SimuCon 2003

PART 1 (General Seminars)
As a general disclaimer any of this info may be wrong for a variety of reasons.
What does that mean? It means these notes could be wrong from either people misinterperting what was said, or not hearing what was said, the GM's may change their minds and ideas be altered or scrapped, or any other numerous things.
Remember, just because you read it here doesn't mean it's set in stone.

There may be multiple note versions per section. (different people's notes)
It was just easier that way people, otherwise there would have been a LOT of editing for me, and we can't have that! ;)

The following people should be praised for making these notes available for you:
Jolebin, Tyrathia, Mozzik, Indigoe, Larcus, Magdar, Taffei, Apu.

[State Of Elanthia] [Combat] [Survival] [Health/Death] [Magic: Song and Spell] [Lore: Creation Sytems] [Races]
[New Skills] [The StormFront End] [The 5th Province]

State Of Elanthia

The big announcement that is pretty much common knowledge by now was... DragonRealms II.
DragonRealms II will have a new engine that allows:
-More flexibility
-More cross compatitbility
-More possibilities
You WILL NOT have to re-roll and start over as a commoner.
You will simply log in one day and hopefully notice little if any change.
DragonRealms II is tentively scheduled for release the second quarter of 2004.
Some of the things you can expect to see in DragonRealms II are:
-Multi-room houses
-More robust vault system
-Enhanced NPC's (On a related note, work is actually already being done on DragonRealm's NPC's. The Ranger Guild Leader Kalika was the initial test NPC)
-Enhanced creatures that will work with a karma system
-Skill based titles (will tie in with careers/professions and karma system... for instance, if you're the "Goblin Slayer Joe Bob", expect to get tracked down and swarmed by some of those new 'enhanced' goblins)
-Weighted and decaying 'Warning' system
-Easier magic stuff (easier for the GM's to build that is)
-Easier creation systems (again, for the GM's to build new creation systems, which is good for us)

State of Elanthia

Big Annoncement: DragonRealms 2.

This means more flexibility, massive system upgrades, more compatibility, and we will NOT be starting over.

Gemstone IV will be our beta tester in this case, and due to all the work on system stuff going on in DR2 at the time HWN will be focused more on RP then systems.

Major coding GMs (Towint, Rigby and such) will be moving over to DR2 first in the fall, then a closed GM test, an alpha test (with special players picked to break their systems of specialization), a beta test and finally migration.

DragonRealms 2 is scheduled for the second quarter of 2004.

Major features will include EVERYTHING on the poll on the web right now (Career system, P5, Racial Abilities, New Guild(s), Alignment, Dragons, Skill based titles, karma, New Races). This is just the tip of the iceberge, most of the systems discussed this year at the Con are aiming for DR2.

Other features include: Multi room houses, Vault upgrades (multiple ones and shared ones with spouses etc), Enhanced NPCs (who know what they should know, Guildleaders first. The minstrel will KNOW about music, Guildleaders about all the Guildleaders in their province and guild, about related topics, current events, well known players of their guild etc. This will also be updatable on the fly.

New town guards – each with it’s own personality, beat, awareness, vulnerability to bribes, and habits. One may let you bribe your way out of jail, another might take the bribe and jail you anyhow. A third may be so insulted at the bribe as to increase you’re sentence/beat you. Also you now get to be dragged to jail. Ha ha!

Bad karma from killing some critters, such as a woodlands with critters for rangers to protect but others may wish to kill (Say moon mages to gather something for an enchantment). Rangers may be able to gather this item… or just have the Moon Mage come in and kill everything.

Weighted and decayed warnings so when a GM warns you they don’t see “This person already has 3 warnings” even though they are three years old and all for vulgarity and the one you just got was for AFK scripting. Overall this will be a LOT friendlier and fair for players.

Kill trackers… and titles based on it. Related to this... BIG goblins… and once you have reached say…10,000 you’ll get the “Goblin Destroyer” title… but God help you if you go into a big goblin hunting area… ex the gen rate will jump way up just for you.

Magic items/enchanting far easier to built and implement. Creation systems in general will as be showing up everywhere and be far easier to build. In general it will be easier for “Cool Shit” as Solomon put it to be included.

The new guild is Necromancers, Alchamists were considered but turned into a career and cool monk/druid shape shifters are still planned but won’t be ready for DR2. There WILL be no switching.

The Career system will let you be a shop owner, a town guard, an alchemist, a stone worker or carpenter, lots of things like that. New areas may (like shops and housing) may not fully open until they are “built” play PC stoneworkers and carpenters. If that means 100 of you on it for a weekend? Fine. 2 of you working on it for 6 months? Also fine. It just means players get to be the ones saying “soon” now.

“Will you give up Guild stuff to be part of a career?” “HELL NO!” – Solomon

New races will be coming but how many and which ones are still a matter of debate.

Dark Paladins with alignment system as well as dark clerics.

Players will NEVER be forced to eat or drink as that would imply a system that just no one wants to code…

Magic items a lot more common as right now they are, per Solomon, “Beyond frickin’ rare.” We’re not talking artifacts here, and they may well be temporary, but it makes sense for 50+ people to be using a flaming sword in DR.

