Welcome Board Archive - Druid stuff and more

First, the mostly non-druid stuff:

Code:
* If you have eloquence as a skill, you will be reimbursed a practice
  automatically when you log in
* 'receive' moved before 'reconstitute' in the command table ('rec' now 
   does 'receive' again)
* Changed messages on reconstitute when no arguments are provided
* Fixes a bug with the attributes display and stats over 100
* Modified the configuration on sockets to avoid the lengthy lags caused 
  by people connecting in certain ways
* Fixed a (somewhat super ancient) bug where if someone anywhere on the 
  mud failed a spell, all object cast spells (weapons, potions, etc) 
  would fail until someone cast a successful spell
* Black potions and other potions that don't follow a certain string 
  pattern will properly create empty vials when they're used
* Crashing bug in housing fixed
* You now gain 1/2 xp if you're more than 3K over rent when you receive 
  xp.
* Boil Blood: If the target of boil blood dies, the caster's timer for 
  boil blood reuse will be vastly reduced to no more than 30 seconds.
* You no longer stop hiding when you use a channel
* Stone of Renewal now adds +1 mv regen as well
* A fighting victim no longer prevents backstab from working. You can use 
  backstab to enter a group fight. It is a little bit harder to land 
  the backstab, but it will work. Once a backstab is attempted, the mob 
  will become alert as normal.
* Many imm/behind the scenes changes to make life a little more bearable 
  for bug fixing and debugging.
* You can now shoot while in solitary and private rooms if your target 
  is in the same room
  

Areas: 

* Earring of Dido is now templated
* Progress on Tombstone
* Help file updates
* Powder teacher now requires you to know brew
* Fixes 2 mobs that were causing some stability issues


*** Druid Update Phase 2 (Poultice, Augment, Make Oil) *** 

FIRST QUICK NOTE
In all of the updates we've done, we've tried to approach them with the 
idea that we're adding things to the game rather than taking them away.
We've gone to great lengths not to "nerf" abilities, skills or
anything.

With druid update 2, that changes in regards to poultices. There are 
a few poultices in game which do something other than a cure light 
wounds, bless and cure burns in particular. That's changing. All herbs
that can poultice will create a cure light poultice. You can add 
effects to a poultice with oils (see below), but the end result is 
that to apply a bless with a poultice or cure burns with a poultice,
you'll need to expend more time and more mana. We hope that the tradeoffs
(see below) will offset this somewhat small change.

FLAVOR/FOUL/PURIFY
A larger update to FLAVOR/FOUL/PURIFY is coming. This is a quick update.

FLAVOR/FOUL are now one skill. If you had the FOUL skill, it will be 
automatically replaced with the MAKE OIL skill. 

PURIFY, for now, will remain it's own skill.

The alignment restrictions on FLAVOR/FOUL/PURIFY have been removed.

POULTICE
All herbs that currently create any type of poultice will create cure
light wounds poultices. Some new herbs might also create cure light 
poultices.

MAKE OIL
In order to add different effects to poultices, you can create oils 
(ahead of time, even!) and apply them to a poultice. You may apply 
up to 3 oils to a poultice to create different effects. Oils can be 
applied before and after a poultice is augmented (though there may 
be reasons why you don't want to do that). 

Some of the effects going in with make oil:

- Cure light (see below)
- Cure Burns
- Bless
- a new effect called 'remedy'

(Remedy provides a short-duration, somewhat giant buff to regeneration, 
basically.)

In order to make oil, you will need an empty oil flask and the herb 
in question. MAKE OIL <herb> will find an empty flask and create 
the oil if successful. Depending on spirit, the oil may have multiple 
uses. Flasks of oil are small and can be stored in DERT bags, though 
they rent for more than the original herb.

In order to apply an oil to a poultice, APPLY <oil> <poultice>. If 
there is room on the poultice for another effect, the oil will be 
applied. When the poultice is used, the effect will be applied. 

Applying oil to a poultice takes some time but very little compared 
to actually making an oil or a poultice.

AUGMENT
Augment has changed in two very important ways:

1) You no longer need the same herb to augment that you did to 
   make the original poultice. If an herb makes a poultice, it 
   can augment any poultice.
2) When you augment a poultice, it changes all cure lights on the 
   poultice to the 'poultice' spell. 
   
So here's a use case:

     make poultice barberries

     apply <flask_of_oil_that_does_cure_light) poultice

     apply <flask_of_oil_that_does_cure_light) poultice

     apply <flask_of_oil_that_does_cure_light) poultice

     augment poultice angelica

You now have a single poultice that can heal around 400hps of damage 
for the cost of 3-5 herbs (depending on your oil making skills and 
a little bit of prep time) and an additional amount of time, though 
less than what it would take to make 4 augmented poultices.

HERBLORE

The HERBLORE skill will continue to give access to up-to-date (read:
currently out of date) herb information. It will also continue to 
give you access to the entangle command.

We've changed herblore to also allow you to be able to herblore an 
object in your inventory. We will expand on this feature later, but 
for here's what HERBLORE <object> will tell you:

POTIONS - The names of what spells it will cast
POWDERS - The description of the potion and the the spells it will cast
OILS    - The names of what spells it will cast

There are potions now which aren't able to be brewed. Herblore can 
now identify their effect such as what a black potion does.

In the future, we'll expand this to HERBLORE <item> as well.