Custom Changes

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There have been many changes to almost every aspect of Higher Ground. Check out some of them below!

1 Classes
2 Feats
- 2.1 Legendary Feats
- 2.2 Paragon Feats
3 Skills
4 Equipment
5 Spells

Classes

There are far more changes to each and every class than what can be listed on a single page. Feel free to look through each Class page for more information on custom changes specific to a class.

Feats

Blind Fight: Blind Fight now qualifies a character to take LSA: Listen.
- When swinging at enemies, the conceal you see in the combat log will be the adjusted concealment after Blind Fight and other conceal reduction, rather than the base concealment. This is related to how concealment reduction is now available through the Listen skill.

Blinding Speed: Now increases base movement speed by 0.5 m/s

Brutal Throw: Allows you to use your Strength modifier for Dart and Throwing Axe AB.

Dauntless: Grants +1 to Fortitude and Reflex saves.
- It can only be taken by using the !charedit command to feat-swap Strong Soul at first level.

Devastating Critical: Now adds +1 to critical hit multiplier for the weapon chosen instead of the normal effect.

Disarm and Knockdown: These feats have been reworked to swift actions. When you make an attempt, you must first make a touch attack to hit your target.
- If the touch attack hits, you must make an opposed AB check against 90% of the creature's Discipline + 25 (or + 15 if you have the Improved version).
  - If you succeed, the target will suffer the effects of the feat.
- Size modifiers are no longer considered for these feats.
- The Superior version of these feats allows you to make an attempt twice per round.

Extra Spell Known: Grants an extra known spell for classes that have limited spell knowledge
- No more than one extra spell of each spell level may be learned.
- These feats require 21 levels of Bard or Sorcerer to take.
- These feats may be taken in epic levels, but the spells are only available upon reaching level 41. Speak to the Spell Pedestal in the docks to learn extra spells.
- The appropriate Summon Creature spell will be added when speaking to the Pedestal. You should ensure you do not already know the Summon Creature spell of any Extra Spell Known levels you wish to use before taking legendary levels.
- For Sorcerers these feats are only available as Epic Sorcerer Bonus Feats, not regular epic feats.

Greater Weapon Focus: Adds +1 to your AB with that weapon.
- Requires Weapon Focus in the specified weapon and a BAB of +5 or +6 (haven't narrowed it down between those two yet)

Improved Stunning Fist: No longer requires 19 Dex if taken with HG Enhanced or in legendary levels.

Intuitive Attack: Allows you to use your Wisdom modifier for Club, Dagger, Goad, Heavy Mace, Kama, Katar, Light Mace, Nunchaku, Quarterstaff, Scimitar, Shuriken, Sickle, and Spear.
- Requires BAB of +3 and at least 13 Wisdom.

Overwhelming Critical: Adds +1 to critical hit threat range for the weapon chosen in addition to the normal effect.
- If you have the Weapon Master Ki Critical feat, the threat range expansion will not work for any weapon.

Power Critical: Adds +4 to critical confirmation rolls with the specified weapon (does not improve assassin Mortal Strike chance).
- Requires 6 BAB and Weapon Focus in the specified weapon

Rapier Wit: Allows you to use your Charisma modifier to determine your AB for Rapier.
- Requires +3 BAB and +13 Charisma

Slippery Soul: Grants +1 to Reflex and Will saves.
- Can only be taken by using !charedit to feat-swap Strong Soul at first level.

Superior Critical: Adds +6 (totaling +10 with Power Critical) to critical confirmation rolls with that weapon (does not improve assassin Mortal Strike chance).
- Requires 23 base Dexterity and Power Critical in the specified weapon

Superior Disarm: Reduces wait on fast-action disarm from 6 seconds to 3
- Weapon Master Epic class feat only available on Weapon Master class levels

Superior Knockdown: Reduces wait on fast-action knockdown from 6 seconds to 3
- Weapon Master Epic class feat only available on Weapon Master class levels

Weapon Finesse
- Creatures can now finesse any light weapon. Additionally, small creatures can finesse small weapons, even though they are not light.
  - Large creatures can finesse: battleaxe, bastard sword, club, dwarven waraxe, goad, handaxe, kama, katana, light flail, light hammer, light pick, longsword, mace, morningstar, nunchaku, rapier, sap, scimitar, short sword, warhammer, whip, wind fire wheel and unarmed strike.
  - Medium creatures can finesse: assassin dagger, dagger, goad, light hammer, handaxe, kama, katana, katar, kukri, light pick, mace, nunchaku, rapier, sai, sap, short sword, whip, wind fire wheel and unarmed strike.
  - Small creatures can finesse: assassin dagger, dagger, goad, light hammer, handaxe, kama, katar, kukri, light pick, mace, nunchaku, sai, sap, short sword, whip, wind fire wheel and unarmed strike.