The first ships will go up for auction this summer (5 of them) with 6 available to rent.

Ways to travel around all cities (A non safe route to travel from Theren to Riverhaven other then the barge).

Rooftop travel, scaling system for in-city climbing.

The arena tracking system will be worked on, and arm wrestling (as well as ways to cheat).

New Hall of Records with listed champions for PvP, spouses, homes, Guild, personal info, item insurance (Both monetary and magic). There will be a limit on how many people a person can be a champion for. Insurance will protect vs graverobbing, having NPCs watch for the item, or magical location.

6th year LTBs are done.

Lake Gwen swimmable… though Gwennie might catch you…

Anything you hear about a war bigger then the Gorbesh coming is a total lie… heh.

TF Only:
Infamy belt does stuff like double many (all?) stats, 25% boost to top weapon, but when it wears off you are drastically drained and basically helpless.

Combat

Cloth Armor skill to be introduced.
Light and Heavy Thrown to be changed to Light and Heavy Projectiles.
Whips skill to be introduced.
Off-handed Weapon skill to be introduced (in DragonRealms II)
ALL weapon Round Times will change by 2 seconds.
New formula .. .; Agility, Strength, weapon's suitability for Strength and Balance to play roll, as well as weight
Weapons and Armor will become damaged more often. Currently they are too durable.
'Force Of Impact' to be introduced. In other words, large creatures are weapons may know you down, back to pole or missile, or even out of the room.
Shield Bash maneuver to be introduced. Anyone may use it.
3 Round Time (Left hand, Right hand, Body)
Defensive Round Time. In other words, it takes time to parry. So you could be overwhelmed in combat from parrying a more skilled opponent, and not be able to mount and attack, thus the needed Body Round Time counter which will allow you to Retreat.
Retreat to be changed to work like Advancing. You type Retreat and some time later you either succeed in retreating back to missile range, or you fail. There is no Round Time on the Body counter for Retreating. There was talk of expanding the command to work with command like Retreat North, so that when you successfully retreated to missile range you would automatically go North. (very useful)
While your hands are in Round Time, the larger the number, the less effectively you will be able to parry. This is because you are considered to be in the early stages of your attack and your weapon hasn't came to the end of it's swing yet, so you can't get it back around as fast to parry.

Skill changes: Cloth armor skill added. Whips and off-hand weapon skills added. Thrown will be changed to Projectile (blowguns added -- probably Light), Brawl will be changed to Unarmed Combat.

RTs for weapon use will be based on Agility, Strength, and weapons stats, rather then just Strength and weapon weight.

Combos for weapons except for staves will be changed and lengthened.

Brawl will be integrated fully into the combat system: No more "brawl mode."

Retreat will be changed to mirror advancing: It will take time to retreat back through the engagement ranges. Contested checks to determine advance and retreat speed for when someone advances a retreating target. You will still be able to fight while retreat, and there is thought about adding a "flee" verb to represent turning tail and running instead. Retreat may include the ability to determine a direction to immediately move upon reaching missile range (such as RETREAT NW).

Armor / Weapons: The reevaulation of armor and weapon stats may have to wait until DR2. Armor and weapon damage will not be modified until field repair methods are introduced.

Force of Impact: When live, these calculations will allow someone to be knocked down, to another engagement range, or out of the room entirely (ship rat golf). Shield bashing would be introduced with these calculations. Shield bashing will be open to everyone.

Dual-Wielding: Defense RTs will probably be in, but they are looking for ways to avoid "pin down" situations: For instance, Evasion will not create a RT and Retreat will be based on Body RT. An arm under RT will not lose its defense value: Instead, a penalty to defense relative to how long the RT is will be introduced. With DR2 it may be possible to choose which hand is primary (no ambidextrous characters).

Seminar: DR Combat: Advance...Parry...SLICE!
Hosts: Damissak, Veyl

They introduced Ssra, Damissak's new assistant, and Skiori, the development lead for Barbarians who will also be working on brawling.

The disarm skill will be renamed "traps," while an acrobatics skill is being added to the survival skillset. A cloth armor skill is being added, and it is likely to have a lower minimum hinderance. In the weapons skillset, light and heavy thrown are becoming light and heavy projectiles, whips are being added, and so is the off-hand weapon skill.

Roundtimes will now depend on our agility and strength, as well as the weight and balance of the weapon. It should take Soim two days to figure out the new calculations. The optimum balance combinations will be changing for edged and blunt weapons.

Brawling sucks, so they plan to make it better. It will be inegrated into combat, so there will be no more "brawling mode." And it's being renamed to "undarmed combat."

Advancing and ranges will be tied into the stealth system, including perception checks.

They are trying to make combat as stable as possible. There have been few changes in the last year.

Retreat will be more like advancement, with the change in range occuring gradually if successful, but without roundtime.

Weapon profiles will be changing for pretty much all weapons, and they will be set up to handle enchantment. Hopefully, some of the less practical weapon types will become more useable.

