Thief Class Changes – Aardwolf MUD – September 25th.

This reboot brings in the long anticipated Thief class (bandit, assassin, venomist, ninja) changes. Test port feedback on these ranges from “OMG Major Nerf!” to “Long overdue” to “Not much of a nerf at all” to “The classes make much more sense now”.

You will notice that the very first item highlighted is the fact that all global free classchanges and rebuilds were reset, so if you’re in the thief class and really hate these changes you are welcome to try a different class with no charges or penalties.

• The global free classchange and free rebuild have been reset. Note these these are on/off flags – they do not “stack”.
• Backstab now has lag like any other skill. The recovery on it is gone. The lag is shorter than most skills, but is still there.
• Scorpion Sting is now called Scorpion Strike and is Ninja only. This skill is not applied to backstab hits.
• Balor Spittle is now venomist only. It’s recovery time can be reduced a little with higher dex.
• Only assassin can get the last enhanced backstab hit.
• Sweep can now be used on flying mobs if the player is also flying. Have also changed some of the messages on sweep so that it having a ‘daze’ chance makes more sense.
• Thief now gets enhanced damage at level 14.
• Most thief skills have a max damage they can do. This has been increased a little for each skill.
• Spiral now does the damage type of your primary weapon.
• Backstab is easier to land at lower levels/stats. Level difference is less important in chances to land. You will also notice failure less often at max stats.

There has been an additional change to almost all thief damage skills. Thief skills now work more like spells in that when they ‘fail’, they don’t fail completely. Damage is reduced and you don’t get a chance to get the special affect if they have one (such as poisons), but the damage part will still work.

Damage itself is pro-rated based on percent practiced as with attack spells. Some thief skills that were particularly hard to improve have had their chances increased some. The base damage and the chance to get the specials themselves are still based on the same stats.

Skills affected by this change have been marked nofail – they are:

• Green Death, Sweep, Spiral, Marbu Jet, Kobold Spray, Raven Scourge, Cobra Bane, Hydra Blood, Black Root, Burnt Marbu, Kobold Stench, Circle

Thief Subclass Additions

Several new thief subclass abilities were added this reboot. They are:

Bandit – Fence:
The bandit class has a new skill called ‘Fence’ that allows them to sell an item from anywhere. The maximum potential amount received for a fenced item is the default shop price, or 50% of it’s value.

Of that max potential, half is determined by your skill in fence and half is determined by dex and luck combined. Fence itself does not fail once you have the skill, unless the resulting amount comes out too low.

Items that could not normally be sold to a shopkeeper also cannot be fenced, and items over 20,000 gold in value are too expensive to be fenced. As this activity all takes place between thieves on the underground market, clan tax is avoided. You will also find that underground dealers don’t haggle, the price is the price. The good news is that crime really does pay, and they never run out of gold either.

The same syntax that works with ‘sell’ also works with fence. Please be careful when fencing items, unlike selling to shops where you often have a chance to buy it back if you sell in error, fenced items are non-recoverable.

When selling items, bandit will have an automatic +10% chances of actually haggling. The haggle itself is no better (it can’t be because of buy/sell price overlap issues). Not intended to be a big deal, just a small bonus. I imagine most bandits will fence now anyway.

Bandit – Pilferage:
The new skill ‘Pilferage’ is an automatic bandit skill. Whenever looting gold from a mobile, a bandit has a chance to find additional gold on the corpse. The amount varies up to 30%, determined by skill percent and luck. If the bandit is leading a group with autoshare on, everyone gets their share of the increased amount.

Bandit – Haggle:
When selling items, bandit will have an automatic +10% chances of actually haggling. The haggle itself is no better (it can’t be because of buy/sell price overlap issues). Not intended to be a big deal, just a small bonus. I imagine most bandits will fence now anyway.

Bandit / Ninja / Assassin – Nimble Cunning:
The new skill ‘Nimble Cunning’ is available to bandit, ninja and assassin only. It is a low level skill which gives the user a slight boost in dex and luck.

Venomist – Cell Potential:
The new skill ‘Cell Potential’ is the same thing as Nimble Cunning, but for venomists only and also adds some con.

Assassin – Stalk:
The assassin skill ‘Stalk’ allows an assassin to sit in a room undetected. They will not be seen until either the skill wears off, they leave the room, they attack something or an oracle spell is used (see below).

Ninja – Stealth:
The ninja skill ‘Stealth’ is like ‘stalk’ except it lasts until the ninja attacks something. A ninja in stealth also cannot be ambushed.

Notes on stealth/stalk:

• When a thief is in stealth/stalk mode, they do not appear in the ‘invisible’ count on who (otherwise ‘who room’ would give them away).
• You also do not see them entering/leaving the room.
• Mobs with progs that have detect hidden set can still see chars in stealth, othrerwise too many area quests will break. So can clanguards.
• When casting area attacks, if you cannot see someone because of stealth, they are not a valid target.
• Transportation spells DO remove stalk, they do not remove stealth.
• Interfering in a fight in a way that would normally trigger revenge will remove stealth.