Patch beta 5

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE™: Stormreach™ Beta 5 Release Notes

Note: the setion #Content contains exactly the same text as in Pre release patch 15 feb 2006#Path Notes.

Content

Old Sully's Grog has been found to have detrimental effects on kobold physiology. Kobolds found within the cavern beneath Wavecrest Tavern are now physically weaker and their scales are less protective.

Replaced the teleporters in the marketplace tent with regular doors. So the marketplace tent bug should really, really be fixed.

Fixed a problem in Tempest's Spine where some monsters would be frozen and untargetable if you entered the cave through the locked door.

The elves in Tempest's Spine are now drow (dark elves).

Talf will now show up at the top of Tempest's Spine, allowing you to continue the quest.

The Iron Golem in Tempest's Spine will now keep attacking until you've opened all four pedestals.

It's now possible to complete the objective to obtain access to the hidden rune in Tempest's Shrine.

The Dryden Family Tomb, Patriarch's Crypt, and Endgame are all correctly set to CR3.

If you select "No Thanks" after talking to Henda in the Phoenix Tavern, her chat window should now correctly disappear.

Your enemies will now consistently attack Coyle in the Hold for Reinforcements quest.

Fixed the drawbridges in the Sunken Sewer.

The ogre leader will now spawn correctly in Gladewatch Outpost.

Chief Eechik in Clan Gnashtooth no longer wanders around the dungeon. This also fixes a problem that could cause his dialog box to get stuck on your screen.

Destroying the four fancy sarcophagi in the Book of Six will no longer cause the door to the room to close and lock.

The scorpion swarm on Sorrowdusk Isle will now spawn correctly.

Gargoyles in Sorrowdusk Isle will no longer get stuck on their perch.

Speaking to the Terrified Prisoner in Venn's Fate should always create the scorpion spawn.

Fixed a problem with some monsters (including Witch Doctor Moog) not always spawning in Garrison's Missing Pack.

Moved a hard-to-reach fire mephit that was sometimes causing problems in Rescue Expedition.

The clay golems in Rescue Expedition will now attack you if you get too close.

Significantly improved the behavior of Coyle Lovell and the Deneith Explorers in Escort the Expedition.

Brother Mirashai will no longer fail to teleport you to the Eye of Kol Korran if you speak to him after completing Grey Moon Waning but before beginning the Cult of the Six.

The monsters in the Halls of Shan-to-kor no longer open the gates for you.

Only player characters can trigger the closing gate at the end of the Halls of Shan-to-Kor. The gate will also now open 60 seconds after it closes.

Reduced the amount of XP given by the Seal of Shan-to-kor quests.

Stained-Tusk in Irestone Inlet won't walk away when you're talking to him anymore. He also won't say that Dinks is dead unless he really is.

If you die or leave Irestone Inlet, you will drop any kegs that you are carrying (they can be picked up again).

Added an objective to kill 30 monsters and increased the overall encounter difficulty in the Deliver Supplies quest.

The kobold ambush in the Kobold Blockade is now an actual ambush.

You are now required to solve the floor puzzle in order to complete the Search for the Rare Scrolls quest.

Ironclaw in Quickfoot's Hideout can now move out of his starting location.

The final scorpions in the Warder's Defense quest now spawn correctly.

Reduced the amount of XP given by the Redwillow Ruins.

If you close the door to Witch Doctor Neecha's room in Stealthy Reposession, you can now open it again.

It should now be possible to memorize spells in the Gold Wing Inn.

The Bogwater Tavern now has a door!

The Rook's Gambit now has the appropriate sign.

Combat

Cleave, great cleave, and whirlwind attack should be better at hitting multiple opponents now.

Autoattacking with a repeating crossbow should now work correctly. You'll shoot three bolts per reload cycle.

The Improved Critical feat for thrown weapons now works correctly.

You can no longer fire missile weapons or cast spells through a door by standing very close to it.

You can no longer use melee feats (such as cleave) while wielding a missile weapon in your primary hand.

Tumble now has its correct cool-down timer.

Two-handed swords will no longer have a weapon trail that lasts forever if you are interrupted mid-swing.

Weapon particle effects will no longer display when their associated weapon is invisible (e.g., during emotes).

Items

Level 5 arcane and spell inscription components are now available in the House Jorasco and House Kundarak wards.

