Shattered Kingdoms

Read the latest Code Update announcement here.

I am going to be a bit more verbose about the changes than usual. The impact may not be huge, but there is subtlety to absorb.


Topic 1: Death Recovery
It's been said that the death penalties on SK have not aged particularly well. Both the general expectation of difficulty (after games like WoW set an easier standard) and specific difficulty on SK (with fewer priests available online) have changed. And so we are updating to fit better with the times.

Everything about coming back to life is now easier than it was before (although still a bit more difficult than your "average" game). Each individual option (with the exception of the resurrection spell) has been revised.

I thought it would be easier to understand by presenting it as a chart:
Death Return Changes

The main conceptual change is that returning to life now generally becomes harder as you increase in level, whereas before level rarely mattered. But even at GM, there are still lower penalties for returning than before.

Besides reducing penalties, there are specific innovations to be called out:
- Pity of the Gods now works until Initiate (instead of Novice)
- Raise Dead is free of penalties if cast by a priest of the same religion
- You can use the Oracle as many times as you want without more penalties
- Revival is now a new additional benefit for tribunal members

And although it's not directly tied to any of the death changes, we also heard your requests to make it easier for clergy to join religions. For each religion, there is now a single NPC priest somewhere in the world (generally at their biggest temple), who can invest clergy without the need for a PC to be present. If you are eligible, they will ask you about it as soon as you walk into the room. This should help increase the number of priests available to cast raise and resurrection.


Topic 2: Healing Changes
We've changed healing to be more influenced by stats, specifically the wisdom of the healer and the constitution of the healed. This means if you have a high CON you will get a bonus to the amount healed and if you have a low CON you will be penalized. If you have a high WIS you will get a bonus to the amount you heal and vice versa. But balancing this is an overall small nerf to healing in general.

What does it really mean? Here are some examples:
* Omniscient gnome priest healing unstoppable dwarf barbarian? Definitely better.
* Wise human priest healing durable human scout? About the same as before.
* Naive giant priest healing unhealthy elf sorcerer? Going to need more effort.

The area where this is definitively a (minor) nerf is to item healing, because using items will not provide the healer wisdom bonus (but does provide the healed con bonus). And while there was a separate change to "double" healing for vampiric touch, it wasn't quite doubled, because that type of healing also does not get a wisdom bonus.


3. CRS Changes
Although it isn't new with this update, you may have missed the announcement last week: The inner guardians have vanished (or been forcibly taken) to parts unknown. These events took place after a RP event with each cabal (assuming they responded to requests to set up a time) or with evidence of a struggle in the HQ (for those leaders who didn't respond). Wherever they are, they each hold their relic, so all of the cabals have their powers.

What may not be obvious is that CRS has not been "turned off" so much as just been made un-winnable. You can still hang out in the HQ, the outer guardian can be attacked and cabal defenders will spawn as normal. Defenders who show up may get a "victory" affect, since the attackers have no way to take the relic. But at the risk of being killed, obviously.

What happens next depends on how players respond. Although we may leave it inactive for awhile, that doesn't mean we don't have some new ideas. But for the time being, the staff plans to focus more on tribunals than on making more changes to CRS.


We aren't resting on our laurels. This is probably the most active and motivated group of staff that I've ever worked with on SK. My thanks go out to every one of them!

Thanks for reading my wall of text. TL;DR? Your loss!

I like these changes in general. You topic expansion in this thread answered most of the questions that occurred to me initially, so thanks for that too. One thing I'm still curious about though is with the new increased healing potential has exp gain from healing also increased in potential? From each given spell cast, I mean.

One thought about the invests.
I'm probably going to get hate for this, but I think that the NPC invests shouldn't be active if the HP and HF flags are set. If both are set, there is probably enough opportunity to get invested quickly. Doesn't have to happen, but I enjoy the invest RP.

I agree that a PC shouldn't be able to go over the High Follower's or High Priest's head when it comes to joining the religion. The downside there is if the HP/HF is inactive even if they're still packing the flag.
Overall, though I haven't tested, I think these changes look great.

I'll counter that religions should pretty much be open to anyone of an appropriate alignment. It is cool to have an investment ceremony if you like, but this isn't a cabal-level betting scenario, and you can certainly conduct a ceremony after the NPC-invest.

Also, some religion NPC-investments are more restrictive than a PC high follower might be. Additionally, high followers retain the right and responsibility to guide the flock as they see fit with blemishments, atonements, et cetera. So by no means have we completely eliminated the function of a high priest in character.

I think my only issue is that I see a bunch of love being given to dwarves and gnomes in these updates while other races are getting shafted. This is going to lead to a lot of gnome/dwarf combos being rolled while other races get left behind. Yes, I am still angry about sprite melee getting the shaft .

Keep in mind that NPC Priests will ONLY invest clergy. That means people whose classes are Priests (or Paladins/Hellions for those deities that permit them). Which means all the investment RP is still needed for any other class that wants to join. And you also still have the opportunity to perform RP with the clergy to potentially upgrade them to Favored status.

Good question. The answer is no: The amount of XP received is exactly the same as before. But do you think it should be otherwise?

Ideally, I think healing should be just as viable a method of gaining exp as doing damage.

EDIT: At least, healing in your own group should be.

How does this (if at all) apply to Shaman's casting Raise Dead? Do other pantheist characters get the same penalty free raise if it is done by a Shaman?