Major Improvements To The Game (NOV 2013)

Initial Statement: “Don’t Panic”
There is a lot to process. You may not understand it all right away. Don’t Panic! There are three things (applicable to this situation) that I’ve learned about larping in over fifteen years. First, people are often scared of change. Second, change is the only way to improve. Third, nine times out of ten, a change is successful; and the one time its not, the laws of change state that’s its fine to change back. Don’t Panic. This will work.

Some of you will review all the changes we post and it will instantly click in your head and you will INSTANTLY understand how awesome the end result will be for everyone. Some of you won’t see it right away, because to truly understand it, you need to look at the big picture from many different angles, and some of those angles may be angles you’ve never thought of before.

Don’t Panic! Whether you see it or not, this is going to be great!

Overview: “In a nutshell!”
To start we are making fundamental changes to Starting Level, Higher End Rules and Magic Items. We will also be making some small changes that will have a big impact.

Starting Level will be raised so that new players will have a more developed character for their first few events and be able to interact with the rules of the game in a more in-depth way than before.

Higher End Rules will see the revision of the three basic master professions and the addition of new heroic professions. This finally completes the Knight Realms gaming system, making the high end gaming rules just as fun, engaging and complete as the lower profession game rules. It makes each character more unique and individually useful by forcing characters to make real choices about their skill paths.

Magic Items will go through a massive overhaul. By putting limitations on what you can do with magic items, each individual character will gain back more of their individuality and usefulness. It will no longer be easy to mimic other professions with your items, only augment your own. Their will also be a new “Binding System” which will allow all characters to self attune up to three items. There are a ton of details to this change, but in a nutshell, these changes will cause the flow of special items to spread more evenly and consistently among all the players, regardless of level.

The theme we are working towards is to allow every character to be unique.

Specifics: Misc

Starting at 5th Level
All new characters at Knight Realms will now start with fifty spent build. The in-game explanation of this is that a basic commoner is considered to have the stats of a 1st level character. All player characters in Knight Realms are considered adventurers, who start above the average commoner. As of this posting, all character cards in the on-line database have had an additional forty build added to them.

Any profession skill that has a listed pre-requisite of level five or higher will be increased by two levels. For example: The Swashbuckler skill, Deflect will have a pre-requisite of level seven instead of level five. Fourth rank spells will have a pre-req of level nine instead of level seven. Any level pre-requisites lower than level five are being removed.

Low-level zone is now from level 5-15. Tower mod is extended to level 10.

Your promo skill pre-requisite is now 120 build in the appropriate list that you wish to buy the promo from.

Commoner List
We are adding the following skills on the commoner list:
Flee - 7 Build
Climb - 7 Build

- These above survivability skills have been added to the commoner list for every characters potential purchase. The fact that these are universally accessible, means that every character who buys these skills, can also utilize them in the new Exceptional Items rules. (magic items)

Master Florentine
We are adding the skill Master Florentine to the following professions:
Assassin and Ronin will get Master Florentine for 4 build, pre-requisite of Florentine.
Berserker gets Master Florentine for 6 build, no pre-requisites.

Specifics: The Higher Profession Dynamic
Profession – Master Profession – Heroic Profession
The Profession Dynamic now works as a beginning to ending formula. You will advance as a character through the Professions, into your associated Master Professions, and finally develop into a very specialized role of Heroic Professions. This development will lead to very unique individuals, which gives value to each character in a way Knight Realms has never experienced.
33 Professions (4 Slots)
3 Master Professions (3 Slots)
36 Heroic Professions (2 Slots)

Specifics: Master Professions
Master Professions are now the mid-way point for characters. There are only three Master Professions and you may purchase up to a maximum of three of these. This means you can purchase one use of all three to diversify yourself, purchase the same Master Profession three times to solidly focus your character, or any combination in between. When you purchase a Master Profession multiple times, imagine it laying on top of one you currently have, for every instance of an overlap of your paths, your max purchase of a skill is increased by the multiplier x2 and then x3. Therefore someone who focuses on one Master Profession can focus on having all of the skills in all of the paths, or they can focus on having increased max purchases of the same path, or any combination therein. As of this announcement on October of 2013, the Master Professions have undergone changes in preparation for this improvement. One of the most notable changes is that archery can take full benefit from the Master Warrior Profession. The pre-requisite for a Master Profession is one hundred build spent in a correlating lower Profession.

We will be posting a separate link allowing all to see the newly edited Master Professions.
You may begin the process of deciding how you will re-write your Master Profession purchases based on these changes, but these changes will not go into full effect until the December Knight Realms event.

Specifics: Heroic Professions
The Heroic Profession system is meant to do many things for the Knight Realms game. First it rounds out the gaming system, to make the high end gaming rules just as fun, engaging and complete as the lower Professions game. Second it makes individual characters more unique and individually useful; buy forcing characters to make choices, even within their own Heroic Profession. Thirdly it puts more of the power to attain these professions into the players hands, by switching to a new “Criteria” based system. Each heroic profession will have a list of criteria, where you as a player and a character will have more control over the process of learning the Heroic Professions.

