Post by FunkySwerve on Jul 31, 2011 10:44:57 GMT
UPDATE 2010-10-01
=================
-It is no longer necessary to complete earlier levels of the Hells in order to go on deeper-level runs. Instead of being prevented from entering such runs, characters are simply prevented from getting tags for them, as well as the stat boost from defeating Asmodeus, if they lack the preceeding tag (or progress marker, if completing the Hells additional times after the first).
-It is no longer necessary to complete earlier layers of the Abyss in order to go on deeper-layer runs. Instead of being prevented from entering such runs, characters are simply prevented from attuning portals they previously couldn't access, getting miniboss and boss tags, and acquiring Wand fragments, if they lack the proper portal attunements.
-Random loot quality has been increased across the board. Items are now more likely to spawn with bonus properties, and less likely to spawn with properties removed. Certain properties now spawn with larger bonuses when added, as well.
-Added brand new UltraRare random weapons to loot tables. These weapons come with +13 enhance, and can be randomized (once only) to add 5d12 of one type of elemental damage and 5d12 of one type of exotic damage. They drop only in legendary areas, and require level 50 to use.
-Added MoaD, Dustbone, and random weapon versions of the Mercurial Greatsword and Lance to loot tables.
-Bugfixes.
UPDATE 2010-07-30
=================
- Clerics can now cast Frost Weapon (3).
- Druids can now cast Caustic Weapon (3), Shock Weapon (3), and Spectral Stampede (7, Illusion).
- Sorcerers/Wizards can now cast Static Field (7, Evocation). This is also a Dragonstorm Mage spell. The pedestal has been unlocked.
- Barbarian Thundering Rage now adds (Barbarian level including LLs / 5)d10 sonic damage. As with Staffmaster Blackstaff, this does not stack with existing damage on the weapon.
- The damage on Olo'ra and the Hammer of Akura now stack properly with Blade Thirst. You may need to run these items through the bank.
- Characters with at least 21 class levels of Cleric, Paladin, or Blackguard who do not belong to a quasiclass now receive a 50% bonus to their Charisma modifier for Divine Might damage.
- Characters with at least 21 class levels of Champion of Torm who do not belong to a quasiclass now receive a 50% bonus to their Charisma modifier for Divine Wrath damage.
- Weapon buffs now transfer to Humanoid shifter forms and Risen Lord, Demonflesh Golem, and Leonal.
- Dragon Disciples with at least 10 levels of Dragon Disciple who use the Constitution artifact now have the Breath of the Beast power integrated into their Dragon Disciple Breath. This raises the damage dice from d12s to d20s and adds a short-duration 50% vulnerability infliction to the Dragon Disciple's element.
- !list ac now properly handles Dragon Disciple and Pale Master limiting of Tumble AC.
- Greater Smite has been reimplemented as a special ability:
-- You must now have 21 class levels of Paladin, Blackguard, or Champion of Torm to use Greater Smite. You will find an ability in your Special Abilities menu (left then up-left on your radial) named Pulse, Holy. You will need to relog after reaching the required level before you will gain the ability. The old ability token is no longer used and will be destroyed.
-- Greater Smite is now a touch-range radius blast centered on the target. The time required to use the ability has been significantly ameliorated, allowing you to fire it off slightly faster and to immediately resume combat after activating the power.
-- Greater Smite AB is now equal to your hit dice (including legendary hit dice), plus 1 point for each smiter class level you possess (reaching 100 with a pure smiter).
-- Greater Smite recharge time and damage-type availability have not changed. However, Greater Smite will never heal a target (if it would do a target's healing type, it does not affect that target).
-- Greater Smite's damage die size is determined by the number of Great Smiting feats you possess. With no feats, Greater Smite does d4s; with Great Smiting 1-4, it does d8s; with Great Smiting 5-7, it does d10s; with Great Smiting 8-9, it does d12s; with Great Smiting 10, it does d20s.
-- Greater Smite does (Charisma modifier * 4) dice of your selected damage type to all targets hit by the effect.
-- If you have 21 class levels of Paladin or Blackguard, do not belong to a quasiclass, and possess the Great Smiting 2 feat, you will additionally do (Charisma modifier) dice of Sacred (Paladin) or Vile (Blackguard) damage.
- Bug and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-07-24
=================
- Using the Unique Power on your skull will reactivate Abyss portal access you lost when earning fragments from demon lords (but not access you lost from defeating the Prince of Demons or the Pelor scenario). THIS IS TEMPORARY AND WILL BE REMOVED IN A FEW DAYS. USE YOUR SKULLS NOW TO REACTIVATE ACCESS.
- Weapon damage buff spells have been changed. Instead of adding external damage on-hit, they now add integrated damage, enhancing the damage dice already on the weapon.
-- This means that weapon damage buff damage is increased by crits and helps penetrate DR.
-- This also means that Abyss weapons can now be buffed. Existing Abyss weapons may not have their descriptions updated, but they can all now receive weapon buffs.
-- Effects which buff the same damage type (e.g. Flame Weapon and Darkfire) no longer stack.
-- Weapons without any damage of the respective type will receive d4s.
-- Weapons with flat damage (e.g. the +16 on Dis weapons) are considered to have a base damage of 1d8 at +1-+4, 2d8 at +5-+8, 3d8 at +9-+12, 4d8 at +13-+16, and 5d8 at +17-+20. This means adding 3 dice to a Dis weapon's +16 will result in a 7d8 damage bonus.
-- In general, most damage buff spells add 1 die at CL1-15, 2 dice at CL16-30, 3 dice at CL31-45, and 4 dice at CL46+. Bloodfire Mages and Dragonstorm Mages add 1 die to buffs of their respective type.
-- Thundering Rage adds 1 die of sonic damage per 10 Barbarian levels (including LLs).
-- Shadow Rift adds 1 die of negative damage per 10 Shadowdancer levels (including LLs) and the duration has been doubled to CL rounds.
-- Magic Weapon for Accursed Pariahs adds 1 die at CL1-25, 2 dice at CL26-50, and 3 dice at CL51+.
-- Bless/Corrupt weapon for Paladins/Blackguards adds 1 die of divine damage at CL1-30. At CL31+, if the caster does not belong to a quasiclass, the damage bonus increases to 2 dice.
-- Holy Sword no longer adds divine damage (that function has been subsumed into Bless Weapon, which also has a much longer duration).
-- The Elemental Potions of Weapon Sufflation now add 5 dice (major) or 3 dice (minor) of their respective damage type. You will need to run any existing Potions of Weapon Sufflation through the bank for them to function.
-- The Blade Thirst spell now adds 1 die of positive damage to favored enemies where it would have added additional damage against favored enemies before, increasing to 2 dice at CL31, 3 dice at CL41, and 4 dice at CL51. Lashes of Hatred receive 2 additional dice and do negative damage instead. The damage for Blade Thirst can be toggled on and off with the !damon and !damoff commands (this replaces the previous !damne command used before by Lashes).
-- The Blackstaff spell now adds integrated damage as well for Staffmasters. The Way of the Staff item has been removed and damage type changing should now be done with the SIMTools !dam commands. Scaling for Staffmaster damage starts at 3d10 and increases by 1d10 for every 5 WM levels (including LLs), reaching 12d10 at WM45. An ego augment can be found which increases Staffmaster Blackstaff dice to d12s.
-- The Warrior's Whetstone has not been changed at this time, but is slated to receive a rework to boost physical damage done based on your Craft Weapon skill.
-- The Infernal Weapon consumables from the Hells have not been changed at this time, but will likely become integrated damage in the future (the DI infliction they do will remain).
- Unresistable damage has largely been removed, replacing it with an integrated physical damage bonus (similar to Weapon Specialization):
-- All caps on the below abilities have been removed, if they existed before (e.g. the +20 cap on Divine Might).
-- Bard Song now adds the bard's damage bonus directly to your physical damage, rather than adding a sonic damage bonus.
-- Barbarian Mighty Rage now adds your current Constitution modifier directly to your physical damage, rather than adding a fixed cold damage bonus.
-- Divine Might and CoT Divine Wrath now add your current Charisma modifier to the physical damage you do each hit. We are considering adding a 50% bonus for characters with 21+ levels of cleric, paladin, or blackguard and who do not belong to a quasiclass, but that change is still under discussion.
-- Prayer, Divine Favor, Battletide, and War Cry now add their bonus directly to the physical damage you do each hit.
-- The Pyre of Chaos has not been changed at this time, but will likely be changed to add a large integrated fire damage bonus in the future.
- The Monk unarmed damage bonus has been converted to our new damage bonus system. It should apply properly in all cases now.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- The !autorand SIMTools command has been added. The party leader can use this command to toggle whether or not loot will automatically be randomized. All party members must be in a No PVP area to change automatic randomization. When automatic randomization is disabled, loot will return to the old (significantly lower) drop rates.
-- Some chests in the Abyss now require less rare picks to unlock.
-- All weapons are now available in +15 varieties in the Hells. Most +15 weapons have been moved to the chest in Minauros; two +15 weapons now drop from this chest per run.
-- You can now re-equip disarmed weapons without clearing the map, but you must be a significant distance away from any enemies.
-- Monks can now toggle Empty Body and Wholeness of Body on and off. They receive a pool of ki points equal to (Monk level including LLs + base Wisdom score) * 3 each rest; Wholeness of Body consumes 2 ki points per round and Empty Body consumes 1 ki point per round.
-- You must now rest with the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus in your possession before using its biorejuvenation power (that is, you cannot keep it in a portable hole and pull it out for a free bio, then return it to the hole).
-- Defeating a demon lord will no longer break your Abyss portal attunement, but facing the lord or their final miniboss will bar you from using portals to that lord's realm for 18 hours (defeating the Prince of Demons or completing the Pelor scenario will still strip you of all your Abyss attunements).
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-04-17
=================
- The Spiny Fish, Bloodstained Boots, and Trickery's Friend powers have been fixed. You may need to run these items through the bank before using them.
- The Farseer's master augment has been improved. It now increases the dice on AA bows by one step (e.g. d8s to d10s). You must run any Farseer's-augmented items through the bank for this to take effect. Note that the description is now more generic than mentioning Arcane Archers, as this augment may affect Divine Slingers or other class-based ranged damage in the future.
- The Uthgar's, Xan Yae's, and the shifter master augments have been fixed. You will need to run these items through the bank.
- The Godswrath master augment now increases turning capacity by one-third rather than TP, making it useful to all turners. You will need to run any Godswrath-augmented items through the bank.
- A Shar's master augment has been added for Shadowdancers, which increases the range of Shadow Step.
- The Assassin's Scabbard can now be used an unlimited number of times per rest, to make life easier on assassins with the much greater requirements for weapon swapping. However, Mortal Strike now only functions for onhand weapons. You cannot hone weapons while in combat.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Rakshasas in the Hells are now much more sparing with AoE Mords (that is, less annoying).
-- The Bard Abjuration epic Chant of Warding now grants (CL / 2) physical DR and (CL / 6)% physical immunity for CL rounds. It now affects the entire party.
-- The tier-3 DwD chant for Dwarven Warchanters is now Chant of the Unyielding, which duplicates the Bard Chant of Warding epic.
-- The tier-3 Bard chant for Dwarven Warchanters is now Chant of the Fallen, which will bring up to 3 party members back from Fugue or Limbo, with a 20-minute cooldown.
-- You can now set traps in combat, but enemies who see you set the trap will receive a bonus to avoid it. In addition, you cannot set traps right under enemy feet.
-- BFM/DSM brands/balls were not starting out at the improved damage for the first strike.
-- Having your caster ability drained will no longer completely mess up your memorized spells once you reach level 40.
-- Most disarm effects will now place a Disarmed Weapon token in your inventory. This can be restored by using it once the area is clear.
--- Defoliate now drops Fortitude save by 1 at CL40, 2 at CL45, 3 at CL50, 4 at CL55, and 5 at CL60.
-- At Shadowdancer 22 and higher, Shadow Daze now casts a single-target Curse Song ability, at Shadowdancer level (including legendary levels).
-- Immortal characters with at least 25 Shadowdancer class levels can now find the Shadow Step ability. This ability, once acquired, allows you to teleport as a swift action to targets within Medium range. You will automatically enter Shadow Sanctuary when using Shadow Step. Some targets (such as bosses) cannot be teleported to. Shadow Step can be found somewhere very black.
-- Non-immortal characters can now repent the path they took with Solis Gaobin by speaking to the priest in town. This will allow them to attempt the quest again.
-- A number of pre-legendary creatures have had their racial type corrected.
-- Assassins and Blackguards can now learn the Extend Spell feat. You must run the HGE Updater to do so (the change is not yet in the downloadable version of HGE, only the updater).
-- Flashback characters (proxies) can now be merged:
--- Requirements:
----- The proxy must have the same race and subrace as the main character.
