Changes to combat skills and weapons to increase the diversity and tactics in player vs. player combat (PvP) and combat as a whole. Note that many of these changes are related to each other. It is important to consider all of the changes together, rather than looking at one change by itself. Be sure to read the entire document carefully.
Archery
The archery skill will be tweaked to balance it and make it more effective in Player vs. Player combat.
- The minimum damage on bows, crossbows, and heavy crossbows will be increased.
- The maximum damage on bows, crossbows, and heavy crossbows will be decreased a small amount.
- The rate of fire will be increased a small amount for bows, crossbows, and heavy crossbows.
- The long equip delay for all bows will be tweaked.
- Archery will have slight increase in its chance to hit when compared to other attacks.
- Issues with hitting while moving and firing will be addressed.
Poisoning
- You will not be able to heal a poisoned character through any method (healing skill, spells, potions, etc.) until they are first cured of the poison.
- All poisons will now have a minimum damage. Poison does damage based on a percentage of the target's current hit points, at low levels, poison was less effective. If the formula that determines poison damage is less than the minimum associated with the poison, then the target will take the minimum value for damage.
- Poisoned weapons will corrode unless wiped clean with oil cloth (which will be made by tailors). The more often a poisoned weapon is used before being wiped clean, the more durability it loses. You can only wipe off a blade once it has begun to corrode.
- Only one-handed bladed weapons can be poisoned.
- Having the poisoning skill will reduce the rate at which a poisoned weapon corrodes. For instance, a deadly poisoned weapon wielded by a character with over 50 poisoning would corrode as if it were greater poison. At over 99 skill, the deadly poison will corrode as if it were only regular poison. This will significantly reduce the rate at which poison corrodes a weapon when wielded by assassins (characters with the poison skill).
Parrying
The chance to successfully parry a physical (melee or archery) attack and the amount of damage absorbed upon a successful parry will now depend on the type of shield the character is using and his/her parry skill. The AR rating of a shield will determine it’s effectiveness. Shields with low AR (such as a buckler) will increase your chance to successfully parry a melee attack but will only absorb a small amount of damage. Using a shield with high AR (such as heaters and chaos/order shields) will allow you to absorb more damage but will not successfully parry a melee attack as often. Your parrying skill will increase both your chance to parry and the damage absorbed.
As an example, a fighter with 100.0 parry using a buckler will successfully parry a physical attack approximately 86% of the time. However, the shield will only absorb about 10 points of damage her successful parry. By contrast, a chaos shield used by the same warrior will allow him/her to successfully parry a physical attack about 36% of time, absorbing approximately 48 points of damage. All other shields scale in between those too shields.
Lumberjacking and Axes
The lumberjacking skill will provide a bonus to damage when the player is using one of the following axes. The higher the characters lumberjacking skill the more damage they will do up to a 25% bonus for 99.9 lumberjacking. At Grandmaster lumberjacking, the damage bonus is 35%.
- Axe
- Battle Axe
- Double Axe
- Executioner’s Axe
- Hatchet
- Large Battle Axe
- Two-handed Axe
Two-handed Weapons
Any melee weapon that requires two hands to wield will gain a special attack. The type of special attack will depend on the type of weapon used. These special attacks will only work against player characters, not against monsters or animals.
- Mace Weapon: Crushing blow, a hit for double damage. Only applies to true maces, not staves.
- Sword Weapon: Concussion blow, victim’s intelligence is halved for 30 seconds. Note the effects of a concussion blow are not cumulative, once a target is the victim of a concussion blow, they cannot be hit in that manner again for 30 seconds.
- Fencing Weapon: Paralyzing blow, victim is paralyzed for 4 seconds. Once paralyzed, the victim cannot fight back (s/he wont auto-defend) or cast spells, however s/he can still use potions and bandages. The paralysis will not break by any means, even if the victim takes damage. Once paralyzed, the victim cannot be paralyzed again with another special attack until the paralysis wears off.
Upon a successful hit, there will be a small chance to inflict one of the special attacks. The base chance to inflict one of the special attacks is 20%. A high intelligence will give a small bonus towards the chance to execute a special attack up to a total chance of 30%.
Maces
The bonus for damaging armor and lowering stamina will now be restricted to the following mace weapons:
- Mace
- War Mace
- War Hammer
- War Axe
- Hammer Pick
- Club
- Maul
Wands, staves, and smith hammers will not damage armor or reduce stamina.
Hitting and Dexterity
Currently, melee weapons check for whether a hit is successful or not in the beginning of the swing animation. This will now be scaled based on dexterity. The higher your dexterity, the earlier in your swing you hit. At very low dexterities, you will not hit until the end of your swing.
Thievery Changes
- You will be able to steal items from others while in combat. All requirements for stealing (such as being in the thieves guild) will still apply.
- You will not be removed from the thieves guild if you receive a murder count.
- Your cannot have any items (weapons, shields, spellbook, etc) in your hands when attempting to steal in combat.
- A thief will not be able to recall for two minutes after stealing an item.
Armor Changes
Armor ratings and dexterity penalties will be modified. The table below illustrates the changes:
| Armor Type |
AR Rating |
Dex Penalty (full set) |
| Plate |
40 |
-22 |
Female Plate |
30 |
-5 |
|
Chain |
28 |
-12 |
| Ring |
22 |
-6 |
| Studded Leather |
18 |
0 |
| Leather |
13 |
0 |
| Bone |
30 |
-15 |
Additionally, leather armor will not cause any meditation or stealth penalty.