There is a Heroic Profession for each of the existing lower Professions and more. If you wish, you may purchase the same Heroic Profession twice in order to widen the skills available. This allows multi-classing or focusing both to be viable gaming choices.

As of this post, the first release will consist of seventeen Heroic Professions. With a goal of releasing two more each event thereafter until all of them are complete. The lists for the first release are Warrior Monk, Dragoon, Cleric, Cavalier, Scholar, Alchemist, Smith, Physician, Wild Mage, Mage, Druid, Priest, Assassin, Warrior, Witch Hunter, Paladin, Paladin Acolyte. The rest will come quickly, so please be patient.

Starting Friday night of the November event, anyone with the lists Master Witch Hunter, Tortured Soul, Tao, Sorcerer, Ceremonialist, Paladin, Sith and Templar will undergo the following effects:

Your abilities seem to be waning to a noticeable degree. You can directly draw a relation to the breaking of the world from all the chaos portals pouring out demons from the Abyss. All of your Continuous and Periodic skills from these above lists instantly become Per Event (Continuous skills will last for one battle). Once used you can feel the ability/knowledge leave your soul forever.

During this same event ‘The Heroic Lore’ will be released into the world, and discovered by the characters. This ancient lore is from the first age, and is strong enough to be unaffected by the worlds breaking. We will make every effort to involve the appropriate characters, but even if you miss the encounter to find your appropriate Heroic Profession you will still have access to it, as the finding of it is largely symbolic of the lore re-entering the world. If you lost one of the above lists and it is being replaced by one of the new Heroic Professions than you may re-spend into the Heroic Professions and have the new abilities available for use in December. If you did not already have the correlating profession, and if you have met the criteria, you may purchase the Heroic Profession itself.

The Heroic Professions and general rules will not be posted until right after the November event, you will however get to see them for the first time in person at the event.

Specifics: Magical / Exceptional Items!
During the plot of this upcoming event, story will unfold to explain the new Exceptional Item System for Knight Realms. This new system will have many beneficial effects on the game world and game balance. The largest effect that it will have is it will help to hand back uniqueness to the individual professions by removing the ability to invoke skills from items that your character does not already have access to in one of their profession lists. This pulls back the previously open ended, over flooding of power and re-strengthens the profession choices one makes for their character. As an example, if there is an item that has the “Parry” skill in it, then that particular skill usage can only be invoked by a wielder that has already purchased a use of that skill on one of their profession lists. Exceptional items will enhance your already existing skill set, not hand you a new one.

The second part to this Exceptional Item change will be the ability for all characters to bind three items to themselves at any given point in time. These items are then recorded on your character sheet from that point on. In the event that you want to replace a bound item with a new one, you must choose one of your bound items to destroy in order to make the room for it.

We will allow a one time, immediate consolidation of items, for those who currently have more than three items. We will also allow a one time immediate re-write of items to reflect skills you possess on your already existing professions. Weapons and Armor that have damage or Soak bonuses will translate into the new weapon folding and armor fortification heroic smith abilities.

Trinkets. Going forward trinkets will be redefined. Currently existing trinkets will fall into three categories, Bauble (1-3 build), Device (4-5), or Invention (6-7). Any amount that is higher than this will have to be exchanged for a skill that is less than eight build. When using trinkets, you may use skills that are not on your professions, however you may only utilize one type of trinket per period.

Artifacts. Special Items that are labeled artifacts cannot be bound and are permanent. Abilities within artifacts can be used by anyone regardless of their access to those abilities. No one person can wield any more than one artifact at a time. Further rules on Artifacts will be announced prior to the event.

Pledges. Pledge Items will now work differently. Pledges will translate to strait build, and in the case of Mythril pledges, a unique ability. That unique ability will be written directly into the notes section of your character card. If you so wish, you will have the option of having some of the strait build converted into an artifact, however the risk involved with that decision, is that it would follow all of the above rules regarding artifacts. We will provide a more detailed announcement on conversion rules prior to the event.

The Binding System:
Every PC may have up to three "Bound" Magic Items. A bound item becomes permanent and cannot forcibly be moved more then five feet away from the character in which it is bound. You may at any time place your bound item in an oog space and therefore not use it until retrieved.

A PC that wishes to make an item bound must simply bring the item card to logistics and have the logistics marshal on duty transfer the data onto thier card and sign off.

An item that becomes un-bound are immediately destroyed and removed from the game world.

Item Process:
All current, existing items will be merged to comply with the new rules. They must be evenly distributed by build cost between three items.

All items that are not bound will have a sixth month duration. All old cards will be immediately destroyed.

The Specific Item Process
During the November event, you may use the following schedule to re-write your items in person.

