Realms of Lemire (un-)frequently asked questions!

(I'll try to format this eventually, I suppose... for now, separate things with <hr>s. [Veltzeh])

[#Combat] questions
[#Characters] questions
[#Rules] questions
[#Other] questions

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Combat questions

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Damage

When an attacking character rolls a 20 (or the target character rolls a 1), there's always damage, even if the subtraction (attack - defend) never would do damage. This minimum damage is the weapon's attack bonus.

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Moving

You can move an amount of squares equal to your base DEX (used to be called SPD, speed) during one action. If you do nothing but move, you can move twice that amount. If you don't move at all, you can still take a one-square-step to any direction.

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Blocking and dodging in the same round

Actually, when you block you either block with your weapon + armor, or shield + armor. And you can only use each once, so if you get attacked three times in one round, you'd defend first with weapon + armor, then with shield + armor, and finally with just armor, and any subsequent attacks this round would be just against your armor. The same goes for defense and speed improving items, that way everytime you get attacked in one round, your armor or speed decreases. The difference lies within the fact that with defense, you'll always have your armor, whereas with speed, you can be brought down to your base speed.

22:10:13 Veltzeh: And can the lizard continue to block first with the maul, then its tail, then teeth, and then claw, and... yeah. >_>

06:09:19 Dûredhel: as long as Veltzeh understands it :P, well think about it this way, as in DnD, a basic combat round is about 6 seconds, even less. If oyu get attacked two times in that combat round, its almost like being attacked on two sides simultaneously, you can't block both attacks with the same sword now can you? So you block one attack with your sword, the next with youre shield, now if you get attacked a third time on that round, you're shield and sword are already blocking, so it comes down to your armor. However, since the armor is always there no matter how many times you get attacked, the armor bonus doesn't go away. With speed is the same thing, since its harder to avoid several attacks simultaneously, every time you get attacked, you're speed decreases (it can't decrease less than your base speed though). Now if someone wants to make a FAQ, I would be thankful, I personally have no time to do it. They can ask me whatever they want and the comment boards all through RoL are plagued with me answering questions about the rule system.

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Ranged weapons and distance

A weapon fired outside its range has halved attack power (Dex + Weapon Atk), if you fire at a target that's twice the weapon's range away or further, the attack roll will only get a d20.

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Magic power

Magic power is like a weapon's ATK modifier.
For example, Meteor has a magic power of 20, so, to resist a meteor you have to apply: resisting stat + d20 vs. caster's magic power + d20 + 20 (meteor's power).

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Combining magic

You just need to have the required spells for a combined spell and then cast it outside battle to learn it (the DC is 15 for lvl 2 spells, 20 for lvl 3 and 25 for lvl 4). The skill Combine magic just halves the MP cost needed to cast the spell. The skill is needed for learning lvl 4 combination spells, though.

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How some natural skills work

Detect magic is a skill more along the lines of search than spot or listen (meaning it requires a certain degree of concentration, whereas spot and listen are pretty automatic). Spot and Listen, just like diplomacy for example, are always active, since you're always looking and hearing unless you've got your eyes closed or went deaf. Even if you don't write it in your posts I'll roll for them (when you write (spot) or (listen) basically means I'll make a reroll). Whereas skills like climb, search or detect magic are not automatic and requires the character to concentrate on them, meaning they're also noticeable.

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Character related questions

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Skill points

A character gets three skillpoints initially and when leveling, one every other level (the first skillpoint is gained at level 2, second at lvl 4 etc.).
Humans get an extra skillpoint at start and every 5 levels (first at lvl 5, second at lvl 10 etc.). (As said on the racial bonuses.)

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Androgyne business

So what do the races think of androgynes?

Catfolk will be confused because for them, smell determines a lot of it.
Planetarii accept and even like them.
Dah'kin don't like them because they can't fit them in their gender-specific society and culture.