Level 5 divine scrolls are now available in the House Jorasco ward.

The Use Magic Device skill now requires a skill check. If you fail this skill check, you will use one of the item's charges with no effect.

Missile weapon details now show up again in the inventory screen.

Keen weapons now correctly display their threat range.

Fixed a display issue with armors that have a higher than normal max Dex bonus (e.g., mithral armors).

The Scarab of Protection now correctly absorbs negative levels and death spells again.

Warforged docents should vary in appearance based on the warforged body type (regular, mithral, or adamantine).

Helmets worn by warforged characters are now visible.

Treasure chests are now ethereal - you can no longer stand on top of them or get stuck behind them.

Metamagic feats no longer affect wands.

Items that give an Int bonus now have the word "Clever" as their prefix.

Darkwood armor now correctly decreases the standard skill check penalty instead of increasing it.

Items that grant bonuses to skills are now correctly labeled as giving competence bonuses instead of enhancement bonuses.

Removed the Ring of Troll's Regeneration from the game.

Summoned flame arrows are no longer sellable.

Banishing weapons now correctly apply their effect to extraplanar creatures only.

Monsters

When you successfully Intimidate a monster, you will remain its primary target for at least six seconds.

Diplomacy will now function even if you are not the monster's primary target.

Monsters that are destroyed by Turn Undead or disintegrated no longer have a chance of dropping a collectable object.

Troglodytes' stench cloud should no longer be able to drastically reduce your frame rate.

It's now much harder to use Turn Undead on Gerard Dryden in the Dryden Family Tomb.

Some trolls were missing their regeneration ability. It grew back.

The boss monster upgrades in the last update were not properly applied to all boss monsters. This has been fixed.

You will now see status icons when you are affected by a marut's special attacks.

Dreadlord Giddeon will now chase you if you try to run away from him.

Improved a lot of monster behaviors, particularly their logic for when to switch from melee attacks to ranged attacks.

Increased the reach of golem melee attacks.

When you are killed by a wraith, a new wraith should spawn more consistently.

Wraith movement is much smoother.

Lowered the AC of the Rusty Iron Defender on hard and elite settings.

The ranged attacks of charmed monsters will now correctly target other monsters instead of players.

Beholders will no longer lose invisibility if they use one of their eyebeams.

Spells

Spells and effects that allow periodic saving throws (like dominate monster) have had the time between successive saving throw increased.

Charm spells now have longer cool-down timers.

Added a saving throw to resist blindness caused by glitterdust, as per the Player's Handbook.

It is now more visually obvious when a target is nauseated by a stinking cloud.

Fixed an intermittent bug causing the screen visual for cloudkill to persist indefinitely.

Protection from evil now correctly protects you from charm and compulsion effects.

Shocking grasp and chill touch now allow a reflex save for half damage.

Interface

The Options panel now saves your key mappings as soon as you press the close button, as opposed to when the client shuts down successfully.

Chat windows will now preserve their location between logins. The maximum number of undocked chat windows a player can have is 10.

If you have multiple shortcut bars in view at once, you can now switch between them with Ctrl-#. Pressing a number key will activate the corresponding ability on whichever hotbar is currently active.

The focus orb can now be minimized.

The Enter key is no longer mapped to accept the default dialog option - chatting while dead will no longer release you back to town.

The main shortcut bar now has a numeric label indicating which set of shortcuts it currently shows.

Unprepared spells will now be greyed out in the shortcut bar.

Adding a spell shortcut to an undocked shortcut bar no longer un-prepares the spell.

You can now see your own messages in the guild, officer, general, and party chat channels again.

You can now continue to use the chat window when an NPC dialog is on the screen.

Hitting the ESC key will now cancel the currently active popup menu.

If you are in a dungeon, you can no longer remove the associated quest from your quest journal.

Typing "/lfg on [comment]" will now add the specified comment next to your name in the LFG tool.

The XP bar now correctly displays action point progress when gaining XP past level 10.

The default examine icon is now a magnifying glass instead of an eye.

Removed some unused chat channel options from the chat menu.

When you have negative XP (due to deaths), you will no longer see a string table error in your character sheet's XP field.

Elemental damage types no longer appear in the damage reduction UI tooltip.

Trades can no longer be completed unless the trading parties are within five meters of each other.

