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.

Hopefully a reformation of the PK range will be next. If Game Balance is the issue, I don't see how being constantly in the range of people 9 ranks above you is balanced. Perhaps max it down to 7, make things a bit more fair.

Just a thought.

Love this change simply for the RP opportunity. OE healers won't need to follow good/neutral aligned gods anymore to play an evil priest.

However, I think the results will somewhat still remain the same.

Sure, you will now be empowered. But serious (and I speak for the average player, not the exception, I suppose) characters will still want full empowerment. Now the characters will be left at hero _still_ waiting for empowerment from dormant and/or difficult Imms.

This will lead to things coming back full circle, and players learning (unfortunately after getting screwed) to avoid inactive immortals, and again lead to a narrowing of choices... but now, priest classes are just slightly weaker. Who knows! Maybe it'll play out better.

Just my .02.

But good change! As long as some IMM's don't punish players for leveling past 20 without "full" empowerment!

>Just my .02.
>
>But good change! As long as some IMM's don't punish players
>for leveling past 20 without "full" empowerment!

Nothing has changed in this regard. If you intend to follow a religion and seek empowerment (at all) then you should do it just as you did before. And like before, it's pretty much up to your patron imm how they handle this.

To clarify, once an empowered priest ranks past their empowerment, what happens? Are they able to use high level supps with the penalties of an unempowered priest, or are they blocked from them as they have previously been?

This is a good change and will open up the class/align possibilities that were not available to many before due to play times, etc.

So, if you are a healer and don't have fly then it means your lord hasn't given you empowerment. Once the empowerment is given will healer get fly back?

Regardless of whether you are empowered or not.

I tried (and perhaps failed) to make it clear in the announcement that the class-specific changes applied to ALL characters of that class, regardless of empowerment, unless noted otherwise (e.g., unempowered paladins ...").

- 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.

I don't know much about druids, so maybe this question is stupid. But I didn't get the -1 penalty here. Does it mean that if my druid has collected 2 offensive herbs, 1 curative and 1 utility, it will effectively get 1 offensive herbs and 0 curative and 0 utility when the related skills are calculated?

Assuming I'm reading this correctly, yes (and -1 protective to boot).

Disclaimer: I haven't read the code for this. I'm just speculating.

Honestly, anyone who hasn't seen the code has no real idea how druid herbs work, and -1 to all herbs seems especially harsh...

>Assuming I'm reading this correctly, yes (and -1 protective
>to boot).
>
>Disclaimer: I haven't read the code for this. I'm just
>speculating.

Luckily you can just get empowered if you don't want to deal with the -1 to herb counts

Old school itallian bad show, where the guy from the Family jokes stupid jokes like you. At the the end, his brothers kill him, beat his head with bats and drop his body somewhere, I hope you are not like that trash.

PS: Sorry, It just was my imagination.

Its not a joke... Its a fact.... I am going to assume its the language barrier that led to your confusion and not that you are THAT stupid...

I mean, you *are* a Doctor after all.

(See, now that last part is a joke.)

Too bad,that the end they got you with those wooden bats(screw that itallians) and now you can't understand a single word. I'll hope, somebody will send you some $ to fix it, but in a last part of that joke, I'll joke that it will not help to idiots.

You are making yourself look like an ass here (yet again).

You should stop.

Why you get ####ty responses from people. What you posted is your norm. Inflammatory comment to be engaged by anyone who'll join in. You're a total waste of time when you're like this.

NT

Like others I have never had the time to play an empowered character and because I play during the lower numbers empowerment was always going to be more difficult. I think the wrath change is a great one. I am however concerned about the number of Paladins that will be running around now especially monks and 2h specs who seem to be very powerful. Mainly because I always play evils :>. I am sure they will be tweaked as you see the fallout of these new great changes. Thanks again.

.

