Module 4

DDO Release Notes: Module 4:Reaver's Bane

These notes were originally posted on the official forums on April 12th, 2007.

A Pact Between Two Souls

40,000 years ago, Gianthold was the capital of the Lost Empire of the giants on Xen'drik. Protected by the fortress of Gianthold Tor, the giants of Gianthold learned mighty magics, trained fearsome soldiers, and created great works of art. But Gianthold was destroyed by the dragons of Argonnessen. Only the dragons themselves remember this event well, and their historians believe that the giants brought about their own downfall by misusing the magical secrets entrusted to them by the dragons. This is true -- but it is only part of the story...

The Stormreaver was a hero of the disastrous war against Dal Quor, and when faced with imminent defeat, he turned to his most powerful ally – an old dragon whose true name is lost, but whose wisdom had earned him the epithet, "the Truthful One." The Stormreaver forged a pact with the Truthful One, who was approaching the Twilight and his death: They would sacrifice their lives to power a great spell, the Reaver's Bane, which would turn all of Xen'drik itself against the Quori.

In his heart, the Truthful One regretted this decision. He considered the giants an inferior species, not worthy even of sacrificing the last few years of his life. His resentment pushed him into a fateful decision. When it came time to cast the spell, instead of truly dying to cast the Reaver's Bane, he sacrificed only his body. The Truthful One then claimed another dragon's corpse for his spirit. The Stormreaver died, but the Truthful One became a dracolich.

The Truthful One’s spirit became dark with corruption, and this darkness infected the magic of the Reaver's Bane. Although it successfully destroyed the Quori, it also poisoned the magical currents of Xen'drik. For the next thousand years, curses and disasters swept across Xen'drik. The dragons blamed the giants for failing to cast the Reaver's Bane correctly. The giants blamed the dragons for helping to cast the spell, but refusing to help repair the damage.

Relations between the dragons and giants continued to worsen. The drow elves rebelled against their giant masters, and the giants were slowly pushed out of their strongholds across Xen'drik, finally retreating to Gianthold. It seems the only thing that was agreed upon was that the Stormreaver would return to hold the Truthful One to his promise.

Many years later, a long-forgotten giant sorcerer -- corrupted by the Truthful One -- attempted to cast the Reaver's Bane again in an attempt to wipe out the Drow. The dragons could not allow this to happen. They cast a terrible curse upon Gianthold, wiping out the last refuge of the giants and satisfying the Truthful One's insane hatred of all giant-kind. The Truthful One now dreams of founding an undead draconic nation in Xen'drik -- and he plans to use the dragons of Argonnessen to clear his path to power.

Today, the Ruins of Gianthold are a magically-poisoned wasteland. Only traces of the city's original architecture survive, although Gianthold Tor still looms above the shattered landscape. Monster camps litter the area, and the most powerful tribes have carved out living spaces in underground ruins.

Gianthold itself has recently been occupied by hordes of monsters who worship The Stormreaver hero, hoping to exploit his future victories when he finally returns.

The Storm Gathers

Thunder Sea:
The Thunder Sea was oddly calm this afternoon. Usually storms rage constantly across the ocean that connects Xen'drik with Khorvaire, but at this moment, the clouds parted and the sun lit the gently rolling waves. Suddenly, it was if the gods had flipped a switch. In an instant the waves rise up to the heavens and deep black storm clouds darken the once bright scene. Thunder and lightning violently tear the sky apart. The surface begins to part and open as a body slowly ascends out of the maelstrom. The storm's intensity impatiently grows as the creature makes his way towards the cliffs of Xen'drik. The Stormreaver has returned.

Stormreach:
Barrow d'Kundarak shook his head and sighed. Cleaning up the vault had taken months. Convincing everyone that it was safe and they should still keep their accounts had taken even longer. He wasn't sure in the end it was worth all the trouble. Whatever that redhead found, it was now buried with her. The Siberys dragonshards had been shattered and ground into dust. He knew the dragons could read the past and the future from the shards, so he had personally seen to it that the ones in the vault would be of no use to anyone. Even still, something gnawed at the back of his conscience. He had managed to keep his job and his secret was buried alongside the dragon, but in the process had he paved the way for a far worse evil?

