Magic:
Magic is affected by two skills: magic power and magic defense as it may sound, magic power is used for calculating spell damage and penetration while magic defense is used for magical defense, a wise player will always invest some points in the latter, since magical damage is worse when defense equals 0
The effectiveness of spells is also affected by clothes, almost every type of body armor and helmets hinders it, excepting mage robes, hats and hoods (from novice to archmage) and the elven mail shirt; more advanced types of mage armor even provide a bonus to magical damage. Mage staves also provide a bonus to the magic power score, making it a must for the successful mage.
Mages will need a spell book and will learn spells through buying scrolls and wrtiting them into their spell books (via the camp menu). All spells will require different skill levels to learn.
Once in battle, Mages can open their spell books and choose known spells (access the spell book by pressing the "b" key, close the book by pressing the "v" key). The chosen spell will be automatically equipped and it's ammo, if appropriate, will be calculated using the mage's remaining spell points. So to speak, ammo limits are dynamic.
Mage's spell points will be represented by a blue bar. the higher the magic power skill, the higher the amount of spell points the mage can have and the faster they will regenerate.
Sneak attacks
The stealth trained warrior will do extra damage to his/her foes when attacking him from behind, on foot and using a specific list of weapons which goes as follows:
- elven warblade
- drow combat dagger
- knife
- sickle
- club
- short swords
- gwilith
- strange short sword
- drow stealth sword
- drow assassin's sword
- elven short swords
- dagger
- darts
- war darts
- throwing knives
- ambush bow
- drow crossbow
- drow throwing daggers
- dagger of throwing
- throwing daggers
Also, the drow assassin clothes and hood and the elven ambush armor and hood will provide a small sneak attack bonus.
There are now some troops which are stealth specialists; a good battle tactic is making a separate group for them, halting them at the beginning of a battle and then make them flank the enemy to maximize their sneak attacks and deadliness, also since most carry light armor it wouldn't be very wise to use them in frontal assaults.
Necromancy
necromancy is the series of rituals and skills used to create undead troops. Currently it is accessed via the camp menu. A high amount of hitpoints is required for the ritual, which will be lost.
Maintaining control of the undead during battles is not for the faint hearted, since every once in a while a check will be run to determine if your necromancy is high enough to keep your troops from turning against you. Said check is directly influenced by the necromancy skill score and whether you have a Necromancer's Staff or not.
The necromancy skill will also raise a few of your fallen enemies after a battle, the higher your skill, the more undead you will raise. Undead gotten this way will only be of the lowest tiers so they're mostly cannon fodder.
Cleric Powers
Clerics are a certain kind of new troops who can use faith skill based spells. Faith based spells just like mage spells will consume faith points once used (represented by the white bar), again the higher the faith, the more points the cleric will get.
Spells can be chosen via a prayer book in combat by opening the prayer book pressing the "n" key and closing it by pressing the "v" key.
Currently there are only 2 cleric spells: heal and flame strike.
Heal will recover the player's hit points and that of surrounding friendly troops. The radius and power will be dependent on the cleric's faith skill.
Flame strike will create a column of fire on a single enemy in a 20 meter radius, the damage it causes will depend directly on the faith skill score.
NPC clerics will use timed scripts to produce similar results.
Turn undead is another cleric power, but it doesn't consume faith points, it is, however limited by a cool down time of 2 minutes. The higher the faith skill, the more powerful the turn/destroy undead attempt will be.
NPC dark clerics (drows, mummies, orcs) will use a different version of turn undead that instead of making the undead run away, will make them run amok and attack everything near them, if the turn undead roll is higher, the affected undead will be controlled by the dark cleric and be part of his/her team during the current battle.
Entertain:
This new skill is quite useful and adds a little extra to players.
The skill so far is only useful for when you are in towns. If you have a musical instrument in your inventory and at least one skill point invested in the entertain skill, you'll be able to play/perform at any town.
Performances are classified in two kinds:
Play a song: this will cause the player to start playing for an audience. The level of skill will allow different kinds of performances, from simple to virtuoso. The more advanced the level of performance, the harder it will be, but the greater the rewards the player will get. Playing music will earn some profit depending on the success rate, it will vary from a disaster to an exceptional performance. Positive performances will earn the would-be-bard some money, some renown and a boost to his/her party's morale; on the other hand, bad performances will bring him/her some renown and party morale loss.
An exceptionally good performance will attract a party of groupies who will follow the player party around and even help him/her in combat.
Perform a speech: A speech will be more political in nature. It can be from inspiring to irritating to the audience.
Speeches will depend on both the perform and the speech skill scores. Positive speeches will earn the orator renown and perhaps even some right to rule points. A poor speech will anger the audience and will mean a loss in renown.
A very poor speech will anger the towns people and will cause a mob to try and lynch the player, that is an enemy party will spawn near the player party and follow and possibly attack it.