Combat equipment damage: There's not enough of it, and it doesn't occur in the right way. There will be a field repair system. Look for it in DR2. Force of impact will also be redone. It might be possible to knock a critter out of melee or even out of the room. There will be more realistic calculations for knocking down critters and players.

Shield bashing is coming for everyone. Blasword asked if it will be possible to go into battle with two shields, and Veyl offered to hire him.

Dual wielding means that you can have three separate roundtimes, for the left hand, right hand, and body. Being in one or more roundtimes will affect your defense ability. They also have something planned for displaying multiple roundtimes. Also, left-handedness will be possible.

Then was a Q&A session.

Q: Can we punch with both hands?
A: Yes. The syntax for dual wielding will be verb, hand, object of verb.

Q: If disarm is becoming traps, can there be a weapon disarm ability?
A: No.

Q: What weapon class will blowguns be?
A: Light projectile. I don't think you could be blowing a heavy projectile. [Then we all laughed.]

Q: Will it be possible to hold a critter at a particular attack range?
A: Yes, you can try.

Q: Will bows have heavy and light projectiles?
A: No, bows and slings remains as they are.

Q: Will critters have off hands?
A: Yes.

Q: So failing to retreast has no more roundtime?
A: Right; no hard roundtime.

Q: Will failing to retreat affect your balance?
A: Yes, it probably should.

Q: Can your second weapon be a different class?
A: Yes, but there should be some restrictions.

Q: What will affect your ability to retreat?
A: The contested formulas.

Q: Can I backflip out of combat with the acrobatics skill? ( I asked this question... Yay Eldrad)
A: Possible.

Q: Will brawling still increase your fatigue when using a weapon?
A: Everything you know about brawling will change.

Q: Who is acrobatics for?
A: Nothing further to say.

Q: How will forging be affected by the weapon and armor profile changes?
A: It will work off the new system.

Q: Have you thought about adding a range between pole and missile?
A: No.

Q: Will the existing whips be useable as whip weapons?
A: Um, I just found out about the whips an hour ago.

Q: Can mages have a "run away" verb?
A: It is possible that there will be "flee" or "breakthrough" verbs, and changes to guarding and abilities might affect the combat ranges.

Q: Why can't two critters flank me at one, one on either side?
A: That's something that could be looked into. The idea is that if you have two critters on you, you can keep on in front of you and the other to your side. The third one sort of gets its own way, you can't keep it where you want it.

Q: Will my gauntlets behave as weapons?
A: Veyl: Yes. Damissak: Well that's a bold statement.

Blasword: Can I grab a peccary by the horns?

Q: Can I put a critter on my flank instead of facing it?
A: Well, you automatically face them when possible.

Q: Some of the crit messaging doesn't make sense. As it stands, a peccary can insert its head in my butt.
A: Hey, as long as you're having fun.

Q: There are some gaps in training. Can there be critters that overlap with their skill levels?
A: You may have to find them. They should be there, but not necessarily where you are. Hot Summer Nights has at least half a dozen new critters.

Q: Will the Bestiary be updated?
A: Oh, man. Um, yeah,Ineed to make that a priority.

[There were then some questions about stealth and its relationship to combat, but I didn't really follow all of it.]

Veyl and Damissak are excited about the coming year, and they are glad to have their two new assistants. They added that it might be possible in the future to have commands like "retreat nw" or "retreat hide," where the second command is executed upon successful retreat, instead of having to time the second command to go through at the one moment when you're not engaged.

Q: So, can we guard exits?
A: We've batted the idea around, but we haven't reached any conclusions. There could be repercussions for consent.

That was the last seminar on Saturday. It was followed by the dinner where David Whatley proposed to Ashley (Aw!). Anyway, I'm about to return Mozzik's laptop to him, so look for the writeups of "Roleplay your way of anything," the Warrior Mage meeting, and "Necromancers: Making Death and Dismemberment Work for You," first thing tomorrow morning.

--David (Jolebin Swordstaff, Elemancer of Riverhaven)

Survival

New Hiding system will come out in Hot Summer Nights
Foraging will be getting lots of new things to forage, insalled in multiple installments.
Stealth - You will eventually be able to act against hidden of invisible people if you know they are there. (skill check will of course come into play)
Lockpicking rewrite... "soon" (GM Veyl seemed to have his plate very full and I got the impression this was a ways off)
Disarm Traps skill to be renamed Traps.
Acrobactics to be introduced as a new survival skill.

Survival skills:

Stealth core mechanics are in place and for HSN will be released to work with hiding, (un)loading in hiding (much as app is now), snipe, poach and backstab. Ambush will come later.

Hiding/stalking timers are being changed. Now you can learn (more) for X attempts on a certain victim in a certain amount of time encouraging you to kill and move on in the case of BS and so forth learning more in less time overall instead of stance 0 stab stab stab stab stab…

Engaging/retreating while hidden or invisible will have a check and will teach stalking.

Stalking is up for a rewrite. So is ambush.

Acting on invisible will not come live until invisibility is reviewed instead of just being a % bonus to hiding skill.

You have to know WHO is invisible not just that someone is there to act on them.

There will be no healing from invisibility or hidden.

