended the target is to that element?
srand: Those two actions conceptually have the same effect, you know. *grin* But in this case, the actual calculation reduces the target's resistance to that element. It needs to work this way, because Resistance Rending does not stack with Vulnerability spells, so we need to sort out the effect of the Vuln from the effect of RR, only take the largest effect, and then apply that to the target's resistance. In a way, this works similarly to the way players' natural resistances interact with Protection spells.

StarchaserX asks: Since Atlatl damage modifiers are being boosted to 150%, will the new damage range on Deadly Darts be higher or lower than what they are now? It would be another insult to TW if the damage mod is upped while the ammo damage is lowered, and it might be too much love if TW Deadly Darts possess the same base damage per dart as X-bow'w quarrel. I am also assuming that TW is getting ammo revamped into a base damage range that falls between bow and x-bow. Is this correct?
srand: Atlatl dart damage is coming up to match bolt damage, although not bolt variance. Our charts show that this action, plus the damage mod adjustment, will put atlatls just about equal to crossbows in effectiveness.

Pyro-elf asks: Say you get a ring, with low WS AND no spells on it what-so-ever, meaning the mana is set for (0). Now, working similar to the Elemental Helm, it probably would activate at a no mana burn rate... Is there way to prevent such a thing in? Or is this all right...?
srand: You can only imbue magical jewelry.

illusion24 asks: Mage slayer properties have always been *ahem!* a bit on the modest side. Given the incredibly powerful set of imbues mages now have to look forward to, is there any chance that the assault orb, gaerlan wands, and isparian wands will have their slayer properties tweak up somewhat?
srand: See the July dev notes.

illusion24 asks: Many of us would probably consider using slayer property wands if it weren't for the lack of mana conversion modifier--the extra damage just doesn't make up for the extra stam to mana cycles. Is there any chance that these weapons will get mana c mods in the future?
srand: Maybe.

And srand also made a general comment about the armour imbues:

Regarding the defense imbues on armor: We started these imbues fairly conservatively. Because they are imbues, we have the option to increase the effect of the imbue later, and it will apply retroactively. (We can't do that with non-imbues because of the way they are recorded.)

On the other hand, we feel that this conservative start is not as completely useless as some posters here think. We don't really expect these imbues to be the end-all for every character in the game. Some characters will really enjoy the equivalent of an extra Moderate Invulnerability -- especially since it stacks with the real Moderate Invulnerability -- and some will not find that terribly useful. Tradeoffs, choices, variety -- that's AC.

But, as always, we'll be monitoring feedback on the armor imbues -- on all the new tinkering effects -- and making tweaks as neccesary.