I can live with the no fly, since it is cheap and easy to get, but I am not sure how I feel about the change to gate. Being able to gate to people is one of the coolest things about healers. Considering they don't really have amazing combat skills I never felt like it was OP, other than the ones totally decked in gear with insects and lagging staff... If anything I would have a diminishing return on PC gating so it gets harder and harder if you keep doing it during a 15 minute time or something. So after the 4th time gating it is almost impossible until the counters tick back down. I always liked being able to gate to non trusting for RP reasons or if its time sensitive and they forget to put trustall on, etc.

Really good change.

For me his gives me access to my favorite classes without need to worry about my limited play time causing issues. Very happy about this.

This is a great change for many reasons. Thank you. I have thought for a while now that transmute should not apply to weapons, for certain reasons that I'm sure you and the staff all discussed. I'm wondering if you tossed around the idea of keeping transmute but only allowing it to work on armor and clothing. Or maybe in addition don't allow it to work on progging armor if that is an issue anyone brought up. Or make it so items a druid transmutes can only be worn by that druid, and if someone else tries to it turns back into metal. That way you could let fully empowered druids keep transmute, but remove it from the unempowered druid's supp list. I agree there is a lot of new items now so it is less of a downside than it would have been years ago, but I still don't feel that druids who are fully empowered should completely lose transmute.

Any thoughts on this?

Druids losing transmute is something I've been wanting to see happen ever since Valg proposed it a couple of years ago. To me, it's squarely in the bucket of abilities that we just shouldn't have because there's really no way of accomplishing the effect in a way that isn't stupid. This just happened to be the soft spot for making that happen.

I think reducing this change down to "druids are now impossible/sooo much harder to play" would be a mistake. They can't dress like anyone else anymore, and can't wear whatever they want just 'cause, and I like that. We have thousands of weapons/armors and a searchable item database, after all, and if it after a while it seems like we're wrong then we'll add some more gear options.

Just a query about no-rem weapons. The only way outlanders can remove them is with the talismans after they have been transmuted. Adamantite being such an abomination and all that... Is there anyway to get a work around on that, or is that something outlanders are just going to have to deal with for now?

It might be the most convenient one, but there are a lot of ways to accomplish the same goal.

I found it impossible to wear shackles as outlander for the same RP reasons

Just wanted to say this change is motivating me to play again after I don't even know how long away. Mechanically the empowerment classes are by far my favorites but it's been years since I had the time & energy to handle empowerment (not because I don't like rp'ing or immteraction, of course, the system is just stressful.)

Seriously, seriously, I don't know if I can praise this change enough. Thank you guys.

1) Monks - don't care about wrath.They have skills to spam in pk.
2) Two-handed - don't care about wrath.They have skills to spam in pk.
3) Staff-palads - don't care about wrath. They have skills to spam in pk.
4) Shield-palads - now go and delete. You don't have skills to spam in pk. Shield bash is still sucks, flank attack - pve only, angels wing - two round ####ty maladict.


I don't know, if it was the idea to kill one paladin path, but sure you've acomplished that.

in popularity. Nor do I think they've ever lacked in strength. Are they impacted a touch more than the others? Sure. I still loved wrath as a non-shield paladin as well, because of the one round combat started. Are they underpowered? I rather doubt it yet. They just happen to be the dedication that has 90% of their ability set to automatic, which freed them up for a lot more wrathing.

Lets remove dual wield from fire giant imperial warriors, since they dish to much damage with stupid big swords to newbies.

And again, you just halved their damage without giving something back. And more, the thing is that shield palads don't have something to spam in combat, except wrath. And more, now there is no punishment for those who trys only to lag palads. Hey - "those suckers have 2 rounds anyway, I'll prep as always and #### them without the problem".

PS: And we don't talk about the popularity of the class.

PSS: I can see that change if you'll up damage on wrath or something.

PSS: Its a bad idea to argue with me about the game balance or pk balance. I'm not the best at rp, exploring, pve, but dude, I know the #### about the pk and about OP combos. And shield ded, are the last in that list. And it even worse on hero.

Edges made the passive shield jabs a lot nastier. They are frequent, damaging, unblockable and lag you. It's the latter that when combined with one round wrath was an issue.