----- The proxy must have the same control class as the main character, and the same number of levels in each class as the main character.
----- The proxy must be under the same player name (account) as the main character.
----- The proxy must be immortal and at least level 41. The main character must also be immortal and at least level 41.
----- The proxy must not have been previously reincarnated.
---- The proxy must speak to the reincarnation light, and go through the process and delete as normal.
---- The main character must then speak to the Bartender in Rip's, and regale the patrons of the bar with tales of adventure.
---- All currently active reincarnation slots for the given account will be checked:
----- Any matching flashback-able slots will be consumed, merging their pre-legendary accomplishments with the main character. You will receive a message for each consumed reincarnation slot.
----- Any non-matching slots will issue a message, informing you why that slot could not be merged. This may not be an error, if you have active reincarnation slots for other characters.
---- The Solis Gaobin accomplishment from your proxy, if present, will OVERWRITE any Solis accomplishment on your main character.
-- Abyss changes:
--- Abyss minibosses now uncloak gold piles and pickable chests when they die.
--- Abyssal lords now drop 4 BURs and 4 URs (all guaranteed Above Average or better), plus 2 BUR chests, 2 set loot chests, and 2 large gold piles.
--- You can now use Gems of Teleportation or Runes of Return in the Plane of Portals to return to the portal to the Workshop in Aldinach's Egg.
--- Paragon/Random spawn loot drops in the Abyss have been tweaked to ensure they drop loot at the proper rate.
--- Viper trees in Azzagrat and Zionyn now spawn gradually as you approach them rather than all spawning at area entry.
--- A number of creatures in the Abyss which were previously not vulnerable to any form of petrification can now be petrified by Cast in Stone (the druid level 9 petrification gaze) only.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-27
=================
- Accomplishment changes:
-- Added bonuses for pre-legendary-level accomplishments. These total +6% to all elemental damage immunity, at least +3% to all exotic and physical damage immunity, +5 to all skills (falling within the +50 buff cap), +3% spell damage, +2 points of physical damage per hit, and +5% earned experience.
-- Added 19 more pre-legendary-level accomplishments.
-- Many pre-legendary-level accomplishments have had their level caps adjusted. Previously earned accomplishments are not affected.
-- Note that there are specific accomplishments for defeating Xulrae, Lolth, the Immortal, and the Mother of All Dragons without immortal aid. You cannot have an immortal in your party or in the run areas at any point during attempts to earn these accomplishments.
-- To list pre-legendary accomplishments, you must now use the '!list acc prell' SIMTools command. Listing pre-legendary accomplishments will also list the bonuses those accomplishments grant.
-- A system is being built to allow proxy characters to be created to earn accomplishments for people who have exceeded the level cap on those accomplishments. Although the system itself is not yet available, here is the general structure of how it will work:
--- You must create a new character, starting at level 1. The character must be the same base race and subrace as the character you wish to transfer pre-LL accomplishments to. The proxy character must not be reincarnated, and must be on the same account as the target character.
--- You must level this character to 41 (earning immortality and the other accomplishments you wish to transfer along the way). When you reach 41, your class levels and control class must be the same as the character you wish to transfer accomplishments to.
--- You will then be able to transfer pre-LL accomplishments earned by the proxy character to the target character, and the proxy character will be deleted in the process. In essence, the proxy character is a 'flashback' to previous accomplishments performed by the main character, and when you transfer the accomplishments, the timeline is 'merged'. Accomplishments previously earned by the target character will not be deleted or affected.
--- Characters created now who adhere to the restrictions above (no reincarnation, same base race/subrace, same class levels) will be able to transfer their tags when the system is completed.
- Many additional pieces of loot added to the Abyss. Loot addition is still in-progress.
- A new UR belt has been added with Blackguard spell slots.
- Some enemies may now inflict damage resistance decrease instead of or in addition to damage immunity decrease.
- Added Guild Discord.
- Spellcasting changes:
-- Blackguard spells have been reworked to allow bonus spells to work. If you have HG Enhanced, you may now cast blackguard spells using the radial or ordinary quickslot-binding (by right-clicking on a quickslot and binding it to a spell). The Extend Spell metamagic also works for Blackguards if you have HG Enhanced. To change Blackguard spells, you need to use the new '!sb change bg' SIMTools command.
-- Blackguards no longer receive free single casts if they do not have sufficient Wisdom to cast Blackguard spells. In addition, the Strength-for-Wisdom swap has been removed.
-- It is no longer necessary to use the Blackguard spell rods to cast spells if you have HG Enhanced.
-- Blackguard Death Ward critical immunity now lasts (CL / 2) rounds, as with Paladin Death Ward critical immunity, since Blackguards now receive their full complement of spell slots and can acquire bonus spell slot gear or use Extend Spell.
-- Assassin spells have been added. Assassins use Intelligence as their caster ability, and receive spells in the same manner as Blackguards. To change your spells as an Assassin, use the '!sb change as' SIMTools command. See your journal for more information.
- New Spells:
-- Detonate (Sor/Wiz 9, Evocation): If you succeed in a touch attack against the target, it must make a Fortitude save or explode messily. Even if it makes the save, the target takes CLd10 fire damage, boosted by Lore. If the target explodes, all enemies in a Gargantuan radius take CLd8 fire damage, with a Reflex save for half. Targets which are immune to Disintegrate are also immune to Detonate. This is a Bloodfire Mage spell. As with Disintegrate, Accursed Pariahs may not learn Detonate.
-- Iron Grasp (Bard 2, Transmutation): The target is resistant to being disarmed for CL rounds.
-- Iron Silence (Assassin 3, Bard 2, Transmutation): The target is immune to armor check penalties for Hide and Move Silently for CL turns.
-- Shock Weapon (Sor/Wiz 2, Evocation): As Flame Weapon, but electricity. This is a Dragonstorm Mage spell. Flame Weapon now operates normally for DSMs.
-- Silver Tongue (Bard 1, Illusion): Adds the caster's Charisma modifier to the target's Persuade skill for CL rounds.
-- Vitriolic Ray (Druid 4, Conjuration): As Lightning Bolt, but acid and does (CL * 3/4)d6 damage.
-- Vocalize (Sor/Wiz 2, Enchantment): The next spell cast by the caster is cast as if it had Silent Spell applied. This spell has no verbal component and may be cast while silenced.
-- Word of Balance (Druid 7, Evocation): Does CLd6 sonic damage and enemies which fail their save may be stunned.
-- Wrack (Sor/Wiz 5, Necromancy): The target's physical and elemental damage resistance is decreased by (CL / 4).
-- You must update your HG Enhanced to have access to the new spells. The pedestal has been unlocked for Sorcerers and Bards.
- Class and quasiclass changes:
-- Dragon Shape Dragon Breath cost is now capped at 7 EP/breath for legendary Druids. Note that this cap is provisional and may be adjusted.
-- Ball Lightning (for DSMs) and Firebrand (for BFMs) now do CLd6 damage for the initial strike per target, which decreases by 3/4 for each additional strike on a given target (hence, at CL60, the second strike does 45d6, the third 33d6, and so on).
-- Orb of Force and Greater Orb of Force are now BFM spells.
-- Lesser Orb of Sound, Orb of Sound, and Greater Orb of Sound are now DSM spells.
-- Lashes of Hatred will no longer inflict an enemy's healing type.
-- Hide is now a class skill for Blackguards in legendary levels.
- Anduin's staff quest and many other lowbie issues fixed.
- Dominated Rona monsters no longer fall through the treetops.
- Fixed bug causing doubled ACs on items as well as nonrandomized item ACs.
- Fixed bug allowing oversetting of bardsong level. You will have to reset your song selections.
- Fixed bug allowing HCs to transfer items to non-legendary HCs more than 6 levels below them.
- You must now be in party during the run to earn the Water Breathing, Levitation, Passwall, and Firewalk rings (that is, you cannot port in at the end to acquire the items). The alternate method of trading L35 weapons to Borian is still available.
- Undroppable items (e.g. basic survival rings, epic spells, class abilities, and so on) no longer count against your 150 item Encumbria limit.
- Other bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-15
=================
- Elemental damage clouds have been improved; a caster may now only have one elemental damage cloud out at a time.
-- Freezing Fog now does (CL * 3/4)d6 cold damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Acid Fog now does CLd6 acid damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Incendiary Cloud now does CLd8 fire damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Storm of Vengeance now does CLd8 electrical damage per round, with a Reflex save for half. Enemies who fail their save may also be stunned.
- BFMs have had their spells improved:
-- Fireball now does (CL / 2)d6 fire damage and (CL / 4)d6 positive damage. The fire damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Delayed Blast Fireball now does CLd6 fire damage and (CL / 2)d6 positive damage. The fire damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Incendiary Cloud no longer does split damage (only straight fire damage).
-- Meteor Swarm now does CLd10 of either fire or divine damage; it will seek the best type against an enemy. It will never seek a healing damage type.
- DSMs have had their spells improved:
-- Lightning Bolt now does (CL / 2)d6 electrical damage and (CL / 4)d6 divine damage. The electrical damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Chain Lightning now does CLd6 electrical damage and (CL / 2)d6 divine damage. The electrical damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Meteor Swarm now does CLd10 of either electrical or positive damage; it will seek the best type against each enemy. It will never seek a healing damage type
- BFMs and DSMs may add half their caster level to their Lore skill for casting BFM and DSM spells. Lore skill is effective up to 150 Lore for them (including this bonus), as opposed to the normal 120 Lore limit for other casters. In general, this means they can do 130% damage with their quasi spells.
- Sorcerers may now learn extra spells from the spell pedestal in legendary levels. They gain an extra 1st level spell known at Sorcerer 22, an extra 2nd at Sorcerer 24, and so on up to an extra 9th at Sorcerer 38. Only pre-LL sorcerer levels count in this calculation.
- Bards may now learn extra spells from the spell pedestal in legendary levels. They gain an extra 1st level spell known at Bard 23, an extra 2nd at Bard 26, and so on up to an extra 6th at Bard 38. Only pre-LL bard levels count in this calculation.
- The spell pedestal has been unlocked for sorcerers and bards so they may take advantage of the new spells known.
- A number of search spots have been fixed in the Abyss. In addition, approximately 50 more set loots have been added (and more are on the way).
- A number of other bugs have been fixed in the Abyss (e.g. alkiliths causing unrestorable Discipline drop).
- The Persuade skill now allows you to drop enemy SR with the Taunt ability. You can activate this with the !opt tauntpersuade SIMTools command.
- Enemy AI has been tweaked somewhat. The Taunt skill may now cause enemies to assault you more assiduously, and the Bluff skill may cause them to eschew you as an opponent.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-07
=================
- Higher Ground has updated to CEP 2.3. Please visit www.hgweb.org/update.html for more information. HG Enhanced has also updated to Beta 25; you can download this from the Wiki or use the HGE Updater.
- The Abyss has been released! The Abyss is for level 55+ characters and contains over 50 individual areas in five major layers (plus Pazunia, the Plane of Portals). PLEASE NOTE: The Abyss is still under playtest, and may have need of further balancing. Enter at your own risk.
- Item changes:
-- Some ego items have been moved to a new category where they will conflict with each other, but not with ego items from augmentation.
-- Due to an antiexploit tweak, you will need to run any Divine Intervention amulets you possess through the bank to use their double-Miracle power.
- Spell changes:
-- The Sleep spell now receives an additional +1 DC per Enchantment focus.
-- The Hold Animal, Hold Person, and Hold Monster spells now receive an additional +1 DC per Enchantment focus (except for Dwarven Warchanter Hold Monster, which has its own DC bonus). Hold Animal can now paralyze animals, beasts, magical beasts, and vermin.
-- The Entangle and Web spells now receive an additional +1 DC per Conjuration Focus, and ignore Spell Resistance at CL41 and higher.
-- Entangle, Web, and Grease spells can no longer be dispelled by Gust of Wind.
-- Ball Lightning and Firebrand for DSMs and BFMs are now limited to one strike per ten caster levels per target (so at caster level 60, at most 6 balls/brands will hit each target).
-- The Time Stop spell now has a 30 second cooldown timer.
-- The Rebuke spell now respects Mind and Confusion immunity rather than Mind and Dominate immunity.
- New Spells:
-- Defoliate (Druid 4, Necromancy): As Crumble, but works on plants. Also includes the Fortitude save decrease effect from Crumble.
-- Freezing Fog (Sorc/Wiz 5, Conjuration): As Acid Fog, but cold (and does d6 instead of d8).
-- True Resurrection (Cleric 9, Conjuration): Ranged single-target resurrection spell; range is Touch without Conjuration foci, Short with SF Conjuration, Medium with GSF Conjuration, and Long with ESF Conjuration. LSF Conjuration is planned to allow you to recover allies from Limbo, but not yet done.
- Class and ability changes:
-- The unresistable divine damage from Divine Might and Divine Wrath no longer stack.
