U19 Shadowfell Release Notes

https://www.ddo.com/en/update-19-shadowfell-conspiracy-release-notes-official


Update 19: Shadowfell Conspiracy Release Notes Official

Release Notes: Update 19

Welcome to the Release Notes for Dungeons & Dragons Online! These release notes were posted on Monday, August 19th, 2013.

News & Notes

This update brings a new Expansion pack, as well as changes and additions to the DDO game for players of all account types. Read on for details!

Of Special Note

Shadowfell Conspiracy

An unnatural darkness looms over the prison city of Wheloon as shadows spread across the land. Uncover the sinister Shar plot threatening to destroy Cormyr from within, and face the full might of the Empire of Netheril in the all new Dungeons & Dragons Online™ Expansion: Shadowfell Conspiracy! Includes:

Two New Forgotten Realms Adventure Packs

Wheloon City

Take to the sprawling city streets and rooftops of Wheloon as you hunt down Netherese agents seeking to forge an army. A shadowy maze where even the Purple Dragon Knights will not tread, the public area and new dungeons of this prison city will put you to the test!

The Storm Horns

Journey to the breathtaking and treacherous Storm Horn Mountains where, beneath the natural beauty, hides a dark alliance that threatens all of Cormyr. Explore a massive, new wilderness area as you ascend the towering peaks and confront the agents of shadow!

Iconic Heroes

Wield the power of all-new prestige characters including the Shadar-kai Assassin, Sun elf Morninglord, and Purple Dragon Knight! These unique characters start in Forgotten Realms at level 15 and feature exclusive skills and appearances.

There are currently four Iconic Hero types available:
Purple Dragon Knight Iconic Hero: A stalwart Fighter, cut loose from active service, who can lead the charge with rallying battle-cries.
Shadar-kai Iconic Hero: A leathal Rogue who has thrown off the Netherese yoke and draws on innate powers of the Shadowfell to hide and to kill.
Morninglord Iconic Hero: A battle-ready Cleric of the great sun-god who wields holy light against the dark in all its wicked forms.
Bladeforged Iconic Hero: An exotic warforged Paladin follower of the Lord of Blades wrought from the infamous Creation Forge.
Iconic Heroes are available based on your purchase of the Shadowfell Conspiracy as follows:
If you ordered the Standard Edition of Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Purple Dragon Knight.
If you ordered the Collector’s Edition of Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Shadar-Kai Assassin, Sun Elf Morninglord, and Purple Dragon Knight.
If you pre-purchased any edition of the Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Bladefordged.
Iconics do not begin their life on the beach with Jeets. Bladeforged begin their existance in the Creation Forge with the Lord of Blades, while Forgotten Realms based Iconics start their journey in the Wheloon tavern with Elminster. You may speak with Elminster (or the Lord of Blades) to receive your character experience points and advance on a per-determined path for your abilities.
You may elect to decline the pre-set path offered by Elminster/The Lord of Blades. You may leave the Ball & Chain Tavern (or Creation Forge) to seek out other class trainers if you would like to multiclass or otherwise customize the character ability options of your Iconic Hero.
Note that Forgotten Realms Iconics can not take Eberron-lore specific feats (i.e. Dragonmarks and Eberron Deity based feats)

Introducing Sagas

Earn rewards with our new Saga system! New NPCs have arrived to chronicle the deeds of heroes across multiple story arcs and adventure packs. By completing all of the quests in a given Saga, you can speak with the Saga NPC to claim an extra reward, including a large one-time experience point grant, guild renown, and more! The quality of the rewards can also be influenced by running the quests on higher difficulty levels.
There are currently two Sagas available
Honor of the Huntsilver - this Epic level saga is tracked by Belvedere Huntsilver in Eveningstar (South of the Eveningstar Well.)
Menace of the Underdark - this saga is tracked by Lady Azana Winter in Eveningstar (South of The Lonesome Tankard).
You do not need to speak with the Saga NPCs first, credit for a Saga is automatically logged as you complete quests. Please note that quest completions that occurred prior to the launch of Update 19 are not able to be counted by the NPCs. The Saga NPCs will list the quests necessary to complete their Saga. Quests that qualify for the Saga can be played in any order, and are counted automatically; you do not need to speak to Saga NPCs to start the Saga nor return to the NPC between quest completions. You only need to speak to the Saga NPC once you have completed all quests in a Saga to receive your reward.
It is possible to use Astral Shards to get credit for a particular quest for Saga purposes rather than re-running it. VIPs start out with a free credit for the quest of their choice. Getting credit for the quest does not grant quest completion/favor/rewards for that quest, it only allows the Saga NPC to check the quest off their tracking list.