However, 2 round wrath does feel like it leaves the class a little worse off. I feel as if they need something else to compensate. Maybe the dash skill or similar.

They basicaly killed one path.

Shield path now needs new skill AND edges to be somewhere near other paladin paths. Shield deds were always about punishment for missed lag attacks.

>And again, you just halved their damage without giving something back.


We made it so that they don't need to be empowered to gain full access to their skills and sups... I'm pretty sure that was giving them something back.

..to continue your logical line - means that pallys with normal empower should have wrath - 1 round.

But again, its your mud, you can do whatever you want here. Even add deathblow to every class.

Also, shield paladins have never lacked in popularity? lolwut? Before edges try to find 1 popular shield dedicate per year.

Pretty much shield deds have nothing to do in combat now. With edges they got powerful in the right hands but most people still are horrible with them. Without edges they're okay if you're ganging. At this point its going to be monks from here on out.

Empowered Paladins should have 1 round wrath.

Besides, a shield dedicate is choosing the defensive option over offensive option. A shield dedicate ISN'T about killing but more about DEFENDING. It's like saying you should add wrath to an armadillo because the armadillo isn't killing enough...

about shield deds skills?

Read the first post, they have nothing to spam in the combat. They are crippled path to compare with other paths. Just spend 5 mins to look into other paths skills, you'll get a point, perhaps.

Paladin were like invokers that also dish out melee damage, have sanc, have healing, defend better than ANY other class in game... Wrath has always been a bit ridiculous imo. I played a shield dedicate and tried not to use wrath more than needed because frankly I don't think it fits in the RP of a shield dedicate.

Seems to me you didn't check other paths skills. Because you don't understand the subjet of this thread. Good luck.

.

gr

His only point is saying I didn't read his post about how he thinks every skill and every spec and every class should just be pvp kill sealing machines while completely ignoring what I wrote. A shield dedicate paladin is a DEFENDER. You play one to protect and defend. They ARE extremely defensive. I'd argue one with a virtue or two is easily more defensive than an armadillo and CAN do lot's of damage still. Seriously, you guys going off about wrath being 2 rounds instead of 1 round destroying the entire dedication are just being silly. You want to PK? Don't play a defensive spec. Play an offensive one. You want to be hard as hell to kill and able to defend your allies, go defensive. Next you two are going to go on about how the armadillo needs lions rake...

Now if you wanted to be reasonable I would definitely get on board with their shield bashing needing a tiny bit more reliability in lagging unless it has been changed recently. Because, as I mentioned, I have played a couple shield dedicate paladins before edges and enjoyed them without being a wrath spammer which I have always thought was a bit OP.

We wouldn't be having this discussion because I would have recruited you to be on staff long ago...

Not only are you the absolute bestest PKer, but you also have the most remarkable grasp on all things balance related! Is a combo really OP? There is only one way to know for sure, lets ask you! And to top it off, you're also a m-fing doctor? Get outta town, that is unheard of!

Hearts, hugs, and all that other fun stuff that people try to offer when they make mean jokes so that people don't get offended after the fact.

On a more serious note, why do you keep saying stuff like its my mud? Do you think I am a different immortal who just changed their persona and handle and all that other fun stuff?

suggestions about your current change, nor you want to discuss it. But you are in the mood to show us your butthurt. You are deaf to playerbase vote. So its pointless to continue to discuss anything with you. I guess I'll stop just here. Good luck.

>
>PSS: Its a bad idea to argue with me about the game balance or
>pk balance. I'm not the best at rp, exploring, pve, but dude,
>I know the #### about the pk and about OP combos. And shield
>ded, are the last in that list. And it even worse on hero.

1. You aren't all that and a bag of vodka-flavored potato chips, so check the ego, please.

2. The problem with your perspective is that, as you point out, it's very limited. You only care about killing as many people as effectively as possible, and that's fine. But the paladin class has some great options for players with that mindset. It's okay if maybe shield deds are better suited for something besides MDK paladin, though my hunch is that if wrath had always been two rounds of lag nobody would have ever seriously said "to fix this, wrath needs to be one round of lag".

