Module 3

DDO Release Notes: The Demon Sands

Module 3 - The Demon Sands 
These release notes were posted October 25th, 2006.

The Demon Sands

The sprawling dunes of Menechtarun hide deadly secrets and are home to powerful new enemies. Beware – despite these new monsters your most dangerous enemy might now be another adventurer….

• Battle other players in tavern free-for-all brawls, compete to Capture the Flag, or fight team vs. team and player vs. player in Death Matches with the new PVP system.
• Learn amazing new spells, enhancements, and feats with the level cap increase to Level 12 (Rank 60).
• A new desert adventure with a massive landscape and 12 new high level dungeons.
• Visit the Auction House to buy and sell the magical treasures of Xen'drik with other players.
• Enjoy new favor rewards.
• Trade feats you no longer want with the new Feat Respec System.
• Benefit from improvements to the shop interface and treasure system.

Level Cap Increase to Level 12

Take your character even further! New spells, feats, and enhancements await! But just as you have gained in power the enemies of Stormreach have gained as well. Prepare to push yourself to the limit to see just what you can do. It's time to slay the Titan…

Favor Cap Increase

Along with the increase in level cap there has been an increase in the favor cap as well. When a character reaches 1750 total favor they will receive a +2 tome of their choice from Nyx. They will also gain access to a 7th character slot and the ability to create new characters using a 32-point buy instead of the normal 28-point buy (non-Drow only). In addition, players will find that a new favor rank has opened up with the Free Agents.

New Adventure Area: The Sands of Menechtarun

Menechtarun

The Menechtarun is a vast desert that sprawls across the western reaches of Xen’drik. In ancient times, the Menechtarun was ruled by a tyrannical Wizard-King and his demonic servants. Today, these lands are home to rugged settlers, barbaric gnoll tribes and a sect of fanatical drow and scorrow called the Vulkoorim, or the "Chosen of Vulkoor." The Wizard-King himself is long dead, but his ageless servants have flourished, giving rise to another name for this region -- the Demon Sands. Points of Interest:

• Zawabi’s Refuge - An oasis to the north of the Scavenger Wastes. Named after the djinni who rules the oasis, Zawabi’s Refuge is a bastion against gnoll and scorrow raiders that prey on lost travelers and ill-protected caravans. Many refugees come to the Refuge seeking the djinni’s protection, as do adventurers, traders, outcasts and other questionable characters from far-off lands. Zawabi is bound to the oasis by a powerful spell and cannot leave his circle, but within the Refuge, his power is supreme.
• The Scavenger Wastes - Hyena packs roam these lands, as do their bipedal cousins, the gnolls. The magically-guarded entrance to Zawabi’s Refuge is located here.
• Windlasher Canyon - The harsh desert winds of the Menechtarun carved out this canyon long ago. Now it serves as home for the Windlasher tribe of gnolls, who are marginally less aggressive than the Firebrands but no less deadly in combat.
• Valley of the False Tombs - This valley is rumored to be the final resting place of Raiyum the Wizard-King and his malefic servants, Kourush and Rahmat. Raiyum’s tomb is supposedly rife with traps and decoy tombs, serving to conceal the true burial chamber of the legendary tyrant.
• Burning Mountain - The Burning Mountain dominates the territory of the Firebrand gnolls. Few explorers manage to evade the patrols along its dangerous ledges and twisting trails, and even fewer sneak past its guarded gates. These lucky survivors report the existence of a massive fortress-like city within the mountain's volcanic interior, where countless slaves toil without hope of release.
• Serpent’s Pass - Deep in Firebrand territory lies the valley known as Serpent’s Pass. The origins of this name are unclear; the Pass may have been named for its serpentine bends, or for its many opportunities for treachery and ambush. The Firebrand gnolls often use this place as a staging area for their raids against the Vulkoorim. Others who enter Serpent's Pass rarely leave alive.
• The Scar - A deep fissure in the desert that stretches for miles, the Scar is a natural bulwark separating the gnoll tribes from the Vulkoorim scorrow and their drow worshippers. Several treacherous paths and a pair of stone bridges are the only ways to cross the Scar, and the scorrow keep a close watch on these points of entry. Unwary travelers who venture across the Scar often end up as unwilling guests in the bloody rituals of the Vulkoor Spiral.
• The Vulkoor Spiral - A holy shrine for the Vulkoorim and their worshippers, the Vulkoor Spiral is an underground network of caverns that echoes with the screams of the slain. Here, the Vulkoorim offer fervent prayers and bloody sacrifices to all three aspects of the scorpion god Vulkoor, although Vulkoor the Wrathful is the form most revered by this dark and violent cult.

Many of the monsters who live in the Sands of Menechtarun drop Antique Bronze tokens when they die. Adventurers should save these tokens for Masei Mkembe of Masei's Imports in Zawabi's Refuge who collects these tokens and will trade with you for them. NEW - For a more information on some of the new quests you can find in the Sands of Menechtarun please click here.

Changes to the Harbor

The steady stream of new adventurers arriving in Stormreach has become one of the city's greatest assets. Embracing these new arrivals, the Coin Lords have simplified the process for gaining entry to Stormreach. New arrivals have more freedom than ever before! Click here to read the full article.

New Solo Quests!

