Update 11/29/2015

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Yep, we're having an update this weekend. Some regular stuff, and then something new that may (or may not) change how certain things are done on the server. The full list of updates will be posted later when I'm actually doing the update itself.

But this post is regarding what I've been working on for the last week or so. Probably the one thing we have the most questions, comments, and complaints about is our special race system. Obviously, the one thing that really sets this server apart (aside from the Planescape setting, of course) is the ability to play many different races, ranging from the lowly kobold to powerful outsiders. Agony Aunt did an amazing job setting this system up, but what I'm rolling out this weekend is a proof of concept for doing this another way. Specifically, using racial classes (similar to those in the Savage Species sourcebook). What I'm rolling out this week is a limited proof of concept; if the playtest goes well, this will be expanded.

There are two parts to this: first, reworking all races so no race has a higher ECL than +3. What this generally means is considerably lessening things like ability scores and immunities, and doing away with a lot of innate spell-like abilities. In its place will be a racial prestige class, number of levels depending upon the overall power of the race. Not only does this do away with some of the more bothersome parts of the existing system (limited BAB, caster levels vs. dispel, difficulty of leveling characters), but it also gives players additional options, as they can choose to take all, some, or none of the racial prestige class to fit what they see their build becoming.; the difference is going to be seen in what abilities of their race are actually gained. So for instance, a fire giant with an ECL of +3 has 27 total levels they can take. There is a 7-level fire giant prestige class which they may enter starting at 2nd level. If they take all seven levels, they will wind up with the full complement of immunities, constitution and strength boosts, natural armor increases, and a couple of useful feats in addition. On the other hand, say they want to be a sorcerer and have full spellcaster progression with undispellable buffs, and maybe some levels of pale master as well... but to get what they want, they need 23 levels free. So they can choose to only take four levels of the prestige class, which will cost them some, but not all, of the ability score bonuses and the top movement speed of their racial class... but by taking 4 levels of it, they can still have some of those bonuses.

So for this proof of concept, I've actually converted two races to this system: Fire Giants and Frost Giants, probably the poster children for the "My ECL is too high" argument. In addition, I've added one more race: the Aasimon (angels), to show how this can be done with more powerful outsider races. In the case of Aasimon, there are actually three racial classes to choose from: Movanic Deva, Monadic Deva, and Astral Deva. All three share certain qualities, while each has its own unique flavor. I'll post details of the three races and all five racial PRCs to the SCoD Wiki within the next day.

Now as I've said, this is all proof of concept at this point. What this means is that all existing fire giant and frost giant characters will be grandfathered in under the old system (and any other races we do this with in the future will also have existing character grandfathered in as well). Secondly, racial and class abilities are subject to change if we determine there are balance issues. Finally, as I said before, this has the potential of being applied to our other existing races, but not until the playerbase has had a chance to take them out for a test-drive.

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Here are the links to the new information on our Wiki:

Races:
Aasimon
Fire Giant
Frost Giant

Racial Prestige Classes:
Astral Deva
Monadic Deva
Movanic Deva
Fire Giant
Frost Giant

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...and the rest of the features of this update:

• Updates to the portrait pack from Agony Aunt
• Military Coat clothing appearance (male human only)
• New heads for Genasi
• The TKL Performer for musical instruments, thanks for integrating it Mimi!
• Mimi also set us up with a new music shop
• New music files from Neerepha that should be making their way into areas in the near future
• Some tweaks to player houses and Sigil areas from Serena
• New Statue placeables for our builders
• "Swarm" creatures for our builders

Heading to bed now, so I'll either be doing this update late tomorrow morning US time, or later in the afternoon.

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Just to share with you all, the I/O is dragging a bit (unzipping the updated module is taking a while) and it will be a bit longer before we're back up. Thanks for you're patience, and I'll have you back up and RPing as quickly as I can.

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Server is starting up now.