Forage is getting a massive upgrade for HSN (could have 1000+ items vs the 100 or so in place for it now), with items tied to environment, season, moons or whatever. (Strawberries, seashells… turnips just for Plat…) And the list Solomon posted is not a full list.

Empaths and rangers will be able to learn more if they try and find the best of the bunch (healing faster more uses or whatever).

Items you find in an area will be logical to that area… if apples trees are in the description and its apple season you will be able to find an apple.

Piles of sticks for fletching.

Weights fixes (such as on flowers).

Foraging appraisal (like app water) is on hold till all the rooms are fixed as right now it would just be down right embarrassing to release.

Few stray treasure items (old Imperial coins for example) that may work with bardic recall.

Only the top 10% of items will be really hard to find.

Different wood types can now be used for canes.

No hints as to where to find things… this system was boring to write they want some pleasure watching people go crazy finding things.

More swimming/climbing areas.

ONLY Thieves may use Stealing to circle.

Rooftop system (Working climbing and escape… used in burglary). No ETA on this… and the system will potentially be fatal.

Perception – Juggling is being expanded to include much more objects instead of just 5 or 50 stones as a temporary relief, GMs are looking for more direct ways to teach it.

Actions while in hiding is being reviewed.

Amputation to prevent disease (tied to anatomy?)

Skinning is due for review.

Hindering yourself on an action will not teach any more then doing the action normally. (Skinning with a claymore)

Trapping is coming which will bring more skinning chances.

In DR2 you will be able to get multi eyes/teeth etc.

Skinning will still not get an RT.

If you do ever kill a dragon… you will not just “Skin dragon”… It will die, fall on you and squish you to death.

P5 will have lots of survival training.

Fixes for climbing/hiding/stalking interations.

DR2 will introduce climbing tools.

Disease and poison will be rewritten for HSN.

Health/Death

Seminar: Health/Healing/Death/Dying
Host: Towint

Therengian archivists have uncovered old imperial records in Throne City: "...famous Ranger of the time [c. end of Empire], named Reolur Jadys, working closely with one of the most brilliant Alchemists to ever live, Sebii Hissan, travelled over all the known world, planting special seeds that promised to provide miraculous cures for many ills. What this means is that a lot of the herbs we have aren't natural; they were created.

Dying is coming out on Thursday, and at 12:01am ET it will be implemented in at least one instance, probably Prime, and all instances by the end of the day. So what is Dying? It's a "buffered death." Normally, there are two main ways to die: a critical wound, or a loss of general health and vitality. The latter case is where Dying aplies. There will be a dying buffer of varying length--Towint isn't saying what factors can increase it. If your vitality is velow 0 but above the buffer level, you are unconscious and dying, instead of just dead. You will not necessarily know if a person is Dying just by looking at them; there is a skill check involved, and Empaths can see the Dying state more easily. If someone is providing you with the appropriate assistance, you health will gradually recover. You will have at least 15-30 before death occurs, going up to minutes if you have the right skills/stats/whatever. While Dying, your ability to defend yourself is severely diminished. As a result, if you are Dying while still in combat, your wounds are likely to ultimately be worse than if you had simply dided. This is the sole downside to the new system. In essence, Dying is what the body does to prevent death. You can't do it again until you have fully recovered. When DR2 comes around, creatures may also wind up Dying. Towint reiterates that *Dying* is going *live* (get it?) on Thursday. In DR2, it may be going *undead*. If the skill check agrees, you will see that a person is Dying by LOOKing at them. Dying will also be evident in the health command and from Empathic touch. An Empath will be able to sense if their spouse is Dying. Any relationship Dying might have to Contingency will have to be determine by the Moon Mage Guild. Overall, the new system brings a much greater benefit to hunting with partners or in parties.

In September, Towint is being put on DR2. There will be a complete revision of the health system. For example, if you keep getting in the arm, why should the same cut just keep getting deeper? You will instead be able to get multiple injuries to the same area. Many aspects of this are still in the design stage, such as how transference will work with the new arrangement. Tails will be damageable and healable. Your hand will not be bleeding if your arm is gone. Injuries will have an impact on your ability to do all things in the game. You won't be able to walk without legs, but there will be a crawl verb. You might leave a trail of blood, and there will be a roundtime. You will no longer be able to cut off the same arm from a critter twice. Your missing arm may affect spellcasting if you use your arms for it. Cauterization will be possible, but it will result in greater damage to the area.

Changes are coming to disease and poison. You might ask yourself, why is there a bruise spreading across my leg? It's a disease, but it has a resistance to detection. More skill, or being an Empath, will make it easier to detect. A new health-related skill was to be announced the day after this seminar occured [I believed that turned out to be Empathy]. Some diseases will have different durations. Leprosy is forever. DR2 will have mental diseases and damage, but there will never be an Empath hunting ground. Mental disease might be treated by Moon Mages, it remains to be seen. There will be resistance to healing certain diseases; Heal Disease won't work on everything. Just because you can transfer it doesn't mean you can heal it. Everyting can be a substance in Substances 2.0. The alchemy career will depend on substances, some of which will have applications with diseases. Remember, healing herbs were actually created by an alchemist. Poisons and diseaes will resist transference. A limb can be amputated to prevent the spread of a disease. Blasword asked if you can cut off your arm even if you don't have a disease. He followed up with the question of whether or not you can cut off your arm or a critter's arm, and then beat the critter with it. Towint said that that is someone else's release to talk about [This could have been a reference to Empathic manipulation, or to Necromantic grafting.]. There will be multiple levels of poison and disease in DR2, including delayed results and combined effects.