We are spreading the Solo gaming experience in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach even further! Several quests in the Stormreach Market and House Deneith can now be completed in solo mode. These quests are:

• Redfang the Unruled
• The Foul Chambers
• The Sunken Sewers
• The Deneith Sewers:
  • The Depths of Despair
  • The Depths of Darkness
  • The Depths of Discord
  • The Depths of Doom

Player vs. Player Combat

One of the most exciting new features for Module 3: Demon Sands is the introduction of Player vs. Player (PvP) combat which allows two or more adventurers to test their skills in battle directly against one another. PvP combat can only occur in PvP arenas located throughout the world. Please note: some spells and special abilities will function differently in PVP combat than they do in dungeons, in order to preserve balance. There are several different modes of PvP battle, including:

• Death Match. Two teams are matched up, and the team that scores the most points wins.
• Capture the Flag. Two teams defend their base and their flag - the team that brings their opponent’s flag back to their base the most wins.
• Tavern Brawls. Fight in designated areas in taverns.

PvP play is purely optional and you won't be penalized for dying (nor will you gain experience). So why would you want to participate in PvP? For fun, for a change of pace, and for bragging rights – our newly relaunched website (www.ddo.com) includes an extensive PvP Leaderboard! Track your progress and examine the competition in your pursuit of fame and glory. NEW - To read more about the new PvP Leaderboard please click here. To read an in-depth article about the PVP arena matching system please click here.

Character Display in the DDO.com Forums

You can now show up to three of your characters in your forum signature. In order to enable this feature, click the “User CP” link in the forums menu bar and then click the “Character Display” link in the Control Panel. Please note that character info can take up to 48 hours to update on the forums, and that existing characters will not be available for the Character Display until you log in and log back out of the game with them.

Combat Changes – Ranged & Melee

One of the most exciting components of Module 3 is the changes we are making to combat - both ranged and melee:

Ranged

• A new reloading mechanic: reloading can no longer be interrupted by movement or shooting too early.
• Shot on the Run: firing while moving will incur a penalty of -4 unless you have shot on the run.
• Bow speed improvements: as you level up, you will become faster with ranged weapons, making ranged combat more consistent with melee combat.
• When you equip a ranged weapon, you must now wait the time a standard reload would take before you can fire.
• In untargeted attack mode, ranged weapons now accurately hit where the targeting reticule is. Previously, there were slight errors based on race.
• A new feat: Precise Shot.
• Another new feat: Improved Precise Shot
• Many shot: when you reach base attack bonus of 11, you will get a third arrow to fire during a many shot burst.
• Repeating crossbow speeds have been adjusted at lower levels.
• Target correction – when you have an invalid target selected, the bow will now perform an untargeted shot.
• Haste now affects ranged attacks.

Melee

• You can now map your mouse buttons more flexibly!
• Active combat feats have been greatly improved
• The combat delay at the end of combo chains has been removed.
• Performing non-combat actions will now cause a small delay.
• Action boosts will no longer get interrupted by movement
• Tumbling will no longer break your combat chain.
• Moving attacks have been slowed down.
• Dual-wielding has been improved.
• You may now perform melee attacks while you are in the air.
• Sap has been fixed!
• The artificial delay has been removed from auto-attack
• Just for Bards
  • The amount of time it takes for Bard's song effects to kick in has been reduced.
  • Movement will no longer interrupt Bard songs.

New Mouse Mapping Options

To make our user interface a little more friendly, we have added some new options for mouse button mapping:

• Single Attack - Takes the weapon in your hand and swings/fires it at your target or untargeted.
• Select Target - Take the current target under your mouse cursor or if in mouselook the target under your reticule.
• DDO Classic Interact - Single click selects the target, double click interacts with the target.
• MMO Interact - With a single click on the target, it selects and interacts with the target. If the target is a foe, it engages autoattack.
• Action Interact - With a single click on the target, it selects and interacts with the target. If the target is a foe, it simply selects the target.

Each of these potential mappings has the option for camera orbit (where the camera swings around the avatar while that mouse button is held) or steering (where the avatar turns to face where the camera is points).

The default mapping is what players are used to: 
Left mouse button - DDO Classic Interact / Steer 
Right mouse button - Single Attack To create a standard MMO mouse configuration akin to World of Warcraft, players should choose the following settings: 
Left mouse button - Select Target / Orbit Right mouse button - MMO Interact / Steer

Feats

With Module 3: Demon Sands we are introducing a number of new feats to the game, as well as some significant changes to old favorites. For more detail on the new and changed feats please read this article. As a compliment to these changes to feats we are also introducing a feat respec system. For complete details please click here.

Spells

Acid Rain, Blade Barrier, Chain Lightning, Cometfall, Create Undead, Force Missiles, and Undeath to Death are just some of the new spells that we've added for this module. To read the complete lists of new spells please click here and here.

Treasure Table Revisions

"I killed a billion CR 23 monsters and all I got was this lousy potion of cure light wounds." 
Potions and scrolls are being moved to a separate consumables table and therefore can no longer take the place of your +5 Mithral Full Plate etc. The higher level treasure tables will now also have a chance to drop multiple potions.

"No self-respecting vampire would have +1 garbage in his treasure chest." 
We have changed the treasure tables so that you are more likely to get a higher quality weapon. We did this by narrowing the range of possible item quality per treasure level, especially at higher levels, which removed lower quality items from each level's treasure table while increasing the probability of better quality items. We are offsetting this change by reducing the total number of items that can drop from a single chest. In short, players will see fewer total, yet receive higher quality items per chest.

"Where are all the bracers, rings, helms, boots, belts etc.?" 
The chance for random chests to drop these miscellaneous magic items has been greatly increased (by up to five times).

