Topics

Hello EFU players.

In the coming days, whenever I have free time to observe EFU (what little time I have) I will be dropping bonus XP on players exhibiting what I deem the EFU secret sauce of "effort" that involves some degree of risk. This may be putting in extra effort during quests to RP, scheming to undermine rivals (or allies) that has some significant risk of backfire to yourself, it could be making enemies when you don't need to. It could be these things or a myriad of other things but it likely will not be peacefully sitting around strategizing about politics. This is all meant to be done in a sensible, organic way as always, but consider this an extra reminder that there is a potential for rewards for putting in a little more effort to keep EFU vibrant and interesting.

I may even make you piece of DM loot if I am feeling particularly motivated.

If you randomly get XP during or after a quest/during a spicy interaction or scheme with other players without explanation there is a good chance this was the reason.

Hello, for most of SOI we have allowed people who rent properties to contact a DM to destroy and replace the furniture within to change ownership of the furniture. This has proved to be problematic so we will no longer be doing this.

From this point forward if you rent a property and it has furniture already placed in it by a player you can leave it where it is or destroy it to get rid of it. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Don't know if this was intentional or not but you can't dig holes pretty much anywhere that I've seen to bury stuff (potentially for retrieving later). But it was a sorta fun little thing to do now and then.

[Mal-karoth]

Apothar Estellise,

My ears are still ringing from the chorus of screaming women in my ears. I'm trying to do something simple as figure out what and where you want to be and if we can help each other out or not. Doesn't really bother  me what the latest inept league official says to me, my agenda hasn't changed.

If that interests you, come enjoy a bit of black at the coffee house. I'm not returning to your tower again for your bored Secretary to involve himself.

You can bring your emotional support animal if you really want.

Mal-karoth

[Mal-karoth]

Lynneth,

You don't know me much and I guess I don't know you much either. You made a lot of assumptions about me and that goes both ways.

You said a few things in between the posturing and yelling, amusing as it was all around in the tower that caught my interest. Why don't we sit down and enjoy a little coffee and tell me what you think I don't know?

Mal-karoth

The supplies overall aren't bad in the max 6 quests, but it seems like as a melee person you get like 90% of your potions from this single quest and almost nothing from the other max 6 quests. Doesn't last very long I know but as time goes on and fewer people are in the 5-6 range at any single time and you may not have the means to open the gate to get to that quest it can not feel great.

Right now when NPC bounties get announced it seems like people just rush out and go to wherever it was hinted at or sweep the areas they have figured out they might spawn at and sweep them clean. It would be a lot more sensible to me for them to just passively appear in the world to stumble across instead of hoovering them up the minute they spawn because a shout told you one or both of when they spawned and where.

Small change but I think it would make the bounties feel more interesting to me.

It would be quite interesting if clerics had a way to make books similar to the store bought versions that are unreadable using the sanctify tool on a note they have written. Perhaps using some kind of combination of the store bought book system with the notes system and dissipating property applied to the briefly available translated text.

Sanctified books only readable by the faith for having actual religious secrets passed between players feels really sweet to me. Possibly usable in other ways such as writing in archaic languages that requires lore to decipher so scholars can keep notes of their work that isn't easily digested by anyone mugging them or on their death. Or rogues writing in code. Just a few ideas off the top of my head for a way to write notes that are a little more nuanced to make sense of.

Move the level you gain exotic weapon proficiency to level 1 instead of 5 so you can start taking focus/specialization feats in the weapon of your choice right off instead of having to wait until level 6.

Dear Velan Volandis,

I love everything you do. Evil men want to be you and all the maidens want to be with you. Your sword shines as brightly as a fallen star. Your armor glistens like the gossamer wings of an angel.

Keep doing what you are doing and making Ephia's Well the best place to be.

Your biggest fan,

-Velan Volandis

//OOC: Free for others to send their own fan mail to this thread!

Dearest brother,

I did not wish to disturb you from your ponderous stone work so I have left this letter for you. You may remember me from my role in fufilling the prophecy of the True Hero lifting and returning with the legendary stone of Yagumdalar. My back still sorely aches from this collosi feat. Nevertheless, I would ask a small favor of you to help not only myself but the very college itself. More and more it has fallen to us, the Balladeers, to fill the treasury of our dear Rose. So I have come to an idea.