Note that these changes in armor will also affect the minimum difficulty when attempting to make the armor associated with the blacksmithing skill. For items that are difficult to make already (such as plate leggings and chain tunics) the minimum difficulty will drop slightly. For easier items (such as ring-mail) the minimum difficulty will increase. The only exception to this is the minimum difficulty associated with the plate breastplate which will remain unchanged.
Recall
You will not be able to recall if you are an aggressor to another player or the pet/creature of another player. This will not be the case when attacking monsters.
Ride-able Animals Fatigue
The exploit that allows a ride-able animal to be refreshed after becoming fatigued will be addressed. Feeding a ride-able animal food will increase its stamina and all ride-able animals will have the amount of time they can be ridden before becoming fatigued increased.
Wrestling Moves
New attacks with the wrestling skill.
- Disarm
- Characters with 80 or higher in both wrestling and arms lore can attempt to disarm an opponent. If successful, any weapon or spellbook in the target’s hand will be removed and placed in the target’s backpack.
- Stun Punch
- Characters with 80 or higher in both wrestling and anatomy can attempt to stun their opponents. A successful stun punch will paralyze a target for 4 seconds. This stun punch has the same effects as the paralyze blow for fencing.
To perform one of these special attacks, players will need to set a macro to put themselves in the appropriate wrestling “mode”. Both hands must be free in order to perform a move.
- New macros called “StunPunch” and “Disarm” will facilitate this. Once in the special attack mode, the character will attempt the maneuver with each successful hit.
- If a maneuver is performed successfully the wrestler will automatically go out of their wrestling mode. There is a 10 second delay before the wrestler can perform another move.
- While in a wrestling mode, each attempt to perform a maneuver (each hit or miss) will result in a loss of 15 stamina.
- The higher a characters wrestling and other skill (anatomy or arms lore), the higher chance they will have to successfully perform the move.
- Equipping any items in your hands (weapon, shield, spellbook, etc) will automatically take you out of a wrestling mode.
Spellbooks
When casting a spell, the spellbook will automatically appear in your hands if it is not there already.
- The system will disarm you if you are carrying a weapon and place the spellbook in your hands.
- After the spell is complete, the spellbook will remain in your hands.
- If at any time during the casting of a spell the spellbook is removed from your hands (either by the player or from a wrestling "disarm" maneuver), the spell is interrupted.
Defensive Spells
Characters will only be able to have one defensive spell (magic reflection, reactive armor, or protection) active at a time. Attempting to cast one of these spells when another is already active will result in a failed cast.
Magic Reflect
The magic reflect spell will be enhanced to provide additional tactical options in player versus player combat. At this time, any spell, regardless of its circle, can be used to counter a magic reflect spell. This results in the same spell (or few spells) being used every time to bring down the reflect. This change will add variety and additional tactical options when fighting a character who has cast magic reflect.
- The level of the spell cast on a target will determine the percent chance to bring down the reflect. The more powerful the spell you cast, the better chance you have of defeating the magic reflect spell.
- If the spell is not successful in bringing down the magic reflect, the spell will be reflected back to the caster, as under the current system. However, the target will not lose their reflect spell.
- If a spell is cast and reflected, the chance for a second spell to bring down the reflect will increase. The percent chance to bring down the reflect is cumulative.
- Once a spell is cast that succeeds in bringing down the reflect spell, it will damage the target. This is true even if the first spell cast successfully breaks the reflect.
- Once a reflect is broken, there is a 10 second delay before the target can cast reflect again. This will stop players from simply casting magic reflect over and over again.
- The power of a reflect spell will also be dependent on the caster’s intelligence.
- The higher your intelligence, the more powerful your reflect will be. More powerful reflects will be more difficult to bring down, and conversely, weaker reflects (cast by those with lower intelligence) will be easier to bring down.
- The mind blast spell will look at the caster's stats to determine damage if it is reflected back onto the caster.
- Items of reflection will take 60 seconds to charge.
- After equipping a reflect item there will be a 60 second delay before the reflect is active.
- This will use only one charge from the item.
- The reflect will act in the same manner as if it had been cast by the character wearing the item.
- Once the reflect is broken, the wearer must wait 60 seconds before the item will place another reflect spell.
Reactive Armor
The reactive armor spell will absorb damage based on the Evaluate Intelligence, Meditation, and Inscription skill of the caster. The higher these three skills, the more total damage will be absorbed before the reactive armor spell is exhausted. A mage at grandmaster level in all three skills can absorb approximately 75 points of damage.
With each hit, only 10% of the damage will actually affect the caster, the reactive armor spell will absorb 80% of the damage. The remaining 10% will reflect back and damage the attacker. If the damage dealt from a blow exceeds the amount the reactive armor spell can absorb, then all remaining damage will affect the caster and none will be reflected back onto the attacker.
The reactive armor spell will no longer be a targetable spell. Just like magic reflection, the spell will automatically target the caster. Once the reactive armor is exhausted, the caster cannot cast another reactive armor for five minutes.
Protection
The protection spell will reduce the chance that a caster is interrupted by an attack for a limited time. The duration of the spell will be affected by the caster’s skill in magery (up to a little over three minutes) . The effectiveness of the spell will be determined by the caster’s Evaluate Intelligence, Meditation, and Inscription skills.
The protection spell will no longer be a targetable spell. Just like magic reflection, the spell will automatically target the caster. Once the spell is exhausted, the caster cannot cast the spell again for a time period equal to half the length of time that it was active (i.e.: if it was active for 3 minutes, then the caster cannot cast it again for 1 minute and 30 seconds).
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