There will be bandages, crutches, and tourniquettes. But crutches won't make you faster than those who are on foot.

In DR2 there will be more feature slots, and permanet scars will be possible.

There will be race-specific diseases. Have you ever seen a Pyrdaen without fur? A Rakash who can't change into moonskin? A Gor'tog with hair? An Olvi without hair on its feet? And one race could carry a disease that affects another race. It was asked if there would be sexually transmitted diseases. Yes, but only in The Fallen.

The apprentice Empath [Kaisa?] in the Corssing will be going away. She's been an apprentice for 20 IG years! Maybe she's going to P5? The Autopath prices are going up. Prices will be scaled to depend on the same factors that affect all merchants, as well as citizenship, race, and maybe gender. Fraethys [Don't blast me for spelling...] will be retiring. PC healers will always be better, assuming player competence. NPC Empaths will be wrewritten to be more realistic. They might incorporate some first aid into their routines. Health insurance might be available. If you've wondered why the Martyr's room seems to have poor mana, you need to consider what someone might see in there with four digits of power perception skill.

We [the players] are going to hate this. Don't panic. Healing herbs are likely to change with the release of DR2. There will be "natural healing." Right now, herbs act directly on the body. In DR2, the body will naturally heal. A wound may not even leave a scar. A deep cut might naturally be gone after 1.5 to 2 weeks. Healing herbs will affect the rate of natural healing. Herbs may increase that rate by a factor of 1,000 or 10,000--but what does that mean for limb regeneration [Think now, what's the natural rate at which your body regenerates a missing arm? Now multiply that by 10,000.]. Races will have different rates of natural healing.

Will alchemists be able to create magical healing herbs? Well, it's been done before. You may need help from a Ranger, an Empath, a Mage, who knows? Cultivating a plant and replanting it to make more might be possible.

Will some races resist herbs? Some races may even be immune to herbs. There are reasons that certain races are longer lived.

They hadn't quite adjourned yet when I left to go to the next seminar. (Mozzik – All that was mentioned after this was possible plagues and magical diseases)

--David (Jolebin Swordstaff, Elemancer of Riverhaven)



Magic: Song and Spell

Magic and Music:

*Note: There is now a "Magic Bible" that ALL GM's must go by to make new spells. Just FYI.

Just to start things off on the right foot:
Rigby – “Alright… any questions”
Mozzik – “What is Talian doing with the sheep under the table?”
Rigby – “Some questions just shouldn’t be asked.”

Held mana is still too harsh, both to hold and in the damage it does, but incredible amounts of mana are too easy to get to. Basically when fixed harness skill will be MUCH more noticeable when dealing in held mana.

PM/harness gap issues do in fact exist. Rigby will be reviewing these (Had to twist his arm on these… apparently leak doesn’t always mean you in fact are leaking more that you aren’t getting the boost from your harness skill you could for your PM. Or that’s how it should be but isn’t right now. In testing some things for him I found out it’s even more broken then I thought…)

Seeing someone target while in hiding is a bug. There will also be checks eventually for prepping spells while hiding (along the lines of appraising while hidden, it all uses the same core system) eventually may be able to harness /hide like preps.

More “Bad Things” will be added for backfiring spells.

The steps in spell casting (Rigby had a GREAT Power Point presentation with fantastic art he did for both this entire seminar and the necromancer one… we have photos of most of it but hopefully he’ll send us the presentations or host them somewhere… info on that when it develops.)
1st: Mentally bend the mana streams.
2nd: Form the pattern, form a shunt to the mana streams. The nexus points (where the lines in the pattern form) are the key and if you leak mana this is where it leaks from. More complicated spells have more nexus points.
3rd: Open the shunt so the mana can fill the pattern. This is where you loose attunement, the spell is powered and if you leak or backfire it occurs.
4th: Magic Resistance comes into effect (animate objects resisting the unnatural placement of the mana lines), the effect happens (and hits barrier spells or undead resistance (if non holy magic)).

Mana refers both to the lines of mana and the subtypes that exist in a spectrum. Think of mana as when you put white light through a prism… but everyone in DR is colorblind naturally. When you join a guild you are being attuned to see one of those colors (prism glasses as Rigby called them). When you are attuned to only one mana type even if you say… make the PFE pattern as a Moon Mage it just won’t have the same effect, it’s like trying to paint an emerald if you only have red paint.

Music resonances with elemental magic because it’s the most “solid” of the mana times, reacting with stone and such.

Below lunar mana in the spectrum (which goes lunar-elemental-life-holy for those who don’t remember, and holy is so thin you need something else to power it thus devotion and soul) is gravity and time. That is beyond any mage to control, though occasion we see its effects (screwed moongates are a good example).