I would like your expertise in how to go about carving small stones that sing - in the likeness of me, Velan Volandis. We would sell these to the people or give them as gifts to those who have proven great friends of ours. Perhaps...perhaps we might even open an entire line of such carved figures of the entire cast of the Balladeers and on up.

I have already, of course, had several requests for such figurines of yours truly, but I do not mind sharing the stage with my brothers and sisters if it helps move things along and bring wealth to our college, of course.

Thank you for all you do and may the stones sing for you in your art.

-Velan Volandis

This idea came about from some talk in main. Starting with the bonus Lore from bards and continuing on from no end of random lore buffs from random buffs dependent on random various GSFs....there's a lot of very specialized building you have to do to have a competitive Lore skill.

I would suggest just removing a lot of these random lore buffs and adjusting it so everyone gets a bonus to their Lore double their base intelligence (capped by their character level) which does not stack with bardic lore. No change to bards, so they'd get to be dumb dropouts who for some reason are geniuses at lore if they want to still.

It doesn't really seem that fun to me to be so constrained on who can achieve some of these Lore DCs so maybe this would be a better system.

Dearest Itajain,

Although our contests of martial might have been many and furious, echoing through the halls of the Creep and sandy dunes and although I shall one day and soon vanquish you and your cabal as effortlessly as I have many a melek that has dared to mistake me for a gnome-sized morsel snack, I write to you in the spirit of a wandering faith seeker and not as the Lion they shall name me when your life falls before me.

Pull up a chair and read my words. You see I was once a leader of a flock of elves, many and pious we wandered the dunes of this ashen waste for some ten years searching for sanctuary and salvation.  In those last desperate days I was guided to find this Citadel of ours by no other than a wanderer who called himself Warad. I had no idea then of whom Warad was. I could not tell you if it was the deity walking the land as man or simply one of his faith, but since that day I have given him my prayers and walked beside him in respect. A little known story of how the Well came to be so populated with my elven kin in those halcyon days of refugees arriving.

But of late, I have been filled with a wanderlust of spirit, not of the body, to explore the celestial  and spiritual ways of the Wheel and its adjacent forms in their full nudity without preconceptions. I think that he would approve of this journey of mine I seek to set out on, of spiritual and artistic self-discovery. I grant you this rare opportunity, this great honor, to be part of it. I have put out call to all the faiths to woo me, excite me, move my heart to feel what they feel to feel as they feel and yet....the reply to the opening of my heart to the spiritual suitors has been only a deafening silence. It speaks poorly to their desire to spread their faith. So instead I give you first this opportunity. Outsider, exile, cursemaker, cursebreaker, soultaker, Wellshaker....the end of this letter got a way from me a bit here, but find a way to contact me and I shall fearlessly and daringly stride into your Creep to grace those horrid depths once more with the shining beacon of my presence.

And we will drink. Among other things, together.

Student of the Balladeers,
Velan Volandis

Straightforward (relatively for a Vlaid suggestion) idea, druid companions get x/+1 where x = Charisma mod (probably capping at 5/+1).

Potentially could do the same thing with Rangers, still capping out at 5/+1 regardless of charisma with FE Animal.

OR

GMF could just apply the charisma based x/+1 DR to your companion while active. Which would obviously only increase the DR if you have a hefty charisma and enemies don't have +1

And/or to the above, potentially some kind of stat bonuses derived from the druid's charisma applied to their companion would be nice too since you are almost surely nerfing your personal melee ability to get more charisma. The power of HEART empowers your companion.

Janissaries,

I write to you with heavy heart and somber spirit to, as requested, give my testimony of what occurred.

It began at the stocks, where I, with some distance, observed the charming young woman Mirit getting pelted by camel dung for her unforgivable crime of holding a sling in her hands. Naturally many of the locals were ignorant as to just how much pain a bullet hurled from a sling can inflict. Regardless - I took to higher ground as she was released and began hugging the crowd and frankly I was in no mood to get my fresh Rose cloak cleaned.

It was at that point that the villains emerged from a a nearby hatch from the Gutters and laid your Janissary  Scarbork down in a flurry of steel and spells. I could not name them all, only two I could name as Sadie Well and Itaja. There was at least one more, a man I suppose in armor, that I can recall but the battle was too chaotic to remember much more. I was some few cups deep at that point I confess.

