Shattered Kingdoms

I feel Paladins and Hellions should have holy symbol as a spell. Considering they are clergy in their faiths it only makes sence.

I've brought this up a half-dozen times. Each time it gets shot down a resounding 'no'.

I'm not even going to read this thread, before I post my reply, and that is no.

I vote no.

A

Once upon a time I'd have said yes - now I say no.

I don't know if allowing paladins and hellions to get the spell is 'the answer' to this, but...

Previous responses to this idea was, if people want symbols in certain religions, then they are encouraged to roll priests. However, Shattered Kingdoms has a finite player base -- it hasn't, and does not have a trend to grow. When a player is playing a priest, they are not playing something else.

In practice, it doesn't work.

This same concept is chained along with many other features of Shattered Kingdoms too. Such as small to sometimes extinct tribunals and cabals; since the recruitment pool is finite, smaller groups are less interesting and/or enjoyable to play, eventually leading to inactivity.

There are probably too many religions too, but that's entirely another topic, maybe.

I don't know what changed since I stopped playing two or three years ago, but there used to be a lot of ways for players to get symbols.

For whatever reason Dulrik or the builders have decided that this wasn't okay and have removed every single symbol from the game except for priests.

If you ask me I think that this change was pretty silly. It was fun (although impossible now) to fake being a member of a religion. Oh well. So it goes.

Maybe we can convince Dulrik to change it back.

No. Paladins/Hellions are Holy/Unholy _warriors_ of a church. They are considered clergy indeed, but they are not the _priests_ of the church. Their task is to defend the glory of their church, the priests' task is to live in constant contact with their God and recieve his blessings and offer them to others. So it has to be the priest who has the blessing to be able to pray for a symbol, the God himself allows it to materialize. You may think of it as something minor mechanics-wise, but if you see it RP wise, how from nothing a prayer produces a holy symbol that is to be worn by the members of the church, you will realize that it's a great thing to do.

I just wish to clarify that I am not disagreeing with the technical, textbook definitions of what paladins and hellions are, and/or their duties and so on.

Just as I did not disagree with the splitting of Knights of Selkwood + Druids, Talons + Fists, etc.. However the idea certainly seemed better back when Shattered Kingdoms was played by 75-100 players.

These changes were most likely made to accommodate a large, growing MUD, by encouraging more political or religious bodies to interact with each other, both great concepts and visions in the past.

As Shattered Kingdoms does not have a growing trend, and I am not arguing here combining cabunals and/or +add symbols would be the saving grace, but at some point it is probably better to cut the losses.

M2C.

A hellion change to balance the paladin boost - yes, holy symbols? That's not it. Hellions need an anti-lighty spell, like Spear of Faith, and it should be about mentor in level, since that's about the level hellfire starts to suck badly.