Arcane mana (Sorc/necro) is mixed mana types, when you make the pattern from one mana and fill it with mana from another type for example. The patterns used in such spells either need a certain mix or in some cases are universal and work with any mana type.

With bardic enchantes the music is needed to maintain it’s effects as they are more powerful (area effects and such) then raw spells would be and the pattern is constantly being reformed.

Rigby - “Threats, threats, threats…”
(Bard GM throws stuffed penguin at Rigby)
Talian – “Actions.”

A new Bardic ability, mana song, will control how much mana you wish to use with a spell (Set to 8 and it will effectively prep all enchantes at 8, but if you suddenly need a burst of power you could set it to like 30 and burn through a LOT more mana). If the enchante would need more mana then this when you start singing it will automatically bump it up to min mana. With this prep will be changed so if you are below min mana and prep it will tell you that you are and then prep at min mana.

Advantages to Enchantes:
Enchantes in theory can last indefinitely with skill and mana, though they can be started and stopped at any time.
Change mana settings on the fly.
Bard only Nagas (Musical reptile creatures… eventually a book will be released on them but bards can summon lesser ones for defense and so forth).

Disadvantages to Enchantes:
MR is checked whenever you change rooms or start up an Enchante.
Weather can hinder them (by damaging the needed instruments and such)
Drains mana constantly
Song key and tempo can clash (Harder to mix enchantes, joint play can bonus on the same song, and skill and overcome the clash.)

Types of Enchantes:
Quiet (Bard only, no clashing)
Medium (group only)
Loud (area
Very Loud (Multi Room… planned for DR2)

Bards will have spell slots as a prime magic guild.

1st tier enchantes will be released first and in a brief preview (NOT a 6 month preview) then the 2nd tier will be released and so forth.

Magical devices still need a LOT of work, runesmithing is being worked on but won’t happen till all MDs are reviewed and fixed (in particular passive and active needs to be checked on all items). High end MD training is being looked at for options other then camb or enchanting, but this is a huge project. Runesmithing is way off.

Tier of a spell (for comparing power) is now calculated as the most spells needed in any one branch to it. As an example Crystal Spike is 4th tier as it needs clarify gem, which needs dazzle (shadows), piercing gaze (clear vision), and focus moonbeam (shadows). The longest chain is Shadows-dazzle-CG-CrS. Thus 4th tier instead of 7th by the old calculations.

Blackfire is coming as a elem/holy mix, it will be Warrior Mage ONLY (sorry bards and MMs) and will NOT be perm learnable. Look for Incinerate this summer.

Rigby thinks he found a workaround for perm learning other guild spells. But it still isn’t happening. Deal with it.

Bards will be able to leech mana from cambrinth over time to power enchantes. Someone suggested this work for held mana and they said they would consider it.

Necromancers will NOT get Blackfire or Feral magic (on feral magic ask Rottcloar was all we were told) Also NO players will be able to learn battle sphere, even on a scroll. Gorbesh got dibs.

Eventually critters will be able to use enchantes as well.

DR2: Custom spells (At least 75th ability, could be chosen by anyone after designed, will NOT be in the initial release of DR2… this is something Rigby as just started thinking on). Also magical constructs are being looked at for magical primes (Rottcloar?)

Lore: Creation Sytems

Godrich gave mechanical lore a new definition. It isn't using your dexterity to manipulate an object. It's the transformation of a substance from one form to another. Example: breaking and combing powder isn't like to teach mechanical lore in the future. However, carving a limb into a longbow would as it has effectively changed the object into a new item.

There will be 6 lore skills that mechanical lore will turn into:

Cloth - natural pliable substances (cotton, leather, paper)
Wood working - natural semi-rigid substances (wood, bone and shell)
Metal working - all metals
Stone working - gems and other natural stones
Artistry - skill to etch, engrave and make things look nicer
Alchemy - working with herbs and other substances

The mechanical lore split will be very similar to the musical lore proposed split with a set amount of 'bits' being moved into other skills from the current mechanical lore skill.

The new lore skills will hopefully be part of the proposed 'career system'. People will have a guild they belong to but it would be their 'hobby' while their 'career' would be how they earned their coins. No one would be forced to have a career but this would allow those that wish to do so, to RP that role.

Jeremael is now in charge of substances.
Damissak is now in charge of forging.

Godrich hopes to have each set system (the above lore skills), have several stages. Each of these stages will be time-consuming. This allows more player interaction and a richer creation system.
Example:
one person may gather raw ore change it into bars (iron, etc) for forging.
the second person may then use several of these bars to make a type of metal (steel)
the third person may then create a weapon from the metal

The above is a basic example and may even have more steps. The idea is that the first stage may teach metal working from 0-25 ranks, the second level may teach from 25-75 ranks, etc.
Each step would take time and someone at a higher level wouldn't learn from a simple step of changing raw ore to bars. Therefore young players could come in and be able to help, while older players would avoid time consuming steps by purchasing bars or metals from the younger players at a price lower than they would buy them from a shop.

New lore skill called engineering that will start at '0' ranks for everyone.

Alchemy will likely be a career and you'll probably have to spend TDP's for formulas. However the skill in alchemy would still be needed to complete the formula successfully.

