This week's dev activities are up for our reading please:

Weekly Development Activities

In QA

These items are currently in testing for release in Module 6.

General

• The Level Cap has increased to 16!
• Player characters that have been rendered unconscious but have stabilized will very slowly regenerate health until they wake up at 1 hit point. Warforged auto-stabilize and repair at a rate of 1 hit point every 2 minutes while inert, the other races regenerate at a rate of 1 hit point every minute while unconscious but stable.
• You can now use the command “/resloc” to find out where you will resurrect when you die.
• Favored Enemy: Orc can now be taken during character generation by rangers.
• Fixed an issue where other player's movement may appear to stutter
• You will now be notified when a player picks up your soulstone with a message and alert: "Your soulstone has been picked up by <name>."
• Torel the Wizard can no longer sit and spin while using rest shrines.
• An adjustment has been made to ranged combat to prevent players from missing the target when it is moving in certain ways.
• When struck by a critical, the visual effects will only play once a second instead of each time, to help with the frame rate.
• Traps are nastier on Hard and Elite, and more forgiving on Solo difficulty. Detection and disable difficulties are unchanged.
• We have added support for the Logitech G15 Keyboard LCD displays.
• The Mail UI now has two separate lists of mail. Confirmed mail - Mail sent by the game (ie auction mail), alt characters, current friends, current guildmates, and admins. Unconfirmed mail - Mail from players who are not currently on your friends list or in your guild. There is aslo a "Delete All" button which allows you to delete all unconfirmed mail.
• You can no longer send mail to character who have you squelched.
• Rest Shrines on landscape, solo, and normal difficulties are now reusable. Landscape and Normal difficulty rest shrines reset after fifteen minutes, Solo difficulty rest shrines reset after five minutes.
• NEW Adventurers using ranged attacks will now be able to get a better aim while standing still, than when moving. Ranged combat now has an attack bonus progression while the player is standing still, similar to melee combat. Moving while attacking will interrupt the progression of attack bonuses.

UI Improvements

• Bringing up the enhancement panel will now remove players from mouse-look mode.
• Examination tooltips now appear when hovering over the text of an item in a "choose your rewards" window and chests.
• Guild login and logout messages will now show up in the chat window. You can turn these messages off via a new option under the UI tab in the Options UI.
• On the Create Party Panel:
  • A button has been added allowing the player to clear the selected quest.
  • If a player has made changes to their party criteria and closes the panel, they will be asked if they wish to apply the changes before the menu is closed.
  • The "Update my party" button will no longer be ghosted initially. Clicking this button will auto-select the "Advertise my party" check box.
• When clicking in the 3D world after typing in the chat window, the game will now recognize your change in focus, while also preserving the text you typed.
• Bringing up the enhancement panel will now remove players from mouse-look mode.
• Critical spell hits now show up larger in the floaty text.
• New party commands:

  /party invite <name>

  /party dismiss <name>

  /party promote <name>

  /party leave

  /party disband

  /party raid

  /party normal

• NEW While using Mouse-look mode, some dialog boxes will now cause the cursor to appear until the dialog is acknowledged

Shopping

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• Added a "Sell Gems" button to the sell window of vendors which buy gems. Hitting this button will sell all unsecured gems in your inventory as well as all gems contained in all of your gem bags.
• Collectable and gem bags will now appear in the Miscellaneous category of the auction house.

Spells

[/b]New Spells

• Polar Ray
  • Evocation [Cold]
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 8
  • Deals 1d6 per caster level (max 25d6) cold damage to an enemy with a ray of freezing ice and air.

• Sunburst
  • Evocation [Light]
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 8
  • A globe of searing radiance explodes silently to blast targets for 6d6 of light damage in addition to permanently blinding them. Oozes and Undead take 1d6 per caster level damage. A successful Reflex save reduces the damage by half and negates the blindness. Light fearing undead may be instantly destroyed by this spell

• Charm Monster, Mass
  • Enchantment (Charm) [Mind-Affecting]
  • Level: Brd 6, Sor/Wiz 8
  • Casts Charm Monster on multiple targets. Charmed monsters will fight as trusted allies but get additional saves every 3d6+12 seconds. A successful Will save negates this effect.