Legendary Feats

The following feats are only available when taking Legendary levels

Legendary Battle Awareness: Grants Immunity to Sneak Attacks
- Requires Alertness and 30 base Spot and Listen

Legendary Battle Hardening I-IV: Grants 5% physical damage immunity for each feat
- Requires 25 base Constitution and Epic Damage Reduction I

Legendary Disarm: Adds 2 AB to opposed disarm checks and increases the effective range of the ability

Legendary Form Defense: Adds 3 AC to all Shifter forms

Legendary Knockdown: Adds 2 AB to opposed knockdown checks and doubles the duration of the knockdown to 3 rounds, on the main target only

Legendary Save Feats
- Legendary Fortitude requires the Great Fortitude feat and adds +7 to your Fortitude save.
- Legendary Reflexes requires the Lightning Reflexes feat and adds +7 to your Reflex save.
- Legendary Will requires the Iron Will feat and adds +7 to your Will save.
- Legendary Luck requires the Luck of Heroes feat and adds +3 to your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves.
- Legendary Hardened Soul requires the Strong Soul feat and adds +5 to your Fortitude and Will saves.
- Legendary Slippery Soul requires the Slippery Soul feat and adds +5 to your Reflex and Will saves.
- Legendary Valor requires the Dauntless feat and adds +5 to your Fortitude and Reflex saves.

Legendary Skill Affinity: Allows your character to take skills in legendary levels as if they were class skills. There are ten such feats, seven with skill-based feat prerequisites and three with racial prerequisites, as follows:
- LSA Concentration requires Courteous Magocracy.
- LSA Discipline requires Bullheaded.
- LSA Hide requires Stealthy to be taken at level 1.
- LSA Listen requires Half-Elf race or Blind Fight feat.
- LSA Move Silently requires Stealthy to be taken at level 1.
- LSA Parry requires Snake Blood.
- LSA Pick Pocket requires Silver Palm.
- LSA Search requires Silver Palm.
- LSA Spot requires Half-Elf race.
- LSA Taunt requires Kender subrace.
- LSA Tumble requires Blooded.
- Note: All of the non-race specific Feats need to be taken at level 1 (with the exception of Blind Fight which can be taken at any level prior to taking the LSA feat) in fact most are only available to select during character creation or by using the !charedit command before you take level 2.

Legendary Skill Focus: grants +20 supernatural skill bonus to the specified skill
- Requires 30 ranks in the skill to take.
- The +20 bonus falls within the +50 overall skill cap

Legendary Spell Feats
- Legendary Spell Focus: +2 DC for the chosen spell school
  - Requires the respective Epic Focus and add an additional 2 to the chosen school's spell DCs.
- Legendary Spell Penetration: +2 Spell Penetration to beat a creature's Spell Resistance
  - Requires Epic Spell Penetration

Legendary Weapon Focus: Adds +2 to your AB with the specified weapon
- Requires Epic Weapon Focus in the specified weapon
- The AB bonus is increased to +3 if you have the Epic Prowess feat.

Legendary Weapon Specialization: Adds +6 to all damage done with that weapon, this is in addition to Weapon Specialization & Epic Weapon Specialization giving a total of +12.
- Requires Epic Weapon Specialization in the specified weapon

Paragon Feats

The following feats are only available when taking Paragon Levels

Paragon Ability Check Feats
- These feats add a bonus of 4 to all ability checks related to the specified ability score, these combine with ability check bonuses from gear
  - Paragon Anchoring - Strength
  - Paragon Balance - Dexterity
  - Paragon Vitality - Constitution
  - Paragon Reason - Intelligence
  - Paragon Sagacity - Wisdom
  - Paragon Splendor - Charisma