Menechtarun:
Deep in Windlasher Canyon Bowmaster Yaga knocked another arrow. 'Foolish adventurers,' he thought to himself, ‘coming from Stormreach out to my home trying to find riches and treasure.’ The bowstring hummed with a deep thwang and the arrow silently arched down between the rocks. A scream brought a smile to the ranger's lips. This group wouldn't be bothering them any further. Returning to his tent he was surprised to see a dwarf awaiting him. He slowly sat as the visitor began to speak. A grin spread across Yaga’s face as he finished listening and contemplated the meaning of the stranger’s words. Stepping back outside, he gave a quick bark followed by a howl. ‘Pack up the camp, we're moving -- power and riches await!’

Argonnessen:
Across the Sea of Lost Souls, a young adult blue dragon of the Chamber intently studied a Siberys dragonshard. She was trying to divulge the truth of a particularly difficult section of the Draconic Prophecy. Tens of thousands of years ago a great hero arose in the giant empire of Xen'drik and drove off the Dal Quor invasion. The prophecy foretold his return, but the nature of that return was in question. Not even the elders were sure what role the resurrected legend would hold, for good or evil. All that was certain was that his role would be a prominent one.

The blue dragon's mentor, a powerful adult red, had left many months ago for Xen'drik to dig deeper into the prophecy to find out more about the Stormreaver. She said that several important dragonshards kept in the vaults of mortals might provide the answers. While the old red was away, the blue continued to study the Chamber's supply of shards, hoping to find a small overlooked detail that would reveal everything. Try as she might, the answer could not be found in fallen crystals.

It had been several weeks since her mentor was last heard from, and scouts were scouring Xen'drik and the city of Stormreach for any information. The initial news was grim. Word came down from the elders; the blue dragon was being officially dispatched to Stormreach.

The Soaring Otyugh:
Zerchi folded up his spyglass and scribbled in his notebook. Another tribe was on the move, the sixth he'd seen this week: Trolls, hobgoblins, ogres, orcs and now gnolls. The sky far to the south was darkened with an ominous gathering of storm clouds. A spirekeeper made a note of the unusual weather and then pulled the shade on his window. He wanted to try to get a few hours of sleep before they landed at the Restless Isles.

Gianthold:
Crag glanced up at the Tor. He had been given the position of controlling who enters the ancient giant fortress that now served as the center of the army's operations. With the number of new tribes and creatures that were arriving on a daily basis, it was a busy job, and one he did with great efficiency. While he had never been inside the great tower, he often heard the sounds that came from the tall peaks during the darkest of nights: Bloodcurdling screams and terrifying roars whose power often shook the very ground. The rumor around camp was that the legend had returned and three long forgotten eggs had been hatched. Crag wasn't sure; he'd never seen any of that for himself. All he knew was that a force of great power was gathering and growing inside of Gianthold Tor. Someday soon, that power would be unleashed, and when it was, he'd be glad he was on its side.

Stormreach Harbor:
Cydonie stepped off the boat and was glad to be back on dry land. She was very comfortable in the air but the ocean gave her an intense seasickness. She made her way to the marketplace and set up inside an abandoned stall. Soon the farmer’s market would open and she'd be able to learn most of what she needed to know from the shoppers. Adventurers were also known to peruse the market, and they might have valuable information, or at the least be willing to do some dirty work. Not long after lunch, a courier from House Orien arrived. 'She said you'd be here,' he said, handed her a sealed dispatch, and then disappeared into the crowd. She instantly recognized the wax imprint and quickly opened the letter. Only one word was etched into the parchment, 'Gianthold.'

Reaver's Bane

The Stormreaver has returned to the seat of his empire's power, and Xen'drik's most powerful creatures rally to his call. Can you unravel the mystery and quell this gathering storm before the Stormreaver and his minions fulfill the Prophecy?

• Combat the Stormreaver's Dragons, Stone and Cloud Giants, Orcs, and more in 12 new adventures.
• Advance your character up to Level 14.
• Explore two new landscape adventures Gianthold (high-level), and the Cerulean Hills (low-level).