The Enhancements System Revamp

The DDO Enhancements system has been updated! These changes are free to all players.

The Enhancement system view has been reworked into a tree format. It is now easier to see the long term options for your race/class so you can plan your character build customizations! Each race has an associated tree, and each class has multiple trees to pick from! We will be adding even more trees to classes in the future.
You may have 6 class trees and 1 Racial for a total of 7 trees to distribute your action points among.
You can re-arrange your enhancement trees by clicking on the drop-down box near the bottom of the trees. The “Unset” panel is available so you can select the order you prefer your trees to display in.
The first Core Enhancement is Required to take the first Enhancement of a particular tree
You can only take tier 5 abilities in one class tree
Many existing prestige enhancement lines have been updated or had abilities reworked.
The Enhancement System Revamp includes many updates and changes. Therefore, every character that exists prior to Update 19 will receive a +20 Lesser Reincarnation TOKEN upon login automatically to allow players to make adjustments to their existing characters if necessarily. To redeem this token:
Visit Kruz the Reincarnation trainer in House Jorasco and select “What do I need to start Lesser Reincarnation?”
Then select “I would like to use a heart of wood to reincarnate, but give me specific details before we begin.”
NOTE that this is NOT considered to be the standard Free Lesser Reincarnation, so you need to select the second available Lesser Reincarnation option!
Double check that the last sentence states that “You will turn in your +20 Lesser Heart of Wood in order to start this process” before you click on “Yes.”
NOTE: The current three-class restriction that applies to other Hearts of Wood apply to the +20 Lesser Heart of Wood. Characters can never have more than three classes during the respec process, even if they intended to have only three classes by the end of the process. This means that some multiclass characters may be unable to swap out one class for another, unless they use a second Heart of Wood in the future to swap out an unwanted class for a desired class.
Character level requirements for racial Core Enhancements are now: 1, 4, 7, 11, 16
Action Boost: Save Boosts no longer fail on rolls of a 1.
Uncaring Masters should no longer be told how much they care.

The Hall of Heroes

A new option is available for quick travel between the realms of Eberron and Forgotten Realms. This account-wide feature will allow you to log to the character selection screen, and switch your character to the Eberron or Forgotten Realms campaign settings with the push of a button. Doing so will transport your character to the Eberron Hall of Heroes, or the Forgotten Realms Hall of Heroes. These travel hubs exist outside of the story and contain doorways to many locations in the respective worlds. Over time more locations will be added to the hall.

Level Cap Increase to 28

Raise your character to new heights of power with a host of new epic spells and feats! Free to all players.

Stealth System Updates

We have comprehensively looked at stealth, invisibility, detection, blind attacks, noises, and the visual or audio feedback from all of these systems. Major work has been done to monster AI as well as player avatar and ability behaviors to improve the opportunity for characters to successfully use stealth in the game.

Changes are as follows:

Performance improvements have been made that significantly reduce AI-related lag and frame rate issues, especially in large group and raid situations.
The game is now much better at determining when you are in or out of combat, so that you don't appear to stand there idly while getting clubbed over the head by attackers.
Combat animations and avatar behaviors have been adjusted. It is now possible to perform some actions while being stealthy that you previously could not (such as tumbling or jumping.) The previous ability to jump while stealthed was horribly overpowered, and has been summarily nerfed.
Monsters now display a question mark icon whenever they are investigating a suspicious noise, instead of performing a search animation while walking, which made it appear as if they had "sliding feet."
Monsters who can see a player despite hide or invisibility will now display an icon over their head to let the player know they have been seen! Situations where this occurs can include:
You are invisible but the monster has True Seeing, See Invisibility, tremor-sense, or is within 2 meters and facing you.
You are hiding, but the monster's spot plus all modifiers is sufficient to beat your hiding skill plus all modifiers, or you are within 2 meters and it is facing you.
You are hiding AND invisible, but some combination of both 1 and 2 are true.
If they are swinging and hitting you but don't have the icon over their head, they are making blind attacks where they hear you making noise, and you're making so much running around and getting hit that they can figure out where you are.
To better help players understand when they are making noise:
Sneaking players have always made red footsteps when they were making noise, but now players who are invisible will display "hot footsteps" to indicate when a monster can hear them as well. This is only a visual change - they could always hear you when you were running around while invisible...
White footsteps that indicate you are approaching a monster who might hear you if you get closer will still play only if sneaking.
All red footsteps now only play when a monster actually hears you. If you see the red splash, your position has been given away! It used to play any time you might be heard, but weren't necessarily actually being heard. The footstep will also be darker and redder the more monsters hear you!
Monsters will display a red ear with an exclamation mark whenever they hear you make a loud noise, such as when you are hit.
Fixed a number of bugs, and re-wrote blind attack and search AI, to allow players to escape monsters when using stealth:
Fixed a bug where monsters would re-evaluate their target's position every time another monster's missile attack hit anything, giving the monster better awareness of a player's location than they should. This will now only happen when a character makes the noise.
Fixed a bug where monsters would cheat and get their target's location every 6 seconds or less.
Fixed a bug where being both stealthed and invisible was worse than just being invisible at ranges greater that 7.5 meters.
Search attack algorithms have been improved. Monsters will expand their search radius when making blind attacks, hate the target less after a few missed attacks, and eventually give up after a number of fruitless attacks where they are unable to hit anything.
If a monster manages to get a relevant clue as to their enemy’s whereabouts, they will resume their search.
Monsters should no longer shoot projectiles directly at targets that they can't see!
Added icon feedback to highlight increased monster spot bonuses over the length of time that a character hides or sneaks in front of them.
This comes in three levels, based on distance. The color and number of eyes that blink over the monster’s head indicates how fast their spot bonus is increasing.
The eye icon over your character's head when sneaking now only shows when a monster is looking at you. Use it to tell when a monster is building its spot bonus, and get out of sight quickly!
Invisibility still makes it so that monsters cannot clearly see you while invisible, unless they are directly adjacent to you. When combined with sneak, it lessens the ability of monsters to start to spot you at far distances, and reduces the bonus that they get at closer distances. The enemy’s spot bonuses gained while invisible will not reveal you as long as you remain invisible, but will hamper your ability to hide if your invisibility is later broken.

In the scenario of sneaking through a room full of monsters to pull a lever when their backs are turned, then re-hiding and continuing past them again:

Doing so with just sneak puts you at risk of being spotted the more time spent in front of the monsters; Be careful! The higher your hide skill is, the more of a buffer you have before the monsters see through it!
Drinking an invisibility potion to get you to the lever will still raise awareness when in front of the monsters as you sneak by, but not as much. They also cannot spot you (unless you are directly adjacent to them) until after you pull the lever, breaking invisibility. When you re-activate sneak after pulling it, you will have less chance of being detected, as the invisibility helped you sneak in front of them on the way there.
For players who prefer a minimal UI, there is an option to turn off all of the new overhead AI awareness icons in the options menu! “ShowMonsterOverheadAwareness”
Sneaking characters can now jump and tumble.
Because of changes made to Stealth and AI Awareness, a couple of abilities were no longer as useful. We have updated them to better suit the new stealth changes:
Shadowdancer: Shadow Training II updated to be: "Activate: For 30 seconds, while sneaking you gain: Full movement speed, +5 Attack bonus to-hit with Sneak Attacks, +2 Sneak Attack dice, +3 Hide, +3 Move Silently."
Hide in Plain Sight (Ranger Feat) has been updated: "You are a master when it comes to hiding in places others think impossible. You gain +1 Hide and +1 Move Silently for every three seconds you stand still, up to +5. While you are sneaking and standing still (for 3 seconds), enemies don't gain Spot bonuses until they get much closer to you, and the bonuses are smaller."
Monsters no longer cheat and shoot projectiles directly at targets that they can't see!
Invisibility improves your ability to hide by removing the ability of monsters to notice you at far distance, and reducing their spot bonus at closer distances. Monsters still cannot actually see you while invisible unless they are adjacent to you. The enemy’s spot bonuses gained while invisible simply hamper your ability to hide if your invisibility is later broken. Thus in the scenario of sneaking through a room full of monsters to pull a lever when their backs are turned, then re-hiding and continuing past them again:
Doing it with just sneak puts you at risk of being spotted the more time spent in front of the monsters, be careful! The higher your hide skill is, the more buffer you have before the monsters see through it!
Drinking an invisibility potion to get you to the lever will still raise awareness when in front of the monsters as you sneak by, but not as much. They also cannot possibly spot you (unless you are directly adjacent to them) until after you pull the lever, breaking invisibility. When you re-activate sneak after pulling it, you will have less chance of being detected, as the invisibility helped you sneak in front of them on the way there.