"Why don’t more Bastard Swords, Dwarven Axes, and Full Plate Armor drop?" 
The percentage chances for each weapon and armor type to drop have been modified to more closely match the percentages in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The result of this is that many more of the most desired weapon and armor types will begin dropping in random loot.

Static Storyquest Treasure

There has been a great deal of player commentary on the static lists of named items that players are allowed to select from when completing long story quest arcs. The two main complaints we've seen are 1) everyone ends up having the same equipment and 2) after completing a story quest arc more than a few times you already have all the possible items. On the other hand, many players like being able to plan their gear. They like knowing which quests they have to complete in order to get a specific item.

We have tried to make some changes to the static rewards system that addresses the complaints while preserving the better aspects. Now, when players complete a story quest arc a list of items will be generated for the player to choose from. Each of the named items that were previously on the list will have a chance to still appear. If the named item does not appear, a randomly generated item of the same type will appear in the list instead. These random items are approximately the same quality of the named item. All items on these story quest reward lists will still be bind-on-acquire since these items generally have lower Minimum Required levels.

The new system will still allow you to have the chance to obtain the named item while adding an element of variety. It might take you longer to obtain the named item you had your heart set on, but who knows what other exciting items you might gain access to?

Auction Houses

The Coin Lords are pleased to announce that they have teamed with House Kundarak and House Orien to open several auction houses in Stormreach! Auction Houses will allow you to both put items you no longer want up for sale and purchase items you desire. Sellers will be able to set an opening bid and an optional buyout price for their items, and will also be allowed to cancel an auction if they see fit. Buyers will be able to browse through items using the Auction House user interface and place bids on items that they wish to purchase. Items will be sent via mail to the highest bidder and the money will be sent via mail to the seller. Branches of the Auction Houses will be located in every ward of Stormreach, although all of the auctioneers draw from the same inventory list. To read the full article on how Auction Houses will function please click here.

Inventory & Shop Improvements

Shopping Carts

The days of accidentally buying or selling an item you didn't want are gone forever! Shopping carts will provide you a way to double check that you are buying and selling the intended items. This will eliminate quickly double-clicking on items to buy/sell and getting or selling the wrong thing because the inventory shifted. Also, items that cannot be sold (collectables and locked items) will no longer appear in the sell window, so if you want to do a bulk "add all" you will only add those items that can be sold and haven’t been protected.

Item-Lock Down

We are thrilled to introduce the "lock" button! Located on your inventory panel, this new button can be used to quickly secure (and un-secure) your items. When you secure an item a small lock will appear in the lower left-corner of the item’s icon. A locked item cannot be sold, traded, or dropped (destroyed) by the player. Please note: secured items can still be destroyed through normal use (i.e., using a scroll), and by wear.

General

• Fixed an issue where going link-dead/disconnecting during teleportation into a dungeon could prevent you from getting XP from that dungeon.
• Fixed an issue which prevented your XP panel from refreshing after returning from link-death into a dungeon.
• If your party completes an adventure, and you miss it (link dead, or healing in a tavern), the adventure will now complete when you reenter the dungeon. This way, you won't miss out on your XP, or miss out on advancing your quest.
• In some rare cases, some players were not receiving proper favor for the adventures they completed. This problem has been fixed. The adventure compendium will now give players proper credit for all adventures. This fix should also retroactively award players favor who finished an adventure in the past, but did not get credit for it.
• You will now slowly regenerate Hit Points and Spell Points while walking around the city and not just in taverns.
• Previously when players used a stat-enhancing tome (such as the Manual of Bodily Health) the increase in ability score from the tomes were not being considered as part of your "base ability." This means that they were not being counted for purposes of advancement. This has been fixed. Players who have used tomes in the past will see the correct behavior in the future. If you used the "Tome of Clear Thought" you will receive the correct number of skill points when you advance in the future, but will not receive retroactive skill points.
• A number of new emotes have been added to the game:
  • /beckon
  • /hug
  • /flex
  • /groan
  • /grovel
  • /kiss
  • /no
  • /poke
  • /sigh
  • /taunt
  • /yes
  • /cheer2
  • /dance2
  • /show (allows you to /show off your right-hand weapon).
• The Silver Flame has recognized that the brothers stationed in Taverns have been casting an inferior version of Restoration. From now on, the spell cast in taverns will remove 1 negative level in addition to all the other Restoration effects.
• Raid parties for the Dragon or the Warforged Titan will now have the option of setting the raid loot shards to go to a random member of the party rather than to the leader. The leader can switch the shard designation by right clicking on the party health-bars (in the same place he/she clicked for "convert-to-raid"). All members of the party will be notified in party chat when this happens, and later arrivals will be notified when they join the party. Once the party has been switched to "random loot", it cannot be switched back. Shards will be randomly assigned to any member of the party who is alive and still in the dungeon as soon as someone attempts to pick up the shard.
• Fixed a bug which prevented the player's encumbrance from being updated when sending an item through the mail.
• Some new Tips have been added to the game that will be displayed when loading a new area. Special thanks to ddo.com forum members apollojuly, Berjik, Chardros, Denomicon, DeusMortis, DrAwkward, Drogon, DuckOfDeath, Elurian, Fu-Inator, Furee, oronisi, patnodewf, Squeg, Thanatos, Thistle, tihocan, toddfox2, tr0tsky, Ustice, Volund, whysper, winsom, and Worg2k6 for the new helpful tips!
• Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
• Freedom of movement items and spells will now allow you to ignore the effects of slippery surfaces (i.e. grease and sleetstorm areas).
• We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic.
• We are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only eliminate "false" hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of the hit.
• When you successfully swap a spell, you will now get an alert telling you that it worked.
• Poison dart and poison grenade traps will now actually poison you instead of doing poison hp damage. In addition, we have fixed several broken traps throughout the world.
• Soulstones are now ethereal to almost everything which means they'll fall properly if you die in mid-air, over water, etc.
• The barkeeps of Stormreach have started carrying and increased variety of items.
• Lava Cam! When your camera is in lava, it now looks more like it's in lava, as opposed to water.
• Made some small tweaks to our avatar animations. For example, human female's wrists won't twist in the dual weapon combo attack, dwarven arms won't over-extend when they use an axe to cleave, etc.
• Clarified a number of tooltips and descriptions, fixed several incorrect icons and focus orb images.