Other lore skills may also have TDP costs associated with parts of them, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

Races

With HSN, Gor'Tog stats will be adjusted. They are currently the only race with more penalized stats than bonus stats so it will be adjusted.
Encumbrance for all races will be adjusted at this time for the better. Humans will remain neutral but all others will move closer to them. This means that gnomes and the smaller races will have less burden. Unsure but Gor Togs may be given some TDP's to offset the penalties they've lived with for this issue. TDP's would probably be comensurate with the costs they've incurred from penalties (nothing huge).

DR 2 system hopes to have a Racial Feat System

Each race has favored stats and by raising these stats, you'll be eligible for certain feats. This reflects choosing a race that is best for your guild or for it's natural abilities.

Feats will cost TDP's and some will be restricted by certain stat levels.
In addition, there will be innate feats and penalties for races.

The following is not set in stone but is only ideas that the GM's are considering. They made it very clear that this is in the early planning stages and these are just some brainstormed ideas. Don't panic... They also said they'll welcome suggestions under the new DR2 area for races.

Dwarves:
dark sight (see in the dark with no torch)
Resistance to disease and poison
bonus to appraisal, shield and metal working

Halflings:
advanced smoking system
bonus to escaping, stealing, LE weapons and harvesting

Elves:
vulnerable to disease
bonus to longbow, short bow, wood working and musical lore

Gor'Tog:
Togball (hopefully a working system)
bonus to brawling, HB, 2HB and possible barbarian bonus

Gnomes:
encumbrance penalty
bonus to mech lore, magical devices, lockpick, evasion
inventiveness - allows creation of small fluff items

Elotheans:
penalty to poison
bonus to lunar magic (PM), scholarship, astrology and linguistics
special spell messaging (prep messaging)
concentration and harness boost

Humans:
bonus to linguistics, teaching, ME and artistry
multi-cultural when teaching others
'blending' (aids hiding)

S'kra Mur:
vulnerable to ice
claws for brawling
resistance to fire
bonus to alchemy, fire magic, elemental magic
special spell messaging (prep messaging)

Prydaen:
claws for brawling
morph recognition - warning before you morph so you can avoid combat stuns
controlled morph - ability to avoid stuns
bonus to perception, foraging, multi-opponent
longer 'dying' phase (but not a huge one)

Kaldar:
resistance to fear and disease
bonus to parry and HE
spirit pool enhancement


New Races:

It was said that no new races are definites yet. Many have been considered and 1 or more of these might happen though none are definites yet.

Merelew - aquatic race known in DR
Shaerek (sp?) - avian race from Gorbesh/Kaldar history
Pixie/Fae - very hard to consider due to size and encumbrance issues
Centaurs - half man/half horse race
Llorra (sp?) - plant race
Vykathi - insectiod race from Shard area
Shapeshifting - very unlikely due to many issues that present themselves

New Skills

New Skills:

(Note: Ssra, Maelona and I think Solomon though I closed his private message on accident so I’m not sure all asked me how the hell I got these out so fast, literally 2 hours after it was decided by GMs this was the list since they hadn’t been seminars to announce any but the combat ones… you have a sort Demographics seminar, Godrich and Cadaya to thank.)

(Don't expect these till DR2 for the most part at least, but they should be every skill ever added to DR from here on out.):

Weapons:
Off hand weapon
Whips
Throwns will become projectiles and include blow darts etc
Brawling will become Unarmed Combat

Armor:
Scale
Cloth

Magic:
Scarification for Necromancers

Survival:
Acrobatics
Disarm will become Traps

Lore:
Animal Lore opened to all
Mech will DIE and be broken into (this is final): Wood/stone/metal/cloth working, alchemy, artistry
Linguistics
Engineering (This one is NOT final the rest are)
Anatomy
Transferance is becoming Empathy
Theology (Cleric only)
”Bardic” music skills to go to everyone, Musical Theory to turn Bard only.

The StormFront End

There is a new interface coming, called Stormfront, was announced at the Keynotes dinner.

Basically... it's eScape cleaned up some with more features... and NOT IE BASED it's totally a download like the wizard but still saves your settings server side. It is also TOTALLY optional.

Highlights include:

It was developed inhouse making it easier to upgrade

It is 100% skinnable

It doesn't have the lag and keystroke limits IE introduced (yay!)

Now... the big one and something that has been worked on for a long time now:
A total point click interface (mostly for newbs and totally optional). EVERYTHING will have click dropdown menus for verbs on it, combat will get smart and follow the critter you are fighting, windows showing what is in your backpack etc that update on the fly (without always looking in and such) and support drag and drop from your hands to the backpack to the ground etc. (And if your backpack holding 200 items... it's resizable and should be scrollable...) LOTS of stuff like that... it's really impressive if you like mouse support and a god send for inventory management. It will only allow verbs that do stuff on items... literally EVERYTHING has been updated for this. This is only a small start of what this stuff can do... it is quite impressive to see. Want to go to THAT arch?
Click it instead of "Go 17th arch" etc... <glares at a certain temple> Point click will work for directions... in theory other then typing in what you wish to say (in fact by default for newbs anything you type will be by default said) you should never need type a command again if that's your thing. Isn't mine... but the inventory management should be helpful.