• Cure Critical Wounds, Mass
  • Conjuration (Healing)
  • Level: Clr 8
  • Casts Cure Critical Wounds on multiple targets. Positive energy is channeled to heal critical wounds of allies or damage undead for 4d8 +1 per caster level (max +20). Undead who make a successful Will save reduce the damage by half.

• Firestorm
  • Evocation [Fire]
  • Level: Clr 8
  • A storm causes an area to become shot through with sheets of roaring flame, causing 1d6 per caster level fire damage to targets in its area. (Max 20d6)

• Horrid Wilting
  • Necromancy
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 8
  • Deals 1d6 per caster level (max 20d6) damage to living targets by evaporating moisture from their bodies. Deals 1d8 per caster level (max 20d8) damage to water subtype outsiders and plants.

• Inflict Critical Wounds, Mass
  • Level: Clr 8
  • Casts Inflict Critical Wounds on multiple targets at range inflicting 4d8 +1 per caster level (max +20) damage or healing undead a like amount. A successful Will save reduces the damage by half.

• Otto's Irresistible Dance
  • Enchantment (Charm) [Mind-Affecting]
  • Level: Brd 6, Sor/Wiz 8
  • At your touch, enemies feel an irresistible urge to dance and begin doing so, complete with foot shuffling and tapping. The spell makes it impossible for the enemy to do anything other than caper and prance in place.

• Shout, Greater
  • Evocation [Sonic]
  • Level: Brd 6, Sor/Wiz 8
  • Emits an ear-splitting yell that deafens and deals 10d6 sonic damage and stuns targets in its path. A successful Fortitude save halves the damage and negates the stun.

• Summon Monster VIII
  • Conjuration (Summoning)
  • Level: Clr 8, Sor/Wiz 8
  • Summons a bezekira to fight for you for a brief time. Casting this spell locks out casting any other Summon Monster spell for 8 minutes.

• Trap the Soul
  • Conjuration (Summoning)
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 8
  • Forces a creature's life force and its material body into a gem on a failed Will save. Although this essentially 'kills' the target, it is not a death effect and functions on creatures such as undead (but not most constructs). This spell requires a khyber dragonshard as a special material component, and can affect creatures of up to 30 hit dice.

• (Note: The quality of the gem required varies on the hit dice of the targeted creature. Three versions of this spell exist using a spell selector, appropriate for creatures of up to 10 HD, 20 HD, and 30 HD.)

• Seek Eternal Rest
  • Conjuration (Healing)
  • Level: Clr 2, Pal 1
  • Grants a +4 Sacred bonus to level for the purposes of turning undead.

• Bards gain access to the following existing spells:
  • Cat's Grace, Mass; Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass; Eagle's Splendor, Mass; Fox's Cunning, Mass; Heroes' Feast; and Summon Monster VI
• Power Word: Blind
  • Enchantment (Compulsion)
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 7
  • One creature with 600 or fewer current hit points is blinded.
    • • 150 or fewer HP: Blinded permanently
      • 151 to 300 HP: Blinded for minutes
      • 301 to 600 HP: Blinded for rounds
• Power Word: Stun
  • Enchantment (Compulsion)
  • Level: Sor/Wiz 8
  • One creature with 450 or fewer current hit points is stunned.
    • 150 or fewer HP: Stunned for a long duration
    • 151 to 300 HP: Stunned for a moderate duration
    • 301 to 450 HP: Stunned for a short duration
• Merfolk's Blessing
  • Transmutation
  • Level: Brd 1, Rgr 1, Sor/Wiz 1
  • Grants one ally per caster level a +10 enhancement bonus to Swim, plus one per two caster levels.
• Ram's Might
  • Transmutation
  • Level: Rgr 1
  • Enlarges the hands of the caster, granting a +2 size bonus to Strength and damage.