Wilderness Areas

We are thrilled to introduce a new model for our outdoor landscape areas in this module. Moving forward all new landscape areas will have three new kinds of quest:

• Slayer Quests – Slayer quests keep track of how many of specific type of monster you've killed in the area. The higher your goal, the more XP you will earn – and the quest will never lose your kill count, even if you leave the zone.
• Explorer Quests - The objectives for explorer quests are twofold: discover the lore of the area, and find all of the dungeon entrances. Explorer Quests are solved by wandering the wilderness. When you find an important point of interest, you will be rewarded with XP. Discovering all of the explorer objectives in a particular landscape will give you a final, big XP payoff.
• Rare Encounter Quests - Certain unique NPCs or powerful monsters have a chance of spawning in the wilderness. Solving the objective usually involves combat, but not always. Similar to explorer quests, you get some XP when you complete each rare encounter and a big XP payoff when you complete the whole quest.

Moving forward we plan to convert our older landscapes (Tangleroot Gorge, Three Barrel Cove, Menechtarun Desert etc.) to this model as well.

To read DDO Developer Solas' Dev Diary on the new wilderness quest system please click here.

To read one player's Beta Journal about the Cerulean Hills please click here.

Level Cap Raised to 14

With Module 4: Reaver's Bane we are raising the level cap to level 14 and with ever level cap comes new,, and!

Risia Preview Server - Online Full-time

Are you the type of person who enjoys adventuring in the unknown? Do you like trying out new things? When something is broken are you excited by the thought of fixing it? Are you always the first person to try out a new technology? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Risia might be the server for you!

New updates to DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE ™: Stormreach™ (DDO) will be made available to players on the Risia Preview Server prior to their release to all other DDO worlds.

After several months of periodically opening the Risia Preview Server to showcase new updates, we've decided to bring Risia online for an extended run! Risia will now be a persistent world where you can try new pre-release content and features. Your participation in the Risia Preview program is optional and purely voluntary. In order to play in Risia, you must have an active DDO account and abide by the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement, terms of service and code of conduct.

Playing on Risia requires the installation of a separate DDO client software. If you have played on Risia before, and still have the launcher installed, you will be able to simply patch up your Risia client with the latest version.

Edit: (Note Risia is no longer available, but a similar server - Lamannia has been launched Click here for information about Lamannia.)

In-Game Support Interface Gets a Makeover

The In-Game Support Team is excited to announce major enhancements to the in-game help request system!
When Module 4.0 is released, you will find several new features built into the existing HELP area. These features are a direct result of player feedback and experience with the previous system, and we think everyone will be as excited about the changes as we are.
To read the full article please click here.

General

• NEW – Most Resurrection Shrines no longer have a once-per-person limit.
• We have made a significant upgrade to our monsters' ability to path plan and move around by leveraging the Kynapse powered by Kynogon SDK. The result is that monsters should be more lively and active in engaging players, better able to reach areas they want to, and less likely to do things like fall off of cliffs accidentally. Several other issues related to monster behavior have also been fixed, and fighting monsters will hopefully be more interesting and enjoyable than it has ever been before. Please note: this is just the first phase of our planned upgrade to our AI, we will be making additional improvements in the future.
• Fixed an issue where players see an error when logging into the world that informs them that their character is still saving. Previously, in order to resolve this issue GM intervention was required. The problem will now correct itself within 1 minute. Please note that it is possible for a player be reverted back to a previous save (which normally execute after any XP grant or item transfer) which might result in a few minutes of play loss, but should not result in lost XP or items.
• In a previous update we inadvertently introduced the ability to move while recalling from a quest – a change which has had some unintended consequences. As a result, you must once again stand still to recall out of an adventure, and any action you take, whether swinging your sword, running, or casting a spell, will interrupt the recall.
• Fixed an issue where players could not climb off the top of a ladder if a monster was standing in their way.
• You can no longer bid or place auctions if your mailbox is sufficiently overflowing.
• Players should no longer lose attached items when sending them to a player whose mailbox was full.
• NEW – The /runaway emote is now available.
• The elven female avatar now has the braided hairstyle available.
• Fixed the paladin and ranger class descriptions in character generation to give the correct level that spells are bestowed (no functional change has been made to these classes).
• NEW – Tip #52 no longer mistakenly says that the Jump skill reduces falling damage. The appropriate skill is, in fact, tumble.