-- Construct Shape Iron Golem Breath now costs 5 EP per use.
-- Dragon Shape Dragon Breath now costs 1 EP per six caster levels or fraction thereof per use. In addition, dragon breath now does CL dice of damage, and the penalty for not having shifter levels has been removed (reducing the average breath damage at level 60 with maxed AE from ~960 to ~800).
-- The Sigil of Mystra's special power now grants three temporary caster levels for the duration of the power.
-- Artifact visual effects have been reworked to show up more consistently.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Camera zoom-in has been removed from all conversations.
-- Elemental Potions of Locate Object now function. They can find items and non-empty containers in the current area exactly (look for beams of light) and will also give you a sense of general direction towards active search spots when quaffed.
-- Added the !list levels SIMTools command. Note that this command may not be fully reliable for older characters (pre-dating March 2009). Generally the issue will be feats taken in legendary levels showing up in odd places.
-- Rest spawns have been removed from many low-level areas.
-- The Avernan Dragonblood flowers have been modified to reduce crashing problems.
-- The Greater Scabbard of Blessing should now work properly.
-- You can now use !portal here to portal to the server you are on.
-- Guild Warrior Nation now has a Split Merchant.
-- Shifters now receive unlimited shifts with limited forms as long as they have remaining essence, but have a single EP pool for all uses of that form (e.g. if you would have had 60 EP and 4 shifts before for Dragon Shape, you now have a total of 240 EP to use in Dragon Shape).
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-10-10
=================
- New SIMTools commands:
-- The !autosell command has been added to auto-sell less valuable loot you may come across during your adventures.
- The !bulksell command has been added to sell all loot from a Split Merchant.
- Random item property changes:
-- Eliminated Soak +2 through Soak +9.
-- Eliminated Ride skill bonuses and penalties
-- Greatly reduced the frequency of bonuses to specific saving throws.
-- Greatly reduced the frequency of weight reduction.
-- Doubled the frequency of bonus feats.
-- Ensured that AC versus (alignment, race) properties are always higher than the normal AC bonuses on items.
-- Other improvements to augmenters and random properties.
-- Augmenters may now have different appearances.
- Whisper Gnomes should be able to perform club feat swaps properly now.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-10-04
=================
- HG Enhanced has updated to Beta 24. Visit the HG Enhanced page on HGWiki or use the HGE Updater to update to the most recent version.
- Changed the legendary leveler to grant visible feats. Only players with HGE installed will be able to see them in the feat list, but they are still viewable with !list feats, as before.
- Recalculated reincarnation cost to allow high-XP characters to more easily reincarnate. No experience will be lost for the first 12.5 million XP a character has (level 60 requirement). Above that point, experience will be lost, starting at 20% and decreasing to 1% at 125 million XP.
- New SIMTools commands:
-- The !charedit SIMTools command has been added, which allows characters to perform feat and ability swaps (which have been moved off the PC Scry).
-- The !creaturedesc SIMTools command has been added, which allows you to get the descriptions of creatures to your log.
-- The !list ab SIMTools command is much more useful now.
- Feat changes:
-- Added CEP weapons feats. Club feats no longer work for CEP weapons, but players can switch their club feats over to CEP feats using the !charedit command, once they are level 41 or higher. Players with HGE will be able to select these feats during levelup. Players without will have to use feat swap at level 41+.
-- The following new feats can be taken with HG Enhanced or during legendary levels. Feats with [F] are also Fighter bonus feats.
--- Greater Weapon Focus (requires 6 BAB and Weapon Focus in the weapon, adds stacking +1 to AB). [F]
--- Power Critical (requires 6 BAB and Weapon Focus in the weapon, adds 4 to critical confirmation rolls). [F]
--- Superior Critical (requires epic levels, 23 base Dex, and Power Critical in the weapon, and adds an additional 6 (total of 10 with PC) to critical confirmation rolls). [F]
--- Intuitive Attack (requires 3 BAB and 13 Wisdom, allows you to use Wisdom as your AB ability for the following weapons: mace, dagger, club, kama, scimitar, goad, katar, nunchaku, heavy mace, quarterstaff, spear, shuriken, sickle.
--- Brutal Throw (requires 3 BAB and 13 Strength, allows you to use Strength as your AB ability for throwing axe and dart). This can be taken with HGE or during legendary levels.
--- Rapier Wit (requires 3 BAB and 13 Charisma, allows you to use Charisma as your AB ability for rapier). This can be taken with HGE or during legendary levels.
--- Epic Bards and Sorcerers can now take Extra Spell Known feats. They will be able to actually use their extra slots at level 41 by talking to the Spells Pedestal in the docks.
-- Legendary Slippery Soul and Legendary Valor, which are Ref/Will and Fort/Ref analogues to Legendary Hardened Soul.
-- You can use the !charedit command to convert Strong Soul to Slippery Soul or Dauntless, which are Ref/Will and Fort/Ref analogues to Strong Soul (and prerequisites for Legendary Slippery Soul and Legendary Valor). You can only perform this swap at level 1.
- Changed feats:
-- The Disarm and Knockdown feats have been reimplemented as swift actions. See your journal for more information.
-- Clerics and Druids can now take Epic Warding and Epic Mage Armor using epic bonus feats with HG Enhanced, or during legendary levels.
- Class changes:
-- Weapon Masters no longer receive an extra attack with LWF; they receive the standard +3 AB again.
-- The Cleric epic Girding of the Faithful no longer grants bonuses to artifacts.
-- When cast as Cleric spells, the following spells will use Charisma modifier instead of Wisdom if the caster's Charisma modifier is higher: Banishment, Dismissal, Rebuke, Undeath to Death, Word of Faith.
-- The internal mechanics of Turn Undead have been changed somewhat, making it more difficult to Turn or Destroy large numbers of creatures quickly.
-- Clerics, Paladins, and Blackguards with at least 36 base Charisma can now find a Divine Inspiration ability, which will allow them to use Turn Undead uses as a Bard Song substitute.
-- Bard/Curse Song abilities now have a base duration of 1 round per point of the singer's Charisma modifier (with a minimum base duration of 10 rounds). The Lasting Inspiration feat now multiplies duration by 5 instead of 10.
-- The concealment decrease effects of Invisibility Purge and Mass Spell Destruction have been reworked. They should function much more reliably now.
- Area changes:
-- The Wax Hall and Cesspool in the Hive will no longer despawn creatures, preventing the areas from locking when someone crashes or logs out when returning to their party.
--New secrets have been added to the Hells, Toyshop, Uroboros, Dulvuroth, Hive, Pit of Moliation, and Locathahs. Crafting drops and useables have been roughly doubled in those areas.
- Item changes:
-- Edited property frequencies in the random loot system to make Light, Darkvision, and Haste appear much less often. This should result in most other properties appearing much more often, and should substantially improve the quality of added item properties.
-- Added a new bow for Arcane Archers, which allows them to merge their megadamage bows and swap damage types without suffering the miss chance caused by weapon swaps. It can be found someplace amazeing. Arcane Archer bow damage has been reduced to d8s from d10s.
-- Ranger bows now receive increasing damage based on the user's Wisdom modifier.
-- The Ruby Rod of Asmodeus now grants Critical Reduction rather than immunity to critical hits (you will receive half damage from all critical hits while holding the Rod, as if you had 127 Parry). All existing Rods have been unbound from their owners. The Ruby Rod now grants +20 Deflection AC when held.
-- The Rampart of the Pact Primeval is now a +18 shield instead of +20, meaning it grants 3 AC over BUR shields, just like the other Asmodeus artifacts.
-- To Reign in Hell and the Serpent's Coil (the Asmodeus helm and belt) have been upgraded.
-- If you have Elemental Potions of Weapon Sufflation and the spell cast is not a Unique Power, run them through the bank to fix them.
- Crafting Edits:
-- Dozens of new crafting items have been added. This will have the effect of shuffling the required crafting item for many of your items.
-- You can now undo armor class properties that have been randomized down by crafting.
-- Redid property addition with Asmodeus' Touch to yield better added properties.
-- URs and more common items now require more common crafting ingredients than BURs for most crafting options.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-09-14
=================
- Added new bazaar and newbie channels. Everyone automatically hears them, but you can opt out using !filter bazaar and !filter newbie. Send messages per usual, using !bazaar <message> and !newbie <message>.
- Added a new quasiclass, the Dragonstorm Mage. Details are not yet available in the journal documentation, but can be found on the forums. They are very similar to Bloodfire Mages, but are Blue Dragon Disciples, and use electrical spells.
- Bug fixes.
UPDATE 2009-09-12
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Using the !randomize command on an old randomized BUR will now update it to be able to be augmented to +14. If you receive a red message saying the item was already randomized, it is already updated.
-- Shifters who shift wearing +14 gear should now continue to receive their delicious +14 bonus while shifted.
-- Zerial and the Priest of Lathander are now much better about locating destroyed items in your inventory.
-- The Locathah Depths now drop books which grant shifter form focus feats.
-- The incidence of use limitation on randomized items has been reduced from 17% to 10%.
-- The incidence of negative added properties on randomized items has been reduced from 20% to 10%.
-- Augmenters have been moved 'down' a slot in rarity:
--- Common augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace uncommon drops
--- Uncommon augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace rare drops
--- Rare augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace ultrarare drops
--- BUR drops are no longer replaced by augmenters
-- A set UR augmenter chest is now found at the end of Elysium
-- !partyroll pass, !partyroll unpass, and !partyroll update commands have now been added.
-- Transformed Dragon Disciples may now use the PC Scry to activate tails if they wish.
- Shifters must now use the !cancel poly SIMTools command to unshift. This is necessary to prevent a crash bug.
- The !list augments SIMTools command has been added, which will list the rarity of augments on a randomized item.
- Randomized items can now be crafted in the Forge of Ixion, a portal to which can be found in a random location in the Elemental Planes. The portal moves each reset.
-- Crafting requires both gold and crafting ingredients. The ingredient required is determined by the particular item you are crafting and the action you wish to perform, and is generally persistent for that item (though it may change with mod updates, and will change if a crafting action is performed).
-- The following crafting actions can be performed:
--- All augments on an item may be destroyed.
--- An item may be completely re-randomized.
--- A single removed property may be restored. You cannot select which property will be restored.
--- A single added property may be removed. You cannot select which property will be removed.
--- A randomly-added use restriction may be removed.
--- An item may be completely derandomized.
--- All augments on an item of UR quality and lower may be extracted into augmenters.
--- A single random property may be added to an item which has no removed or added properties.
- All SIMTools commands now display on the popup menu. You can pull up the menu with the !simtools command.
- Guild Maelstrom of Darkness has been added.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-27
=================
- Several randomization caps have been moved or adjusted to reduce the incidence of BURs being unable to improve.
- Randomized items which receive an AC penalty will now only receive Dodge AC penalties, which can be counteracted by buffs.
- The incidence of AC loss on randomized items has been greatly reduced.
- Rings will no longer lose damage immunity properties through randomization.
- Ability bonuses on BUR items (ONLY BUR items) may now randomize up to +14. The ONLY way to exceed the +12 cap is by wearing an item with a higher ability bonus than +12.
- Buffs (such as Bull's Strength or Aura of Vitality) can now counteract inflicted ability penalties (such as the aboleth mucus cloud).
- Bug, exploit, and lag fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-25
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- New SIMTools commands: !iteminfo, !itemdesc, !itemdescandinfo - these commands will dump information about items to your combat log.
-- The !itemlevel SIMTools command will now show level and UMD requirements in addition to hardcore level requirements.
-- Elysium spawns have been significantly adjusted. You will no longer see massive spawns of planetars outside the Fortress of the Sun.
-- Drops of random loot from paragons and random encounters in the Hells were much too low. You should no longer see them dropping commons and uncommons.
-- Loot drops of predictable rarity have been increased by 50% in LL areas and the Hells (e.g. a boss which used to drop 2 URs now drops 3 URs; some may be even better than this).
- New changes:
-- Many properties have now been protected on specific items from being randomized, e.g. breach on breach rings and boots or Implosion immunity on Conservancy.
-- A new calculation for property addition/removal in randomization has been added; the new percentages are: -4=0.5%, -3=3.5%, -2=8.5%, -1=26.5%, 0=36%, +1=19.5%, +2=4.5%, +3=1%.
-- AC variance in randomized items has been decreased.
-- Randomized items can now slot-machine up to 60/- elemental damage resistance.
-- Girding of the Faithful now properly stacks with Magic Vestment.
- Respawn changes:
-- When you respawn, you will now almost always lose an item; however, the item will be replaced in your inventory with a ghostly echo.
-- Ghostly echoes are just like slagged items, and can be repaired, but only after 24 hours of real time have passed.
-- The Priest of Lathander in the docks can now repair items lost by characters without Hells tags. Any item lost by a character with a Hells tag can only be repaired by Zerial the Chronomancer.