• Master's Touch
  • Divination
  • Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1
  • Range: Personal
  • The caster gains proficiency with all simple and martial weapons for one minute per caster level.

General Spell Changes

• A Paladin's Aura of Courage will no longer cause various other spell effects to repeat over and over. The Aura of Courage bonus has also been changed to a Sacred Bonus to Will Saves vs. Fear, and as such, will stack with Morale effects.
• Acid Rain now uses a normal "attack spell" animation instead of the one associated with summons and lingering clouds.
• Touch of Idiocy no longer permits Heighten, as it has no save.
• Stone to Flesh can no longer be cast on "self", since statues are rarely capable of casting spells.
• Cure <various> Wounds spells, including the Mass Cures, can no longer be Heightened as Clerics can already freely cast the higher level versions of those spells and are the ones most likely to use them as offensive spells against Undead. Note that the Heal spell is unaffected by this change as there are more circumstances under which you may wish to Heighten the spell.
• Freedom of Movement will now protect against the Crippling weapon effect. This change will include some monsters with wards that are similar to Freedom of Movement.
• Self targeting spells should no longer ever be "blocked".
• The Holy Sword spell now creates Holy Burst weapons rather than Holy weapons.
• Shocking Grasp can no longer be Heightened, as it has no save.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

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New Feats

• Force of Personality
  • Prerequisite: Cha 13
  • Benefit: Picks the highest modifier between your charisma and your wisdom
  • modifier for your will saves.
• Insightful Reflexes
  • Prerequisite: Int 13
  • Benefit: Picks the highest modifier between your intelligence and your dexterity modifier for your reflex saves.
• NEW Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting
  • Prerequisites: Str 12, Two-Weapon Fighting
  • Benefit: When wielding a one handed weapon in your off-hand, you take penalties for fighting with two weapons as if you were wielding a light weapon in your off-hand. (Essentially, you gain the +2 bonus for wielding a light weapon in your off-hand even if it’s not a light weapon.)
  • Special: Fighters may select Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting as one of their Fighter bonus feats.

General Feat Changes:

• Improved precise shot is now a toggle feat and can be performed with untargetted shots.
• NEW Combat stances, metamagic feats, and improved precise shot now will stay toggled through logout and after death/resurrection.

New Abilities

• Barbarians now possess a new ability in the feats section of their character sheet. "Dismiss Rage" can be used at any time to prematurely end their barbarian rage. Note that you will still be subject to fatigue from your rage, and it functions only on the barbarian class ability - you cannot dismiss any other rage like effects.
• New Rogue Special Abilities:
  • Skill Mastery: A rogue with this ability gains +1 to all skills. This ability may be taken multiple times.
  • Defensive Roll: Grants the rogue a chance to cheat death when critically injured. When below 20% health, a rogue with Defensive Roll has a chance equal to their total Reflex Save Modifier of taking half damage from melee or ranged weapon attacks, and negating any special effects associated with the attack as if the rogue were blocking. Defensive Roll is subject to the same armor and encumbrance restrictions as the Evasion class skill.
  • Slippery Mind: Grants the rogue a second chance to avoid harmful enchantments. Upon failure of a Will Save vs. Enchantments, the rogue immediately receives a second attempt at the saving throw.
• Rogues now can choose which special ability (Improved Evasion, Crippling Strike, Defensive Roll, Slippery Mind, or Skill Mastery) they desire when they reach levels 10, 13, or 16 rather than having one automatically assigned to them. In addition, Rogues can now swap these special abilities for others as if they were feats.

General Skills, Feats & Abilities changes

• Crippling strike now occurs with ranged sneak attacks using bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons.
• The intimidate skill has always factored in the size of your target. You get a bonus when attempting to intimidate creatures that are smaller than you and get a penalty against creatures that are larger than you. The description for this skill now explains this.
• Greater two weapon fighting now enables an extra left hand attack hook while standing, making it more consistent with mobile attacks.
• NEW The deepwood sniper enhancement is an active feat that lets you let loose your next shot with an arrow that has +4 to hit, +1 to critical threat range, and +1 to the critical damage multiplier. This ability can be performed every 10 seconds and works in conjunction with many shot, improved precise shot, and whatever bow/arrow effects are in play.

