Hi everyone. This announcement post will cover a few things. So let’s jump right into it.
To start, we want to announce a few changes to the officer core. Riverthorn, who has done amazing work for the guild and was the visionary for the new event system, is going to be stepping down as an officer to focus more on their IRL situation. This means that Wiltheia will be stepping up to being the research lead. This will be repeated at our next meeting and plans on promoting an assistant for Wiltheia will be revealed at next week’s meeting on Wednesday, May 4th.
We’ve recruited a lot lately so we would like to adjust our events times and other guild aspects to better suit the people in our wonderful guild. If you could take the time out of your busy days to complete this quick survey for us to get a better idea of what everyone desires, we would be eternally grateful.
The survey will reward 1 XP upon completion, so it’s an easy way to get a free XP. The survey will only be open for 10 days though, so please make sure you fill it out before May 6th.
You can take the survey >>HERE<<.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding the talent system that we think are pretty common among the guild, so we’re going to answer ‘em all here and let you guys know.
I messed up my character’s stats. Can I change them?
As of right now, no you cannot change them because we’d like to avoid having everyone change their stats on a whim to better suit certain situations. That being said we have a respect system in the works that will allow you to re-stat your character.
What events qualify for xp?
Events that qualify for xp are defined as events that officers have a direct hand in helping run. This is to prevent people from simply throwing up events without actually planning them out to gather up more xp.
Since I can’t come to events often, I can’t get talent points. Doesn’t that make the system really unfair to people?
It can be unfair in a way, but this is a point we’ve been wanting to address for a while now. The talents are not the main benefit in this system. They’re simply something fun on the side. Icing on the cake. Etc, etc. They have cooldowns and they can also be situational. The main factor in events is your stats, which everyone gets. The stats are what makes you pass rolls and succeed and events!
I can’t come to events often. Does that mean I’m out of luck for talents?
Right now, yes. But we promise we’re working on drumming up ways for people who can’t always attend events to earn xp as well.
There are skills in the talent system that my character already has, like divine protection. Does this mean I’m not allowed to use them?
Not at all! The talent system is not intended to take away any in character skills. Not having the talent simply means that skill doesn’t have the mechanics in our system. For example, using Divine Protection, if you pass a defense roll and decide you want your character to use their paladin shield for that passed roll that’s completely okay! Your divine shield simply can’t save you from a failed roll until you purchase that talent.
There are some talents in other class trees that would work for my character. Can I take them?
Yep! Cross classing is completely okay as long as it makes logical sense to your character. If you can explain it to an officer there’s no reason not to. For example, if your character is a warrior but is a rather sneaky type, they’re free to take the Pickpocket talent from the rogue tree. But if they’re a warrior with no healing skills at all IC, then it wouldn’t make sense for them to take Lay on Hands from the paladin tree.
These talents are really restrictive on character creativity. My character’s spells would look a little different! What’s the deal?
These talents aren’t intended to lessen the creativity of your character. If you want to change the visual aesthetic of the talent to better match your character, you’re free to! For example, if you’re a shaman and you’ve taken Lightning Shield, feel free to describe that Lightning Shield as wild and erratic electricity skipping quickly over your character’s entire body instead of simply having the little orb of lightning circle you.
The talent Block is worded in a confusing way. Do you block the person no matter what or is your roll with a -1 penalty to determine if you get to block?
Because we’ve adjusted the system to not allow people to simply save each other back and forth all the time, we want to make Block a strong talent. So yes, if you use your Block talent you save the person you were blocking from the damage they were going to take no matter what. Your -1 roll is to determine if your character gets hurt in the process.
Some talents say you lose defense to gain the bonus. Does this mean you lose the HP you get from that defense?
Nope. If you take a talent like Battle Fury that makes you lose defense temporarily, you don’t lose the HP with it. This applies to all talents that you exchange defense for a benefit for.
Do finishing attacks (e.g. “Highest roll takes out target”) take our bonuses into account?
They do not. We’ve decided for finishing rolls to finish off a boss target, these will be flat 20 rolls that bonuses don’t apply. It’s not fair to those who put their points into utility or defense to never get to be the hero.
I have suggestions or criticism about the talent system and other guild matters. What should I do?
Great! We can’t make things better or improve systems without feedback. If you have some comments or criticisms, send them to Kaylir, Asterlan, Lydea, Wiltheia, or Christiara. We will put it on the docket to discuss in our meetings so we can get answers to you.
As a preview to some of the changes we’re making in the event system we’ve decided that it’s time to reintroduce natural 1’s and natural 20’s into the system, because those were simply fun when you saw the numbers pop up. Let us explain how we’re doing these now. Basically stats will not apply to naturals.
For attack rounds, if you roll a natural 1 you automatically fail the roll no matter and your attack doesn’t land. If you roll a natural 20, however, you get to deal an additional 2 damage on targets atop of the damage thresholds you already pass with your stats. And you get to make it extra flashy if you wish.
For defense rolls, if you roll a natural 1 you fail, and thresholds apply without your defense bonus. For example, if Ast has 4 defense and he rolls a natural 1 on a defense roll of 15, that means he takes 3 points of damage instead of the 2 he would take if he still had the 4 defense added to is natural 1. For natural 20’s, you can counter attack once more for 1 damage.
Keep in mind with these, natural 1’s and 20’s are defined as landing on exactly 1 or 20 before your bonus stats. None of this applies if your roll equals 20 after adding your stats in.