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Number of characters in parties

17:55:10 Veltzeh: Why is the limit 6 chars, though? I think I already asked this but maybe I forgot >_>

17:59:46 Dûredhel: It get very confusing with more chars, also, when breaking the party into subsettings you can break it in both even groups of two or three. Monster and exprience reward levels are also designe for 6 chars (that's why sometimes I even pause a party when a person drops out until we have another sixth char). If you had seven chars you would have to put in more enemies to make up the same amount of XP (even for just on extra char), otherwise leveling would be very small, and last but not least, with more than 6 chars, especially mages, there would be too many spells in effect over the turns to keep track of, and with more chars, AND more enemies, battles would be very long and tedious

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Half-breeds!

Dah'kin don't mind Dah'kin/Human half-breeds, but are very hostile towards Dah'kin/Planetarii and Dah'kin/Catfolk. They'll change their minds if the half-breeds prove themselves to be useful though.
Humans and Lynx Catfolk don't mind half-breeds in general. Catfolk welcome all catfolk half-breeds since they're still pure catfolk and they don't mind Rysallean/Catfolk either. Lions and Lynxes don't mind Planetarii/Catfolk too much, but Panthers and Tigers do. Dah'kin/Catfolk will mostly be shunned (though Lynxes will just be very suspicious of them).
Planetarii are generally very concerned with keeping their blood strains clean. They're suspicious of Human/Planetarii half-breeds. Catfolk/Planetarii harbor less suspicion, but they'll look so weird that they'll draw a lot of attention. For Dah'kin half-breeds, Planetarii will just need a reason to kick them out. Dah'kin/Planetarii might either be seen as victims or as betrayers and will have to work hard to be accepted.
Of course, depending on stuff like religion and behavior, half-breeds might have a harder or easier time getting accepted.

The genetics of half-breeds goes like this:
Everyone can be thought of having two race alleles. A person who has two Terran alleles will be a Terran and will only pass Terran alleles to offspring. A person who has a Terran and Lion allele will be a Terran/Lion half-breed and will pass either of those alleles to offspring. (For the genetics freaks: Mendelian inheritance with two codominant alleles.)
So, let's imagine there's a Terran/Lion half-breed and terefore has alleles T and L. Then there's a Terran/Rysallean (TR). The children of these two would statistically be (colors showing who passed on the allele:

So one full Terran, one half-breed of each parent's type and one "new" half-breed. The offspring could have some characteristics from a race allele they didn't get (like, the full Terran could be extra hairy due to one parent being half Lion, but nothing more drastic).

Half-breeds get to choose what of their parents' special abilities they get, but they won't get favored or unfavored.

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Questions about the rules

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How is the score calculated in the arena?

1 point per each level
1 point per each win
1 point per each badge (slave badge doesn't count)
1 point for each battle fought against another Player Character

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How many characters can a player have?

Up to two in the Arena, one in a single ROL party.

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How many rings and necklaces can a character wear?

A character can wear one necklace – and one of each type of item, or a pair of such (a cloak, an armor, a pair of boots, etc.). A character can wear two rings.

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Bargaining with an NPC.

NPCs will never go over 75% of the actual price when buying and will never sell anything for less than 85% of the actual price. And its not like you get your asking price right away, each Charisma tug changes the price between 1 and 5% depending on the different between rolls (1 diff, 1%, 5 diff, 5%).
With haggling, if you get it right, you can haggle several times, but if you get it wrong once, you can't haggle again for that deal.

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How big are the squares of the maps?

2007-09-22 Duredhel: The RoL system was thought up using 5 feet (1,5 meter) squares

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Enchanting items

2007-06-23 Silverbullet: Can a magical item be enchanted by opposite element spells?

2007-06-24 Duredhel: Yes, but it would add a 25 MAG DC to the enchantment and increase the XP cost by 25%. If you're buying it already enchantment, just make it more expensive.

