Clarification of Amia Mechanics

[Jes]

This topic clarifies the rules and meaning of some game mechanics.

• Earning XP and Gold
• Subdual
• Greater Sanctuary
• Resurrecting the Dead
• Pickpocket

[Jes]

Earning XP and Gold

You can travel the lands and do battle with many different creatures to earn experience and gold, as well as obtain these as bonuses from the DMs for your roleplay. Searching monster's corpses will sometimes reveal an item that can be used or sold for additional gold. Here are some hints for maximizing your loot and xp:

• XP & Gold increase with party size, but decrease if the party level-range is too broad.
• Party size includes summons, familiars, and animal companions.
• XP increases by tackling harder creatures compared to your party level.
• Party level does not include summons, familiars, and animal companions.
• Gold is equally divided among PC party members.
• PCs in a different area to do not receive gold or XP.
• PCs in a different area to do not count towards party size.
• PCs that are dead to do not receive gold or XP.
• PCs at the maximum level 30 only receive 1 XP.

[Jes]

Subdual

When someone uses Subdual, they are generally considered to be using non-lethal force to subdue the opponent, as in blows with the pommel of the sword, the fists, the elbows, etc. When you are subdued you are unconscious and on the ground on the brink of death. The person using subdual has the option to use lethal force if they choose to do so, so if you are subdued you should ask if you are dead or merely unconscious, as this is at the discretion of the subduer. Once you are down, it is only a matter of one blow to finish you. If the person says you are dead, even if they don't actually KILL you, you are DEAD.

If you are not dead, keep in mind that when the subdual wears off you may be conscious, but you are laying on the ground bleeding profusely with a POUNDING headache and are unable to do much besides possibly heal yourself or crawl away slowly and painfully. Jumping up from subdual and rejoining a battle or running is NOT acceptable and will be dealt with if it is seen happening. When your sudual wears off, use your Emote Widget (or the Rest Menu if you can) to lie back down and RP as defeated.

You can see more about our PvP modes here.

[Jes]

Greater Sanctuary

The default description of Greater Sanctuary clashes with how it actually works in-game, which often confuses the roleplay surrounding Greater Sanctuary users. So please ignore the description entirely.

On Amia the spell is considered, for RP purposes, to be a save-less version of the level 1 Cleric spell Sanctuary. You are not on (or partially on) the ethereal plane; what the spell does is penetrate any magical or innate supernatural barrier to mind-affects and makes all individuals incapable of choosing to hurt the caster directly. They can still be seen, smelt and heard, but direct hostile action is impossible.

Note that this does not allow you to escape from all roleplayed conflicts: for example city guards can still detain you by other means than physical assault. Locking the city gate, for example.

Furthermore, when in battle(in game mechanics terms, set to Hostile) the spell affects your senses too, making them incapable of detecting the caster unless they have the powerful magical senses of a True Dragon. Even if they have such eyes, they cannot choose to hurt the caster directly.

On an intellectual level, any semi-intelligent character with experience with mages will be able to deduce that a GS'd caster is probably in the general area from in-character clues like the existence of summons, or from having seen them cast it in the first place, or from having a friend or summon with 'real' True Seeing, so using area-of-effect spells/feats in PvP is not considered cheating, provided the various purely out-of-character means of locating someone have not been used.

For example, if you have set a Weapon Master to Hostile during a roleplayed conflict and then cast Greater Sanctuary, you are legitimately vulnerable to Whirlwind Attack being spammed while you buff in 'safety.' The WM has 13 INT. He will know you are around somewhere, even if some part of his brain is ignoring the fact his eyes/ears/nose are not telling him exactly where that is.

NOTE: The visual effects of Epic Mage Armor and Greater Sanctuary are very similar, but not identical. They both have a purplish set of lights revolving around the caster, but the Greater Sanctuary effect is dimmer and travels in a slightly different pattern around them than Epic Mage Armor does.

[Jes]

Resurrecting the Dead

When a person dies, he goes to the Fugue Plane to await being picked up by servants of his patron deity. On the material plane, the body does what bodies do: it becomes stiff, cold, and eventually it decomposes.

However, the gods' power can be called upon to raise the dead. Spells of Raise Dead and Resurrection can bring a fallen person back to life, but under a few specific conditions:


Revival against one's will:

• A soul can't be raised against its will. The deceased knows the name, alignment, and patron deity of the character attempting to bring it back to life, and can refuse the resurrection. However, if the soul returns to life, it forgets anything and everything about the time it was dead. Raised people do not remember any information they learned during death, such as the alignment and patron deity of the character who raised them, or another character whose resurrection attempt they may have turned down earlier.

Raise Dead:

• The subject must be in one piece. You cannot raise someone who has been beheaded, for example. Missing pieces will be missing after the spell is cast, though any mortal wounds are sealed. Those that have been turned into undead or died of old age can't be raised. Normally you wouldn't be able to raise Outsiders, but NWN mechanics bypasses this, so it is modified from the lore.

Resurrection:

• The condition of the subject does not matter; if you have one proper piece of a person, you can raise him as long as the piece was upon him at the time of death. The subject's body regenerates around the piece being resurrected. Any other pieces, such as the severed head of the victim that someone might be keeping as a trophy, crumble to dust at the moment of resurrection. You can raise those who have been undead and then destroyed, but you can't raise anyone who died of old age. Normally you wouldn't be able to raise Outsiders, but NWN mechanics bypasses this, so it is modified from the lore.