-- The price to repair items now scales by the level of the character who lost the item as well as the value of the item itself and the Appraise skill of the character attempting to recover it.
-- Items can now be repaired on any server after 24 hours have passed, instead of only the server on which they were destroyed.
- Lag and exploit fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-20
=================
- AC penalties in the Hells have been reduced to (layer * 3/2) from (layer * 2).
- Energons have been made significantly less common in the Deep Elemental planes for small parties.
- Reincarnating with more than 15,625,000 experience will now cost you 20% of your experience rather than hard-capping you at 12,500,000. The new hard cap is 125,000,000 experience (the planned requirement for level 80 when paragon levels come in).
- All areas will now drop up to 50% more loot from random loot placeables, depending on party size.
- Item randomization is now in place. Most random loot items now have their properties randomized when they spawn. This can result in gained or lost properties, and an increase or decrease in quality of existing properties. Existing items will NOT be affected, but can be randomized with the !randomize command if you want. This change does NOTaffect set loot. Use limitations may also be added, and a quality property will now be added to each item to show its rough quality, based on the changed made to it by randomization. Item names are now color-coded to reflect their quality. Bluer colors are high quality, and greyer colors indicate low quality.
- Item augmentation is now in place. All random loot items now have a chance to spawn with one or two augments on them. An augment is a set of magical properties applied to an item. They vary in type (prefix, suffix, and master) and quality (from common to BUR).
-- Item augmenters now spawn as random loot. An augmenter is an item that applies an augment to an item. For an item to be augmented, it must already have had its properties randomized, meaning that players will have to use the !randomize command on any items they wish to augment that they found before item randomization was added.
-- Augmenters only exist for common, uncommon, and rare augments. -- Ultrarare and BUR augments can only be found already applied to items, or be awarded as augmenters by DMs. Augmenters may only be used on items that do not already have an augment, so it is not possible, for example, to add a prefix augment to an item that already has a suffix augment, even though the same item could be found as random loot with both augments already applied.
- The market has NOT yet been modified to handle randomized or augmented items, but will be soon.
- The banking system has been unified. All personal chests have been converted to transfer chests.
-- Forged weapons and augmented/randomized items may now be stored in the bank. Appearance crafting will be lost, but item property changes and names set with !setname will be kept.
-- Using the personal chest will still allow you to access a single character-specific chest. This character-specific chest is not bound to your CD key, but to the character.
-- Hardcore characters using the transfer chests will access character-specific chests as well.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-14
=================
- Elysium and Aboleths are now full Limbo areas like the Hells; random loot drops in these areas have been upgraded to Hells-quality.
-- The first two maps of Aboleths remain the same as they were before.
- The rate of +16 gems dropping in the Deep Elemental Planes has been doubled, and several more creatures which spawn there now drop ingredients.
- Physical damage immunities in the Hells have been tweaked slightly. In addition, Pit Fiends and Malebranches have had their physical immunities reversed (that is, Pit Fiends now take the damage type Malebranches did before, and vice versa).
- Physical damage resistances in the Hells have been lowered slightly to improve the lot of dexers.
- The damage from Evards Black Tentacles and Blade Barrier has been decreased somewhat.
- The maximum increase for Lore is now 200% in all areas rather than 300% in the Hells and post-Hells areas.
- The auction and priced markets have been consolidated onto Hub 1 and Hub 2. You can now auction 3 items per server (instead of 2) and sell 10 items per server (instead of 5). This is not preparatory to the new market/auction/storage system we are working on; it is so we can bring Hub 3 and Hub 4 up and down to meet player demand more easily.
- New megadamage gloves for monks have been added to Beholders, the Toyshop, and the Catacombs of Dulvuroth.
- Support for spiked and bladed gloves have been added; in support of this change physical damage types have been removed or transmuted from existing gloves.
-- Blood Sport are now bladed gloves (slashing).
-- Halaster's Madness are now spiked gloves (piercing).
-- The inherent damage bonus enjoyed by unarmed monks now matches the damage type of their gloves; spiked gloves will add piercing damage and bladed gloves will add slashing damage.
- Bard song and curse song have been redone to use a point assignment system. You can find more information on the point system, and assign points, by using the !bardsong command.
-- Bard song/curse song ac bonus/penalty have been halved.
-- Caster bard soak song has been removed.
-- The Legendary Artist feat has been added. It adds 1 to the effective song level of bard and curse song, and allows a second configuration of both bard song and curse song that the bard can toggle between using !opt song and !opt curse. Only one song per bard may be active on a target at any time.
-- Harper Scouts gain 8 song points per level to buy bard song points with, though they can only use them if they have bard levels.
-- Dwarven Warchanters receive 7.5 song points per DwD level, in addition to the normal 10 for their bard levels.
-- Dwarven Warchanter requirement Skill Focus Intimidate has been changed to Still Spell.
-- Pale Master lichsong has been reworked to be usable much more often.
-- With LFF1 Outsider, Shifters in Leonal form can now use Rage for a Bard Song ability. The song level uses the same calculation as Harpy Curse Song.
- Purple Dragon Knights have been edited for Higher Ground:
-- PDK Rallying Cry AB bonus has been rescaled to the bard song AB bonus progression of 1 plus 1 for every 10 additional hit dice including legendary levels, up to a maximum of 6 at 51 hit dice. This bonus does not stack with bard song. The duration has been increased to 1 round per point of charisma modifier. If the character has 41 or more hit dice and 5 levels of PDK, then the duration is doubled.
-- PDK Heroic Shield AC Dodge bonus has been changed to 1 plus 1 per level of PDK, and the duration increased to equal Charisma modifier (it is a normal dodge bonus, and does stack with bard song). It was also made undispellable.
-- PDK Inspire Courage now removes fear in addition to its normal effects, and grants temporary immunity to fear effects. Its duration has been extended to 5 rounds per level of PDK, and a second use per day has been added
-- PDK Fear spell has been changed to an AC penalty effect of (hit dice including LLs + 1)/8. The AC penalty does not stack with curse song. The duration has been increased to 1 round per point of Charisma modifier. If the character has 41 or more hit dice and 5 levels of PDK, then the duration is doubled.
-- PDK Oath of Wrath also grants critical immunity versus the racial type of the enemy chosen for the duration. The duration doubles to four times the character's PDK levels at level 41.
-- PDK Final Stand feat has been given 2 additional uses per day. Instead of granting temporary hit points, it brings all allies in a large radius (5.0) to their feet, removing knockdown effects. The radius increases by 1.0 for every 6 points of Charisma modifier the PDK has, up to a maximum of double the normal radius, or 10.0, at 70 Charisma.
- Subraces have been tweaked:
-- The Half-Guardinal subrace had its -2 Wisdom penalty removed.
-- The Furchin subrace had a +2 Intelligence bonus added.
-- The Kolyarut subrace had 2 subtracted from its +4 Constitution bonus.
- The SIMTools !ignore command is now permanent until you !unignore the target. Note that you must be in the same area as your target to !unignore them, as you will be unable to send them a tell.
- Bug, exploit, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-06
=================
- Bonus experience has ended.
- Ingredients in the Feywild and the Elemental Planes now drop into the inventory of a random party member in-area and will automatically stack with other ingredients of the same type, to cut down on the pain of loot splits.
- The AB calculation for focus-AB spells (e.g. Bigby's Clenched Fist, Evards, Blade Barrier, and the Orb spells) has changed slightly to take caster modifier into account. The general calculation is now CL + (caster modifier / 2) + (focus feats * 3).
- Evards Black Tentacles and Blade Barrier can now miss due to concealment.
- The Orb spells now have damage reduction similar to Bigby's Clenched Fist based on enemy concealment.
- Ethereal Visage is no longer a Dwarven Warchanter spell. Displacement is now a Dwarven Warchanter spell, and grants Ethereal Visage concealment when cast upon oneself, as long as the Warchanter is wearing light armor or robes.
- You should now be able to swap shields while wearing the bardic Displacement armors.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-02
=================
- All characters will receive 50% bonus experience for the weekend through Monday July 6th.
- If you use HG Enhanced, you should update to the latest version with the HGE Updater or by visiting HGWiki.
- Added a rarity bonus to all containers in secret areas. The most difficult containers now have a better than even chance of spawning a BUR if you are at least level 60.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Respawn times and loot have been further improved in the Elemental Planes. In addition, many creatures there now drop ingredients which can be brewed by the Alchemist into potions.
-- One piece of loot has been added to the Myconid Depths.
-- The drop rate for ingredients in the Feywild has been increased significantly.
-- The Ssithrak B'ssgir will no longer cast an area-effect Mordenkainen's Disjunction when casting Time Stop, as long as there are no characters over level 50 in the area.
-- Monster Concentration skills have been rescaled in legendary areas, making Taunt/Bluff DC more level-appropriate. DCs have increased somewhat in the Hells and decreased significantly in lower-level areas.
-- Damage resistance and immunities in the Drow areas have been adjusted to be much more reasonable for their levels.
- New changes to creatures:
-- A portion of the elemental immunities possessed by creatures in the Hells has been transformed into physical damage immunities. This change reduces the damage discrepancy between Str and Dex tanks and also reduces the amount of bow swapping required of AAs.
-- Most visual effect creatures (e.g. Pyrexic Fumes) have been given more geometry to make them easier to target.
- Ability and spell changes:
-- Trap makers no longer charge gold for making traps (the descriptions may still say they do, but the charge is disabled).
-- Shifting now adds demigod and artifact bonuses to shifted Strength and Dexterity.
-- Some shifted damage abilities can now receive up to a 100% damage boost from the Animal Empathy skill. See your journal for details.
-- Shifter Harpy Curse Song now scales up to bard level 50.
-- Many damage spells can now receive up to a 200% damage boost (up to 3x normal) from the Lore skill. See your journal for details.
-- You can use the !count loreboost SIMTools command to see the maximum damage gain in an area from Lore.
-- Many damage spells have been rescaled, cleaned up, and tweaked. See your journal for details. In addition, a few schools have changed:
--- Blade Barrier is now Conjuration.
--- Burning Hands is now Evocation.
--- Combust is now Transmutation (to match Corrosive Grasp and Shocking Grasp).
--- Mass Blindness/Deafness is now Enchantment (to match Blindness/Deafness).
-- A number of new spells have been added for users of HG Enhanced. You will need to update your HG Enhanced to select or use these spells.
--- Cleric level 5: Blistering Radiance (V)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 1: Corrosive Grasp (T), Lesser Orb of * (C), Shocking Grasp (T)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 2: Flurry of Fumes (C), Snowball Swarm (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 4: Orb of * (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 5: Vitriolic Sphere (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 6: Freezing Sphere (V)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 7: Greater Orb of * (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 8: Greater Spell Breach (A), Polar Ray (V)
-- The Spells Pedestal in the Docks has been unlocked for Bards and Sorcerers.
-- Rogues must rest before they will be resistant to skill penalties in the Hells.
-- After successfully Mortal Striking a target, assassins must wait until the next round to make additional Mortal Strike attempts.
- Extra attack rebalance:
-- The engine bug which prevented characters from getting proper offhand attacks on double weapons has been fixed (through use of Shapestrong Rage to change size to medium for barbarians). The bonus two attacks for equipping one of these weapons have been removed.
-- The extra attacks from the Clockwork Boots and the Boots of the Wanderer no longer stack with extra attacks granted by Divine Wrath or Shadow Evade. Characters using the Boots of the Wanderer in combination with Divine Wrath or Shadow Evade will still receive a single bonus attack for a total of two.
-- The net effect of the above changes is to reduce the damage of double weapon users from ~165% to ~135% of single weapon users.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-06-06
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Using a Gem of Teleportation (or Rune of Return) in the Elemental Planes will teleport you to the portal to Ascension in that plane.
-- The loot bonus for a few tough critters in the Deep and Middle elemental planes (including genies, energons, drakes, weirds, and vortices) has been fixed. These creatures will drop loot more often than others.
- The visual effect for Nature's Balance has been improved for people with HG Enhanced to make it clearer when creatures are Balanced for color-blind users.
- You will get a floaty when you miss a random loot due to a loot cap in the Feywild and Elemental Planes.
-- The loot drop rate in the Elemental Planes has been increased.
- New changes:
-- The drop rate of +16 gems in the Deep Elemental Planes has been increased significantly (more than doubled).
-- Spawn composition in the first few maps of Elysium has been altered to make these maps less grueling and more fun.
-- Two more set loot drops have been added to the Hive.
-- One more set loot drop has been added to Locathah, and the rare spawn now spawns more often. In addition, some spawn compositions have been adjusted.
-- Shifter Iron Golem form now has a chance to kill creatures in the Hells.
- Bug, exploit, and lag fixes.