Magic is affected by two skills: magic power and magic defense as it may sound, magic power is used for calculating spell damage and penetration while magic defense is used for magical defense, a wise player will always invest some points in the latter, since magical damage is worse when defense equals 0
The effectiveness of spells is also affected by clothes, almost every type of body armor and helmets hinders it, excepting mage robes, hats and hoods (from novice to archmage) and the elven mail shirt; more advanced types of mage armor even provide a bonus to magical damage. Mage staves also provide a bonus to the magic power score, making it a must for the successful mage.
Mages will need a spell book and will learn spells through buying scrolls and wrtiting them into their spell books (via the camp menu). All spells will require different skill levels to learn.
Once in battle, Mages can open their spell books and choose known spells (access the spell book by pressing the "b" key, close the book by pressing the "v" key). The chosen spell will be automatically equipped and it's ammo, if appropriate, will be calculated using the mage's remaining spell points. So to speak, ammo limits are dynamic.
Mage's spell points will be represented by a blue bar. the higher the magic power skill, the higher the amount of spell points the mage can have and the faster they will regenerate.
Sneak attacks
The stealth trained warrior will do extra damage to his/her foes when attacking him from behind, on foot and using a specific list of weapons which goes as follows:
- elven warblade
- drow combat dagger
- knife
- sickle
- club
- short swords
- gwilith
- strange short sword
- drow stealth sword
- drow assassin's sword
- elven short swords
- dagger
- darts
- war darts
- throwing knives
- ambush bow
- drow crossbow
- drow throwing daggers
- dagger of throwing
- throwing daggers
Also, the drow assassin clothes and hood and the elven ambush armor and hood will provide a small sneak attack bonus.
There are now some troops which are stealth specialists; a good battle tactic is making a separate group for them, halting them at the beginning of a battle and then make them flank the enemy to maximize their sneak attacks and deadliness, also since most carry light armor it wouldn't be very wise to use them in frontal assaults.
Necromancy
necromancy is the series of rituals and skills used to create undead troops. Currently it is accessed via the camp menu. A high amount of hitpoints is required for the ritual, which will be lost.
Maintaining control of the undead during battles is not for the faint hearted, since every once in a while a check will be run to determine if your necromancy is high enough to keep your troops from turning against you. Said check is directly influenced by the necromancy skill score and whether you have a Necromancer's Staff or not.
The necromancy skill will also raise a few of your fallen enemies after a battle, the higher your skill, the more undead you will raise. Undead gotten this way will only be of the lowest tiers so they're mostly cannon fodder.
Cleric Powers
Clerics are a certain kind of new troops who can use faith skill based spells. Faith based spells just like mage spells will consume faith points once used (represented by the white bar), again the higher the faith, the more points the cleric will get.
Spells can be chosen via a prayer book in combat by opening the prayer book pressing the "n" key and closing it by pressing the "v" key.
Currently there are only 2 cleric spells: heal and flame strike.
Heal will recover the player's hit points and that of surrounding friendly troops. The radius and power will be dependent on the cleric's faith skill.
Flame strike will create a column of fire on a single enemy in a 20 meter radius, the damage it causes will depend directly on the faith skill score.
NPC clerics will use timed scripts to produce similar results.
Turn undead is another cleric power, but it doesn't consume faith points, it is, however limited by a cool down time of 2 minutes. The higher the faith skill, the more powerful the turn/destroy undead attempt will be.
NPC dark clerics (drows, mummies, orcs) will use a different version of turn undead that instead of making the undead run away, will make them run amok and attack everything near them, if the turn undead roll is higher, the affected undead will be controlled by the dark cleric and be part of his/her team during the current battle.
Entertain:
This new skill is quite useful and adds a little extra to players.
The skill so far is only useful for when you are in towns. If you have a musical instrument in your inventory and at least one skill point invested in the entertain skill, you'll be able to play/perform at any town.
Performances are classified in two kinds:
Play a song: this will cause the player to start playing for an audience. The level of skill will allow different kinds of performances, from simple to virtuoso. The more advanced the level of performance, the harder it will be, but the greater the rewards the player will get. Playing music will earn some profit depending on the success rate, it will vary from a disaster to an exceptional performance. Positive performances will earn the would-be-bard some money, some renown and a boost to his/her party's morale; on the other hand, bad performances will bring him/her some renown and party morale loss.
An exceptionally good performance will attract a party of groupies who will follow the player party around and even help him/her in combat.
Perform a speech: A speech will be more political in nature. It can be from inspiring to irritating to the audience.
Speeches will depend on both the perform and the speech skill scores. Positive speeches will earn the orator renown and perhaps even some right to rule points. A poor speech will anger the audience and will mean a loss in renown.
A very poor speech will anger the towns people and will cause a mob to try and lynch the player, that is an enemy party will spawn near the player party and follow and possibly attack it.