Publish 13.6 (Siege Perilous Shards Only)

The following is a list of changes deployed as “Changes to Siege Perilous Shards” on October 25, 2001.

Stat/ROT Changes

• Stats (Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence) will gain a maximum of 6 points per day, total. (For example, a character may gain 3 points in Strength, 2 points in Dexterity, and 1 point in Intelligence, equaling 6 total points gained).
• A variation of the “Rate Over Time” (ROT) system will be returning to Siege Perilous, and will apply to all skills:
  • Skill points for skills under 70 points will gain as normal shards (including “power hour” point gain capability).
  • Skill points for skills between 70 and 79.9 points will gain a maximum of 3.6 points total per day, with a minimum of 20 minutes between point gained.
  • Skill points for skills between 80 and 98.9 points will gain a maximum of 2 points total per day, with a minimum of 40 minutes between point gained.
  • Skill points for skills 99.0 points and up will gain a maximum of 2 points total per day, with a minimum of 60 minutes between point gained.

Hero/Evil System

A revised Hero/Evil system will be returning to Siege Perilous:

• “Red” characters will be allowed in all towns. Guards will not kill them on sight, but will kill them if they perform any criminal acts. It will still be a criminal act to heal a red within town, but it will not be an act which guards could be called for. Reds will also be attackable by anyone while in town—faction enemy, “red” character, or otherwise.
• The True Britannians and Council of Mages factions will be considered “Hero” factions. The Shadowlords and Minax factions will be considered “Evil” factions. All four factions will still be at war with one another, in addition to being integrated with the Hero/Evil system.
• Killing faction characters who are in your own faction will incur a penalty. The killer in this case will lose 50% of his current kill points, lose 100% of the lifeforce accumulated, and be able to be reported as a murderer. An exception to this will be the killing of guild mates, thus allowing characters to spar with guild mates. Another exception is that if your character is attacked by another, you are allowed to defend yourself with impunity.
• Faction characters will gain lifeforce equal to 20% of the life force of the character killed, and that character who was killed will lose an equal amount of lifeforce points.
• Faction characters will gain 1 lifeforce point for each faction enemy monster which that character kills.
• The maximum number of lifeforce attainable is 100 points.
• Players will be able to spend lifeforce points toward special Hero/Evil powers. Players will be able to use a special phrase (“I invoke my good powers,” for Hero characters, and “I invoke my evil powers,” for Evil characters) to bring up a special menu through which they may control the following effects:
  • Colored Armor (5 lifeforce points; duration is permanent; turns an article of armor or clothing white for Hero, black for Evil)
  • Detect Evil/Good (1 lifeforce point; duration is immediate; allows Hero character to scan the area for Evil, and Evil to scan for good)
  • Summon familiar (10 lifeforce points; duration is 30 minutes; allows character to summon a familiar to fight for the character, silver wolf for Hero or dark wolf for Evil)
  • Bless (60 lifeforce points; duration is 30 minutes; temporarily “blesses” one equipable item, item will note time remaining)
  • Silver/Dark Steed (30 lifeforce points; duration is 30 minutes; creates a silver steed for Hero character to ride, or dark steed for Evil character)
  • Holy/Unholy Shield (40 lifeforce points; duration is 60 minutes; character is ignored by all monsters and faction guards while this power is active)
  • Evil characters will no longer automatically hue red (unless a particular character is a murderer), and any Evil character which kills a blue innocent may gain a murder count. The faction system hue will be in effect to handle aggression and flagging.
  • Some changes to verbiage from the previous Hero/Evil systems will occur based on localization needs.

An additional penalty for being red on Siege Perilous includes the amount of gold found on the corpse of a creature which they have killed will be one-third. For example, if a player would normally receive 600 gold off a monster, if that player is instead red, he will receive 200 gold.

Newbie & Training

• Starting equipment for new characters on Siege Perilous will be:
  • Clothing, as normal (“newbie items”)
  • 1 dagger (“newbie items”)
  • 100 gold coins
  • 25 ingots
  • 1 shovel
  • 1 bag, with 10 of each reagent
  • 1 katana
• NPCs will no longer be able to train characters.

Taming Changes

• Hiding will no longer be possible while taming; invisible characters who begin taming will be revealed.
• Taming high level monsters (such as nightmares, wyrms, and dragons) will become twice as difficult.

Miscellaneous

• Provocation continues to be difficulty based.
• The warning gump players see upon entering the Siege Perilous Shard has been removed.
• Siege Perilous will gain the Ilshenar facet. This added facet will have the “Felucca ruleset,” in addition to allowing faction fighting.
• The cost of house deeds when purchased from NPC shopkeepers on Siege Perilous will be 10x the prices seen on “normal” shards. All other NPC shopkeeper sales on Siege Perilous will remain at 3x normal.