It IS duel (triple etc) loadable.

The combat lag should be gone since it won't be through IE and on top of that instead of the extra sends it uses to get all the proper verbs for the menu etc in combat it stashes it to minimize lag and uses some form of logic to make this all work without the extra lag.

Layout by default is like eScape but it is VERY flexible in how it can be set up. No worries there... set things along the either side, smart windows that resize when you resize the entire thing etc.

NOT mac compatable right now but outta the entire keynotes speech they asked how many people (out of several hundred) used macs. It was like 8... so I don't think support is going to be done.

Also GSIII will very soon have a web based character creation/update system (again mostly for newbs to make it more user friendly)... if DR gets this is sill up for debate since our system is a bit more then just picking numbers.

When? GSIV will launch with it and it will be used as a beta on them before we get it. Expect it for us around DR2 (like almost everything heh).

The 5th Province

Seminar: The Fabled Fifth Province
Host: Cadaya

Cadaya sat at the front of the room and opened up a *HUGE* black binder. He than began to tell us the backstory of P5. As we know, Lanival split Kermoria into 5 provinces. The first 4 (Zoluren, Therengia, Ilithi, and Qi) we already know a lot about, but this seminar is about the fifth province, Forfedhar, which is the homeland of Dwarves and Gor'togs.

P5 has been in development since 1999. Jovah was making it, but then it was decided to flesh out the first four provinces instead. GMs are happy with their progress in that area, so P5 went back into development in January. Now they hope to release it in spring 2004, with DR2.

P5 has one major city, Harbanbedhar. There are 3 to 4 smaller areas like towns and villages. They will have specialized trading areas and hunting grounds. Hunting in P5 will be self-contained with a broad range, and there will also be new higher-level hunting. As for guilds, the GMs are aware that not much in P4 was guild-specific. P5 will have something for everyone.
A lot of progress has already been made. The roads have had significant work done on them. They're harder to write, so the GMs like to get them out of the way.

No critters are done. Some systems are done. There is lots of history, including 15 books. There will be 15 hunting areas. There are lots fo applications for survival (swimming, climbing, tracks). There are lore applications. There are plenty of shops, including items not available elsewhere.

The main city has two halves. The inner, underground section has been said to remind some of the GMs of Moria (LOTR), before the Orcs showed up. There are arching cavernous roads, multi-story galleries, stone carvings and statues, a forge, and armor shops. This is the older section of the city, where the Dwarves call home. There is an exterior section for outsiders. Here you may find Gor'tog laborers and a Trader district. But this section is not really "built to last."

There will be new systems in P5. They include mining, which is lore-based, and a way to get money and metals for forging.

P5 will have the first dragon! Cadaya can't tell us much about him [So, apparently, he's male.], but ten Galains might very well lose against him. And defeating the dragon won't mean killing it, just driving it off for a while. He will learn and adapt to your fighting style. There might eventually be 2 dragons. There will be some rewards for defeating the dragon, like some treasure. This is a sickeningly high level creature. It will have its own area. It will probably kill you all. It is very intelligent. It will know that the Empaths are providing support and that they are vulnerable to attack. It is very, very old. It's like the dragons that helped Lanival. Every dragon has a name. It remembers who has beaten it. It is "safe to say" that here will probably be skill-based titles for defeating the dragon. The dragon hnas minions who will have their own hunting area, and they will feed you to the dragon if you let your guard down. Your own, unique items may be added to the dragon's treasure hoard if you die. Blasword wants to splash naptha on the dragon; we encouraged him to go right into the dragon's lair with an armload of naptha. There will most likely be dragon scales; try bringing one to an alterer.

There will be other creatures with special abilities. Overall, P5 will be full of fun and interesting ways to kill players [Shouldn't that be characters?].

Citizen ship will be available. There will be the standard benefits, of course. But P5 is the first province to be designed with citizenship in mind, so everything will reflect that. There will be citizen-only mines, bank, forge. Citizens will receive a gift. There will be some tie-in with Trader financing. There will be a toten-monolith system for citizens. There will be a stone carving with multiple levels, where each level is a specific piece of information. It's a heraldic piece for you that can go on public display.
The dragon is known as the "Cairn Dragon." It is associated with earth, rocks, and mountains.

There's another really cool system... [Come on, Cadaya, throw us a bone!]

Gnomes can be fed to dragons. Gnomes are minty fresh.

Somebody asked what comes after P5. Well, there's much more to be fleshed out. But then, Albaria is there, it could be developed. And what if you sail east, and keep going? There's the Dark Hand as well. In general, there are "huge tracts of land" all over the existing Realms where stuff can be added.

P5 is to the west of Zoluren, an dit also borders Ilithi. There will be multiple ways to enter, and it is less linear in terms of transportation.
There will not be electric lighting.

Harbonbadhar could even be a starting city someday.

And that is all that was said, even though Cadaya still had half his binder untouched...
--David (Jolebin Swordstaff, Elemancer of Riverhaven)

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