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Masterworking items

You can improve an item's stat(s) with 5 points (+5) at maximum. This will cost money. Specifically, increasing one stat by one point will cost item's old stat · 15 GP, and you can do this 1–5 times (if you want to make a negative stat into 0, you of course take the absolute value of the stat to count the price). You can't make an originally negative stat into a positive stat.

So, if you wanted Splint Mail +5 (original stats -1 Atk / 5 Def / -1 Dex / -3 Mag, new stats -1 Atk / 7 Def / -1 Dex / 0 Mag), you'd have to pay
150 GP for the original thing
5·15 + 6·15 = 165 GP for the +2 def
3·15 + 2·15 + 1·15 = 90 GP for the +3 mag
and that comes to a total of 150+165+90 = 405 GP.

Magical items

Enchanting an item with a level 1 spell costs 75 GP.
level 2 spell: 150 GP
level 3 spell: 250 GP
level 4 spell: 500 GP

So a Hunter hat enchanted with Wind Blow would cost 130 GP for the hat and 75 GP for the spell -> altogether 205 GP.

Percentages
2007-06-24 Silverbullet: My question would be how to masterwork the elemental rings that add 25% to damage?

2007-06-24 Duredhel: I had not considered masterworking %s, but I see no reason why it couldn't be done. I'd say 10GP for every 1% increase.

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Gems in a weapon
15:45:17 Blood Raven: is there a limit to how many gems one can put on a weapon or armor?

20:33:23 Duredhel: 1 for Very Small/Small or Light, 2 For Normal or Medium, 3 for Large/Very Large or Heavy.

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Experience for quests
Easy mission- 75 XP
Medium mission - 250 XP
Hard mission - 500 XP

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How much does it cost to...
- learn skills (at the training areas)
Tier 1 - 500 gold
Tier 2 - 300 gold
Tier 3 - 150 gold

- learn single Spells (at the training areas)
Lvl 1 Magic - 250g
 Lvl 1 Spell - 75g
Lvl 2 Magic - 250g
 Lvl 2 Spell - 150g
Lvl 3 Magic - 500g
  Lvl 3 Spell - 300g
Lvl 4 Magic - 500g
  Lvl 4 Spell - 500g

- learn other stuff (at the training areas)
Handle a single weapon - 75 gold
Handle all weapons of a sort - 250 gold
Increase a stat by one point - old stat * 15 gold

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Flying and weight
2006-05-03 Duredhel: you can't fly if you're over two-thirds your encumberance weight.

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Glyphs

Silverbullet: What's the deal with glyphs and keeping them activated? I mean, can the character keep a glyph activated and still perform actions during his/her turn? Plus, is there a limit to how many glyphs can be activated at once, and can glyphs of the same type stack? (i.e. two pain glyphs dealing 2d6 damage?)

Duredhel: Glyphs don't stack. There's no limit to how many glyphs a character can maintain, but only one glyph can affect a character at any given time. And it doesn't consume actions to keep a glyph activated, but it does require a concentration roll (DC being enemy attack roll) if you're attacked.

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Other questions

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What's the date?

4209 - Antiscius Orator appears.
 - The Soulless War, small scale conflict between Skarrad and Ravilla.
 - Falco Orator becomes a soulless one.
4210 - Ravillan Civil War
 - Caessen and Nerva are created
4212 - The Deck is created
4215 - The War of Corruption starts
4216 - Nim'ael becomes the Spire King
 - The Great Alliance (Humans, Dah'kin and Catfolk)
 - Shalar Angeti, Queen of the Catfolk dies.
 - The War of Corruption ends, Thadre flees to Anbrand.
 - Nim'ael releases the falconites.
4218 - The Zeoor fortress if built in Anbrand
 - Misae Ther'mara arrives in Ki'afisal
 - Hauken civil war.
 - The events in the RoL RPG take place.

Year is 4218, most likely, but it might depend a bit.

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