UI Improvements

• Fixed a minor bug that did not properly re-position panels when the screen resolution was reduced and the panels were cropped. All panels will now re-position themselves correctly.
• Players can now (optionally) display the cooldown remaining on actions in their shortcut bars!
• NEW – Back by popular demand! /who works again!
• NEW – Now, when you are creating a party and someone asks to join your group, you will be able to send a tell to the player asking to join your party, accept or decline their invitation right from the chat window or even open the create party panel and manage your requests from there. You'll see a line that reads like this: "SUE (FTR 3) would like to join your party. You may ACCEPT or DECLINE her request. You may also OPEN THE CREATE PARTY PANEL." (The capitalized words represent links and are not actually capitalized in the chat window.
• NEW – Players will be able to manage their party join requests from a separate UI apart from the Create Party UI. This list of people requesting to join your party can be opened though a link in the chat window (a link displays when a player requests to join) or through a button on the Create Party UI.
• NEW – Poisons and other effects that damage multiple stats at the same time will now give better feedback.
• The Help Panel will no longer sort with other panels.
• Request tabs in the help window now remain in a highlighted state when selected.
• The "Anonymous" checkbox will now properly toggle your anonymous status.
• The dialog, alert, and death windows now have a border and an improved look.
• The WhoUI has gotten a face lift! The Who entries should now be easier to read.
• The feat selection page during character generation has received a face lift, it now uses the tech developed for the new enhancement system to provide improved display and sorting of feats for chargen.
• In Chargen, the tooltips for Fortitude, Reflex and Will are no longer cut off.
• The "delete mail" dialog will now close when you walk away from the Mailbox.
• Opening the spell exchange dialog and then walking away from your trainer no longer prevents the window from being opened again.
• Previously, if you used a spell which brings up a dialog to choose a sub-spell, such as Resist Energy, clicked and held on a spell and hit escape to close the dialog, you would no longer be able to reopen the dialog box. This has been fixed.
• Fixed a bug in which the quest objectives panel would automatically reopen after the user had minimized it.
• The tooltip for the adventure name button has been corrected to display "sort by adventure name" rather than using the level tooltip.
• The scrollbar in the shopping cart panel no longer gets clipped off if you add a lot of things to your cart.
• You can now clear your biography text.
• The guild display will no longer block mouse clicks.
• The character sheet will now display all of a players class name.
• The character sheet stats tab now has tooltips describing each stat.
• Fixed a problem with the "default" button on the keymapping page.
• We have fixed House Kundarak's map so that it properly identifies the location of the entrance to Black Anvil Forest.
• The Raise Dead confirmation box has been edited for grammar and conciseness.
• NEW – The exhausted condition no longer uses the icon from sleep, but rather has its own special icon.
• NEW – Necrotic touch now has a different icon, FX, and description to help eliminate confusion between it and a poison.
• Auctions
• The item field will now properly clear in the Auction UI after an item is posted.
• Players should no longer receive an error message when attempting to cancel auctions.
• Great Crossbows now have a category under Weapons->Exotic.
• Throwing weapons will now appear in the Weapons->Missile subcategories.
• Spells
• The icon for Summon Monster has been changed to better reflect what the spell does.
• Modified Bull's Strength and Fox's Cunning to have a similar artistic treatment as Bear's Stamina and Owl's Wisdom.
• Changed the icons for the mass versions of Bull's Strength, Fox's Cunning, and Owl's Wisdom to display multiple animals rather than a "+" symbol.
• Improved the icons for the Hold Person and Hold Monster.
• Improved the visual representation of all restoration spells.
• The icon for cure serious wounds was erroneously whited-out. This has been fixed.
• Feats
• Song of Freedom has been changed to a square shaped icon to properly reflect that it is an active feat.
• The icon for Improved Critical has been redesigned for a more polished look. Also, icons for Power Critical feats have been created to correspond with the weapon type that each feat represents.
• Enhancements
• Bard Wand Damage icon has been changed to correctly display the enhancement as passive.
• The icon for Power Attack enhancements has been changed from passive to active to reflect the change in how the ability function in-game