Stormreach Harbor Revamp

The Harbor, and its quests & NPCs, have undergone some renovations!

Many NPCs (Trainers, Quest givers, etc.) have been relocated.
Mari Mosshand is no longer the NPC to seek out for free bags. Instead:
Fitzpat the Fence now gives out the free gem bag.
Baudry Cartaman now gives players collectible bags.
It's now possible to walk to, as opposed to only being able to swim to, the harbor lighthouse.
Added a simple skill-check quest to allow players to help refugees in the Harbor arrival area.
Many NPCs have been given grammar lessons.
Captain Niles Cage is no longer quite so verbose.
Talbron is now a Sorcerer trainer, and Aiden is now a Wizard trainer.
While fixing a server crash in Baudry Cartamon's Interests, we made some other updates to the quest. The quest is now available to play!

Introducing Chest Reroll

Not happy with that last chest pull? It's now possible to use Astral Shards to re-roll the loot in any non-raid chest.

You may re-roll any chest inside a quest/adventure area, but only once per chest per run.
You may not use the re-roll feature if you alter your loot list by looting any item from the chest or having an item passed to you in the chest from another party member.
Any loot tier bonuses, such as Jewels of Fortune, Half-elf chest blessing, and bonus days will be counted when using a re-roll.
While the act of re-rolling does not count towards ransack penalty, you will continue to accrue ransack as you normally would for repeated runs. Re-rolling a ransacked chest will result in the loot quality of the re-roll being equivalent to the standard chest ransack thresholds.
Shard cost of the re-roll is based on the level of the chest. This price scaling also takes into account any active loot-boosts.

Daily Dice Prize Updates

Prizes in the daily dice system have been updated!

Each roll of the Daily Dice system grants a prize of Experience points in addition to a prize. These points range in amounts based on how well you roll. The amounts bestowed by the Gold roll are higher than the Silver roll. This XP is granted as an item in your inventory that is bound to account. To activate it simply click on the dodecahedron in your inventory and it will bestow the XP to that character.
Collectibles and crafting ingredients are no longer a prize type.
Fixed several items that were only useful to particular class types, yet were not bound to account.
It is now possible to win prizes such as Skill & Ability tomes!

New Skill: Spellcraft

A new skill now exists called Spellcraft. Spellcraft grants 1 point of Spell Power per point of skill to all other spell damage types. Spellcraft is a class skill for Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Favored Souls, Sorcerers, and Wizards. (Primary and secondary casting classes, but not tertiary caster classes like Paladins and Rangers.) This increase in spell power is reflected in the character sheet tooltip.

General Changes

Classes

The Druid Spell: Word of Balance now deals the proper damage (it would sometimes deal too little damage.) Also fixed tooltip to be self-consistent as well as consistent with the damage actually dealt.
Barbarian Rage bonuses to Strength and Constitution are now explicitly marked as bonus type Rage, to make it more explicit that it doesn't stack with the Bard Warchanter Enhancement: Skaldic Rage.
Barbarian Rage should no longer spam "d n t" text to the combat log.

Hirelings & Companions

Hirelings no longer drop soul stones when warping around.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