Paragon Disarm: Adds 2 AB to the disarm check and adds a small area-of-effect, with -10 to the opposed check for secondary targets in the area-of-effect
- Requires Legendary Disarm

Paragon Environment Feats
- These feats add environmental survival abilities, or reduce hostile environment penalties
  - Inherent Water Breathing - Grants Water Breathing and 20% immunity to cold damage
  - Inherent Levitation - Grants Levitation and 20% immunity to electrical damage
  - Inherent Passwall - Grants Passwall and 20% immunity to acid damage
  - Inherent Fire Walking - Grants Firewalk and 20% immunity to fire damage
  - Environmental Adaptivity I - III - Reduces hostile environment penalties by 1 level each, to a minimum of 1. This reduction stacks with the reduction granted by the Half-Molydeus subrace and with layer penalty reductions gained through obtaining Abyss Prince wins and beating Limbo in hard mode.

Paragon Form Focus: For Shifter forms, these feats continue the form scaling and add 2 DC to form abilities

Paragon Form Defense: Adds 3 AC to all Shifter forms

Paragon Knockdown: Adds 2 AB to the knockdown check and adds a small area-of-effect, with -10 to the opposed check for secondary targets in the area-of-effect
- Requires Legendary Knockdown

Paragon of Polymathy: Grants a casting of a paragon spell of your choice, of any school (except your barred school, if you are a specialist). Changing the spell of choice can only be done 24 hours after the last casting.
- Requires Wizard Control Class

Paragon Save Feats
- Paragon Fortitude: Adds +5 to your Fortitude save
  - Requires Legendary Fortitude
- Paragon Reflexes: Adds +5 to your Reflex save
  - Requires Legendary Reflexes
- Paragon Will: Adds +5 to your Will save
  - Requires Legendary Will
- Paragon Luck: Adds +2 to your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves
  - Requires Legendary Luck
- Paragon Hardened Soul: Adds +3 to your Fortitude and Will saves
  - Requires Legendary Hardened Soul
- Paragon Slippery Soul: Adds +3 to your Reflex and Will saves
  - Requires Legendary Slippery Soul
- Paragon Valor: Adds +3 to your Fortitude and Reflex Saves
  - Requires Legendary Valor

Paragon Skills I - III: Adds 30 skill points, available to you on your next paragon level

Paragon Spell Feats
- Paragon Spell Focus feats add an additional 2 DC to the chosen spell school
  - Require the respective Legendary Focus
- Paragon Spell Penetration: Adds 2 to the check to beat a creature's SR
  - Requires Legendary Spell Penetration
- Paragon Spell Knowledge feats require knowledge of the respective epic spell and either Paragon Spell Focus or wizard specialization in the appropriate school. They grant the ability to cast the school's paragon spell, and provide a second casting of the school's epic spell. Epic spells that already have more than one casting have their castings doubled, and toggleable epic spells with counters have their counters burn at half the normal rate.

Paragon of Stability: Grants the character a second roll to avoid knockdown effects, at a -6 penalty on the checked ability for the second roll

Paragon Toughness I - X: Adds 100 hit points to the character's total with each feat

Paragon Weapon Alternate (weapon): These allow you to use alternate weapons at a lesser bonus than your primary weapon. They require the Epic Prowess feat and proficiency in the chosen alternate weapon to take.
- As an example, a character with WF/GWF/EWF/LWF/PWF (longsword), WS/EWS/LWS/PWS (longsword) and Improved Critical (longsword) would receive +9 AB, +20 damage, and double base critical range when using a longsword. If that character then took PWA (shortsword), they would receive +5 AB, +10 damage, and +1 critical range when using a shortsword.
- NOTE: You must have Legendary Weapon Focus or Paragon Weapon Focus in at least one weapon for Paragon Weapon Alternate to function at this time. You will also need to log out and log back in after taking the feat for it to be effective.

