Rules update 2017
Overview
Over winter of 2016/2017 we have carried out our annual review of the rules from last few years of Empire. As usual we are implementing some changes to the published rules. We are in the process of updating the wiki and the downtime system to reflect the changes, but will summarize and explain all changes here so that players can identify the changes easily.
We will try to include a section after each rules update to explain the reasoning behind the change.
We will post a link to this page once the update is complete, and continue to update this page throughout 2017 with any major changes.
Shattering Blow
- The heroic skill that allowed two-handed weapon wielders to call Shatter has been replaced with one allowing them to call Impale
Players who had weapon master and hero points were able to buy a skill called shattering blow that allowed them to expend a hero point to call Shatter when they made an appropriate roleplayed blow with a great weapon. This skill has been replaced with a new skill called mortal blow that allows a character to expend a hero point to call Impale when they made an appropriate roleplayed blow with a great weapon.
The skill will be automatically changed on the database for any character who had the old skill - however any player who wishes to respend the character points they used to buy this ability for their character is welcome to do so by emailing us.
Reasoning
Two-handed weapons are often weak in live roleplaying because they lack the advantages of power and penetration that such weapons had in reality. Partly to compensate for this we gave them the most potent heroic call to make up for the relative advantages of other weapons.
Although this approach succeeded in making great weapons potent on the Empire battlefield, it had negative consequences in terms of player experience. Shatter is a disabling call, unless you can have your weapon restored you are unable to carry on fighting. While that is a better in-character outcome than being killed, it can be less satisfying player experience than having your character dropped, simply because you're rendered ineffective. It is also something that is almost impossible to stop using hard skills, you can't parry or block a shattering blow.
There is very definitely a place for the Shatter call in the game - but we feel that it will be better play balance to allow wizards to access the call. They cannot wear armour and hence are easily countered in other ways whereas warriors are usually wearing substantial armour.
We still wanted warriors using great weapons to be potent on the battlefield - so we have switched the call for Impale. Given that the majority of our barbarian orcs on the battlefield use medium armour, we anticipate that this will still be a very effective call - we think it's better than the Strike-down call available to pole-arm wielders and it's clearly better than the Cleave call available to warriors using a one-handed weapon.
There will be some updates to the magical weapons and rituals over time to bring them into line with the new call regime for great weapons in Empire.
Battle Mages
We have made a number of changes designed to improve battle magicians. We've added a new potent spell - shatter, improved the empower spell by reducing the cost, improved the paralysis spell by changing the limitations and increased the amount of mana available to characters that purchase extra mana.
Reasoning
The original design brief for Empire viewed the battlefield as a location for warriors to dominate - a location where those who had fighting skills would come to the fore. Crucially what we didn't want was a situation where wizards were simply more potent combatants than warriors. In practice however, it is clear that the Empire rules system allows for two very distinct types of wizard - the ritualist - and the battle mage. The former has a distinct role on the battlefield - there are certain battlefield rituals that can be invaluable in the right circumstances - but generally their main role takes place at Anvil. Battle magicians however are a very different case - like warriors the prime opportunity to use their skills is on the battlefield. The right balance for the game design would be to make them different to warriors on the battlefield - but equally useful.
The most common feedback around battle magicians tends to focus on mage armour - with people wanting it to provide resistance to Cleave or even Impale - the way regular armour does. That change would be a major mistake however - since it would make battle mages much closer to regular warriors. In a system where warriors have access to heroic abilities, the critical distinction between battle mages and warriors is their ability to take a blow. What was needed to improve battle magicians is to make the array of their offensive abilities stronger.
As a result we've made a number of core changes -