Monsters

• NEW – Friendly monsters and NPC's (either inherently "friendly" like Coyle Lovell or forced friendly by charm effects) are now targetable as if they were allies. They can now be healed and buffed, and charmed creatures can also be targetted with a Dispel Magic if you wish to prematurely break the charm effect. Please note: any buffs placed on a charmed monster will remain even if the charm breaks.
• NEW – Many of the cloud spells that monsters and enemy spellcasters cast have been given longer cool down timers. This will make completely blanketing an area with a cloud spell much more difficult for enemy casters and should improve performance as well. This change will not affect player spells.
• NEW – Made some modifications to Ogre AI's. They are now more likely to charge into melee rather than stay at range indefinitely, especially when raging. Ogre Mages will no longer go gaseous repeatedly when feared.
• NEW – Hostile Flaming Spheres are now dispellable with Dispel Magic.
• NEW – A successful save against Mummy despair will prevent the target from having to make saves against other despair effects for a short period of time.
• NEW – Dead Thaarak Hounds, while still disgusting and creepy, no longer emit a fear aura.
• NEW – Certain magical spiders that have an intelligence score are now classified as Magical Beasts instead of Vermin.
• Fire reavers, fleshrenders, and ice flensers that had hard and elite versions with damage reduction which could be bypassed by cold iron weapons (DR/Cold Iron) now have a very small amount of the same on the normal setting. This is in addition to the DR/Good that they already had. This brings them in line with the hard and elite versions, many of which have always had both of these types of damage reduction. Keep a good-aligned cold iron weapon handy to dispatch these creatures as quick as possible.
• The Hobgoblins have finally gotten their long-delayed and much-needed shipments of bows. Now, wherever hobgoblins live, there is a chance they will have some archers amongst their ranks.
• Incorporeal creatures (such as wraiths or spectres) now ignore solid fog slow effects.
• Summoned and Charmed monsters have had their AI improved. Monsters can once again be re-charmed after a broken charm, and are now much better at following their masters about.
• Giants will now be able to see farther! Beware!
• Giant stomps are now area of effect attacks. The knockdown associated with them is now an on-hit effect.
• NEW – Gnolls are now affected by slow and haste effects properly.
• Gnoll archers now use arrows appropriate for their CR.
• Djinni should no longer cast spells in whirlwind form, and should no longer get stuck in whirlwind form forever.fckLR*As per D&D rules, Voidmind monsters are now immune to ability/stat damage and mind affecting spells and abilities such as charm, fear effects, suggestion and the like.
• NEW – Scorpions should no longer get stuck in an invulnerable state occasionally when burrowing.
• NEW – Cleaned up some Ghoul, Wight, and Wildman animations.
• NEW – The beholder mass-attack that they do when they are low on HP will no longer petrify warforged.
• NEW – The Inevitable's "Thunder Punch" attack now properly stops you from attacking.
• NEW – The Skeleton Arcus's resilience has diminished slightly. These skeletons have had their hit points reduced somewhat. However, they have also had their attack bonus increased slightly.
• NEW – The Menechtarun Ghast has been tweaked slightly. They have had their critical threat range lowered and their strength lowered slightly.
• Frostmarrow skeletons have received a graphical upgrade.
• Fixed a handful of issues that could make minotaur charges look odd.

Combat

• NEW – You now can swing your sword independent of autoattack validation.
• NEW – Incapacitated players can no longer gain monster attention by hitting movement keys.
• Many rogue and ranger type enemies have gained the evasion and/or improved evasion feats and now have the benefits of these feats.
• NEW – Receiving temporary HP (for example from the aid spell) which raises your total HP over zero will now stop bleeding.
• NEW – Divine power now properly adjusts your base attack bonus, rather than giving you a to-hit bonus.
• A few enemy spell casters will be using metamagic feats to improve their spells. Going forward, this will be an option for enemy casters to take. However, no casters who are already in game will be getting metamagic feats for Module 4. If and when they are given any of these feats, their current levels, spell lists, and casting stats will be reviewed and adjusted if necessary.
• You can no longer attack, cast spells, or perform skills while in a web.
• NEW – When autoattack is on and you are blocking, you no longer shield bash unless you have trained improved shield bash. Improved shield bash allows you to bash without losing your AC bonus from shield or the blocking damage reduction from your shield either.
• You may now shield bash when wielding a throwing weapon (provided you have a shield equipped).
• NEW – Improved shield bash now considers you blocking while you are shield bashing again.
• Fixed Barbarian Power Attack I, II, and III so that the two-handed weapons now do an additional 2, 4, or 6 additional damage respectively.
• Monsters will no longer die in a spectacular manner (freezing then shattering, melting from acid, burning up from fire, etc.) unless they have been damaged by an imbued effect within the few seconds before their death.
• Creatures killed with Lawful, Chaotic, and Evil (or negative energy) effects will now play appropriate (and new!) fatalities.
• Lawful effects will no longer trigger the "Holy" death throes.
• The red pulse when a monster is struck in combat has been toned down to be more aesthetically pleasing.
• Vermin Empathy will now give you the proper visual feedback when you get a hit.