Like Indy says in the (bad) movie, you don't have to get sore all the time just to prove how tough you are. Thanks for the feedback and try to have some fun with the game that you, despite your rhetoric, continue to be involved in. And god forbid we make changes that make it more convenient for players who are "not the best at rp, exploring, pve" to experience and enjoy more of the game without is evil, ignorant, power-tripping imms getting in the way with our rigged empowerment system.

Good luck!

1) What was your pk chars with >400pk?I forgot sorry. Any char of Destuvius? Ah, my mistake, I guess its all vodka. Lul.

2) You did the change that affect only one path and you didn't expect such situation, since you didn't give anything back to that path.

Its not only my words. Lhydia, Darwin, others. If you don't trust my word - read some other comments. But I guess its pointless, hehe. So Its my last post on the subject. Good luck!

I may not have broken 400 pks, but I have also never been pked by a Herald assassin. So I guess in the big picture, that makes us even right?

NT

In my eyes, this makes me better than both of you.
Haha.

I have at least that on each character

I figure 13 trains, 305 pracs, 18 base con.
I'll prac 25 skills once each just to be able to fight back a little. And you know for damn sure I am taking renewal as my legacy. That's 59 disposable con, without using edges. Extra training and resurgent to 61.

If I could leader, even better.
Then just run around and challenge everyone in range to boxing matches as soon as I unghost.

I think I could hit 180 pk deaths easy.

The only spec available for gnome gnome is fail spec. Oh and only edges you get are those from the oracle at the Academy. However those are free, which is nice.

...not Hangout Fields.

I am the Cartman of CF.

You're Kyle at best. Although you did manage to get married IC, so perhaps not

Dude relax, why all the butthurt? Wrath being two rounds was actually one of the changes I agree with. They can't please everyone all the time with every change so I'll just bite my tongue on the changes I don't agree with and let them play out. You should do the same with wrath. You've made your point now move on.

Giving them dash helps slightly with offense but also means they can get first strike on a guy spamming sleep, say. I'm talking minor upgrades.

However, you could perhaps add more niche skills like offhand pin, which would effectively take away any benefits from a dual wield, including to flourintine, flurry etc. but also gives up the paladin's shield block while in effect.

I'm not arguing they should get one round wrath spam. Maybe if they are the only one fighting an enemy, say. But even for that I'd tone down the effectiveness of their edges.

My suspicion is that dash would be a little too much although I happen to think it's one of the best abilities in a warrior's arsenal in terms of separating them from other fighters, and might be valuing it more highly than you.

Offhand pin sounds like a particularly cool idea.

Along a similar vein, I suspect that unempowered monk paladins will need a little toning down if a ton more of them pop up than are already around. My thought was that adding an echo to when unempowered monks go for intensify would be enough. As it is it's not that hard to avoid death by monk as long as you don't lag yourself to death and it makes sense to me that an empowered monk paladin would have the greater insight needed to intensify without letting their enemy know.

NT

You must be the most boring person in the world. Not everything nets sunshine and puppy dogs but Wtf do you only ever mention the negative. You bitch more than anyone but common man. Get on board or #### off already

become boring?

I see the ####, I point at the ####. Sure, I could add "THANKS FOR THE GREAT CHANGE IMMS!" and it's true, but really, this board is not about licking imm's asses, its about to make this game better.

You complain incessantly, all the while beating your chest and pointing at your weewee.

You may have valuable input, but your method of putting it forward is almost guaranteed to ensure no one will listen.

That's sad. One of my favorites.

It certainly makes the whole not using metal armor no suddenly so trivial to the point of being moot, but I think given the gear selection in 2016 they're a long way from "####ed over".

And if it's a problem, we'll sprinkle a few more pieces of non-metal gear throughout the MUD. No biggie.

I don't understand this change. I've never seen transmute metal to wood abused nor can think of a way to abuse it. On the contrary, it forced interaction/easy-uneasy aliances between the playerbase and also had an element of failure built-in.