=================
-It is no longer necessary to complete earlier levels of the Hells in order to go on deeper-level runs. Instead of being prevented from entering such runs, characters are simply prevented from getting tags for them, as well as the stat boost from defeating Asmodeus, if they lack the preceeding tag (or progress marker, if completing the Hells additional times after the first).
-It is no longer necessary to complete earlier layers of the Abyss in order to go on deeper-layer runs. Instead of being prevented from entering such runs, characters are simply prevented from attuning portals they previously couldn't access, getting miniboss and boss tags, and acquiring Wand fragments, if they lack the proper portal attunements.
-Random loot quality has been increased across the board. Items are now more likely to spawn with bonus properties, and less likely to spawn with properties removed. Certain properties now spawn with larger bonuses when added, as well.
-Added brand new UltraRare random weapons to loot tables. These weapons come with +13 enhance, and can be randomized (once only) to add 5d12 of one type of elemental damage and 5d12 of one type of exotic damage. They drop only in legendary areas, and require level 50 to use.
-Added MoaD, Dustbone, and random weapon versions of the Mercurial Greatsword and Lance to loot tables.
-Bugfixes.
UPDATE 2010-07-30
=================
- Clerics can now cast Frost Weapon (3).
- Druids can now cast Caustic Weapon (3), Shock Weapon (3), and Spectral Stampede (7, Illusion).
- Sorcerers/Wizards can now cast Static Field (7, Evocation). This is also a Dragonstorm Mage spell. The pedestal has been unlocked.
- Barbarian Thundering Rage now adds (Barbarian level including LLs / 5)d10 sonic damage. As with Staffmaster Blackstaff, this does not stack with existing damage on the weapon.
- The damage on Olo'ra and the Hammer of Akura now stack properly with Blade Thirst. You may need to run these items through the bank.
- Characters with at least 21 class levels of Cleric, Paladin, or Blackguard who do not belong to a quasiclass now receive a 50% bonus to their Charisma modifier for Divine Might damage.
- Characters with at least 21 class levels of Champion of Torm who do not belong to a quasiclass now receive a 50% bonus to their Charisma modifier for Divine Wrath damage.
- Weapon buffs now transfer to Humanoid shifter forms and Risen Lord, Demonflesh Golem, and Leonal.
- Dragon Disciples with at least 10 levels of Dragon Disciple who use the Constitution artifact now have the Breath of the Beast power integrated into their Dragon Disciple Breath. This raises the damage dice from d12s to d20s and adds a short-duration 50% vulnerability infliction to the Dragon Disciple's element.
- !list ac now properly handles Dragon Disciple and Pale Master limiting of Tumble AC.
- Greater Smite has been reimplemented as a special ability:
-- You must now have 21 class levels of Paladin, Blackguard, or Champion of Torm to use Greater Smite. You will find an ability in your Special Abilities menu (left then up-left on your radial) named Pulse, Holy. You will need to relog after reaching the required level before you will gain the ability. The old ability token is no longer used and will be destroyed.
-- Greater Smite is now a touch-range radius blast centered on the target. The time required to use the ability has been significantly ameliorated, allowing you to fire it off slightly faster and to immediately resume combat after activating the power.
-- Greater Smite AB is now equal to your hit dice (including legendary hit dice), plus 1 point for each smiter class level you possess (reaching 100 with a pure smiter).
-- Greater Smite recharge time and damage-type availability have not changed. However, Greater Smite will never heal a target (if it would do a target's healing type, it does not affect that target).
-- Greater Smite's damage die size is determined by the number of Great Smiting feats you possess. With no feats, Greater Smite does d4s; with Great Smiting 1-4, it does d8s; with Great Smiting 5-7, it does d10s; with Great Smiting 8-9, it does d12s; with Great Smiting 10, it does d20s.
-- Greater Smite does (Charisma modifier * 4) dice of your selected damage type to all targets hit by the effect.
-- If you have 21 class levels of Paladin or Blackguard, do not belong to a quasiclass, and possess the Great Smiting 2 feat, you will additionally do (Charisma modifier) dice of Sacred (Paladin) or Vile (Blackguard) damage.
- Bug and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-07-24
=================
- Using the Unique Power on your skull will reactivate Abyss portal access you lost when earning fragments from demon lords (but not access you lost from defeating the Prince of Demons or the Pelor scenario). THIS IS TEMPORARY AND WILL BE REMOVED IN A FEW DAYS. USE YOUR SKULLS NOW TO REACTIVATE ACCESS.
- Weapon damage buff spells have been changed. Instead of adding external damage on-hit, they now add integrated damage, enhancing the damage dice already on the weapon.
-- This means that weapon damage buff damage is increased by crits and helps penetrate DR.
-- This also means that Abyss weapons can now be buffed. Existing Abyss weapons may not have their descriptions updated, but they can all now receive weapon buffs.
-- Effects which buff the same damage type (e.g. Flame Weapon and Darkfire) no longer stack.
-- Weapons without any damage of the respective type will receive d4s.
-- Weapons with flat damage (e.g. the +16 on Dis weapons) are considered to have a base damage of 1d8 at +1-+4, 2d8 at +5-+8, 3d8 at +9-+12, 4d8 at +13-+16, and 5d8 at +17-+20. This means adding 3 dice to a Dis weapon's +16 will result in a 7d8 damage bonus.
-- In general, most damage buff spells add 1 die at CL1-15, 2 dice at CL16-30, 3 dice at CL31-45, and 4 dice at CL46+. Bloodfire Mages and Dragonstorm Mages add 1 die to buffs of their respective type.
-- Thundering Rage adds 1 die of sonic damage per 10 Barbarian levels (including LLs).
-- Shadow Rift adds 1 die of negative damage per 10 Shadowdancer levels (including LLs) and the duration has been doubled to CL rounds.
-- Magic Weapon for Accursed Pariahs adds 1 die at CL1-25, 2 dice at CL26-50, and 3 dice at CL51+.
-- Bless/Corrupt weapon for Paladins/Blackguards adds 1 die of divine damage at CL1-30. At CL31+, if the caster does not belong to a quasiclass, the damage bonus increases to 2 dice.
-- Holy Sword no longer adds divine damage (that function has been subsumed into Bless Weapon, which also has a much longer duration).
-- The Elemental Potions of Weapon Sufflation now add 5 dice (major) or 3 dice (minor) of their respective damage type. You will need to run any existing Potions of Weapon Sufflation through the bank for them to function.
-- The Blade Thirst spell now adds 1 die of positive damage to favored enemies where it would have added additional damage against favored enemies before, increasing to 2 dice at CL31, 3 dice at CL41, and 4 dice at CL51. Lashes of Hatred receive 2 additional dice and do negative damage instead. The damage for Blade Thirst can be toggled on and off with the !damon and !damoff commands (this replaces the previous !damne command used before by Lashes).
-- The Blackstaff spell now adds integrated damage as well for Staffmasters. The Way of the Staff item has been removed and damage type changing should now be done with the SIMTools !dam commands. Scaling for Staffmaster damage starts at 3d10 and increases by 1d10 for every 5 WM levels (including LLs), reaching 12d10 at WM45. An ego augment can be found which increases Staffmaster Blackstaff dice to d12s.
-- The Warrior's Whetstone has not been changed at this time, but is slated to receive a rework to boost physical damage done based on your Craft Weapon skill.
-- The Infernal Weapon consumables from the Hells have not been changed at this time, but will likely become integrated damage in the future (the DI infliction they do will remain).
- Unresistable damage has largely been removed, replacing it with an integrated physical damage bonus (similar to Weapon Specialization):
-- All caps on the below abilities have been removed, if they existed before (e.g. the +20 cap on Divine Might).
-- Bard Song now adds the bard's damage bonus directly to your physical damage, rather than adding a sonic damage bonus.
-- Barbarian Mighty Rage now adds your current Constitution modifier directly to your physical damage, rather than adding a fixed cold damage bonus.
-- Divine Might and CoT Divine Wrath now add your current Charisma modifier to the physical damage you do each hit. We are considering adding a 50% bonus for characters with 21+ levels of cleric, paladin, or blackguard and who do not belong to a quasiclass, but that change is still under discussion.
-- Prayer, Divine Favor, Battletide, and War Cry now add their bonus directly to the physical damage you do each hit.
-- The Pyre of Chaos has not been changed at this time, but will likely be changed to add a large integrated fire damage bonus in the future.
- The Monk unarmed damage bonus has been converted to our new damage bonus system. It should apply properly in all cases now.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- The !autorand SIMTools command has been added. The party leader can use this command to toggle whether or not loot will automatically be randomized. All party members must be in a No PVP area to change automatic randomization. When automatic randomization is disabled, loot will return to the old (significantly lower) drop rates.
-- Some chests in the Abyss now require less rare picks to unlock.
-- All weapons are now available in +15 varieties in the Hells. Most +15 weapons have been moved to the chest in Minauros; two +15 weapons now drop from this chest per run.
-- You can now re-equip disarmed weapons without clearing the map, but you must be a significant distance away from any enemies.
-- Monks can now toggle Empty Body and Wholeness of Body on and off. They receive a pool of ki points equal to (Monk level including LLs + base Wisdom score) * 3 each rest; Wholeness of Body consumes 2 ki points per round and Empty Body consumes 1 ki point per round.
-- You must now rest with the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus in your possession before using its biorejuvenation power (that is, you cannot keep it in a portable hole and pull it out for a free bio, then return it to the hole).
-- Defeating a demon lord will no longer break your Abyss portal attunement, but facing the lord or their final miniboss will bar you from using portals to that lord's realm for 18 hours (defeating the Prince of Demons or completing the Pelor scenario will still strip you of all your Abyss attunements).
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-04-17
=================
- The Spiny Fish, Bloodstained Boots, and Trickery's Friend powers have been fixed. You may need to run these items through the bank before using them.
- The Farseer's master augment has been improved. It now increases the dice on AA bows by one step (e.g. d8s to d10s). You must run any Farseer's-augmented items through the bank for this to take effect. Note that the description is now more generic than mentioning Arcane Archers, as this augment may affect Divine Slingers or other class-based ranged damage in the future.
- The Uthgar's, Xan Yae's, and the shifter master augments have been fixed. You will need to run these items through the bank.
- The Godswrath master augment now increases turning capacity by one-third rather than TP, making it useful to all turners. You will need to run any Godswrath-augmented items through the bank.
- A Shar's master augment has been added for Shadowdancers, which increases the range of Shadow Step.
- The Assassin's Scabbard can now be used an unlimited number of times per rest, to make life easier on assassins with the much greater requirements for weapon swapping. However, Mortal Strike now only functions for onhand weapons. You cannot hone weapons while in combat.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Rakshasas in the Hells are now much more sparing with AoE Mords (that is, less annoying).
-- The Bard Abjuration epic Chant of Warding now grants (CL / 2) physical DR and (CL / 6)% physical immunity for CL rounds. It now affects the entire party.
-- The tier-3 DwD chant for Dwarven Warchanters is now Chant of the Unyielding, which duplicates the Bard Chant of Warding epic.
-- The tier-3 Bard chant for Dwarven Warchanters is now Chant of the Fallen, which will bring up to 3 party members back from Fugue or Limbo, with a 20-minute cooldown.
-- You can now set traps in combat, but enemies who see you set the trap will receive a bonus to avoid it. In addition, you cannot set traps right under enemy feet.
-- BFM/DSM brands/balls were not starting out at the improved damage for the first strike.
-- Having your caster ability drained will no longer completely mess up your memorized spells once you reach level 40.
-- Most disarm effects will now place a Disarmed Weapon token in your inventory. This can be restored by using it once the area is clear.
--- Defoliate now drops Fortitude save by 1 at CL40, 2 at CL45, 3 at CL50, 4 at CL55, and 5 at CL60.
-- At Shadowdancer 22 and higher, Shadow Daze now casts a single-target Curse Song ability, at Shadowdancer level (including legendary levels).
-- Immortal characters with at least 25 Shadowdancer class levels can now find the Shadow Step ability. This ability, once acquired, allows you to teleport as a swift action to targets within Medium range. You will automatically enter Shadow Sanctuary when using Shadow Step. Some targets (such as bosses) cannot be teleported to. Shadow Step can be found somewhere very black.
-- Non-immortal characters can now repent the path they took with Solis Gaobin by speaking to the priest in town. This will allow them to attempt the quest again.
-- A number of pre-legendary creatures have had their racial type corrected.
-- Assassins and Blackguards can now learn the Extend Spell feat. You must run the HGE Updater to do so (the change is not yet in the downloadable version of HGE, only the updater).
-- Flashback characters (proxies) can now be merged:
--- Requirements:
----- The proxy must have the same race and subrace as the main character.
----- The proxy must have the same control class as the main character, and the same number of levels in each class as the main character.
----- The proxy must be under the same player name (account) as the main character.
----- The proxy must be immortal and at least level 41. The main character must also be immortal and at least level 41.