Spells

• NEW – Improved immunity feedback on several spells.
• NEW – Dispel effects which are supposed to hit highest-spell-level effects first will now do so.
• NEW – The Flame Arrow spell now has the option to produce flaming throwing hammers in addition to all other types of ammo.
• NEW – Undead with turn resistance will be slightly easier to affect by spells which look at the target creature's level.
• NEW – Flamestrike now has only one save, which affects both damage types.
• NEW – The Bard's Song of Freedom now has a chance to remove curses, the same as regular Break Enchantment.
• NEW – The Shocking Grasp spell no longer has a reflex save for half.
• NEW – Acid Rain, Bestow Curse, Blindness, Circle of Death and Ice Storm are now all castable in tavern brawls. Please note: Bestow Curse and Blindness when cast in pvp are not permanent, and will be removed on rest.
• NEW – Freedom of Movement now protects against petrification, acid fog slow, and all forms of entanglement. Freedom of Movement no longer protects against the damage portion of Ice Storm.
• NEW – Monsters or players trapped in web spells will no longer find that the web effect will wear off before the full duration of the spell or without successfully making a save.
• NEW – The Acid Fog spell no longer does an extra tick of damage to monsters that are already affected by another Acid Fog.
• NEW – Divine Favor was erroneously giving an extra +1 bonus to attack and not capping out. This spell now caps out at +3 bonus to attack at caster level 9.
• NEW – Bless now works more similarly to other AOE effects. When the spell is cast, the FX remain immobile in the area rather than following the caster around. There should be no other functional changes
• NEW – The (new) Greater Teleport spell now goes to Gianthold, the Necropolis, and the Portable.
• The saving throw interval for the Flesh To Stone spell has been increased to 1 minute.
• Nimbus of Light no longer erroneously caps out at caster level 5.
• Acid Fog no longer consumes additional spellpoints when the Heighten Spell metamagic feat is active.
• NEW – We added the Symbol of Pain spell for wiz/sor/clr 5. This spell works similarly to the other symbols, except it causes enemies that come within the area of the Symbol's effect to take a -4 penalty on attacks, saves, and skill checks.
• The Symbol spells originally introduced in Module 3 (Fear, Persuasion, and Flame) now have a persistent "ring" FX that indicate the spell's area.
• Symbol of Flame now correctly bypasses Spell Resistance.
• Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, Haste, and See Invisibility all have new FX.
• Fixed Burning Blood description to indicate that a save only occurs on application, not each round, as it previously stated.
• More information was added to the feeblemind effect tooltip to let players know how this effect can be removed (by the Heal spell or by death).
• NEW – Bard's Inspire Courage no longer says it protects players against charm (a) because it didn't and b) because players are immune to charms anyway).

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

• NEW – Paladins now have a new animation for laying on hands.
• NEW – Rangers can now choose Humanoid (Orc) as one of their favored enemy options.
• NEW – Barbarian damage reduction class ability now states the actual amount of damage reduced (1 point, +1 dr at 5th and every 3 levels after). This is a description fix only.
• Bardic music can now alert nearby monsters to your presence.
• The hamstring, slicing blow, and sap feats no longer require a fortitude save DC. If the attack hits, the effect is automatically applied with no additional save required. The hamstring and slicing blow feats also now use their own FX.
• Updated descriptions for sunder, improved sunder, stunning blow, trip, improved trip to better describe what the feats do.
• Invisibility and stealth now break on the use of offensive skills such as intimidate or diplomacy.
• NEW – Tumbling now breaks stealth.
• Turn undead will no longer nuke friendly undead (i.e. those from the "Create Undead" spell, or on your side due to the "Command Undead" spell).
• Rolls of a one on a balance check to stand up after a knockdown are no longer auto-failures; 20s are no longer auto-successes.
• It is now possible to trade spell focus: illusion for greater spell focus: illusion (please note: these two feats do the exact same thing.)