Enhancements

[/b]New Enhancements:

• NEW Ranger/Elven Arcane Archer I:
  • Prereqs: Ranger 6 or Elf 9, +6 Base Attack Bonus, Weapon Focus: Point Blank Shot, any one of: Elven Arcanum I, Bard Music of Energy I, Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded I, Wizard Energy of the Scholar I, or Mental Toughness
  • Benefit: Grants 20 spell points and the ability to conjure +1 returning arcane arrows at will. Also grants the ability to make a ranged attack as a True Strike with a +20 bonus to hit.
• NEW Ranger Arcane Archer II:
  • Prereqs: Ranger level 9, Ranger Arcane Archer I.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +2 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Ranger Arcane Archer III:
  • Prereqs: Ranger level 12, Ranger Arcane Archer II.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +3 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Ranger Arcane Archer IV:
  • Prereqs: Ranger level 15, Ranger Arcane Archer III.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +4 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Ranger Arcane Archer V:
  • Prereqs: Ranger level 18, Ranger Arcane Archer IV.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +5 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Elven Arcane Archer II:
  • Prereqs: Elf level 11, Elven Arcane Archer I.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +2 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Elven Arcane Archer III:
  • Prereqs: Elf level 14, Elven Arcane Archer II.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +3 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Elven Arcane Archer IV:
  • Prereqs: Elf level 17, Elven Arcane Archer III.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +4 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Elven Arcane Archer V:
  • Prereqs: Elf level 20, Elven Arcane Archer IV.
  • Benefit: Your conjured arrows now possess a +5 enhancement bonus.

• NEW Ranger Deepwood Sniper I:
  • Prereqs: Ranger 6, Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus: Ranged, Ranger Hide 2, Ranger Move Silently 2, Ranger Spot 2.
  • Benefit: Grants a +1 bonus to Hide, Move Silently, and Spot. Also grants the ability to take an aimed 'sniper shot' with a +4 bonus to hit, +1 critical threat range, and +1 critical threat multiplier.

• NEW Ranger Tempest I:
  • Prereqs: Ranger 6, Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack.

    Benefit: Grants a stacking bonus to dual wield attack speed and a +2 bonus to armor class while dual wielding.

General Enhancement Changes

• Many enhancement descriptions have been clarified to reduce confusion about their benefits.
• The Bard enhancement "Music of the Dead" is now trainable at level 6 instead of level 7.
• The Rogue: Way of the Assassin active abilities now have an increased chance of applying their poison effects on sneak attacks. (33% chance per hit, rather than 25%)

Items

• For all normal chests, players who are not in the dungeon at the time the chest is opened with not get loot from the chest and will not be able to have loot re-assigned to them. For all raid chests, players who are not in the dungeon at the time the raid boss is killed will not have loot generated for them and cannot have loot re-assigned to them.
• An issue with thrown weapons not dealing appropriate damage and not having appropriate to hit rolls has been fixed.
• Bashing damage from the shield Ward of Undeath is now flagged as Good.

• Blessed Cold Iron Khopeshes, Blessed Cold Iron Mauls and Blessed Cold Iron Heavy Picks will now always be sold at the Divine Reagent vendor in Feather Fall's Apothecary. House Jorasco.
• A problem with UMD devices becoming unequipped when logging in has been fixed.