----- The proxy must not have been previously reincarnated.
---- The proxy must speak to the reincarnation light, and go through the process and delete as normal.
---- The main character must then speak to the Bartender in Rip's, and regale the patrons of the bar with tales of adventure.
---- All currently active reincarnation slots for the given account will be checked:
----- Any matching flashback-able slots will be consumed, merging their pre-legendary accomplishments with the main character. You will receive a message for each consumed reincarnation slot.
----- Any non-matching slots will issue a message, informing you why that slot could not be merged. This may not be an error, if you have active reincarnation slots for other characters.
---- The Solis Gaobin accomplishment from your proxy, if present, will OVERWRITE any Solis accomplishment on your main character.
-- Abyss changes:
--- Abyss minibosses now uncloak gold piles and pickable chests when they die.
--- Abyssal lords now drop 4 BURs and 4 URs (all guaranteed Above Average or better), plus 2 BUR chests, 2 set loot chests, and 2 large gold piles.
--- You can now use Gems of Teleportation or Runes of Return in the Plane of Portals to return to the portal to the Workshop in Aldinach's Egg.
--- Paragon/Random spawn loot drops in the Abyss have been tweaked to ensure they drop loot at the proper rate.
--- Viper trees in Azzagrat and Zionyn now spawn gradually as you approach them rather than all spawning at area entry.
--- A number of creatures in the Abyss which were previously not vulnerable to any form of petrification can now be petrified by Cast in Stone (the druid level 9 petrification gaze) only.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-27
=================
- Accomplishment changes:
-- Added bonuses for pre-legendary-level accomplishments. These total +6% to all elemental damage immunity, at least +3% to all exotic and physical damage immunity, +5 to all skills (falling within the +50 buff cap), +3% spell damage, +2 points of physical damage per hit, and +5% earned experience.
-- Added 19 more pre-legendary-level accomplishments.
-- Many pre-legendary-level accomplishments have had their level caps adjusted. Previously earned accomplishments are not affected.
-- Note that there are specific accomplishments for defeating Xulrae, Lolth, the Immortal, and the Mother of All Dragons without immortal aid. You cannot have an immortal in your party or in the run areas at any point during attempts to earn these accomplishments.
-- To list pre-legendary accomplishments, you must now use the '!list acc prell' SIMTools command. Listing pre-legendary accomplishments will also list the bonuses those accomplishments grant.
-- A system is being built to allow proxy characters to be created to earn accomplishments for people who have exceeded the level cap on those accomplishments. Although the system itself is not yet available, here is the general structure of how it will work:
--- You must create a new character, starting at level 1. The character must be the same base race and subrace as the character you wish to transfer pre-LL accomplishments to. The proxy character must not be reincarnated, and must be on the same account as the target character.
--- You must level this character to 41 (earning immortality and the other accomplishments you wish to transfer along the way). When you reach 41, your class levels and control class must be the same as the character you wish to transfer accomplishments to.
--- You will then be able to transfer pre-LL accomplishments earned by the proxy character to the target character, and the proxy character will be deleted in the process. In essence, the proxy character is a 'flashback' to previous accomplishments performed by the main character, and when you transfer the accomplishments, the timeline is 'merged'. Accomplishments previously earned by the target character will not be deleted or affected.
--- Characters created now who adhere to the restrictions above (no reincarnation, same base race/subrace, same class levels) will be able to transfer their tags when the system is completed.
- Many additional pieces of loot added to the Abyss. Loot addition is still in-progress.
- A new UR belt has been added with Blackguard spell slots.
- Some enemies may now inflict damage resistance decrease instead of or in addition to damage immunity decrease.
- Added Guild Discord.
- Spellcasting changes:
-- Blackguard spells have been reworked to allow bonus spells to work. If you have HG Enhanced, you may now cast blackguard spells using the radial or ordinary quickslot-binding (by right-clicking on a quickslot and binding it to a spell). The Extend Spell metamagic also works for Blackguards if you have HG Enhanced. To change Blackguard spells, you need to use the new '!sb change bg' SIMTools command.
-- Blackguards no longer receive free single casts if they do not have sufficient Wisdom to cast Blackguard spells. In addition, the Strength-for-Wisdom swap has been removed.
-- It is no longer necessary to use the Blackguard spell rods to cast spells if you have HG Enhanced.
-- Blackguard Death Ward critical immunity now lasts (CL / 2) rounds, as with Paladin Death Ward critical immunity, since Blackguards now receive their full complement of spell slots and can acquire bonus spell slot gear or use Extend Spell.
-- Assassin spells have been added. Assassins use Intelligence as their caster ability, and receive spells in the same manner as Blackguards. To change your spells as an Assassin, use the '!sb change as' SIMTools command. See your journal for more information.
- New Spells:
-- Detonate (Sor/Wiz 9, Evocation): If you succeed in a touch attack against the target, it must make a Fortitude save or explode messily. Even if it makes the save, the target takes CLd10 fire damage, boosted by Lore. If the target explodes, all enemies in a Gargantuan radius take CLd8 fire damage, with a Reflex save for half. Targets which are immune to Disintegrate are also immune to Detonate. This is a Bloodfire Mage spell. As with Disintegrate, Accursed Pariahs may not learn Detonate.
-- Iron Grasp (Bard 2, Transmutation): The target is resistant to being disarmed for CL rounds.
-- Iron Silence (Assassin 3, Bard 2, Transmutation): The target is immune to armor check penalties for Hide and Move Silently for CL turns.
-- Shock Weapon (Sor/Wiz 2, Evocation): As Flame Weapon, but electricity. This is a Dragonstorm Mage spell. Flame Weapon now operates normally for DSMs.
-- Silver Tongue (Bard 1, Illusion): Adds the caster's Charisma modifier to the target's Persuade skill for CL rounds.
-- Vitriolic Ray (Druid 4, Conjuration): As Lightning Bolt, but acid and does (CL * 3/4)d6 damage.
-- Vocalize (Sor/Wiz 2, Enchantment): The next spell cast by the caster is cast as if it had Silent Spell applied. This spell has no verbal component and may be cast while silenced.
-- Word of Balance (Druid 7, Evocation): Does CLd6 sonic damage and enemies which fail their save may be stunned.
-- Wrack (Sor/Wiz 5, Necromancy): The target's physical and elemental damage resistance is decreased by (CL / 4).
-- You must update your HG Enhanced to have access to the new spells. The pedestal has been unlocked for Sorcerers and Bards.
- Class and quasiclass changes:
-- Dragon Shape Dragon Breath cost is now capped at 7 EP/breath for legendary Druids. Note that this cap is provisional and may be adjusted.
-- Ball Lightning (for DSMs) and Firebrand (for BFMs) now do CLd6 damage for the initial strike per target, which decreases by 3/4 for each additional strike on a given target (hence, at CL60, the second strike does 45d6, the third 33d6, and so on).
-- Orb of Force and Greater Orb of Force are now BFM spells.
-- Lesser Orb of Sound, Orb of Sound, and Greater Orb of Sound are now DSM spells.
-- Lashes of Hatred will no longer inflict an enemy's healing type.
-- Hide is now a class skill for Blackguards in legendary levels.
- Anduin's staff quest and many other lowbie issues fixed.
- Dominated Rona monsters no longer fall through the treetops.
- Fixed bug causing doubled ACs on items as well as nonrandomized item ACs.
- Fixed bug allowing oversetting of bardsong level. You will have to reset your song selections.
- Fixed bug allowing HCs to transfer items to non-legendary HCs more than 6 levels below them.
- You must now be in party during the run to earn the Water Breathing, Levitation, Passwall, and Firewalk rings (that is, you cannot port in at the end to acquire the items). The alternate method of trading L35 weapons to Borian is still available.
- Undroppable items (e.g. basic survival rings, epic spells, class abilities, and so on) no longer count against your 150 item Encumbria limit.
- Other bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-15
=================
- Elemental damage clouds have been improved; a caster may now only have one elemental damage cloud out at a time.
-- Freezing Fog now does (CL * 3/4)d6 cold damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Acid Fog now does CLd6 acid damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Incendiary Cloud now does CLd8 fire damage per round, with a Reflex save for half.
-- Storm of Vengeance now does CLd8 electrical damage per round, with a Reflex save for half. Enemies who fail their save may also be stunned.
- BFMs have had their spells improved:
-- Fireball now does (CL / 2)d6 fire damage and (CL / 4)d6 positive damage. The fire damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Delayed Blast Fireball now does CLd6 fire damage and (CL / 2)d6 positive damage. The fire damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Incendiary Cloud no longer does split damage (only straight fire damage).
-- Meteor Swarm now does CLd10 of either fire or divine damage; it will seek the best type against an enemy. It will never seek a healing damage type.
- DSMs have had their spells improved:
-- Lightning Bolt now does (CL / 2)d6 electrical damage and (CL / 4)d6 divine damage. The electrical damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Chain Lightning now does CLd6 electrical damage and (CL / 2)d6 divine damage. The electrical damage is boosted by Lore.
-- Meteor Swarm now does CLd10 of either electrical or positive damage; it will seek the best type against each enemy. It will never seek a healing damage type
- BFMs and DSMs may add half their caster level to their Lore skill for casting BFM and DSM spells. Lore skill is effective up to 150 Lore for them (including this bonus), as opposed to the normal 120 Lore limit for other casters. In general, this means they can do 130% damage with their quasi spells.
- Sorcerers may now learn extra spells from the spell pedestal in legendary levels. They gain an extra 1st level spell known at Sorcerer 22, an extra 2nd at Sorcerer 24, and so on up to an extra 9th at Sorcerer 38. Only pre-LL sorcerer levels count in this calculation.
- Bards may now learn extra spells from the spell pedestal in legendary levels. They gain an extra 1st level spell known at Bard 23, an extra 2nd at Bard 26, and so on up to an extra 6th at Bard 38. Only pre-LL bard levels count in this calculation.
- The spell pedestal has been unlocked for sorcerers and bards so they may take advantage of the new spells known.
- A number of search spots have been fixed in the Abyss. In addition, approximately 50 more set loots have been added (and more are on the way).
- A number of other bugs have been fixed in the Abyss (e.g. alkiliths causing unrestorable Discipline drop).
- The Persuade skill now allows you to drop enemy SR with the Taunt ability. You can activate this with the !opt tauntpersuade SIMTools command.
- Enemy AI has been tweaked somewhat. The Taunt skill may now cause enemies to assault you more assiduously, and the Bluff skill may cause them to eschew you as an opponent.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2010-02-07
=================
- Higher Ground has updated to CEP 2.3. Please visit www.hgweb.org/update.html for more information. HG Enhanced has also updated to Beta 25; you can download this from the Wiki or use the HGE Updater.
- The Abyss has been released! The Abyss is for level 55+ characters and contains over 50 individual areas in five major layers (plus Pazunia, the Plane of Portals). PLEASE NOTE: The Abyss is still under playtest, and may have need of further balancing. Enter at your own risk.
- Item changes:
-- Some ego items have been moved to a new category where they will conflict with each other, but not with ego items from augmentation.
-- Due to an antiexploit tweak, you will need to run any Divine Intervention amulets you possess through the bank to use their double-Miracle power.
- Spell changes:
-- The Sleep spell now receives an additional +1 DC per Enchantment focus.
-- The Hold Animal, Hold Person, and Hold Monster spells now receive an additional +1 DC per Enchantment focus (except for Dwarven Warchanter Hold Monster, which has its own DC bonus). Hold Animal can now paralyze animals, beasts, magical beasts, and vermin.
-- The Entangle and Web spells now receive an additional +1 DC per Conjuration Focus, and ignore Spell Resistance at CL41 and higher.
-- Entangle, Web, and Grease spells can no longer be dispelled by Gust of Wind.
-- Ball Lightning and Firebrand for DSMs and BFMs are now limited to one strike per ten caster levels per target (so at caster level 60, at most 6 balls/brands will hit each target).
-- The Time Stop spell now has a 30 second cooldown timer.
-- The Rebuke spell now respects Mind and Confusion immunity rather than Mind and Dominate immunity.
- New Spells:
-- Defoliate (Druid 4, Necromancy): As Crumble, but works on plants. Also includes the Fortitude save decrease effect from Crumble.
-- Freezing Fog (Sorc/Wiz 5, Conjuration): As Acid Fog, but cold (and does d6 instead of d8).
-- True Resurrection (Cleric 9, Conjuration): Ranged single-target resurrection spell; range is Touch without Conjuration foci, Short with SF Conjuration, Medium with GSF Conjuration, and Long with ESF Conjuration. LSF Conjuration is planned to allow you to recover allies from Limbo, but not yet done.
- Class and ability changes:
-- The unresistable divine damage from Divine Might and Divine Wrath no longer stack.
-- Construct Shape Iron Golem Breath now costs 5 EP per use.