Paragon Weapon Focus: Adds +2 to your AB with that weapon
- Requires Legendary Weapon Focus in the specified weapon

Paragon Weapon Specialization: Adds +8 to all damage done with that weapon, this is in addition to Weapon Specialization, Epic Weapon Specialization & Legendary Weapon Specialization giving a total of +20.
- Requires Legendary Weapon Specialization in the specified weapon

Skills

Bluff: Lowers the AB of an enemy. Used via the Taunt skill radial icon
- The defender must make an opposed Concentration check; if it fails, its AB is lowered by the amount it failed the check by (to a maximum of -6) for 5 rounds.
- The !opt tauntbluff command toggles between Taunt and Bluff. Bluffing overrides any previously applied Bluff, Persuade or Taunt effects; only one of the three effects can affect a single target As with Taunt and Persuade, Bluffing is a free action.

Craft Armor: Grants +1 AC per 40 points

Craft Weapon: Grants +1 AB per 40 points when wielding a weapon

Listen: Increases your chances of hitting concealed enemies
- Up to a skill of 60, the enemy concealment drops to (Concealment ** (1 + (Listen skill / 60))). With a skill above 60, the enemy concealment drops to (Concealment ** (1.5 + (Listen skill / 120))).
  - A Listen skill of 60 is equivalent to having the Blind-Fight feat in reducing enemy concealment, and skill and feat do not stack. '**' is the exponentiation operator.
  - If the above sounds too complex, remember that effective enemy conceal will be shown in-game.
  - Being deafened halves your effective listen skill - after all other calculations
  - The concealment drop is personal. Which means it is different for every character, depending on their individual listen scores.

Lore: Can be used to increase the damage of elemental damage spells
- The minimum Lore to receive a bonus is 21, and the bonuses increase through Lore 120, which grants 100% of the possible bonus in the area.
- Use the SIMTools command "!count loreboost" to see the possible bonus you can get in the current area.

Parry
- Reduces damage taken from critical hits. The total damage taken is reduced by 1% per 2 points of Parry skill above 20, to a maximum of 50% with a skill of 120.
- A skill of 100 or higher grants immunity to Assassin Mortal Strike and Ranger Called Shot but does not give immunity to the Devastating Critical ability (as per the original NWN version) of several creatures in HG.

Persuade: Lowers the SR of an enemy. Used via the Taunt skill radial icon
- The defender must make an opposed Concentration check; if it fails, its SR is lowered by the amount it failed the check by (to a maximum of -6) for 5 rounds.
- The !opt tauntpersuade command toggles between Taunt and Persuade. Persuading overrides any previously applied Bluff, Persuade or Taunt effects; only one of the three effects can affect a single target. As with Taunt and Bluff, Persuading is a free action.

Pick Pocket: Pick Pocket DC is now increased by the target's Spot skill.

Spot: Increases the DC of pick pocket attempts against you, by 1 point per point of Spot skill.

Taunt: No longer requires an action to use, but may only be used once per round.
- The !opt tauntbluff and !opt tauntpersuade command toggle between Taunt and Bluff and Taunt and Persuade respectively. Taunting overrides any previously applied Bluff, Persuade or Taunt effects; only one of the three effects can affect a single target.

Tumble
- AC bonus is now capped at 12 - (PM + RDD AC bonuses), to a minimum of 6.
  - If you have 5 points of AC from RDD levels, for example, the most AC you can get from Tumble ranks is 7.
  - The 2 base AC from level 1 of Pale Master do not count in this calculation.
- Tumble can lower the duration of some knockdown attacks. If there is a chance of this, you will see a Tumble check when you are being knocked down.

Equipment

Item Properties
- There are no items with Improved Evasion on Higher Ground.
- There is only one item with immunity to critical hits.
- All other item properties can be found, though some may be scarcer than others.
- Specific immunity to fear, stun, confusion, sleep and daze on items do have benefits that immunity to mind spells does not cover.
- Immunity to Spell Level X (where the value of X is from 1-6) gives complete immunity to direct spells of the noted level and lower, using metamagic to artificially increase the level of a spell will not bypass this immunity e.g. silenced Disintegrate (spell level 7) is still blocked by immunity to level 6 spells. A caveat to this is that some paragon creatures have effects that mimic spells in appearance/effects but are only blocked by specific named immunity to the spell itself an example of this being the Discombobulation Ray cast by Kaorti Alienists in Limbo which IS blocked by specific Disintegrate immunity but IS NOT blocked by level 6 immunity.
- It is possible either through lucky randomisation or set property to have immunity to specific spells and/or effects. Some of the more useful of these are immunity to the spells Wail of the banshee, Weird, Implosion, Polar Ray Great Thunderclap and Petrification (spell or effect).

