Empowerment is now optional.

Priests may still choose to pursue empowerment just like before, and the empowerment process itself has not changed. However, unempowered priests will now have access to all of their supplications, with two of caveats:

1) Healing through supplications has been reduced by 30% for any communer who is not empowered.
2) When not empowered, ALL level 21+ supplications are communed with a -1 level penalty (e.g., ignoring other modifiers, an umempowered L51 paladin would commune wrath at level 50 instead of 51).

Class Specifics:

- Paladins who are not empowered will not be eligible for virtues.
- The lag on wrath has been increased to two rounds for all paladins.

- All healers lose fly.
- Gate may only be used on trusting targets going forward (for all healers).

- Shaman who are not empowered will not receive a shaman path.

- All druids lose transmute metal to wood.
- Druids who are not empowered may still gather the same number of herbs as before, but will incur a -1 penalty for any bonuses calculated for a given type.

Empowerment Going Forward

As stated above, the empowerment process itself hasn't changed. Priests who wish to seek empowerment should go about it as they always have.

The only significant (in a sense) change to empowerment is that "custom empowerment" should now be considered an even more uncertain and cautioned-against endeavor.

The In-Character Narrative

The gods are more lenient in this age, and have become more willing to part with their power. As a result, ordinary priests trained through the four priest guilds are able to wield their power without first earning the favor of an individual deity. This informal contract can be strengthened through empowerment but is otherwise somewhat tenuous and should be understand as something that can be taken as easily as it is granted. Priests who are not true to their alignment, ethos, sphere, or merely the whim of the gods may eventually find themselves powerless and alone.


Priest Class and Roleplay

CF has always been and continues to be a RP-enforced MUD, and priests have historically been held to a higher bar of RP (directly or indirectly) by virtue of having to RP in order to be successful. We intend to do our best to maintain this bar both for priests and the MUD in general. While that bar may not be set any higher for priests who are not empowered, the consequences of poor RP will likely be more sudden and severe for those characters who were content with the path of least resistance.

Future Changes

This change obviously has pretty huge implication for game balance and the overall dynamic of the class system. We will almost certainly be making additional changes (all of which will be documented) as we see how things play out, and at this point I'm not even ruling out a complete reversal if we don't like the direction this takes us in.

Housekeeping

I have a number of helpfiles to update over the course of the next few days, but I wanted to get this announcement out now as the Q&A that will likely ensue may help frame helpfile changes.