True Resurrection:

• This is the most powerful form of resurrection and always requires DM oversight. This spell can raise those who were turned into undead and destroyed, but still cannot raise anyone who died of old age. It can, however, be used to raise Outsiders and Elementals.
  
  As a PnP spell, True Resurrection requires the OOC consent of the player of the character you are attempting to bring back. You can attempt to bring back someone who has been deceased for up to 10 years per caster level. However, the spell does not work for bringing back those who have died of old age. Unlike Raise Dead and Resurrection, True Resurrection does not require having any part of the deceased's body, intact or otherwise. However, the caster must be able to identify the soul of the deceased in some way (the most common of which is by reciting the deceased’s time and place of birth or death, if the name is not known).
  
  In order to cast this spell, the cleric must have a DM witness the casting, as well as pay a full level's worth of XP and 15 diamonds, or the monetary equivalent of 25000 gold. This can be modified on a case by case basis, at DM discretion.

[Jes]

Pickpocket

The Bioware built-in pickpocket system has a couple of serious flaws, which make it impractical for use in a multiplayer system. Players can lift containers full of things from other players. Players can steal a 50-pound full plate armor off someone. Players can lift an entire stack of items. When something is pickpocket'ed it gets marked as stolen and then cannot be sold, which is also strange, as the merchant is not going to know who originally owned the object. This pickpocket system disables the built-in Bioware pickpocket as best as is possible, and then implements a custom one, described herein.

When someone logs in or levels up, the new system checks to see if they have at least a single rank in the Pickpocket skill. If they do, and they have not yet been adjusted, the system will make the following changes to the character concerned:

• Any character with a single rank in the Pickpocket skill is subject to the new Pickpocket rules.
• Permanent Pickpocket skill decrease of 50 to disable the built-in Bioware pickpocket system.
• Issue the character with a Pickpocket Tool to access the new Pickpocket skill.

Usage and Rules

To pickpocket, the player must activate the Pickpocket Tool and target another player.

• Your target must be a player, excluding yourself.
• You must be within 2 meters of the target.
• You cannot pickpocket someone who is under level 5.
• You cannot pickpocked someone more than 3 times a day.

Your target's DC for a pickpocket attempt is 20 + Character Level / 2 + Spot skill / 2, unless they’re dead in which case the target forfeits her DC. For example, a level 12 Fighter with 4 skill points in Spot will have a DC of 20 + 6 + 2 = 28.

There are proximity bonuses to the target DC, irrespective of her being dead or not. For every party member of the target or NPC within 5 meters of her, there is a +5 bonus to her DC. If a party member or NPC is between 6 and 10 meters, there is a +2 bonus to her DC. Finally, if the party member or NPC is from 11 to 20 meters from the target, there is a +1 bonus to her DC. This will encourage sticking together in town in a party and will also encourage player who aren’t in a party not to stray too far from their dead comrade, since they’re providing critical protection of fallen foe’s assets.

You must overcome the target’s DC by performing a skill check against your pickpocket skill, minus any penalty for successive pickpocket attempts (see the table below). Successive pickpocket attempts carry increasing penalties to your pickpocket skill check if you attempt to lift from the same player within two in-game days (on most servers this means 96 minutes in real time). This algorithm depends on the fact that your module saves the current time periodically and restores it when loading, so the clock always moves forward.

If you fail the pickpocket skill check or you roll a critical failure, your target may or may not see you depending on how much you failed the check by. If you failed the skill check by more than 50% of your pickpocket skill score, or if you rolled a critical failure, she spots you. Your target turns to face you (automatically) and they are sent a message informing them of your attempt. On a critical failure you are also knocked on your back for three rounds, and your helmet (if equipped) is unequipped for role-play purposes so that you may identify the person. You may also lose experience points if you fail a pickpocket attempt. This XP penalty is calculated as follows:

(Target’s Level x How much you lost the skill check by)/ 10

In addition, if you rolled a critical failure, the XP penalty is doubled. The xp penalty can never be more than 500 XP, however.

If you succeed, you may lift some gold or an item from the target, subject to the rules listed below. On a natural 20-die roll, if you didn't beat the target's DC you automatically succeed the pickpocket and if you also beat the target’s DC with your natural 20-die roll, you get a bonus lift from the target.

Once it's determined that you succeeded, for each lift you have a 5% chance to obtain a random item from the target, adding 1% to that chance for every 5 points you beat the DC by. If you don’t get an item then you’ll get a gold and XP reward instead. The amount of gold you get is calculated as follows: [Amount you beat the DC by x Your highest pickpocket-capable class level]. This is subject to a maximum limit of 5% of the target's gold. The XP reward is equal to 5% of the gold lift. If the target has no gold, you get 10xp.

If you’re lucky enough to lift an item, it’ll be randomly selected from the target's inventory according to the following rules. Should the target have nothing suitable to take, you will receive a gold and XP reward instead.

Restrictions:

• Items that are equipped cannot be taken.
• Items marked plot or undroppable cannot be taken.
• If a stack is selected for lifting, only one of the stack items will transfer.
• Items over 5 lbs cannot be taken. Items in weight reduction containers are treated like regular inventory for the weight limit.
• Containers cannot be taken, but their contents are treated like normal inventory and one item in the container may be randomly selected.

Caveats:

• Item activation requires you come out of hiding, as such all participants in a pickpocket attempt must role-play according to the results given by the game. If the game tells you that your character does not notice then you’re oblivious to the pickpocket theft.