Enhancements

• Many enhancement descriptions have been rewritten to improve clarity or have had information added to them. For example, the sprint boost enhancement descriptions now include the percentage of speed increase you receive.
• Fixed an issue which caused some level 12 capped characters to have their enhancements reset if they choose their enhancements the first time they logged in after a patch and then logged out.
• The Rogue Subtle Backstabbing enhancements and the Sorcerer and Wizard Subtle Spellcasting enhancements have been fixed. They now properly reduce threat/hate by the amount listed in the enhancement descriptions.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing the "___ of Deadly ___" spell critical multiplier enhancements from working as intended.
• Lowered the action point spent prerequisite for Human Adaptability to be in line with other level 5 enhancements.
• We're adding a new Enhancement: Human Greater Adaptability. Available at level 13, requires 44 action points spent and Human Adaptability (any). Grants a +1 bonus to a second attribute of your choice.
• NEW – The barbarian's resist disease and poison enhancements will no longer show up as available enhancements for warforged barbarians, as these enhancements won't do anything for them.
• NEW – Fixed a speed exploit related to rogue sneak speed enhancements.

Items

• NEW – Quest rewards overall will have marginally better quality than before.
• NEW – There is a new category in the treasure tables for Spell Bonus weapons. These primarily use simple weapons and scepters as their base though there is still a small chance for them to be any weapon. They use all of their plusses for Spell enhancing effects like Fire Lore, Power, Spell Penetration etc. A low to moderate enhancement bonus depending on item level is just tacked on at the end of generation. A consequence of this new category is that all of the effects that modify spells have been removed from the generic weapon treasure tables.
• NEW – Items that have multiple effects that restrict the usage of the item (EX: True Law and Race Restricted: Human) will now use the highest Use Magic Device Difficulty of any of the effects to determine if a character is able to use the item. Previously it was indeterminate what difficulty was used so this correction has the possibility to lower or raise the UMD difficulty of any affected item.
• NEW – The special vendor for those favored by House Deneith now has a supply of arrows and bolts made from special materials.
• NEW – Warforged characters will no longer have to sort through the coverings that lesser races use to protect their fragile flesh when selecting Quest rewards. Docents will be provided as options to all Warforged characters as quest rewards.
• NEW – New treasure effects Arcane Sigil and Lesser Arcane Sigil can be found on Docents. These effects reduce the total Arcane Spell Failure for any spells cast by the warforged.
• NEW – Wizards will no longer receive scrolls as choices for quest rewards.
• Arcane Lore (a universal spell critical item effect) will now be applied to spells with odd types of damage like Cometfall.
• Glyph of Warding scrolls have been corrected to have appropriate statistics for a Level 3 spell scroll. It was set to Level 1.
• The following weapon effects will no longer be applied to monsters unless the damage of the attack penetrates the monster’s Damage Reduction for at least one point of damage.
  • Slicing
  • Wounding
  • Maladroit
  • Weakening
  • Weighted (Stun Chance)
  • Tendon Slice
• Due to the changes in the Hamstring and Sap feat several weapon treasure effects have been changed.
• All weapons with Tendon Slice treasure effects will now have a small chance of Hamstringing their target each time they do damage. This replaces the previous effect that gave a DC bonus to the Hamstring feat.
• All weapons with Weighted treasure effects will now have a small chance of Stunning their target each time they do damage. This replaces the previous effect that gave a DC bonus to the Sap feat. The bonus DC to the Stunning Blow feat is still in effect.
• The “of Deception” weapon effect has received an upgrade. It now gives a +3 bonus to Bluff skill but more importantly, targets struck by an “of Deception” weapon now have a chance to be disoriented for a few seconds. While this effect lasts the monster is vulnerable to sneak attacks, assuming it does not have any other immunities.
• There is now a small chance to find randomly generated thrown returning weapons in treasure.
• All existing Mauls and all Mauls created in the future will have a x3 critical hit multiplier.
• The Torc of Prince Raiymude will now grant you spell points only when an attack actually damages you; it will do nothing if an attack is reduced to zero by your DR.
• When equipped with a shield with 0 ACP, the attack bonus shown in your inventory display will now be properly updated (this was just a visual bug, you have always been getting the correct bonus when attacking).
• Ivory Scorpion collectables now look like Ivory Scorpions.
• Dragon shards now show up in the trade window. They could always be traded, but because they didn't show up in the trade window, it could be confusing.
• NEW – Players that have looted a "Cloak of Invisibility" from Tempest Spine will notice that these cloaks offer a little more protection than they used to.
• NEW – Scolls of Summon Monster III are now sold in Object Desire, House Phiarlan ward.
• NEW – The Coin Lords have removed their restrictions on Throwing Hammers. The one lone holdout in favor of keeping the ban was beaned by a Lump of Coal. Throwing Hammers have also been added to the Auction House.
• NEW – Steel Bucklers will now look like bucklers and not wooden shields.