Performance

• Overall bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by 20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in your local area). These changes will be most noticeable for modem users.
• The landscape renderer has been overhauled to provide better performance (especially load times). In addition, the new landscape engine enables huge draw distances that were not possible before.
• The overall frame rate has been improved and ‘hitching’ reduced.
• Avatars and monsters are now a bit brighter than other objects (the intensity depends upon the environment and lighting conditions).

UI Improvements

• The text on the XP bar has been clarified to make it more obvious that you have not lost the XP you were accruing toward your bonus AP when you die and get an XP debt while you are working toward bonus action points.
• Race and Alignment requirements to equip items will now be shown in RED text.
• We've added a new button to the focus orb! The new "tell" icon appears next to the "invite" button when you have another player selected.
• Mail
  • The "New Mail" icon will now appear on the Focus Orb even if it is minimized.
  • The "New Mail" icon will now vanish from the Focus Orb when the last new letter in your mailbox has been opened.
  • Players will be able to read the entire subject line from mail they receive.
  • The "To" and "Subject" line of the Compose Mail UI no longer accept carriage returns.
  • It is no longer possible to compose new mail while your mailbox is full. The Mail Box is considered full when it has fifty or more letters inside of it.
  • It is no longer possible to put too much text into the Compose Mail' "To," "Subject," and "Message" fields.
• The options panel now provides the choice to reset the chat windows back to their default window configuration (General, Party, Guild, Combat). All other windows will be removed.
• /retell can now be used with the alias /rt as well.
• When you type in "/r " the chat box will automatically replace that text with "/tell X," This works with "/r", "/reply", ";r", and ";reply". This functionality has also been added to the /retell command and should help eliminate mistells.
• Guild Officers should now see their own chat message appear in the Guild chat tab.
• The spell swap window will no longer get stuck closed if you close it by backing away from the trainer.
• The affordability status will now update when you acquire currency (i.e., from selling things) while the shop panel is still open.
• Mummy rot and mummy curse have new alert icons which look different from one another. Also, the alert icons for when players get hit by monsters using the feats stunning blow, sunder, and bewildering blow have been replaced with clearer ones which better depict the effect or feat rather than the exclamation point icon.
• In an effort to help clear up some confusion Ranks will now start at 1 *instead of 0.
• ALT-Z will now hide/show the main UI.
• You will now see the dice rolls for dispelling.
• When using something other than the mouse to move the mouse cursor (for example, an Xbox 360 controller), the mouse cursor will not be allowed to move outside the game window.