Nevertheless, I rallied my most powerful potions and began quaffing, hoping their mystical powers might dillute the wine in my veins as I gave chase into the Gutters and into the Creep. There Agarily and I harried them and we lost sight of each other.  I ended up battling them alone at one point but was wounded heavily and forced to retreat, a sole swordsmen against their several I was outmatched.

So it was there that I retreated to the Krak after making a bellow announcing my return. Fortunately an Astronomer, I think his name Tellariel, tended my wounds boonfully with blessed waters. Feeling invigorated and unwilling to leave things as they were, I ran out the Krak and through the Gate of Sand hoping I might find them, the villain always believes they are smarter than the hero and so hoped they would be taking an erratic path away from the Gutters. This proved true and I discovered them. We fought a long and bloody battle, potions quaffed and trinkets expended. An ash storm began as we battled, testing our resolve and supplies even further. It was here, when we fought to what seemed like a standstill, our honed offenses unable to pierce each other's defenses, that I realized that the Janissary was dead....slain either by their mage or the Ash storm, I am unsure, my attention was lost in my attempts to win the battle outnumbered and outmatched. They fled through the Ash and I lost sight of where, though drained as I was pursuit would have been of little purpose.

As I kneeled to gather up the dead Janissary some foul sickly fog gathered around the corpse, whispering the name of the Sixth Spoke of the Wheel three times. I was advised by the Acolyte Afsana to neither repeat nor speak the name I heard out loud and that you would know what this meant.

And so, the last movement of the story, I hauled the corpse of the Janissary through the Ash storm, battered by creatures that meant for me to meet an end so similar to Scarbook. Until at last I delivered him to your garrison.


Student of the Balladeers,
Velan Volandis

With the aspect system gear swapping is going to start becoming an issue. There's a lot of aspects that are really strong and because you don't have to hunt a specific item down it's not really that hard to keep some sets in bags for certain situations.

I would suggest that when you rest whatever you have equipped is what you are locked to until you rest again (or once you are inside the Citadel areas) or if the slot was empty when you rest, the first thing you equip in that slot.

I realize this is a big change and probably a scripting nightmare, but it's an issue that will need to be addressed sooner or later when time and energy permits in SOME way (even if not this way).

As an aside, this change would also remove the ability to toss on x/day items or bonus slot loot when you rest and then swap it out after using it up.

For example,

Fighter's Belt becomes
Fighter's Belt of the Brute

This is primarily a QOL issue so you can more easily see what aspects items are without inspecting every item.

[Tribute]

It might appear a few slight errors in the writing and a bit of wine staining the parchment...

Tribute
By: Valen Volandis

I stumble in through the door
Late for a contest I could not ignore
My words were slurred, my feet unsteady
Palms sweaty but spirit ready

The crowd waited, disdainful stares
But Velan Volandis had no cares
I raised my glass and began to speak
A quiver, a shake, the fans their knees now weak

But this is not the poem I heard
I could not recall it
Not even a single word

This is not the poem I read that day
A mere tribute I give before I must away
I must now quickly bow and depart
Or else my final gift
A quiet squeak, a sickly, wine-drunk fart

Dar Aster,

My artistry can not be rushed and so I deliver to you my masterpiece, freshly written over a glass of wine before I pass out this evening. You need not apologize for announcing the winner early.

I am sure you are wracked with guilt over how to proceed, knowing that I have vanquished all others with the ease of my lyrical wit. Simply retroactively declare me the winner, retrieve the dinar from the other and I suppose donate it to the local brothel in my name.

Sincerely,

Velan Volandis

[Etsy Estellise]

Dear Shane Gallows,

As a very talented and smart woman I nominate the endlessly interesting, handsome and culturally inspired elven warrior Valen Volandis. He's just so dashing, everyone knows the legendary tale of how he died and miraculously came back to life. I go starry-eyed when I see him march through the Krak, his star cloak whipping behind him. He even has his own personal bard following him around! I can think of no greater warrior, he's defended the Well from so much but has asked for so little in return.

I am something of a super fan and admirer of his but please don't tell him, I'm embarrassed.

Sincerely,

Etsy Estellise

Through some kind of dermination, possibly pure classes only, who get 3/4 BAB progression to get their 2nd APR at level 6 instead of 8 if the intent is to kinda keep levels a little lower for a while.

NWN combat just doesn't feel right with 1 APR and I don't think it would impact balance that greatly, they would still for example get their 2nd APR at -5 AB so it would be rather low, but still useful for PVE at the minimum and just...makes things FEEL better.
Modify message