-- Dragon Shape Dragon Breath now costs 1 EP per six caster levels or fraction thereof per use. In addition, dragon breath now does CL dice of damage, and the penalty for not having shifter levels has been removed (reducing the average breath damage at level 60 with maxed AE from ~960 to ~800).
-- The Sigil of Mystra's special power now grants three temporary caster levels for the duration of the power.
-- Artifact visual effects have been reworked to show up more consistently.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Camera zoom-in has been removed from all conversations.
-- Elemental Potions of Locate Object now function. They can find items and non-empty containers in the current area exactly (look for beams of light) and will also give you a sense of general direction towards active search spots when quaffed.
-- Added the !list levels SIMTools command. Note that this command may not be fully reliable for older characters (pre-dating March 2009). Generally the issue will be feats taken in legendary levels showing up in odd places.
-- Rest spawns have been removed from many low-level areas.
-- The Avernan Dragonblood flowers have been modified to reduce crashing problems.
-- The Greater Scabbard of Blessing should now work properly.
-- You can now use !portal here to portal to the server you are on.
-- Guild Warrior Nation now has a Split Merchant.
-- Shifters now receive unlimited shifts with limited forms as long as they have remaining essence, but have a single EP pool for all uses of that form (e.g. if you would have had 60 EP and 4 shifts before for Dragon Shape, you now have a total of 240 EP to use in Dragon Shape).
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-10-10
=================
- New SIMTools commands:
-- The !autosell command has been added to auto-sell less valuable loot you may come across during your adventures.
- The !bulksell command has been added to sell all loot from a Split Merchant.
- Random item property changes:
-- Eliminated Soak +2 through Soak +9.
-- Eliminated Ride skill bonuses and penalties
-- Greatly reduced the frequency of bonuses to specific saving throws.
-- Greatly reduced the frequency of weight reduction.
-- Doubled the frequency of bonus feats.
-- Ensured that AC versus (alignment, race) properties are always higher than the normal AC bonuses on items.
-- Other improvements to augmenters and random properties.
-- Augmenters may now have different appearances.
- Whisper Gnomes should be able to perform club feat swaps properly now.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-10-04
=================
- HG Enhanced has updated to Beta 24. Visit the HG Enhanced page on HGWiki or use the HGE Updater to update to the most recent version.
- Changed the legendary leveler to grant visible feats. Only players with HGE installed will be able to see them in the feat list, but they are still viewable with !list feats, as before.
- Recalculated reincarnation cost to allow high-XP characters to more easily reincarnate. No experience will be lost for the first 12.5 million XP a character has (level 60 requirement). Above that point, experience will be lost, starting at 20% and decreasing to 1% at 125 million XP.
- New SIMTools commands:
-- The !charedit SIMTools command has been added, which allows characters to perform feat and ability swaps (which have been moved off the PC Scry).
-- The !creaturedesc SIMTools command has been added, which allows you to get the descriptions of creatures to your log.
-- The !list ab SIMTools command is much more useful now.
- Feat changes:
-- Added CEP weapons feats. Club feats no longer work for CEP weapons, but players can switch their club feats over to CEP feats using the !charedit command, once they are level 41 or higher. Players with HGE will be able to select these feats during levelup. Players without will have to use feat swap at level 41+.
-- The following new feats can be taken with HG Enhanced or during legendary levels. Feats with [F] are also Fighter bonus feats.
--- Greater Weapon Focus (requires 6 BAB and Weapon Focus in the weapon, adds stacking +1 to AB). [F]
--- Power Critical (requires 6 BAB and Weapon Focus in the weapon, adds 4 to critical confirmation rolls). [F]
--- Superior Critical (requires epic levels, 23 base Dex, and Power Critical in the weapon, and adds an additional 6 (total of 10 with PC) to critical confirmation rolls). [F]
--- Intuitive Attack (requires 3 BAB and 13 Wisdom, allows you to use Wisdom as your AB ability for the following weapons: mace, dagger, club, kama, scimitar, goad, katar, nunchaku, heavy mace, quarterstaff, spear, shuriken, sickle.
--- Brutal Throw (requires 3 BAB and 13 Strength, allows you to use Strength as your AB ability for throwing axe and dart). This can be taken with HGE or during legendary levels.
--- Rapier Wit (requires 3 BAB and 13 Charisma, allows you to use Charisma as your AB ability for rapier). This can be taken with HGE or during legendary levels.
--- Epic Bards and Sorcerers can now take Extra Spell Known feats. They will be able to actually use their extra slots at level 41 by talking to the Spells Pedestal in the docks.
-- Legendary Slippery Soul and Legendary Valor, which are Ref/Will and Fort/Ref analogues to Legendary Hardened Soul.
-- You can use the !charedit command to convert Strong Soul to Slippery Soul or Dauntless, which are Ref/Will and Fort/Ref analogues to Strong Soul (and prerequisites for Legendary Slippery Soul and Legendary Valor). You can only perform this swap at level 1.
- Changed feats:
-- The Disarm and Knockdown feats have been reimplemented as swift actions. See your journal for more information.
-- Clerics and Druids can now take Epic Warding and Epic Mage Armor using epic bonus feats with HG Enhanced, or during legendary levels.
- Class changes:
-- Weapon Masters no longer receive an extra attack with LWF; they receive the standard +3 AB again.
-- The Cleric epic Girding of the Faithful no longer grants bonuses to artifacts.
-- When cast as Cleric spells, the following spells will use Charisma modifier instead of Wisdom if the caster's Charisma modifier is higher: Banishment, Dismissal, Rebuke, Undeath to Death, Word of Faith.
-- The internal mechanics of Turn Undead have been changed somewhat, making it more difficult to Turn or Destroy large numbers of creatures quickly.
-- Clerics, Paladins, and Blackguards with at least 36 base Charisma can now find a Divine Inspiration ability, which will allow them to use Turn Undead uses as a Bard Song substitute.
-- Bard/Curse Song abilities now have a base duration of 1 round per point of the singer's Charisma modifier (with a minimum base duration of 10 rounds). The Lasting Inspiration feat now multiplies duration by 5 instead of 10.
-- The concealment decrease effects of Invisibility Purge and Mass Spell Destruction have been reworked. They should function much more reliably now.
- Area changes:
-- The Wax Hall and Cesspool in the Hive will no longer despawn creatures, preventing the areas from locking when someone crashes or logs out when returning to their party.
--New secrets have been added to the Hells, Toyshop, Uroboros, Dulvuroth, Hive, Pit of Moliation, and Locathahs. Crafting drops and useables have been roughly doubled in those areas.
- Item changes:
-- Edited property frequencies in the random loot system to make Light, Darkvision, and Haste appear much less often. This should result in most other properties appearing much more often, and should substantially improve the quality of added item properties.
-- Added a new bow for Arcane Archers, which allows them to merge their megadamage bows and swap damage types without suffering the miss chance caused by weapon swaps. It can be found someplace amazeing. Arcane Archer bow damage has been reduced to d8s from d10s.
-- Ranger bows now receive increasing damage based on the user's Wisdom modifier.
-- The Ruby Rod of Asmodeus now grants Critical Reduction rather than immunity to critical hits (you will receive half damage from all critical hits while holding the Rod, as if you had 127 Parry). All existing Rods have been unbound from their owners. The Ruby Rod now grants +20 Deflection AC when held.
-- The Rampart of the Pact Primeval is now a +18 shield instead of +20, meaning it grants 3 AC over BUR shields, just like the other Asmodeus artifacts.
-- To Reign in Hell and the Serpent's Coil (the Asmodeus helm and belt) have been upgraded.
-- If you have Elemental Potions of Weapon Sufflation and the spell cast is not a Unique Power, run them through the bank to fix them.
- Crafting Edits:
-- Dozens of new crafting items have been added. This will have the effect of shuffling the required crafting item for many of your items.
-- You can now undo armor class properties that have been randomized down by crafting.
-- Redid property addition with Asmodeus' Touch to yield better added properties.
-- URs and more common items now require more common crafting ingredients than BURs for most crafting options.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-09-14
=================
- Added new bazaar and newbie channels. Everyone automatically hears them, but you can opt out using !filter bazaar and !filter newbie. Send messages per usual, using !bazaar <message> and !newbie <message>.
- Added a new quasiclass, the Dragonstorm Mage. Details are not yet available in the journal documentation, but can be found on the forums. They are very similar to Bloodfire Mages, but are Blue Dragon Disciples, and use electrical spells.
- Bug fixes.
UPDATE 2009-09-12
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Using the !randomize command on an old randomized BUR will now update it to be able to be augmented to +14. If you receive a red message saying the item was already randomized, it is already updated.
-- Shifters who shift wearing +14 gear should now continue to receive their delicious +14 bonus while shifted.
-- Zerial and the Priest of Lathander are now much better about locating destroyed items in your inventory.
-- The Locathah Depths now drop books which grant shifter form focus feats.
-- The incidence of use limitation on randomized items has been reduced from 17% to 10%.
-- The incidence of negative added properties on randomized items has been reduced from 20% to 10%.
-- Augmenters have been moved 'down' a slot in rarity:
--- Common augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace uncommon drops
--- Uncommon augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace rare drops
--- Rare augmenters now have a 15% chance to replace ultrarare drops
--- BUR drops are no longer replaced by augmenters
-- A set UR augmenter chest is now found at the end of Elysium
-- !partyroll pass, !partyroll unpass, and !partyroll update commands have now been added.
-- Transformed Dragon Disciples may now use the PC Scry to activate tails if they wish.
- Shifters must now use the !cancel poly SIMTools command to unshift. This is necessary to prevent a crash bug.
- The !list augments SIMTools command has been added, which will list the rarity of augments on a randomized item.
- Randomized items can now be crafted in the Forge of Ixion, a portal to which can be found in a random location in the Elemental Planes. The portal moves each reset.
-- Crafting requires both gold and crafting ingredients. The ingredient required is determined by the particular item you are crafting and the action you wish to perform, and is generally persistent for that item (though it may change with mod updates, and will change if a crafting action is performed).
-- The following crafting actions can be performed:
--- All augments on an item may be destroyed.
--- An item may be completely re-randomized.
--- A single removed property may be restored. You cannot select which property will be restored.
--- A single added property may be removed. You cannot select which property will be removed.
--- A randomly-added use restriction may be removed.
--- An item may be completely derandomized.
--- All augments on an item of UR quality and lower may be extracted into augmenters.
--- A single random property may be added to an item which has no removed or added properties.
- All SIMTools commands now display on the popup menu. You can pull up the menu with the !simtools command.
- Guild Maelstrom of Darkness has been added.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-27
=================
- Several randomization caps have been moved or adjusted to reduce the incidence of BURs being unable to improve.
- Randomized items which receive an AC penalty will now only receive Dodge AC penalties, which can be counteracted by buffs.
- The incidence of AC loss on randomized items has been greatly reduced.
- Rings will no longer lose damage immunity properties through randomization.
- Ability bonuses on BUR items (ONLY BUR items) may now randomize up to +14. The ONLY way to exceed the +12 cap is by wearing an item with a higher ability bonus than +12.
- Buffs (such as Bull's Strength or Aura of Vitality) can now counteract inflicted ability penalties (such as the aboleth mucus cloud).
- Bug, exploit, and lag fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-25
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- New SIMTools commands: !iteminfo, !itemdesc, !itemdescandinfo - these commands will dump information about items to your combat log.
-- The !itemlevel SIMTools command will now show level and UMD requirements in addition to hardcore level requirements.
-- Elysium spawns have been significantly adjusted. You will no longer see massive spawns of planetars outside the Fortress of the Sun.
-- Drops of random loot from paragons and random encounters in the Hells were much too low. You should no longer see them dropping commons and uncommons.
-- Loot drops of predictable rarity have been increased by 50% in LL areas and the Hells (e.g. a boss which used to drop 2 URs now drops 3 URs; some may be even better than this).
- New changes:
-- Many properties have now been protected on specific items from being randomized, e.g. breach on breach rings and boots or Implosion immunity on Conservancy.
-- A new calculation for property addition/removal in randomization has been added; the new percentages are: -4=0.5%, -3=3.5%, -2=8.5%, -1=26.5%, 0=36%, +1=19.5%, +2=4.5%, +3=1%.
-- AC variance in randomized items has been decreased.
-- Randomized items can now slot-machine up to 60/- elemental damage resistance.
-- Girding of the Faithful now properly stacks with Magic Vestment.
- Respawn changes:
-- When you respawn, you will now almost always lose an item; however, the item will be replaced in your inventory with a ghostly echo.
-- Ghostly echoes are just like slagged items, and can be repaired, but only after 24 hours of real time have passed.
-- The Priest of Lathander in the docks can now repair items lost by characters without Hells tags. Any item lost by a character with a Hells tag can only be repaired by Zerial the Chronomancer.