Monsters

• A few old familiar spellcasters have discovered some of the same new spells that players have discovered and have added them to their spellbooks and repertoires, in some cases replacing older spells. While the difficulty of these spellcasters may change slightly (up or down) as a result of these additions, overall difficulty should not change by a significant amount.
• Many human enemies have had their alignments updated or corrected. For example, Agents of the Emerald Claw are now Chaotic Evil; Warriors of the Emerald Claw are now Neutral Evil; the necromancer Gerti is now Chaotic Evil; all Blackguards are now Evil, and many are Lawful Evil; City Guards are now Lawful Neutral; and several misaligned thieves and rogues are now Chaotic Neutral.
• Monsters can no longer remain stealthed/invisible when they are casting harmful spells on you.
• Adjusted some monster sneak attacks to function properly – some were not being blocked by fortification, while others were not triggering in situation where they should have (for example, with a blinded target).
• Monsters will now deal properly when hit with multiple behavior states (for example, mesmerized while dancing).
• The behavior of monsters that cannot reach their target because other *creatures are in the way has been improved. Preventing a monster from reaching its target is now an effective way to gain the creature's attention.
• Summoned monsters now appear at the spellcaster's location.
• UPDATED – Some monsters (primarily on large landscape areas) will no longer follow opponents indefinitely. Now, when they get too far away from their home base they will turn around and run back home. While a monster is returning to its home camp it will heal itself, will be invulnerable to spells and normal attacks, and will run at a faster speed than normal. If a monster can't find a path home, it will teleport.
• A pass was made for consistency on breath weapons of monsters. Several of these attacks were being applied incorrectly, preventing Protection from Energy or Resist Energy from functioning against them.
• Several bow wielding enemies will now shoot various energy arrows like flaming arrows or cold arrows. These will do the typical piercing damage (1d6 and up) in addition to various amounts of energy damage.
• Several resourceful enemies have begun using various alchemical substances in battle. In most cases, these will affect players as energy damage over time.
• Warforged Titan
  • When knocked over, the WFT will stay down longer.
  • The laser can be moved more times before the power runs out.
  • A crystal will keep the laser powered longer.
  • The WFT's claw attack now makes less attacks per round.
  • The WFT now fires less small shots per round.
  • Reduced the damage on the WFT's small shots.
  • Reduced the flight speed of the WFT's small shots.
  • The detect boxes of falling pillars has been increased (watch out below!)
  • The detect box of the laser has been increased (do not shine directly into your friends' eyes).
• Troglodytes
• Troglodyte Stench is no longer called 'nausea' but is instead properly called 'Troglodyte Stench' and flagged as a sickness. The functionality of the stench has not been otherwise changed.
• Most named troglodytes have been given more hp on the hard and elite settings.
• Liches can no longer be affected by command undead, halt undead, the undead fear portion of the chill touch spell, or control undead (not in game yet).
• We have made some visual changes to the Lich's Mantle of Invulnerability spell. This is a visual change only – no change has been made to functionality.
• Liches
• Mephits now fly faster.
• Some wraiths can now cast spells.
• Trolls should no longer attempt to make melee attacks from out of range.
• Wight priests now cast attack spells with greater frequency.
• Ghouls now properly apply the Sickened condition on opponents rather than the Slow effect. Sickened creatures have a -2 penalty to attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, skill checks, and saving throws. Effects that remove or protect against poison function on sickness.
• UPDATED – Iron golems’ immunity to electricity has been reduced slightly to allow players to slow them with electric attacks. Iron golems can now be slowed for a short time by electric attacks which do at least 1 point of damage. When iron golems are hit by fire, they are now healed by 1/3 of the amount of damage rather than the full amount.
• NEW – Most hard and elite hobgoblins now do more damage at the hard and elite levels. Previously, all hard and elite hobgoblins were doing the exact same amount of damage as the normal version ones.
• Some mid- and high-level (mostly CR 7 and up) spiders have new stronger poisons.
• Most spiders on the hard and elite settings have had their attack damage reduced significantly, particularly those on the elite setting.
• Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs.
• Redfang – Redfang has been eating her Wheaties - her difficulty has been increased slightly to put her in line with other boss monsters.
• Whisperdoom - Players should follow Ungurz's advice and not attempt to slay her – there is something in the air near Splinterskull that makes her practically invincible.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing spiders and dwarven enemies from being affected by the Slow spell and similar effects that reduced their movement.
• Vampires no longer cast shadows.
• Vampiric Domination is now properly "Dominate Person" rather than "Dominate Monster" (Celestial Dogs and Warforged rejoice!)
• Spiders
• The mind flayer and vampire's dominate abilities no longer dispel protection from evil.
• Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that have used their Earthgrab ability.
• All earth elementals will now react appropriately to creatures they cannot reach.
• Vampires
• Undead bosses can no longer be affected by turn undead fear.
• Mummy spellcasting AI updated.
• More powerful versions of Mummy Rot are now labeled accordingly: Pernicious **Mummy Rot is more dangerous than regular Mummy Rot, and Virulent Mummy Rot is even more lethal.
• It is no longer possible to have more than one type of mummy rot on you at a time (if you were fighting a normal and elite mummy simultaneously).
• The Venerated Mummies in the Tomb of the Ancients now have a special ward that makes them immune to the blade barrier spell. They will no longer be quickly killed by enemies casting blade barrier while you try in vain to keep them alive.
• Some ogres have been eating their veggies and will be able to see and hear better than they could before.
• Earth Elementals
• Flesh to Stone has been updated to only affect creatures that have flesh. As such, beholders will no longer petrify Warforged.
• Fire Elementals will no longer get stuck dancing at times.
• Mummies
• Brother Salasso and other creatures capable of going gaseous, ethereal, or otherwise incorporeal, should no longer have a chance of becoming permanently stuck in a half-ethereal state where they can affect you but you cannot affect them.
• Adran ir'Karsmore relies less on natural AC and more on his clerical buffs to provide him enough AC.
• General Xanti'lar - His fireshield now protects him from cold and does fire damage to attackers, more like the regular fireshield spell, the difference being that his fireshield gives him immunity to cold instead of half damage from cold. Additionally, his caster level has been brought up to the normal level instead of being improperly set low.
• NEW - Quinn the Quickfoot will now scale up with hard and elite difficulties instead of staying at the same level/CR.
• Female humanoid villains will no longer charge into melee range if armed with spells or bows.
• Mind flayers no longer reappear after being killed by a fiery death.
• Fixed an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They will no longer "eat collectables" they should be creating.
• Humanoid monsters will no longer throw weapons from their feet.

Combat

• All enemy trips and knockdowns now have dual saves (an initial save and a secondary save). Most give you an ability modifier check for the initial save to determine whether or not you fall. This will be your Strength or Dexterity modifier, whichever is greater on our character. Some knockdowns like grease give a reflex save as the initial save. Once you fall down, your secondary save checks will occur every two seconds and are versus your balance skill to determine when you stand back up.
• Player level no longer adds to DCs to resist your feats (trip, sap etc).
• Bard songs can no longer be interrupted by people hitting you. Cleric enhancements that use turn-undead charges can no longer be interrupted by people hitting you. Turning on action boosts can no longer be interrupted by people hitting you.
• All Construct Bane weapons now affect Warforged.
• Vermin Empathy and Elemental Empathy will now properly deduct from your Wild Empathy uses per day.
• Rangers can now choose Favored Enemy: Gnoll as one of their favored enemies, either during advancement or by using a feat respec.
• Favored Enemy: Construct now works on warforged opponents.
• Smiting weapons and other death effects now give better combat feedback in your chat box.
• Boss monsters will now give better feedback on spells that they are immune to.
• Critical confirmation rolls are now shown in the chat log. Victims of sneak attacks and crits will now get clearer messages about it.