NPCs

• The ground beneath Spaulder Nine-Band has been fortified so he no longer slides down the hill when he gets tired.
• Maxon the Dreamwalker no longer asks you for crystals, but more appropriately asks for ritualistic paraphernalia.
• NEW – Jaidene Forgemaiden is now more clear on what she repairs (weapons and armor only) in her conversation.

 

PVP

• Players who have been bluffed in PvP will no longer see a placeholder icon for their bluffed state.
• It was intermittently possible to see your foes location on your map when in a PvP arena. This should no longer happen.
• The Match Statistics and Arena Queue UI's will no longer appear when using the HideUI key.

Quests

• Chaos Orbs now have more effects.
• If you enter a private landscape, then enter a dungeon from that landscape, then use the exit waypoint to return to the private landscape, and then recall you will now be correctly placed at the exit location of the private landscape as opposed to the harbor.
• Fixed several traps in the world that weren't scaling properly on the "hard" and "elite" versions.
• NEW – The crates in "Freshen the Air", and the totem in Splinterskull can now be damaged by spells and weapon special effects.
• Gongs now take time to use (just like levers).
• The animation and detection on the blade coaster traps were not in sync. When the blade looks like it hits and when it actually hits should be more in sync now.
• Black Anvil Mines
• The Questgiver will no longer teleport you directly into the mines. Instead, he now tells you that the mines are located off of the Kundarak Ward.
• NEW – Bonebite Hideout
• We have fixed this quest so that it follows the same rules as our other quests in regards to the frequency that random mini-bosses/chests spawn.
• NEW – Delera's Graveyard
• Made some changes to Dreadlord Giddeon of the Necromancer's Lair. He is now vulnerable to sneak attack and is no longer incorporeal, but has more hit points.
• Depths of Discord
• The monsters in the hallway should no longer respawn.
• Fire Caves
• We have made a change so that both of the rest shrines aren't behind locked doors.
• NEW – Haywire Grotto
• It is no longer possible to completely bypass most of this dungeon through use of unintended methods.
• Keeper's Sanctuary
• Archin Muriose's quest chalice will work properly now.
• NEW – Penitent's Rest
• There is now wraith guarding each pyre along with the other monsters.
• Ruined Halls
• The objective to "Slay Agent Westbrook" will now be completed even if he is killed from range.
• NEW – The Ruins of Threnal
• The altar in the Ruins of Threnal arena will now only give rewards for a limited amount of time after completion of the 3 Arena challenges.
• The Southern Ruins
• The door leading to the "Entering the Gate Chamber" area is now locked during "The missing Expedition".
• NEW – Shrieking Mines
• Mind Flayers are mean and nasty creatures, and don’t take kindly to adventurers using their own devices against them. They also learn from their mistakes and have adjusted their tactics accordingly.
• NEW – Sorrowdusk Isle
• Brother Qessul of Sorrowdusk has increased his power. He now has more hp and a new spell.
• Tangleroot Gorge
• "Seeking Chief Ungurz" is no longer repeatable.
• Tempest Spine
• Sor’jek Incanni of Tempest’s Spine has found his strength and toughness again. His hit points have been increased dramatically, and he is now more of a challenge to defeat. He has regained his full spell casting abilities, and the Control Weather effect he creates has also been significantly upgraded. You will also find that his treasure has been upgraded accordingly.
• Troglodyte Clutch
• Fixed a problem where the crates weren't properly registering damage from spells, thus preventing the completion of the quest in certain circumstances.
• Tomb of the Astrologer
• Fixed a location where Kourush would not drop the "Seal of the Heavens".
• The Necropolis
• Loremistress Jinna will now explicitly tell you if repeating the Bloody Crypt will reset the entire arc for you or not.
• Fixed the DM text in several quests to help clarify who is speaking.
• NEW – The Shadow Crypt
• You can no longer access the treasure room if you haven't beaten the Vampire.
• Waterworks
• Clan Gnashtooth Prison
• Made a change to help prevent dead players from getting trapped in the Bloodletter's room.