All epic feats are now listed under a category for Epic Feats, instead of alphabetically being mixed in with all other feats. Epic Destiny feats, granted at level 26 and 28, are sorted by their related Sphere.
Shield Deflection is a new Heroic feat. It requires +8 Base Attack Bonus and General or Tower Shield Proficiency.
When actively blocking with any type of Shield you are proficient with, you gain a Competence bonus based on the type of shield to completely ignore Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage:
Buckler: 20%
Small Shield: 25%
Large Shield: 30%
Tower Shield: 40%
This feat has also been added to the Fighter Class Feat list.
Some religious feats that were previously exclusive to Favored Souls (such as Child of Vulkoor and Beloved of the Lord of Blades) are now available to Clerics and Paladins at the cost of a Feat. These feats remain free to Favored Souls. The stats have been improved as well to give more bonuses, and provide those bonuses at earlier levels.
Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.
Amaunator is available as a deity for Forgotten Realm characters.
Beyond the first Least Dragonmarks, all Dragonmark upgrades are now handled as enhancements, rather than feats. If your character had Dragonmark feats beyond the first, these feats have been removed from your character.
The Archer's Focus feat now works with Thrown Weapons
The Doubleshot Destiny feat now properly requires two capped Primal destinies
The Monk Feat: Quivering Palm may now be used with Monk weapons
The Monk Feat: Quivering Palm now gains DC bonuses from all enhancements, feats, items, and Epic Destiny abilities that increase Sunder DC
Offhand attacks will now correctly apply half the stat mod for all ability scores not just strength.
Fixed a bug where unarmed (non-monk) and avatar of nature attacks could be executed as fast as you could press the button if moving (unarmed moving attacks are still very fast, they're just not completely un-capped)
Two handed weapons will now correctly apply 1.5 times the stat mod for all relevant ability scores, not just strength.
The tooltip for for the Primal Avatar's Natural Shielding passive was displaying a bonus to defensive rating of 10/20/30. The actual bonus granted is 20/40/60. The tooltip has been updated to reflect this.
Pale Master Skeleton Knights now get +500% threat generation.
Shadowdancer: Consume's DC now shows up on the ability and dynamically updates.
Season's Herald:
The Winter/Summer buffs are no longer permanently attached to you, even if you stop being a Season's Herald.
Improved SP costs and cooldown for Season's Herald Word of Balance and Sunburst Spell-Like Abilities.
Word of Balance: Fixed it sometimes dealing too little damage, and fixed tooltip to be self-consistent as well as consistent with the damage actually dealt.
Fey Visions can now automatically detect Secret Doors up to DC 45.