• When an item is unequipped while a character is offline, (because a spell wore off, for example.) the item will no longer appear as if it is still equipped.
• Corrected issues with Everbright effect and weapons made of special materials (adamantine, mithril etc.). These weapons should all now have full time protection from item wear caused by rust and acid.
• Critical hit effects on weapons were preventing in certain rare circumstances sneak attack damage from applying. This has been fixed.
• Darkweave Armor and Darkleaf Breastplates can now be found in treasure chests throughout Xendrik.
• Various barkskin potions have been added to the random potion treasure drops.
• Rapid reload now affects repeating crossbows.
• Great Crossbows now deal 2d8 damage, with a 18-20/x2 critical threat range. This should be retroactive to all existing Great Crossbows.
• Reducing a character's Charisma will now only reduce that character's Turn Undead Attempts if the current number of attempts is greater than the new maximum number of attempts.

[b]NPC's

• Zawabi now checks to see if he can give you the demon queen raid quest before taking your items.
• A banker has been added to Zawabi's Refuge.

[u][b]Monsters

[/u]

• A troglodyte in Freshen the Air had not been scaling correctly with the difficulty level. This has been fixed.
• Beholders will no longer emit any beams while petrified.
• Charmed and summoned monsters now make noise detectable by other monsters as if they were players.
• Creatures will now only display "Zzz's" if they are magically compelled to sleep.
• Elemental arrows fired by monsters are now less flashy, but should no longer bog your client down when encountered in large numbers.
• The hill giant seers in Madstone Crater now have an immunity to charm affects because in certain circumstances being charmed could break their scripting. Now, they can't be charmed and will always pay attention to when the enchanter controlling them dies and will then become allies.
• Fixed a case where some of Whisperdoom’s Daughters would sometimes not spawn, thereby preventing progress.
• Further reduced the rate at which incorporeal enemies phase on hit to about a third of the rate it was at before.
• Monsters now have a better understanding of the world around them know what to do around doors and some area of effect spells.
• Monsters will no longer fight over each other when they're all trying to get to the same place at the same time.
• Made various improvements to patrolling creatures.

[b]Quests

• Caverns of Korromar
  • The "Source of Evil" will now be found when entering the Beholder's room, instead of when approaching him.
• Euphonia's Challenge
  • The Wizard's Stones can no longer be deleted.
• Vault of Night
  • Each player is now allowed 1 one the gifts from the Laughing Knives
• Gianthold: Cabal for One
  • A crafty Hobgoblin trap is now a bit easier to find. This does not mean it’s any easier to disable. Note also that on higher difficulty levels, it may still be incredibly difficult to spot.
• Hazadills Shipping Warehouse:
  • Fixed an unclimbable ladder.
• Prison of the Mind
  • Improved the pathing of the Arcane Oozes in this quest.
• Abandoned Keep
  • The quest will no longer care if Coyle enters the room before you do.

[b]Other Changes:

• Multi-class paladins and barbarians will now always be able to respec their feats without crashing their client.
• Using the "Sell Gems" button will now properly report your earnings instead of stating that you didn't sell anything.
• Fixed issues with greater teleport.
• Fixed a series of stuck spots in the Flesh Maker quest that players were being pushed into by some clever air elementals.
• Fixed an issue that would cause two secret doors in low road to occasionally break.
• In the Maze of Madness, a certain trap's control box has been rotated so that it faces forward.
• The optionals relating to disabling the traps now work in Missing in Action.
• Some items which were not marked as magical, such as a Minor Kinetic Lore Scepter, will now have the blue magical item background on it's icon.
• Spells should now appear in proper alphabetical order in spell lists.
• The touch of the Avatar of Jubilex will no longer make Warforged sick to their stom... err... uhh inner workings.
• Sound Changes:
  • Sound transitions in the Necropolis will no longer be so harsh.
  • Landscape music will now continue playing after engaging in combat in the Necropolis Plains.
  • Silent areas in Tempest's Spine will now have music and ambience.
• There are now fewer places in the public areas of Gianthold to get stuck.
• Fixed a trap in Foundation of Discord that wouldn't turn off if you disabled the control box.
• Path to Madness will give favor again
• The exit waypoints on several of the dungeons now correctly indicate they go the Necropolis and not the Orchard of the Macabre
• NEW On solo difficulty level, adventures now give 80% of the XP of an adventure on Normal instead of 50%.

6.8