Greetings all,
I hope that everyone is aware that we have been working hard behind the scenes to enhance the game play here at Luminari MUD. One of the driving forces behind this development is to bring the mechanics closer to those outlined in the D&D 3.5 SRD, and move away from the stock TBAMUD mechanics. A lot of work has been done recently on this front, and I want to explain some of those changes that are in development. Please, feedback and questions are encouraged, so feel free to reply. I will try to be as detailed in my descriptions as I can while still making it easily digestible, but unfortunately that is no small task.
A question everyone asks at one point - Will there be a pwipe. I hate pwipes. I will avoid it if at all possible. Right now, it will be required that all players respec to 1st level and then gain through the levels again, adding feats, skills, etc. The issues with broken equipment, however, must be resolved and we will figure out a fair system for translating eq into a form of currency of some type. because all current players are considered to be beta testers, they will receive certain minor perks upon opening that will not be available to new players, this may tie into that.
The first change: FEATS
Currently Luminari MUD represents feats as SKILLS. These skills actually have a % associated with them that changes through use (although this is very hackish, and performing one skill allows any skill to improve). We are moving away from this and introducing the concept of feats, taken directly from the d20 SRD and d&d 3.5.
Here is a description from the 3.5e PHB:
A feat is a special feature that either gives your character a new capability or improves one he or she already has. For example, Lidda (a halfling rogue) chooses to start with the Improved Initiative feat at 1st level. That feat gives her a +4 bonus to her initiative check results. At 3rd level she gains a new feat and chooses Dodge. This feat allows her to avoid the attacks of an opponent she selects by improving her Armor Class against that opponent. Unlike a skill, a feat has no ranks. A character either has a feat or does not.
So this shows one of the major differences with a feat system - It is all or nothing, There is no development, you either have it or you don't. Basically, feats are 'unlocks'. This being said, some feats can be STACKED, meaning if you take the feat multiple times the benefit stacks. A classic example is toughness. Every time you take the toughness feat you gain 1 hp extra per level (this differs slightly from the flat 3 hp bonus in the tabletop D&D game). So, if you take the feat 2 times, you get a total of 2 extra HP per level. As a trade off, you have used a feat for toughness that you could have used for something else, like combat expertise.
Some feats have prerequisite feats, and many have attribute requirements. For example, many of the powerful fighter feats require 13 base int (NOT int gained via eq).
I do not anticipate having all feats implemented when the system is introduced. All of the feats that will be replacing skills will be implemented, although some skills will be removed entirely with the new system.
The STUDY command has become more important with the addition of feats. Every level, the player must use all skill points, feat points, boosts, etc. before they can gain another level. The study command is the interface for gaining feats, as well as adjusting known spells and other level-based perks like favored enemy and familiars. Once we are closer to release I would like to put together a screenshot-based tutorial for using the study command and post it to the forums here.
The command FEATS COMPLETE DESCRIPTION shows a list of all feats in the system. Note that these feats are not all in the game, and some of them will not be implemented at all. This is a very very rough list - although many of these feats will be used.
FEATS KNOWN (or just FEATS) will show all of your currently known feats. FEATS AVAILABLE show all of the feats for which you currently qualify. FEATS AVAILABLE DESCRIPTION (or FEATS KNOWN DESCRIPTION) will provide a short description of these feats, although the descriptions are not entirely accurate and will change before release.
(Thank you Gicker of d20MUD for the list of feats and the mechanisms for storing and accessing the feat data, we used his work extensively as a model for the development of this system, although we made a LOT of changes.)
So that is feats. Other topics will be replies to this initial post.