Items

There are many new item effects and higher bonuses to find!
Randomly-generated treasure items have been improved to better scale up to player power at all levels of play. These changes only affect new items, and are not retroactive.
Since many effects now scale to match player power, several effects have been removed, including Bane/Greater Bane and Burst effects. These effects will still appear on items that were acquired prior to the release of the Shadowfell Conspiracy.
Purple and red borders on items are gone. All named items are now blue, while all raid items now use an orange background, regardless of level.
New gear will no longer have race restrictions (with the exception of armor rules for Warforged. Warforged, and ONLY warforged, will continue to use Docents).
Some items will now have "Masterful Craftsmanship", which means they have +1 more value worth of effects than is normally found on an item of that level. Masterful Craftsmanship items are unbound, and use a teal item border.
XP Potions should now affect all Monster Manual XP rewards. (Note: Tome of Learning XP bonuses DO NOT APPLY to monster manual, only to quests.)
The Secret Door Divining Twig has had its caster level increased.
New effects have been created, including Improved Vorpal, Energy Absorption, Doubleshot, and +10% Dodge, and more!
Dodge bonuses:
Dodge bonuses have been doubled in value.
Items that had +1% dodge now have +2% dodge.
Items that had +2% dodge now have +4% dodge.
Items that had +3% dodge now have +6% dodge.
Items that had +4% dodge now have +8% dodge.
Dodge bonuses of different numerical values no longer stack.
Exceptional Bonuses to Skills:
Exceptional Bonuses to Skills have been doubled in value.
Items that had a +1 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +2 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
Items that had a +2 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +4 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
Items that had a +3 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +6 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
Exceptional Skill bonuses of different numerical values no longer stack.
Spell Critical Chance on items has been significantly increased. This is in addition to the 5% Spell Critical chance that is now inherent as part of the "Magical Training" feat that all spellcasting classes automatically receive at level 1.
Exceptional Bonuses to Skills have doubled in value, so an item with a +1 Exceptional Bonus to a skill now provides a +2 Exceptional Bonus.
Updated Tower of Despair ring set bonuses to work with new enhancements
Many new Augments are now available, including:
Level 28 Augments:
Colorless Augments:
+8 Strength
+8 Dexterity
+8 Constitution
+8 Intelligence
+8 Wisdom
+8 Charisma
Red Augments
Weapon Damage:
Blazing Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Fire Damage)
Boreal Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Cold Damage)
Caustic Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Acid Damage)
Voltaic Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Electric Damage)
Spell Power:
Ruby of Combustion 138
Ruby of Glaciation 138
Ruby of Corrosion 138
Ruby of Magnetism 138
Ruby of Resonance 138
Ruby of Impulse 138
Ruby of Radiance 138
Ruby of Nullification 138
Ruby of Devotion 138
Ruby of Reconstruction 138
Blue Augments:
Sapphire of Natural Armor +8
Sapphire of Resistance +8
Sapphire of Protection +8
Sapphire of Physical Resistance +16
Sapphire of False Life +40
Yellow Augments:
Topaz of Fire Resistance +40
Topaz of Cold Resistance +40
Topaz of Acid Resistance +40
Topaz of Electric Resistance +40
Topaz of Sonic Resistance +40
Topaz of Power 250
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 4
Balance +3
Bluff +3
Concentration +3
Diplomacy +3
Disable Device +3
Haggle +3
Heal +3
Hide +3
Intimidate +3
Jump +3
Listen +3
Move Silently +3
Open Lock +3
Perform +3
Repair +3
Search +3
Spot +3
Swim +3
Tumble +3
Spellcraft +3
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 8
Balance +5
Bluff +5
Concentration +5
Diplomacy +5
Disable Device +5
Haggle +5
Heal +5
Hide +5
Intimidate +5
Jump +5
Listen +5
Move Silently +5
Open Lock +5
Perform +5
Repair +5
Search +5
Spot +5
Swim +5
Tumble +5
Spellcraft +5
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 12
Balance +7
Bluff +7
Concentration +7
Diplomacy +7
Disable Device +7
Haggle +7
Heal +7
Hide +7
Intimidate +7
Jump +7
Listen +7
Move Silently +7
Open Lock +7
Perform +7
Repair +7
Search +7
Spot +7
Swim +7
Tumble +7
Spellcraft +7
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 16
Balance +9
Bluff +9
Concentration +9
Diplomacy +9
Disable Device +9
Haggle +9
Heal +9
Hide +9
Intimidate +9
Jump +9
Listen +9
Move Silently +9
Open Lock +9
Perform +9
Repair +9
Search +9
Spot +9
Swim +9
Tumble +9
Spellcraft +9
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 20
Balance +11
Bluff +11
Concentration +11
Diplomacy +11
Disable Device +11
Haggle +11
Heal +11
Hide +11
Intimidate +11
Jump +11
Listen +11
Move Silently +11
Open Lock +11
Perform +11
Repair +11
Search +11
Spot +11
Swim +11
Tumble +11
Spellcraft +11
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 24
Balance +13
Bluff +13
Concentration +13
Diplomacy +13
Disable Device +13
Haggle +13
Heal +13
Hide +13
Intimidate +13
Jump +13
Listen +13
Move Silently +13
Open Lock +13
Perform +13
Repair +13
Search +13
Spot +13
Swim +13
Tumble +13
Spellcraft +13
Colorless Skill Augments – Level 28
Balance +15
Bluff +15
Concentration +15
Diplomacy +15
Disable Device +15
Haggle +15
Heal +15
Hide +15
Intimidate +15
Jump +15
Listen +15
Move Silently +15
Open Lock +15
Perform +15
Repair +15
Search +15
Spot +15
Swim +15
Tumble +15
Spellcraft +15

Quests and Adventure Areas

The quest chain "A Man Named Baudry Cartamon" is once again available!
You now get a Daily Bonus of 20% experience the first time you play each quest, every day.
Quest Experience no longer deprecates down permanently for repeatedly playing it. Instead Quest Experience now functions similar to chest ransack mechanics:
Normally each time you repeat a quest, the amount of experience the quest grants decreases. This remains true as of Update 19, although the curve of how much XP deprecates after how many runs as been adjusted. For each repetition of the same quest, the deprecation is 20%.
Quest XP deprecation from repetition now bottoms out at 20% instead of 10%.
In 18 hours, the quest will adjust the XP back up by 50%.
The Quest XP report panel now updates to reflect what your current bonus/ransack amounts are.
Typing /ransack into your Chat Log will show you the ransack levels of the quests that you've played.
Secret Doors have been rebalanced to better scale across the full range of the DDO content. The DCs needed to find a secret door with a Search check has been lowered in the earlier level ranges, but remain roughly the same in the higher level ranges. Associated spells and skills related to finding secret doors have been rebalanced in relation to the new difficulty curve. Items and spell descriptions have been updated to indicate how high of a DC they are able to detect.
A number of stuck spots have been fixed in House Phiarlan, The Underdark, Druid's Deep, and the Harbor.
The level range for U18 Campaign System is now only level 15 - 16
Gather party objectives:
All gather party objectives now no longer require hirelings to be present
Fixed the delay that used to occur before the game recognized that all players were present
Quest givers for shorter quests will give you rewards instead of gold now. More loot woo!
The difficulty curve of trap search, spot, and disable device DCs has been adjusted to reflect the full level range of the game up to the level cap. Lower level DCs are no longer so harsh, and higher level DCs are no longer so easy. The difference in DC between quest difficulties (normal, hard, elite, epic) have likewise been adjusted.
Some breakable doors stopped triggering NPCs, altars, etc from spawning in the rooms beyond them. This should now be fixed. (Main offender: The Lords of Dust)
Poison damage in overhead combat text now displays with an icon to indicate that the damage is poison-based rather than looking as if it were untyped.
"Demolition Charges" in applicable quests can now be placed faster by Rogues with the Improved Traps enhancement.
The party scaling curve has been extended to include the Epic level of the game. Melee characters, Clerics, and non-gold seal hirelings have had their scaling nudged slightly to better reflect their contribution strengths at Epic levels.
Cleaned up an issue where several spells, item effects, and enhancements were causing the Dungeon Master to lose his mind and randomly trigger parts of the dungeon either improperly or prematurely (e.g. Craetos, Blockade Buster, etc.)

