Welcome back, to another exciting episode of What You Missed, with your returning EHC secretary and Bingo champion, Pi (Kwido) (Alpacasaurus) Fisher. I hope you're ready, because this year's EHC was pretty memorable in terms of how many proposals passed. Out of 38 proposals, a whopping 35 of them passed, with only 2 proposals failing. One proposal was pulled due to a similar proposal passing, causing lots of Bingo players to wish that square had slightly different wording. (Also in Bingo news, nobody was able to mark the box for three proposals failing in a row.) Anyway, time to talk about what's changing in 2020.
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One of the biggest changes to the game will be the standardization of non-com garb. If you're a player who can't be in combat, you should plan to acquire some bright yellow armbands. The more obvious they are, the better. If you're on a quest and see someone wearing yellow armbands or a yellow headband, that person for Out of Characters reasons wants to avoid getting hit, so don't try to hit them. Instead, if you have reason to attack their character, simply point at them and say "die". If you're within 10 feet of them with a melee weapon, or if you have a ranged weapon, that will be enough to kill them. This is to make the game a safer place for those who enjoy the roleplaying but can't risk the combat.
Masterwork Hammer is the spell to receive the biggest up power this year. A previously rare spell, Masterwork Hammer now gets to really compete with Seed of Life. Where Seed of Life can slowly bring people back to life forever, Masterwork Hammer can now slowly repair people's armor forever. You might be asking if it already did that, and you'd be partially right. It used to be able to partially repair any completely broken armor, bringing it back up to 1-point armor. Casters with armor could get their armor completely repaired by this, but fighters were unable to get a full repair from this. With the change, it takes twice as long, but it will completely repair the armor someone is wearing. If
you're a fighter excited to try getting your armor repaired this way, be warned that you won't be able to move very far during the time it takes to fix your armor; as with Heal Limb, the caster is unable to move their feet while doing these repairs. If you're a caster planning to take this spell, there are a couple other changes, but I think it's safe to assume that you didn't already have the spell, so I'll let the new text describe the rest of the spell when the new Omnibus comes out. (If you did already have the spell, feel free to reach out to me, and I'll go over the minor other changes.)
The next change is intended to simplify the rules a bit. A couple years ago, we made it so all regenerations took (usually) 120 seconds, rather than some taking 120 seconds, some taking 60 seconds, and some taking 200 seconds. In line with that, there are some other things that used to take strange amounts of time that now take 120 seconds: fixing a bow, fixing a broken implement, and recovering from being flatted. If you're a fighter, the only times you'll need to count are 15 seconds (if you're using someone's Potion of Repair Armor), 120 second (if you're regenerating or repairing a bow), and 10 minutes (if you're poisoned). Oh, if you're diseased, regenerating will take twice as long, but just think of that as 120 seconds twice.
Uhh...oops? I guess that's not true anymore. Seed of Life has been steadily getting stronger for the past few years, and this year is no exception. While Seed of Life usually takes 120 seconds, the caster has the option to speed it up a little. By focusing on one person at a time, they can cut the regeneration time down to 90 seconds. If you're diseased, it gets cut down to 180 seconds. If they're doing this, they'll let you know, so you might not need to remember how long this one is, if you only want to remember the three durations I claimed.
Since poisons take the most time to recover from, I'd like to remind people what poisons are in the game. Obviously there's the combat call, but this merely kills you, with no time duration. The ones that have a duration are Sleep Poison, Truth Poison, and the new-and-improved Charm Poison. Gone are the days of Love Poison being able to make someone fall in love with you, putting some players in awkward positions they don't like. With Charm Poison, you are charmed into thinking that the first person you see is your Best Friend. Way less awkward for those of us who don't want to roleplay being in love with people we don't know very well. Quick thing while I'm talking about poisons: you don't have to brew poisons, and it's a little unclear if this is a change.
