Caution
This page is defunct. Its contents should not be regarded as accurate or final. The ACR's function and its updates are documented in the Technical Documentation pages, linked at the top of all Drupal pages.
A number of game changes have generally been made from Base NWN2 within ALFA servers as follows.
Starting Gold
Adventurers in ALFA begin their lives with 300gp rather than equipment packages determined by class. The adventurer may outfit herself however she sees fit.
Equipment
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Bastard Swords: reclassified as Martial Weapons as per the D&D Player’s Handbook, these require two hands to wield unless you have also taken the Exotic weapons proficiency. Weapon focus: Bastard Sword also takes Martial as a prerequisite unless you select it during character creation.
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Clothing: Now weighs one pound per item, instead of 10 lbs.
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First Aid: All PCs will be assigned a First Aid item on entry into the servers; this allows for a DC15 Heal skill check to stabilize a bleeding PC. This check may be retried as many times as necessary. Masterwork First Aid kits may be sold at certain stores, which apply a circumstance bonus to the check.
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Healing Potions: The ACR supports healing potions that may be used on others, to help fallen allies recover. Usage of a potion on yourself, or on a PC who is at zero or fewer hitpoints, will always be successful.
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Holy Symbols: These may be used by Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers and Spirit Shamans to restore their spells at the time and place of their choosing. The Divine casters can still pray for spells even without their holy symbols, by using the Pray for Spells button in the PC Tools. Praying for spells may only be done once per rest cycle (24 game-hours). Activating the holy symbol or PC tools button begins a looping kneel animation, which takes approximately 2 minutes to complete. If interrupted, it must be started over. Talking does not interrupt the prayer, but movement or combat will. At the end of prayers, a server message will inform you of spell restoration.
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Spellbooks: A spellbook is an essential tool for Wizards, without which they cannot restore their spells. The spellbook may be used at any place and time by a wizard to restore their spells, assuming they are well rested. If they have already prepared spells for the day, they will need to rest before using the spellbook again. Spell memorization takes approximately two minutes, and must be restarted if interrupted.
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Trade Scrolls: Trade Scrolls are used to simulate copying spells from one spellbook to another. Unlike normal scrolls, spells cannot be cast from Trade Scrolls, and Trade Scrolls can only be created and used by Wizards. To create a Trade Scroll, cast the spell you want a Trade Scroll of at the Spellbook item in your Wizard's inventory. To add a spell to your Spellbook from a Trade Scroll, simply use the Trade Scroll. Creating a Trade Scroll costs 25 gold per spell level.
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DMFI Tool: Assigned to new PCs at creation, this item allows you to rename your equipment, summons, familiars, or animal companions.
Time
Scripts are in place to continually grant small amounts of experience points while a charcter is online and active. The acumulated points will be awarded when the PC logs on the next time. Also, if a player has been offline for a longer period of time, their character is assumed to have been resting and will restore spells and health accordingly. The current in-game time conversion is 13 Real Life Minutes = 1 In-Game Hour.
Identifying Creatures
Knowledge about various monsters and creatures encountered in-game can be discerned by right-clicking the creature and clicking on 'Identify'. The information received is dependent upon skill checks rolled from the knowledge skills.
Languages
Faerun has a multitude of unique spoken languages, and ALFA enables on-the-fly conversion from standard English to a number of these languages. To learn new languages upon leveling up, a PC must spend 2 skill points on Speak Language and after the leveling process is complete a dialog box will appear to allow for selection. Click here for more information on languages.
Death and Dying
If your character drops below 0 HP they will fall to the ground and begin to bleed. Each round your character will make a check to see if they continue bleeding, stabilize, or recover. If your character reaches -10 HP they die and you will be transported to the fugue plane, while a corpse of your character is left behind.
Characters corpses can be picked up and carried by taking the "Body" item from the corpse container. To set the corpse down, simply drop the "Body" item on the ground again. Character corpses decay over time and eventually vanish, and character corpses can be mutilated by bashing the corpse, making raising the dead more difficult.
Coming back from the dead is an exceedingly rare occurance in Faerun and in ALFA as well. To be brought back, a powerful priest of shaman must cast a Raise Dead or Ressurection spell on the character's corpse, usually at significant cost financially. In the case of Raise Dead, the character being brought back loses one level.
PC Tools
The PC Tools are a suite of powerful and useful tools PCs can use to perform a variety of actions both IC and OOC.
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Emotes: A number of custom emotes and animations are available through this menu, and most can be performed either single use or on a repeating loop. Sitting, lying down, saluting, crafting, cooking, picking up objects and more can be displayed visually in this way.
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Dice Rolling: Using the PC Tools menu players can roll appropriately modified skill and stat rolls as well as generic dice increments, usually upon DM request.
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VFX Props: A number of preset props to display on your character are available as well, including shields, bows, swords, axes and more. When selected these Props will be linked to the next item equipped or unequipped, so that they only appear when not equipped. To remove this link, drop the item in question and then pick it back up after removing the VFX Prop.
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Custom Macros: Using the macro toolbar you can quickly and easily set up basic verbal emotes or sayings to help with RPing during dangerous situations or in complicated ways.
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Tents and Fires: Characters can pitch tents to enable resting in wilderness locations that would otherwise be inhospitable to sleeping. Campfires can be placed as well. To pack up a tent or put out a campfire, select the "Remove Item" option in the PC Tools and then click on the Tent or Fire. If any objects are inside the campfire at this time they will be permanently deleted.
Final Notes
The ACR is a fluid and dynamic system, always being enhanced and updated. Not every ACR server will have all these systems active, but we will attempt to keep the documentation current with the systems as they affect players. Anyone with an interest in contributing to the ACR is welcome to check out our sourceforge site, where we keep all the corresponding source code:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/alfa-bmf