Spells

Spell Changes

• We have optimized and polished many of the spell effects, so don't be alarmed if your favorite spell doesn’t look exactly like it did before..
• The valid arc for casting spells on a target has been increased from a forward 90 degree arc to a forward 120 degree arc.
• Resist Energy is now available for clerics, paladins, rangers, and wizards. Protection from Energy is now available to Rangers, Wizards, and Clerics. This change allows these classes to cast Protection From Energy and Resist Energy the same way a sorcerer can, by memorizing a single spell and then choosing which damage type to ward against. The days of memorizing several Resist Energy: (Element) are no more! A special Thank You goes to the forum posters for their valuable feedback on this issue.
• Spell crits were not working properly on some AOE spells; now they will properly register the crit when casting and then apply the extra damage to all targets for the full duration of the spell. Spell crits will now also work properly on burning hands and cone of cold.
• Protection from Evil has been fixed to work correctly. It no longer protects against *all* charms and compulsions (including Otto's, command, hold monster/person, etc). Rather, it only protects against charms and compulsions that give ongoing mental control, such as the vampire's dominate ability. Also, as per D&D rules, it no longer protects against mental control from just evil creatures, but ALL mental control, regardless of the target's alignment.
• Break enchantment now removes all petrification effects (such as from the beholder).
• Since the Heal spell is now available for players, Restoration no longer removes Feeblemind.
• Phantasmal Killer is now a fear effect.
• Phantasmal Killer damage on a successful save is no longer negative energy damage, but rather untyped damage.
• Sleep spells (Sleep and Deep Slumber) now have recurring saves every minute that the spell is active. This allows players who have been affected by sleep to have a chance to break free of it before the full duration has elapsed without significantly impacting its usefulness in combat situations.
• Players will now be immune to charm spells. Players will no longer be immune to command and suggestion spells.
• Dispel Magic now correctly bypasses Spell Resistance.
• Stinking Cloud is now properly considered a 'nausea' effect.
• Holy smite will now damage spiders.
• The Teleport spell no longer has a Somatic casting component so players will not suffer an arcane spell failure chance for Teleport while wearing armor.
• The Dispel Magic spell (for bards, clerics, paladins, sorcerers, and wizards) no longer requires a material component to cast (as per D&D rules).
• Niac's cold ray now uses the proper ray cast animation.
• Mind Blast now affects all enemies within the area of effect.
• The flame arrow spell now allows the caster to choose what type of ammo he/she would like to add the "flame" property to. Choices include Arrows, Bolts, Throwing Daggers, Throwing Axes, Darts, and Shuriken. Each requires 1 base unmodified type of that ammo (so Flame Shuriken requires 1 plain shuriken) and produces a stack of 50. All players and items that can cast flame arrow will now cast the "new" version.
• Stoneskin and Protection from Energy spells now work as per PHB - they have a total amount of damage that they protect you from, after which they will vanish.
• Ice storm no longer creates a slippery surface on the ground that causes players or monsters to fall. Instead it slows the land movement speed of enemy monsters for a very short time while in the storm area.
• When blind, you will no longer see the names floating above the head of named friends/foes. In an update sometime after Module 3 we will be restoring the ability to see friend's names.
• Casting/Cooldown
  • Slightly reduced the cooldown timer of all level 5 spells.
  • Significantly sped up the casting time of Command, Dimension Door, Flame Strike, and Spell Resistance to be in line with other spells of their level.
  • The 'projectile' portion of Fireball and Ball Lightning have been sped up slightly.
  • The Flaming Sphere ball of fire has been sped up slightly.
  • Significantly increased the cooldown timer of the sorcerer's Suggestion spell to be in line with other Suggestion spells.
  • Made several minor tweaks to casting times and cooldown timers of other spells to bring them in line with similar spells of the same level.
• The cloud spells Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Mind Fog, Obscuring Mist, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, and Solid Fog have had their FX altered slightly. Now, if you or an ally cast any of these spells you will see the particle effects only, and not the obstructive visual overlay.
• Cloud spells cast by enemy spellcasters will still display screen overlays on any target that didn't resist the spell.
• Stinking Cloud, Obscuring Mist, and Fog Cloud no longer blind players. Instead, Stinking Cloud, Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, Solid Fog, Acid Fog, and Cloudkill now give a 20% concealment miss chance to enemy attackers due to the obscuring of sight. Players in sleet storm, however, are still considered to be blinded. Obscuring mist, fog cloud, and sleet storm effects can no longer be avoided with blindness ward items.
• Changes to Web
• The vast majority of monsters that had previously been flagged as immune to web now can save against it normally. This includes both per-genus immunities (like giants) and immunities based on hit dice (which was causing many monsters on hard and elite settings to suddenly become immune to web).
• The monsters that will continue to be immune to web are incorporeal creatures, spiders, oozes, fire elementals, other creatures largely comprised of fire, and bosses. In other words, incorporeal creatures can pass through webs, spiders are spiders, oozes squish through webs, and creatures that look like they're on fire can burn through the webs.
• Spiders now properly display an 'immune' message when hit with a web spell.
• Spider webs now have recurring str checks and hold players the same way the web spell does.
• Ghouls and wights can no longer run through webs freely (they were missing their entangled animations).
• To compensate for the removal of many of the immunities to web, web now has recurring saves. Any monster that fails the initial reflex save can attempt to make a strength check to break out of the web. After succeeding on a save the monster cannot be affected by a web again for the rest of the round (~3 seconds).
• The area of webs effect has shrunk slightly to better fit the physical appearance of the web.
• Area of Effect fire spells, both friendly and harmful, now properly burn through webs (previously they were burning the web itself, but leaving creatures that were already caught entangled, now all creatures that are entangled when the web is destroyed will be freed).
• Players caught in webs cast by enemy monsters can no longer move freely.
• Obscuring Mist can now be burned away with fire spells (like the Web spell - as per D&D rules).
• Glitterdust's penalty to hide is no longer resistible with a Will Save.
• Bards now get feather fall as an optional level 1 spell.
• Beneficial AOE spells, such as haste or remove fear, will now center on the caster rather than some distance in front of the caster when cast without a target selected (or with a monster target selected). These spells when cast with a friendly player targeted will still center around that target.
• Fiery Inferno, Burning Touch, Thaarak Hound Breath, and Scorch will now be stopped by the appropriate Resist Energy spells and items, and not by physical DR.
• The visual for the Grease spell now matches more closely the area of effect.
• The teleport spell now uses the correct particle FX.
• You will now get chat feedback in the combat window when you hit someone with a non-damaging spell (like fear or slow).
• The delay between when some AOE offensive and defensive (buff) spells are cast and when the spells actually applies their effects has been shortened. This makes these spells easier to land on moving creatures and make it slightly less likely that the party barbarian will keep running out of range of haste before it lands.
• The radius of Sleep, Deep Slumber, and Feather Fall have all been increased to "standard" AOE radii.
• NEW – Fixed a problem where casters with either low caster levels and/or low primary stats could cast Dismissal against certain elite outsiders and have it always land.
• Fixed a problem with the Dismissal spell wasn't adding the spell level (4 for clerics, 5 for sorc/wiz) to the spell's save DC, making it much harder to land than it otherwise would be.
• Protection from Energy and Resist Energy selector spells now all share the same cooldown timer across all versions.