Armor: Invisible Helms
- Helms can be equipped invisibly, allowing characters' heads to be seen, by using the !opt invishelm command.

Armors: Maximum Dexterity Bonus
- The maximum Dexterity bonus granted by armor has been changed. It may not display when examining armor, but the maximum Dexterity bonus is now calculated such that (Base AC + Maximum Dexterity Bonus) is 11 for heavy armor, 14 for medium armor, and 22 for light armor.
  - You should see this reflected on your character sheet when equipping armor if your Dexterity is high enough.
  - 18 base Dexterity is sufficient to achieve maximum AC with any medium armor. 40 base Dexterity is sufficient to achieve maximum AC with any light armor.
- Refer to the Armors page for more detail

Shields: Maximum Dexterity Bonus
- Large and tower shields now have a maximum Dexterity bonus. This bonus decreases with the base AC of the armor you are wearing.
  - Large shields have a maximum Dexterity bonus of (18 - Armor Base AC), meaning light armor suffers a -4 penalty to maximum Dexterity bonus and robes have a maximum Dexterity bonus of 18 when using a large shield.
  - Tower shields have a maximum Dexterity bonus of (11 - Armor Base AC), meaning medium armor suffers a -2 penalty to maximum Dexterity bonus and light armor and robes suffer a severe penalty to maximum Dexterity bonus when using a tower shield.
- Refer to the Shields page for more detail

Critical Range/Multiplier Changes: In order to make all weapons viable choices, the below changes were made:
- Tiny Weapons
  - Assassin Dagger: 17-20/x1 (from 19-20/x2); cannot be taken as a Weapon of Choice
- Small Weapons
  - Light Hammer: 20/x4 (from 20/x2)
  - Light Mace: 19-20/x3 (from 20/x2)
  - Sickle: 19-20/x2 (from 20/x2)
- Medium Weapons
  - Club: 19-20/x2 (from 20/x2)
  - Heavy Mace: 19-20/x3 (from 20/x2)
  - Light Flail: 18-20/x2 (from 20/x2)
  - Morningstar: 19-20/x3 (from 20/x2)
- Large Weapons
  - Greataxe: 19-20/x4 (from 20/x3)
  - Greatsword: 19-20/x3 (from 19-20/x2)
  - Halberd: 19-20/x3 (from 20/x3)
  - Heavy Flail: 19-20/x3 (from 19-20/x2)
- Exotic Weapons
  - Bastard Sword: 19-20/x3 (from 19-20/x2)
  - Katana: 18-20/x2 (from 19-20/x2)
- Double Weapons
  - Dire Mace: 19-20/x3 (from 20/x2)
  - Double Axe: 20/x4 (from 20/x3)
  - Two-Bladed Sword: 19-20/x3 (from 19-20/x2)
- Ranged Weapons
  - Shuriken: 20/x3 (from 20/x2)
  - Throwing Axe: 20/x3 (from 20/x2)

Crossbows
- When wielded, crossbows grant two additional attacks beyond the normal number of attacks a character receives.
  - The additional attacks will be lost if the character has anything in his offhand, unless he is a Barbarian with Shapestrong Rage.

Weapons: Shield AC
- AC granted by all weapons except kamas, goads, and nunchaku is now Shield AC.
  - This may display as Deflection AC when examining the weapon.

Autocaster
- There is an autocaster available that stores and queues casting of buffs automatically.
- It can be acquired from a pedestal in the Item Shop in town.

Level/Ability Drain Immunity
- Level/ability drain immunity on items now grants immunity only to level drain. Immunity to ability drain must be acquired separately.

Sneak Attack Immunity
- Immunity to critical hits no longer grants immunity to sneak attacks. Immunity to sneak attacks must be acquired separately.

Sequencers
- Sequencer items are restricted to use by Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards.

Spells

To see all the custom changes and spells that have been added to Higher Ground, refer to the Spell Changes Documentation for each class. Note that the Assassin and Blackguard have had their PnP sourced spellcasting abilities added in (completely integrated into the GUI for players using HG Enhanced); you can find more information about how those classes cast spells on their class pages.