Challenges

Eveningstar Challenge ingredients are now Bound to Account instead of Bound to Character.

Delirium

White insanity effects have returned to the usual red insanity.

Eveningstar

The Eveningstar Spirit Binder now once again binds you to Eveningstar (and not Wheloon.)

Gianthold

Discovering all explorer locations now removes the Fog of War from the map.

Kobold Assault

Fixed an issue that could prevent quest completion.

Servants of the Overlord

Flamefang should now spawn properly.

In-game Shopping & DDO Store Shopping

Fixed the filtering for Tomes of Epic Learning in the DDO Store.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

The stealth system has received a significant overhaul, which impacts various game systems including stealth, invisibility, detection, blind attacks, noises, and the visual and auditory cues that players get from these systems. Major work has been done to improve monster behavior and rework visual feedback, including:
The "eye level" now better matches the actual lighting placement and visuals in a quest.
Performance improvements have been made to reduce AI-related lag and frame rate issues, particularly in large group and raiding situations.
"Red footsteps" now only appear when a monster actually hears you while you are sneaking. If you see the "red splash", your position has been given away!
Extra Shot is now named Doubleshot to be consistent with Doublestrike.

Monster Manual

The Monster Manuals have been updated to recognize monsters from Updates 17 through Update 19.

Monsters

New monsters have arrived in the DDO ecosystem, including Owlbears (and their delicious pelts), Griffins, Satyrs, Forgotten Realms-specific Orcs, and more!
More work has been done to prevent monsters from sliding while they have crowd control effects on them!
Fixed a bug where dwarves with the ranged attacker movement style would try to melee if you got close, yet be too far away to actually hit with their stubby arms. Also fixed a bug where orcs and half-orcs thought they also had stubby arms, so they were also affected by the same bug.
Fixed a bug where some monsters would freeze and be unable to even do ranged attacks or cast spells at their target if the target couldn't be walked to. Also fixed lag and slow behavior associated with the monsters who couldn't handle their target being un-reachable.
When blinded, Monsters now act a bit more like you would expect a blinded creature to.
Fixed an issue where some debug text meant to help designers was still visible in monster action text.

Spells

The spell Haste now provides a +1% Dodge bonus instead of +1 Armor Class.
Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, and Mordenkainen's Disjuction tool tips now explain how they work on Spell Wards.
Detect Secret Doors now allows you to find secret doors with a DC of 5 or less. This increases by 3 for every two caster levels.
True Seeing has been updated: "You confer on the subject the ability to see things as they actually are. This allows the target to find secret doors that have a DC of 30 or less, see the exact location of creatures hidden by blur or displacement effects, and see invisible creatures or objects normally."

UI Changes

You can now once again easily click on the chat window type box.
Fixed an issue in the LFM where the "public" option was colliding with the "Hide Content I Don't Own" button, preventing it from working.

Other

Guild sizes should update properly now.
There is now a trap making station in Eveningstar near the Rogue Trainer.
Fixed a crashing issue that could happen during inventory over flow.

Known Issues

For a listing of our current Known Issues, click here!

Man, that's a lot to take in ... I need coffee.

Alright...um help!? What the hell did they DO to MY CLERIC!!!! I am not liking this.... and am miffed and sad. I put so much work into her..how do I fix her?