Friday 8PM - 12AM upstairs in the first room of the Directors apartment
Saturday 11AM - 6PM upstairs in the first room of the Directors apartment
Sunday Noon - 3PM upstairs in the first room of the Directors apartment

We will have similar hours for the December event that will be posted before that weekend. It may be advantageous for players to take advantage of the November conversion as non converted items will become invalid as of lay on of the December event.

Please think about your desires for your conversion ahead of time so that this process can go as quickly as possible.

In Closing
Please post questions below. We will not answer them immediately but rather will compile them over the next many days and will create a FAQ sheet from them to post prior to the event. Please read the questions posted before yours and do not re-post the same question that someone else has already posted.

Please keep all replies to questions only. Please no general comments or concerns. If you have concerns, please bring them to us in person at the event, so that we may have an opportunity to address them. We will really appreciate being able to speak to you in person about any concerns rather than through the Knight Realms website, or social media posts, or even e-mail.

There are more changes on the way! Likely around January and February, and all together when those changes are complete as well, as a whole, this will work very well to bring a balanced harmony and flow to the game that we have not seen in a very long time, if ever. We have been spending countless hours for the last sixth months working towards this goal, and we are very excited for the future of Knight Realms. We hope you get to see first hand just how well these improvements will play out and increase your overall enjoyment at the game! Thank you.

How are items obtained at the Awards Banquet affected? What about items from the charity raffles? From the Masquerade Ball?

Can trinkets, gems, or commodities be bound?

What's the in-game explanation for bound items? Can we talk about it as our characters?

For people who will not be present at the November or December events but have items that need converted, what will be done so their items don't become invalid before the next time they come IG?

Is any item with a unique ability / ability with no build cost now considered an artifact?

Wasn't the cap on Tower Mod already 10? What has changed? (And is this possibly a typo?)

In the item rewrite, what about items that have (either permanent or temporary) sorcery enchantments upon them? For example, a weapon enchanted to swing for magic, elemental, bane, et cetera. Will such properties need to be changed as well?

How are Items with set bonuses going to be treated? IE, an item which requires the possession of 3 other items together to have an added effect, does the cap of 3 per person apply to that, or can we only have 3 BOUND items? I'm a little unclear on that. Also, what happens if someone binds some of the items to them but not others? IE, someone has 2 parts of the armor of ridiculousness, or maybe all 4, but only binds 2 of them permanently?

How will items created with the skill Legendary Work be affected by the new rules?

Are there any changes being made to the Amulet rules?

Can racial skills be put into items under the new rules?

For those of us who don't plan on taking one of the listed Heroic lists, is there an indication when the next batch will be ready?

What happens to people who have learned (or begun to learn) Master lists under the previous requirements that don't meet the new requirements?

If a person retires their character and they want to leave an item they had bound to them to another character as specified in a will, would they be able to?

What happens to artifacts if a person has more than one on them currently?

since pledges will be given as straight build now, do people with pre-existing items have the option to not re-write and convert it to build?
If someone has the mage/priest etc, can they use items with any magic/prayers on them or only ones they have the domain over.

what about plot based items?

How will banquet items be handled?

Permanent trinkets rolled from fates. How will these be handled?

If you have multiple lists that lead to a single master list (ex. Cavalier and witch hunter > master warrior), does the spent build for each stack in terms of the master list pre-req?

I've moved some posts from this thread, to the new Higher Lists board, so that the questions are listed all with the new Higher List rules. No posts were deleted, just moved where they could all be together!

Questions about items, etc. should go here. Questions about the Higher Lists should go to the new board.

Thank you!

So I have 2 questions.
1: how do items with spells work? Are they still a thing for people who can't cast that spell or do you need to be a Mage to have an item, with say windwalker

2: how do you calculate spells for conversion? Build cost?(3 build for rank 3) Or point cost? (Six build[provided the spell takes 6 points to cast] for rank 4)

How are existing sorcery effects cast on a person affected, if at all: genasi, time stop, portals for example? Can they still be called upon until used or expired?

Learning another second instance of a master list of heroic list. Is it just like learning another use of a skill where you can self teach it, or do you somehow need to go through the steps of lessons to get it again?

Under the new item rules, will we need to have the actual skill/spell that we want to put into an item, or do we just need to have the sphere/profession that gives us access to it? For example, in order to invoke a windwalker, would I actually need to be able to cast that spell normally, or would being an air mage suffice?

If the answer is the former, how will that affect wild mages, with randomized spells?

How does this effect the rules for the smith promo? Would the rules for legendary work remain the same? or do we need to redo our items?
Lemme rephrase this, say we have a skill that we normally do not have access to on our legendary work (In this case, Intercept) Do we have to rewrite our legendary so that it has a skill we can use? or is this the only exception to the rule (since we technically still put build into putting those skills onto the item) and what type of item would the legendary work be considered as?