The advancement summary now displays the correct number of HP gained, taking into account your Con bonus and any other modifiers (such as the Toughness feat).

Added some aliases to chat commands - you can now use /t instead of /tell, /g instead of /gu, and /rt instead of /retell.

The Tell button on the Social panel correctly pre-populates the text entry area again.

All narrated DM text now appears in yellow text. All non-narrated DM text now appears in white text.

If you're in a party, you now show up in the first slot on your Party display.

Clearing a key binding will no longer cause it to get reset after a user logs out and in again

Fixed a bug which caused the camera to pop around while walking around the world when not in mouse look mode.

Fixed a bug which caused all party members to display the voice chat enabled icon even if they had disabled voice chat.

Other players will now properly animate when climbing a ladder

Characters

Action points for 10th level characters are now awarded at the expected XP amounts.

Warforged characters with the Mithral Body feat are now correctly classified as wearing light armor instead of medium armor.

Fixed a bug which would sometimes cause cleric and paladin Turn Undead uses to drop to 0.

As per the Player's Handbook, you can no longer perform actions that require concentration (search, cast a spell, fight defensively, sneak, etc.) while under the effects of the barbarian rage ability.

The Barbarian's Intimidation enhancement is now purchaseable. This will make successfully intimidated opponents become shaken.

Edited the descriptions of the barbarian Action Boost enhancements to match game data.

Fixed a typo in the bard Inspire Courage ability. It was displaying a +2 damage bonus instead of the correct value of +1 damage.

The bard Inspire Bravery enhancements now give the correct bonus amounts as described in the enhancement text.

The ranger Evasion ability should now work correctly.

Clarified the spell selection text displayed during character generation.

The description of the Energy of Music enhancements now shows the correct amount of spell points gained.

The Improved Recovery enhancement can now be selected.

You can no longer have spell points if you can't cast any spells. This includes paladins and rangers below fourth level as well as non-spellcasters wearing equipment that grants bonus spell points.

The default human rogue build no longer has Weapon Focus as a starting feat, since this feat requires a +1 BAB.

Performance

Reduced bandwidth usage. Bandwidth in heavy combat situations is reduced by over 30%. This change should reduce lag and keep the game from becoming unplayable for 56k modem users.

Improved load times and reduced client hitches. Several engine changes reduce the time needed to load data into memory and reduce or eliminate client side hitches due to resource loading.

Further reduced teleport times. The file loading changes and other improvements should result in further reduced teleport times for most players.

Network messages are now prioritized by distance. In general movement for other players or monsters should look smoother the closer they are to you.

Improved graphics performance when running the game in Very Low detail.

Selecting optimal graphics detail should result in settings that are more appropriate for your machine.

After 30 minutes of keyboard and mouse inactivity, your client will automatically quit. The game will warn you of the impending logout two minutes before it happens.

Fixed a server-side memory leak. This should generally improve server stability.

General

Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause dead players to still be dead after releasing and returning home.

If one of your ability scores is reduced to 0, you will still be able to move and recall from the dungeon, but you will be able to take no other actions.

If your game client fails to connect to the chat server on login, it will now try to connect again every 30 seconds.

Items stored in the bank no longer have a chance of disappearing.

Fixed a problem where you would sometimes see an adventure panel while in a public area.

Fixed a bug where spoken DM text would sometimes stop playing while in windowed mode.

Players will once again be able to work off their death penalty when at maximum level!

The use of interactives in the environment (doors, chests, levers, etc.) now breaks stealth and invisibility.

Fixed a bug which caused some monsters not to count towards the "monsters killed" bonus in the XP panel.

Changed the bonus for completing higher level dungeons to +10% per level (up to a maximum of +50%).

When an account logs onto a server, it will now force any other characters on the same account (linkdead or not) to log out immediately.

If you change resolutions in windowed mode, the newly-sized window will now be automatically centered on your monitor.

Footstep noises will no longer play while holding the movement keys when you're blocking, paralyzed, or otherwise unable to move.

Drowning works again.

Re-enabled taking screenshots with Ctrl-P.

Game servers will now give an appropriate error message when full.

Known Issues

Changing weapons breaks stealth and invisibility.

If you previously had a non-standard key mapped for "Accept Choice" in NPC dialog, you will need to reset the binding.