-- The price to repair items now scales by the level of the character who lost the item as well as the value of the item itself and the Appraise skill of the character attempting to recover it.
-- Items can now be repaired on any server after 24 hours have passed, instead of only the server on which they were destroyed.
- Lag and exploit fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-20
=================
- AC penalties in the Hells have been reduced to (layer * 3/2) from (layer * 2).
- Energons have been made significantly less common in the Deep Elemental planes for small parties.
- Reincarnating with more than 15,625,000 experience will now cost you 20% of your experience rather than hard-capping you at 12,500,000. The new hard cap is 125,000,000 experience (the planned requirement for level 80 when paragon levels come in).
- All areas will now drop up to 50% more loot from random loot placeables, depending on party size.
- Item randomization is now in place. Most random loot items now have their properties randomized when they spawn. This can result in gained or lost properties, and an increase or decrease in quality of existing properties. Existing items will NOT be affected, but can be randomized with the !randomize command if you want. This change does NOTaffect set loot. Use limitations may also be added, and a quality property will now be added to each item to show its rough quality, based on the changed made to it by randomization. Item names are now color-coded to reflect their quality. Bluer colors are high quality, and greyer colors indicate low quality.
- Item augmentation is now in place. All random loot items now have a chance to spawn with one or two augments on them. An augment is a set of magical properties applied to an item. They vary in type (prefix, suffix, and master) and quality (from common to BUR).
-- Item augmenters now spawn as random loot. An augmenter is an item that applies an augment to an item. For an item to be augmented, it must already have had its properties randomized, meaning that players will have to use the !randomize command on any items they wish to augment that they found before item randomization was added.
-- Augmenters only exist for common, uncommon, and rare augments. -- Ultrarare and BUR augments can only be found already applied to items, or be awarded as augmenters by DMs. Augmenters may only be used on items that do not already have an augment, so it is not possible, for example, to add a prefix augment to an item that already has a suffix augment, even though the same item could be found as random loot with both augments already applied.
- The market has NOT yet been modified to handle randomized or augmented items, but will be soon.
- The banking system has been unified. All personal chests have been converted to transfer chests.
-- Forged weapons and augmented/randomized items may now be stored in the bank. Appearance crafting will be lost, but item property changes and names set with !setname will be kept.
-- Using the personal chest will still allow you to access a single character-specific chest. This character-specific chest is not bound to your CD key, but to the character.
-- Hardcore characters using the transfer chests will access character-specific chests as well.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-14
=================
- Elysium and Aboleths are now full Limbo areas like the Hells; random loot drops in these areas have been upgraded to Hells-quality.
-- The first two maps of Aboleths remain the same as they were before.
- The rate of +16 gems dropping in the Deep Elemental Planes has been doubled, and several more creatures which spawn there now drop ingredients.
- Physical damage immunities in the Hells have been tweaked slightly. In addition, Pit Fiends and Malebranches have had their physical immunities reversed (that is, Pit Fiends now take the damage type Malebranches did before, and vice versa).
- Physical damage resistances in the Hells have been lowered slightly to improve the lot of dexers.
- The damage from Evards Black Tentacles and Blade Barrier has been decreased somewhat.
- The maximum increase for Lore is now 200% in all areas rather than 300% in the Hells and post-Hells areas.
- The auction and priced markets have been consolidated onto Hub 1 and Hub 2. You can now auction 3 items per server (instead of 2) and sell 10 items per server (instead of 5). This is not preparatory to the new market/auction/storage system we are working on; it is so we can bring Hub 3 and Hub 4 up and down to meet player demand more easily.
- New megadamage gloves for monks have been added to Beholders, the Toyshop, and the Catacombs of Dulvuroth.
- Support for spiked and bladed gloves have been added; in support of this change physical damage types have been removed or transmuted from existing gloves.
-- Blood Sport are now bladed gloves (slashing).
-- Halaster's Madness are now spiked gloves (piercing).
-- The inherent damage bonus enjoyed by unarmed monks now matches the damage type of their gloves; spiked gloves will add piercing damage and bladed gloves will add slashing damage.
- Bard song and curse song have been redone to use a point assignment system. You can find more information on the point system, and assign points, by using the !bardsong command.
-- Bard song/curse song ac bonus/penalty have been halved.
-- Caster bard soak song has been removed.
-- The Legendary Artist feat has been added. It adds 1 to the effective song level of bard and curse song, and allows a second configuration of both bard song and curse song that the bard can toggle between using !opt song and !opt curse. Only one song per bard may be active on a target at any time.
-- Harper Scouts gain 8 song points per level to buy bard song points with, though they can only use them if they have bard levels.
-- Dwarven Warchanters receive 7.5 song points per DwD level, in addition to the normal 10 for their bard levels.
-- Dwarven Warchanter requirement Skill Focus Intimidate has been changed to Still Spell.
-- Pale Master lichsong has been reworked to be usable much more often.
-- With LFF1 Outsider, Shifters in Leonal form can now use Rage for a Bard Song ability. The song level uses the same calculation as Harpy Curse Song.
- Purple Dragon Knights have been edited for Higher Ground:
-- PDK Rallying Cry AB bonus has been rescaled to the bard song AB bonus progression of 1 plus 1 for every 10 additional hit dice including legendary levels, up to a maximum of 6 at 51 hit dice. This bonus does not stack with bard song. The duration has been increased to 1 round per point of charisma modifier. If the character has 41 or more hit dice and 5 levels of PDK, then the duration is doubled.
-- PDK Heroic Shield AC Dodge bonus has been changed to 1 plus 1 per level of PDK, and the duration increased to equal Charisma modifier (it is a normal dodge bonus, and does stack with bard song). It was also made undispellable.
-- PDK Inspire Courage now removes fear in addition to its normal effects, and grants temporary immunity to fear effects. Its duration has been extended to 5 rounds per level of PDK, and a second use per day has been added
-- PDK Fear spell has been changed to an AC penalty effect of (hit dice including LLs + 1)/8. The AC penalty does not stack with curse song. The duration has been increased to 1 round per point of Charisma modifier. If the character has 41 or more hit dice and 5 levels of PDK, then the duration is doubled.
-- PDK Oath of Wrath also grants critical immunity versus the racial type of the enemy chosen for the duration. The duration doubles to four times the character's PDK levels at level 41.
-- PDK Final Stand feat has been given 2 additional uses per day. Instead of granting temporary hit points, it brings all allies in a large radius (5.0) to their feet, removing knockdown effects. The radius increases by 1.0 for every 6 points of Charisma modifier the PDK has, up to a maximum of double the normal radius, or 10.0, at 70 Charisma.
- Subraces have been tweaked:
-- The Half-Guardinal subrace had its -2 Wisdom penalty removed.
-- The Furchin subrace had a +2 Intelligence bonus added.
-- The Kolyarut subrace had 2 subtracted from its +4 Constitution bonus.
- The SIMTools !ignore command is now permanent until you !unignore the target. Note that you must be in the same area as your target to !unignore them, as you will be unable to send them a tell.
- Bug, exploit, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-06
=================
- Bonus experience has ended.
- Ingredients in the Feywild and the Elemental Planes now drop into the inventory of a random party member in-area and will automatically stack with other ingredients of the same type, to cut down on the pain of loot splits.
- The AB calculation for focus-AB spells (e.g. Bigby's Clenched Fist, Evards, Blade Barrier, and the Orb spells) has changed slightly to take caster modifier into account. The general calculation is now CL + (caster modifier / 2) + (focus feats * 3).
- Evards Black Tentacles and Blade Barrier can now miss due to concealment.
- The Orb spells now have damage reduction similar to Bigby's Clenched Fist based on enemy concealment.
- Ethereal Visage is no longer a Dwarven Warchanter spell. Displacement is now a Dwarven Warchanter spell, and grants Ethereal Visage concealment when cast upon oneself, as long as the Warchanter is wearing light armor or robes.
- You should now be able to swap shields while wearing the bardic Displacement armors.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-07-02
=================
- All characters will receive 50% bonus experience for the weekend through Monday July 6th.
- If you use HG Enhanced, you should update to the latest version with the HGE Updater or by visiting HGWiki.
- Added a rarity bonus to all containers in secret areas. The most difficult containers now have a better than even chance of spawning a BUR if you are at least level 60.
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Respawn times and loot have been further improved in the Elemental Planes. In addition, many creatures there now drop ingredients which can be brewed by the Alchemist into potions.
-- One piece of loot has been added to the Myconid Depths.
-- The drop rate for ingredients in the Feywild has been increased significantly.
-- The Ssithrak B'ssgir will no longer cast an area-effect Mordenkainen's Disjunction when casting Time Stop, as long as there are no characters over level 50 in the area.
-- Monster Concentration skills have been rescaled in legendary areas, making Taunt/Bluff DC more level-appropriate. DCs have increased somewhat in the Hells and decreased significantly in lower-level areas.
-- Damage resistance and immunities in the Drow areas have been adjusted to be much more reasonable for their levels.
- New changes to creatures:
-- A portion of the elemental immunities possessed by creatures in the Hells has been transformed into physical damage immunities. This change reduces the damage discrepancy between Str and Dex tanks and also reduces the amount of bow swapping required of AAs.
-- Most visual effect creatures (e.g. Pyrexic Fumes) have been given more geometry to make them easier to target.
- Ability and spell changes:
-- Trap makers no longer charge gold for making traps (the descriptions may still say they do, but the charge is disabled).
-- Shifting now adds demigod and artifact bonuses to shifted Strength and Dexterity.
-- Some shifted damage abilities can now receive up to a 100% damage boost from the Animal Empathy skill. See your journal for details.
-- Shifter Harpy Curse Song now scales up to bard level 50.
-- Many damage spells can now receive up to a 200% damage boost (up to 3x normal) from the Lore skill. See your journal for details.
-- You can use the !count loreboost SIMTools command to see the maximum damage gain in an area from Lore.
-- Many damage spells have been rescaled, cleaned up, and tweaked. See your journal for details. In addition, a few schools have changed:
--- Blade Barrier is now Conjuration.
--- Burning Hands is now Evocation.
--- Combust is now Transmutation (to match Corrosive Grasp and Shocking Grasp).
--- Mass Blindness/Deafness is now Enchantment (to match Blindness/Deafness).
-- A number of new spells have been added for users of HG Enhanced. You will need to update your HG Enhanced to select or use these spells.
--- Cleric level 5: Blistering Radiance (V)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 1: Corrosive Grasp (T), Lesser Orb of * (C), Shocking Grasp (T)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 2: Flurry of Fumes (C), Snowball Swarm (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 4: Orb of * (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 5: Vitriolic Sphere (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 6: Freezing Sphere (V)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 7: Greater Orb of * (C)
--- Wiz/Sorc level 8: Greater Spell Breach (A), Polar Ray (V)
-- The Spells Pedestal in the Docks has been unlocked for Bards and Sorcerers.
-- Rogues must rest before they will be resistant to skill penalties in the Hells.
-- After successfully Mortal Striking a target, assassins must wait until the next round to make additional Mortal Strike attempts.
- Extra attack rebalance:
-- The engine bug which prevented characters from getting proper offhand attacks on double weapons has been fixed (through use of Shapestrong Rage to change size to medium for barbarians). The bonus two attacks for equipping one of these weapons have been removed.
-- The extra attacks from the Clockwork Boots and the Boots of the Wanderer no longer stack with extra attacks granted by Divine Wrath or Shadow Evade. Characters using the Boots of the Wanderer in combination with Divine Wrath or Shadow Evade will still receive a single bonus attack for a total of two.
-- The net effect of the above changes is to reduce the damage of double weapon users from ~165% to ~135% of single weapon users.
- Bug, exploit, lag, and documentation fixes.
UPDATE 2009-06-06
=================
- Hotpatch rollup:
-- Using a Gem of Teleportation (or Rune of Return) in the Elemental Planes will teleport you to the portal to Ascension in that plane.
-- The loot bonus for a few tough critters in the Deep and Middle elemental planes (including genies, energons, drakes, weirds, and vortices) has been fixed. These creatures will drop loot more often than others.
- The visual effect for Nature's Balance has been improved for people with HG Enhanced to make it clearer when creatures are Balanced for color-blind users.
- You will get a floaty when you miss a random loot due to a loot cap in the Feywild and Elemental Planes.
-- The loot drop rate in the Elemental Planes has been increased.
- New changes:
-- The drop rate of +16 gems in the Deep Elemental Planes has been increased significantly (more than doubled).
-- Spawn composition in the first few maps of Elysium has been altered to make these maps less grueling and more fun.
-- Two more set loot drops have been added to the Hive.
-- One more set loot drop has been added to Locathah, and the rare spawn now spawns more often. In addition, some spawn compositions have been adjusted.
-- Shifter Iron Golem form now has a chance to kill creatures in the Hells.
- Bug, exploit, and lag fixes.