Metamagic Fixes

• Characters using the Quicken feat will find their spellcasting greatly improved.
• Dismissal no longer consumes extra spell points while the Maximize or Empower spell feats are active.
• Eschew Materials
  • The spell point cost of using your Eschew Materials metamagic feat has been reduced.
  • Resistance, Restoration, Raise Dead and See Invisibility spells can now be used with the Eschew Materials feat.
• Enlarge Spell
• The enlarge spell metamagic feat no longer consumes additional spellpoints when used on the self-only spells Find Traps, Divine Favor, Divine Power, Detect Secret Doors, Expeditious Retreat, and False Life
• The enlarge spell metamagic feat now works properly with Wall of Fire.
• Feeblemind and Waves of Fatigue no longer consume extra spell points while the Extend Spell feat is active.
• Wall of Fire can now be used with the Extend Spell feat.
• Find Traps, Ice Storm, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Sleet Storm, Wall of Fire, Solid Fog, Grease, Melf's Acid Arrow, and Searing Light no longer consume additional spellpoints while the Heighten Spell feat is active.
• Holy Smite, Ray of Exhaustion, Shocking Grasp, and Niac's Cold Ray can now be used with the Heighten Spell feat.
• Extend
• Heighten Spell

Spell Description Updates

(these are just text changes, not changes to spell functionality)

• Spell descriptions now use color for greater readability!
• Player spells will now state in their descriptions if the spell has a saving throw to resist, and if so, the results of a successful save.
• Niac's Cold Ray now properly includes max damage (please note: there has been no functional change to this spell).
• Ray of Enfeeblement description fixed, it had been indicating an extraneous +1 STR damage that it did not do, and was missing max caster level information.
• Hold spells have been updated to state that they have a save interval.
• Player spells that have a max Hit Dice cap should now state this in their description.
• Melf's Acid Arrow description has been updated to list the correct interval.
• Wall of Fire description now been updated to include damage amounts.
• Scorching Ray description now includes information about additional rays and their levels.
• Updated Solid Fog description to remove reference to blocking missile attacks (which did not work) and added information about melee attack and damage penalties. There has been no functional change to the spell.
• We have corrected several other spell descriptions as well.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

• Trained-only skills now require a full rank, not half a rank, to use.
• Resolved an issue where only the first person to walk near a secret door would make a spot check to see it.
• The magnitude of the bonus provided by Action Boost: Attack and Action Boost: Skills have been reduced at the higher level enhancements.
• Bards can now activate their singing abilities while moving! The activation time on their singing abilities has been reduced significantly as well. An animation glitch has also been fixed!
• At level 6, Drow erroneously received the option to purchase an Elven ranged combat enhancement intended for high elves only. Drow can no longer select this enhancement.
• The description for the Paladin's Lay on Hands ability has been corrected to better describe the amount of healing/damage that the ability does.
• Fixed a bug with some AOE abilities and spells. Formerly, if you had a dead monster targeted, Turn Undead would fail. Now, it will work, but will be centered on you since your selected target is dead. The same is true of other feats, skills (Intimidate, etc.), and spells (Burning Hands, etc.), for which the default behavior on an invalid target should be "happen, centered on me", or "happen, aiming directly forward".
• The Bard Inspire Competence ability is now correctly flagged as a competence' bonus to skills, not a 'morale' bonus as it was.