Whats wrong with your cleric?

I can't mess around with my toons till tomorrow, so I have some questions if anyone knows the answers.

I don't see it in the release notes, so does anyone know if the Heal skill actually counting toward your Devotion spellpower made it into live?

Is there any reason to use the LR +20 on my fighter? As far as I know all that has really changed for her is the enhancements.

Anything else I should be worried about? I have a feeling getting through these revamps is going to take a while and I'd rather not screw it up.

So far, I did all enhancements on my FVS

Fucking awesomesauce so far.

Loving it!

I spent last night messing around with the iconics and running the cleric one through the new wheloon content. Going to try the rogue next. Lots of fun =)

Not touched the repec of enhancements yet. I read that pure fighters are now gimp. But given that I used to be told that they were gimp pre-enhancement pass, no change there :p

I'll be running an eye over potential builds as they are trotted out over the coming week. Not in a rush - the iconics are proving to be more amusing than I thought they would be

I don't know why so many people are crying about the enhancements. I haven't seen any builds get gimped by it yet. Jill's fighter seems to be fine, she was happy.

All my builds that I respec so far, without a LR (which would make them better even), have gotten a boost. Pure or splashed, so idk what the problem is.

The enhancements are easy, just pick what you want. If you dont like it, only cost about 3k plat to change. I changed my FvS twice and it cost like 8k total, I had heard FvS were now gimped but mine is much more powerful than before so idk. He'll be even better with a LR too, so idk...

Not saying no one got gimped or anything, just wondering where all the doom is coming from, because I been specifically looking for it and haven't found any yet...

Kinda shocking really, was not expecting any of my toons to get a boost, so far all of them have...

I redid my undead Wiz but kept the heart of wood. She is just level 16 atm so I'll tinker with her when she grows up. The reason I was upset, cleric wise, was I was hearing from people that they took so many things out of being a super cleric. DV was gone and that you had to take full radiant servant tree to get the burst, making you unable to fight. I finally had the courage to go take a look at Mikha today and figure some stuff out. I did a mix of Radiant and divine disciple. However now that I look at it, it seems you need to be a full level 20 cleric to get the benefits? My other cleric is a clonk and I have no idea if I will get the level 20 bonus if I have a mix with this new stuff. Anyone know? Also IF I use the heart of wood CAN I make her 20 levels of cleric and drop the 2 monk, if needed?

with the heart of wood you'd be able to drop the monk levels, im pretty sure

radiant servant is different it looks like, but not sure why people say you can't fight. doesn't seem that way when i looked at this:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1XEiRynfK4LT3VISkI1ZEtaaFk/edit?pli=1

you dont have to take the full tree to get the burst, its a tier 3. its the aura that is a tier 5, which will lock you out of another tree's tier 5 is all. you can only take the top tier (5) in 1 tree. doesnt mean you cant go to tier 4 in 2 other trees tho.

play around with the enhancements, not like you can make any mistakes with them that are permanent. i'm not sure what those people meant though, because the changes seemed to make things more versatile, not less. check it out and let us know. i'm sure jill will be respec'ing her clonk when she wakes up, looking forward to seeing her build

Well it took me a few hours. I had to make sure I had burst and aura. I took a few point in toughness, some in the helf area for balance as my clerics a klutz. I also did a bunch of divine disciple and took the end enhancement for that tree. When I finally put her clothes back on and her trinkets she ended up with 3000sp but only about 540ish HP. I got rid of the monk levels. Not entirely sure that was the best thing but I'll go from there and see how I like it.

I still haven't LR any of my toons, I'll probably hold off for it awhile. Doesn't seem very necessary.

How much HP did you have before Mikha? 540 is nothing to sneeze at for a self healer. My sorc only has 517 or something

She had 600+ Hp on her and is level 24 atm. I tested her out last night on an epic elite quest. Seems that even 3000 sp is not enough >> and I had to stay at the back of the pack as i lost my evasion. I'm going to give her a week at most with this build and may just end up Redoing her into a clonk again seeing as the new enemies hit harder and even my aura can't keep up with the hits.

After respeccing my challenges monk and my arti over on wayfinder, I just sat and giggled for a while.

Unless they already have access to the spell - all my human toons are gonna get the lesser dragonmark of passage. So worth it.

whats it do?

dimension door =) you can get up to five uses and its a cheap cost after getting the initial feat of least dragonmark of passage (expeditious retreat).