Codemasters : Dungeons & Dragons Online : : Developmentupdates

Mar 19 2007, 15:30 GMT

Weekly Development Activities (Mar 19, 2007)

In QA

These items are in QA and are scheduled for Module 4: Reaver's Bane.

General

You can no longer bid or place auctions if your mailbox is sufficiently overflowing.
The elven female avatar now has the braided hairstyle available.
Fixed the paladin and ranger class descriptions in character generation to give the correct level that spells are bestowed (no functional change has been made to these classes).

UI Improvements

The "Anonymous" checkbox will now properly toggle your anonymous status.
The "delete mail" dialog will now close when you walk away from the Mailbox.
The character sheet will now display all of a players class name.
NEW – The character sheet stats tab now has tooltips describing each stat.
Auctions
- Great Crossbows now have a category under Weapons->Exotic.
- Throwing weapons will now appear in the Weapons->Missile subcategories.
The icon for Summon Monster has been changed to better reflect what the spell does.
The Raise Dead confirmation box has been edited for grammar and conciseness.

Monsters

Fire reavers, fleshrenders, and ice flensers that had hard and elite versions with damage reduction which could be bypassed by cold iron weapons (DR/Cold Iron) now have a very small amount of the same on the normal setting. This is in addition to the DR/Good that they already had. This brings them in line with the hard and elite versions, many of which have always had both of these types of damage reduction. Keep a good-aligned cold iron weapon handy to dispatch these creatures as quick as possible.
The Hobgoblins have finally gotten their long-delayed and much-needed shipments of bows. Now, wherever hobgoblins live, there is a chance they will have some archers amongst their ranks.
NEW – Summoned and Charmed monsters have had their AI improved. Monsters can once again be re-charmed after a broken charm, and are now much better at following their masters about.
NEW – Giant stomps are now area of effect attacks. The knockdown associated with them is now an on-hit effect.
NEW – Djinni should no longer cast spells in whirlwind form, and should no longer get stuck in whirlwind form forever.
NEW – Gnoll archers now use arrows appropriate for their CR.
NEW – Frostmarrow skeletons have received a graphical upgrade.
NEW – Fixed a handful of issues that could make minotaur charges look odd.

Combat

Many rogue and ranger type enemies have gained the evasion and/or improved evasion feats and now have the benefits of these feats.
[COLOR="RED"]EDITED FOR CLARITY[/COLOR] – A few enemy spell casters will be using metamagic feats to improve their spells. Going forward, this will be an option for enemy casters to take. However, no casters who are already in game will be getting metamagic feats for Module 4. If and when they are given any of these feats, their current levels, spell lists, and casting stats will be reviewed and adjusted if necessary.
NEW – Monsters will no longer die in a spectacular manner (freezing then shattering, melting from acid, burning up from fire, etc.) unless they have been damaged by an imbued effect within the few seconds before their death.
NEW – Creatures killed with Lawful, Chaotic, and Evil (or negative energy) effects will now play appropriate fatalities.
NEW – Lawful effects will no longer trigger the "Holy" death throes.
NEW – The red pulse when a monster is struck in combat has been toned down to be more aesthetically pleasing.

Spells

The saving throw interval for the Flesh To Stone spell has been increased to 1 minute.
Nimbus of Light no longer erroneously caps out at caster level 5.
Acid Fog no longer consumes additional spellpoints when the Heighten Spell metamagic feat is active.
The Symbol spells originally introduced in Module 3 (Fear, Persuasion, and Flame) now have a persistent "ring" FX that indicate the spell's area.
Symbol of Flame now correctly bypasses Spell Resistance.
Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, Haste, and See Invisibility all have new FX.
Fixed Burning Blood description to indicate that a save only occurs on application, not each round, as it previously stated.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

The hamstring, slicing blow, and sap feats no longer require a fortitude save DC. If the attack hits, the effect is automatically applied with no additional save required. The hamstring and slicing blow feats also now use their own FX.
Updated descriptions for sunder, improved sunder, stunning blow, trip, improved trip to better describe what the feats do.
Invisibility and stealth now break on the use of offensive skills such as intimidate or diplomacy.
Turn undead will no longer nuke friendly undead (i.e. those from the "Create Undead" spell, or on your side due to the "Command Undead" spell).
Rolls of a one on a balance check to stand up after a knockdown are no longer auto-failures; 20s are no longer auto-successes.

Enhancements

NEW – Lowered the action point spent prerequisite for Human Adaptability to be in line with other level 5 enhancements.
NEW – We're adding a new Enhancement: Human Greater Adaptability. Available at level 13, requires 44 action points spent and Human Adaptability (any). Grants a +1 bonus to a second attribute of your choice.

Items

Due to the changes in the Hamstring and Sap feat several weapon treasure effects have been changed.
- All weapons with Tendon Slice treasure effects will now have a small chance of Hamstringing their target each time they do damage. This replaces the previous effect that gave a DC bonus to the Hamstring feat.
- All weapons with Weighted treasure effects will now have a small chance of Stunning their target each time they do damage. This replaces the previous effect that gave a DC bonus to the Sap feat. The bonus DC to the Stunning Blow feat is still in effect.
There is now a small chance to find randomly generated thrown returning weapons in treasure
NEW – All existing Mauls and all Mauls created in the future will have a x3 critical hit multiplier.
The Torc of Prince Raiymude will now grant you spell points only when an attack actually damages you; it will do nothing if an attack is reduced to zero by your DR.
When equipped with a shield with 0 ACP, the attack bonus shown in your inventory display will now be properly updated (this was just a visual bug, you have always been getting the correct bonus when attacking).
Ivory Scorpion collectables now look like Ivory Scorpions.

PVP

Players who have been bluffed in PvP will no longer see a placeholder icon for their bluffed state.
It was intermittently possible to see your foes location on your map when in a PvP arena. This should no longer happen.
NEW – The Match Statistics and Arena Queue UI's will no longer appear when using the HideUI key.

Quests