Enhancements

• Warforged who take the fighter’s armor mastery enhancements will now see it affect the max dex bonus from their armored body feat.
• The Divine Healing enhancement now affects warforged characters equally effectively as non-warforged characters.
• The Human Improved Recovery Enhancements now will properly increase the value of heals cast on you.

Items

• When you attack most creatures, the chance that your weapon will be damaged is now significantly less (on average). Weapon damage chance after hitting oozes and rust monsters has not changed.
• The prohibition the Coin Lords had placed on the sale of handaxes in Stormreach has been lifted. Handaxes now for sale in fine weapon shops near you.
• Docents should now always appear properly both on your screen and on everyone else's.
• Removed a bug causing equipment to be generated with race restrictions, but without setting the UMD difficulty on the item.
• Tomes and Manuals that grant statistic increases can no longer be destroyed by monster attacks. They will instead become broken and can be repaired.
• Stacks of higher level Resist Energy potions now list the energy resistance gained (either 20 or 30 points).
• Superior [ENERGY] Lore item effect descriptions now match the actual bonuses given by these items, a 15% chance to critical for 1.5x damage when casting a spell of the correct [ENERGY] type.
• There is a new weapon effect "Vicious". This effect causes the weapon to do an additional 2d6 of damage to the target, but also does 1d6 of damage to the wielder.
• Generic Masterwork and +1 items sold in various shops around Stormreach are no longer bind on acquire.
• The Grease Scroll now has the appropriate caster level for a level 1 spell.
• Fixed an issue with Bane weapons where they were not getting the proper +N bonus to damage their specified enemy (they were getting the +d6, just not the +1 on lesser/+2 on normal/+4 on greater).
• Bolts of X Bane have had their minimum required level reduced to match Arrows of X Bane. This change is not retroactive, but all new bane bolts found will have the new minimum required level.
• Corrected a treasure issue where some slashing weapons were generated without an intended effect. The affected weapons will not suddenly gain a new effect but they will retain their inflated monetary value for sale to vendors.
• Steel Bucklers will now have steel hardness.
• The following bane weapons will now have the appropriate attack bonus. At the moment there is not a retroactive fix for older copies of the weapons that do not have the bonus but we are working on one.
  • Kelmar's Justice
  • Sword of the Giant Slave-Masters
  • Giant Stalker's Knife
  • Spider Spike
  • Spiked Mace of the Elements
• Darkleaf Banded Mail will now actually be made out of Darkleaf. This benefits of Darkleaf include; +1 to max dex bonus, armor skill check penalty reduced by 2, arcane spell failure reduced by 5%, and armor is non-metallic (which matters if a rust monster bites you).
• Any new Roguebane Breastplates from Gwylan's Stand will now have a minimum required level of 4 as well as having a higher value and durability.
• The Star of Irian that drops in Tempest's Spine is getting a makeover. All existing and new Stars of Irian will have the Righteous effect work as described (+2 to-hit/damage vs. Evil creatures). It will no longer do an additional 1d10 damage on critical hits. Newly created Star's of Irian will have increased durability and hardness as well as an increased minimum level requirement. The durability change will not affect already existing Stars.
• Crests will now sparkle to make them easier to see.
• Thrown weapons (axes, daggers, darts, and shuriken) will now rotate appropriately when thrown. Thrown daggers and axes now also have streaks as they spin through the air.
• Elemental weapon particle FX have been toned down.
• The "Protection from Chaos" effect found on the Planar Gird and the Chaosgarde has been renamed "Chaosguard". This is to prevent confusion with the D&D rules Protection from Chaos which includes a ward against mental control. Our effect was never intended to include that ward (and never has). There is no change in the actual benefits of these items.

NPCs

• Wandering NPCs (such as Altan Eguilan) should no longer slide away while talking to players.
• Petra Pollister the Potion Peddler in the Portable Hole has a new potpourri of puissant potions.
• Summoned and charmed monsters should no longer attack Derward Ironhill.
• Guard Joalam in the marketplace is no longer suicidal.
• Durk the Deranged has noticed that his friend Loghan is no longer in the Leaky Dinghy.

PVP

• Sneak attack works as follows:
  • If the target player is helpless, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is blinded, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is asleep, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is stunned, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is bluffed, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is dazed, sneak attack applies.
  • If the target player is flanked, sneak attack applies.
• In PvP arenas only, inflict wounds spells can be used to heal friendly undead.

Quests

• The following quests now have a "solo" mode:
  • Redfang's
  • Foul Chambers
  • Sunken Sewers
  • Deneith Sewers
• It should no longer be possible to find an empty chest in a low level adventure in solo mode.
• Fixed a problem where some floor puzzle tiles weren't lighting up when they should have.
• Fixed a bug where several quest items that were "drop on exit" were being erroneously deleted if the person who had been holding them was out of the instance for too long. Now these items will be available as long as the instance is open.
• The following quest objects now have the Neutral Evil alignment:
• The Totem Pole in Splinterskull.
• The Idol of the Fury in Sorrowdusk.
• Any evil altars such as Altars of the Dragon Below and Altars of the Dark Six.

Arzag-Khor Sewers

• Several new champions of the Arzag-Khor have joined them in their sewers. *These are powerful warriors who have the potential to be guarding new special equipment.

Black Anvil Forest

• Duergar survey crew should no longer respawn.

The Butchers Path

• A secret door that wasn't so secret has been fixed - players will now need to use the search skill to locate the secret door.

The Catacombs

• The final fight in the Catacombs has been made more challenging.

Delera's Tomb

• Charmed monsters should no longer prevent progression through.