Anyway, not a HUGE deal since with the current playerbase, to play a felar ranger one needs to be mad or get off on boredom really.

Thumbs up on the empowerment change.

Even if I did enjoy getting third parties to trick Druids into transmute titanium spears for me, so that I could kill more Druids.

Could never get anyone to transmute for him But I found it wasn't all that bad. My worst problem was getting enough saves because I couldn't wear the helm of black magic.

n/t

But can we please get some paladin edges because wrath became much weaker?

Shield dedications got shield jab edges, but the rest dedications get nothing.

1/ "Gate may only be used on trusting targets going forward (for all healers)"

How does this impact gating to mobs? Are mobs trusting targets?

2/ "Healing through supplications has been reduced by 30% for any communer who is not empowered."

Can you please confirm my math? Heal supplication of neutral unempowered healer used to be 0.8 * 100 hp. Heal supplication of neutral healer now will be 0.8 * 0.7 * 100hp before empowerment and 0.8 * 100hp after empowerment.

3/ Curiosity: Why take fly away from healers?

>1/ "Gate may only be used on trusting targets going forward
> for all healers)"
>
>How does this impact gating to mobs? Are mobs trusting
>targets?

It only affects PCs gating to PCs.

>2/ "Healing through supplications has been reduced by 30% for
>any communer who is not empowered."
>
>Can you please confirm my math? Heal supplication of neutral
>unempowered healer used to be 0.8 * 100 hp. Heal supplication
>of neutral healer now will be 0.8 * 0.7 * 100hp before
>empowerment and 0.8 * 100hp after empowerment.

If you aren't empowered then the amount of HP healed is reduced by 30%. Whatever else was already going on because of alignment (or anything else) still is.

>3/ Curiosity: Why take fly away from healers?

Two reasons:

1) I've always thought healers having fly was stupid.
2) Eliminating the barrier of empowerment means that healers need to be a little less immune to most opponents in cabal wars scenarios, etc., and forcing them to rely on flight that can be dispelled by mages is a reasonable compromise, I think.

OK. Thanks.

Whew re 1/. I was getting worried about my favorite class!

On 3/, yes, makes sense re fly. Also it makes cloud/arial healers a bit more niche as a result - especially arial. Druids keep their fly though?

2 of the 3 classes I've never played.

Great change.

>2 of the 3 classes I've never played.
>
>Great change.

What's the third class?

On stupid ole (CRAP MUD) I used to be pretty good with them, ran a duergar that went 35-2 (dual backstab and preying on ranking groups = profit), a slith that went 20-0, a dark-elf that got denied and was 10-0, etc. They were my favorite class, basically the same as old thieves before guilds circa 2000 I think? I hate paths in general though (every time I play an invoker I get mad at how I allocated affinity points, and thieves seem like a similar masochistic class), probably why I've never played a CF thief.

That being said, only got paladin to level 12 (gave up b/c no hope of empowerment really, was a custom empowerment situation, don't blame anyone), necro to 13 and orc to 19. Recently got an assassin and an AP past 20 for the first time ever.

I do plan on playing a necro soon, though. And giving it an honest shot to at least get to 47.

So I count them as classes played but only barely.

It will be very interesting to see how it all plays out with the empowerment classes.

I've long felt like wrath commune was like going up against a machine gun-- I'm HUGE fan of this change.

I also like the losses of locate object for most classes...less gear locker-types, more reasons to explore, more likelihood of finding some surprises when you do.

Now I just humbly request that assassins lag+damage options are toned down slightly and from my perspective Thera will be a pretty balanced place.

Nt

Just my .02 cents on assassins and game balance-- I bring this up here because upping wrath lag was one of 2 big changes I've had in mind for a long time. The other change I'd love to see for game balance is slightly toning down assassins.

First, I'd love to see much more lag added to a failed assassinate attempt.