There are three changes to Magic Items this year. For one thing, if you already have Magic Items, you can get rid of the cards that describe how the items work. If you've found the cards useful during registration, you're welcome to keep using them; they're simply no longer required. Along with this, since it's good for players to be able to look up how their items work to refresh their minds, the list of Magic Items will be public on RealmsNet. It'll be published at the same time the new Omnibus is published, so keep an eye out. (The Omnibus will have a link to the list at the end of section 7.2. Once the Omnibus is out, this URL will work to jump to that section:
https://www.realmsnet.net/omnibus?year=2020#magic-item-rules .) The third change to Magic Items will make the items more common: rather than one magic item being released per event, multi-day events with multiple EHs will be able to release a Magic Item for each day. (Technically, one item for each Event Holder, but the number of EHs is based on how many days there are. If two EHs throw a three-day event, they'll only be able to release two Magic Items.)
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In my opinion, those are the big changes that are likely to affect the most people. While some of the proposals that follow are certainly important, I'll be trying to keep my descriptions of them short, so that you can finish reading in one sitting.
The procedures the Arbitration Committee follows are still written and revised by the AC, but now the Omnibus has a link to those procedures. Also, the AC now has to notify the EH list of any issues that are taking an especially long time to resolve.
When you're diseased, it takes twice as much healing to make you better. If you die while you're diseased, you need two raises cast on you to bring you back to life, without any other spells cast on you in between.
This year and going forward, grandfathering will probably be much more limited. If you have spells that no longer exist, or at circles that are no longer legal, remove those from your build, and then you may replace them will spells from your Spell Mastery.
There's a new first-circle spell, Mentor, which lets you teach spells from your Spell Mastery, rather than the normal requirement of having the spell in your build.
If you're able to satisfy the requirements for multiple spells at a time, you may cast multiple spells at once. However, only one of those spells can have a Verbal Component, so you can't have the words you say count as verbals for multiple spells at a time.
Constructing 6'6" weapons with 3' pieces of pipe foam is now a little easier, since the squish tip is now allowed to be longer than the minimum 2". Also, the thickness of bamboo for weapons is now better specified, but it's up to you how to measure the bamboo.
If you have the spell Light, it's now spelled out that you're allowed to use electronic lights, as long as you check them in with a marshal before use.
If you learn Strange Brew, you're now able to learn how to brew Potion of Séance as one of your options.
Ghost Blade now gives two castings instead of one.
Assassin's Blade and Masterwork Hammer now have to be weapons within your restriction, so I'll no longer carry a Masterwork Hammer I can't attack with.
The following rules work as you thought they did: you can't target someone's head or neck with ranged weapons; you can't swing an arrow/javelin as if it were a sword; if you start a spell and then go do something else, you have to restart instead of just continuing where you left off; Enfeeble Being might take away only some abilities of a monster; Repair Item can fix multiple objects if those
objects are all armor being worn by one person; you can't give someone your enchanted armor and have the caster still able to fix it for free; Resist Magic can resist magical effects; crossbow bolts can only be used with crossbows, and those are non-standard weapons needing to be checked in; the Players' Rep gets to introduce themselves at the beginning of the EHC; Armored Cloak (and other
spells that make you say some OOC calls) don't interrupt verbals; and you can enchant a javelin or spear with the weapon call spells.
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The following changes are ones I really expect won't matter to you, but we voted on them, so I'll bring them up.
The section on Currency is being updated. It looked a bit out of date. Also, Part 7: Realms Administration is being split into 3 parts, one of which will have a section on what a proposal needs.
Finally, the most important proposal. I know it's the most important one, because it was the very last proposal we voted on, and more people used their blue cards during this proposal than during any other proposal. There are 419 instances of the word "spellcaster" in the 2019 Omnibus, and there are 9 instances where we got lazy and wrote "caster". These 9 occurrences are in the following locations: one instance in 6.3, Spell Components; one instance in 6.4, Alchemy; two instances in 6.5, Spell Sash Caveat; one instance in 6.8, Create Poison; one instance in 6.8, Enchant Armor; one instance in 6.8, Enchant Weapon; and one instance in 6.8; Implement.
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If you have any more questions about any of these changes, please feel free to reach out to me, either by Facebook or by email, and I'll be happy to walk you through any of the ones you don't understand. I look forward to seeing many of you next year at the Players' Meeting and Event Holders' Council. And remember: a good proposal title tells me what the proposal does.
Yours in Service,
Pi (Alpacasaurus) (Kwido) Fisher