Second, I'd like to see ground control toned down a notch (e.g., make it cause less damage at least, maybe not work on those flying, perhaps make it a higher level skill). It's extremely powerful, especially in the early to mid-ranks. Not sure how much of that is edge dependent.

There are just so many awesome utility skills that assassins get, I don't get why they also get such powerful offensive and defensive abilities on top of everything else (e.g., darts, vanish, extreme maledict/weapon drop options, mark, assassinate, trance, lagging high-damage kicks, etc. etc.). I personally don't think assassins should be able to take down most fully decked out warriors head-to-head which they often seem able to.

Perhaps consider making assassinate a hero-level skill. Running the gauntlet of all these assassins sitting at level 35 gets a bit old.

I'm admittedly biased, as I don't really play assassins and a lot of people seem to love them. They are great to learn on, I just feel they're a bit too powerful in skilled hands right now, easily abused and have felt over-powered to me over the course of many different builds.

I'm not looking to stir up a bunch of hate for assassins or anything, just tossing out some feedback on game balance from one person's perspective FWIW.

>1) Healing through supplications has been reduced by 30% for
>any communer who is now empowered.

Did you mean not empowered?

123

As additional commentary, I think all of these are good changes.

I might be a little more heavy handed on the level penalty for unempowered supplications above spell level 21+ but it is probably good to see if it is needed or not first.

Great changes. Good job guys.

Druid fly could wear off in highly civilized rooms, like wind walk does. And armor of thorns can give full protection in wilderness, but be less effective in civilized. Maybe shaman get full protective shield only against opposite alight and ethos. That kind of thing. It won't take a lot to balance them. but as is, druid in particular is probably too strong.

This only affects characters above level 20, obviously, not long after which many classes start to receive lagging skills that priests cannot so easily mitigate. And remember, healers lost fly.

More changes are likely, but for now I'd like to see how things play out both in terms of much more popular these classes become (both in cases where the player seeks empowerment and doesn't) as well as in a general mechanics and match-ups sense.

Wow. I never thought this would happen. Thankyou Imms.

I stopped playing a few months ago with my last char an attempted Destuvius shaman as I always fancied playing a shaman. Unfortunately with my playtime only happening at the weekends and my probably poor role writing skills and RP I failed to get anywhere, as well not knowing the process to well.
This change enables me to atleast be able to play those chars to some degree to lvl 51 (though I would atleast like a shaman path) but still try to gain empowerment. If I don't manage to I can still enjoy the class and learn at the same time.

My only query is how much difference will there be between an empowered priest and non empowered priest in regards to the -1 prayer level?.

Thanks again Imms I look forward to rolling a char again.

Wrote this from my phone in a rush so sorry if it's poorly worded.

THUMBS UP

Per code change board:

As part of the optional empowerment change:
- The lag on wrath has been increased to two rounds for all paladins.
- Healers lose fly.
- Gate may only be used on trusting targets going forward (for all healers).
- Druids lose transmute metal to wood.

This means that the classes themselves are losing fly/transmute metal regardless of empowerment status? Because if so, that's kind of a bummer.

Also, gate change - my guess is most NPCs are not trusting - are they included in this change, or is this PC only?

>Per code change board:
>
>As part of the optional empowerment change:
>- The lag on wrath has been increased to two rounds for all
>paladins.
>- Healers lose fly.
>- Gate may only be used on trusting targets going forward (for
>all healers).
>- Druids lose transmute metal to wood.
>
>This means that the classes themselves are losing
>fly/transmute metal regardless of empowerment status? Because
>if so, that's kind of a bummer.

That's correct.

The consensus (by a landslide) amongst the staff was that some mechanical changes like these were necessary if we were going to do this at all.

Not sure if you missed it - think I might've been editing my post while you were responding to it:

Gate + trusting:

Does this apply to PCs only, or is this inclusive of NPCs? Because I'd think most NPCs aren't trusting of anyone, and that would be a huge blow to the utility of gate as it is.

gr

asd

Nicely done.

I think this is a great compromise. Good job.

I have different feelings on locate object.