1. Earthshield/toughness/algiz/favourshields damage reduction is no
longer applied to the original damage, but to the damage that's already
come through each previous damage-reducing defense - but only for those
who cannot give these defs to themselves by a class skill. If you can,
nothing has changed for you for the defs you can give yourself.
2. Slightly reduced length of troll stun. Troll stun chance is the same
as before.
3. Pentagram-summoned daemons (daemonites, nightmares, razor fiends) can
no longer be cowardiced out of their pentagrams.
4. Vernalius, the venom that weakens muscles, has always reduced the
cutting damage GIVEN BY the person afflicted with it by 30%. It now does
the same to blunt damage as well.

The 1st of these changes is intended as a first step in reducing the
problem that's grown to be known as 'def stacking' - the ability to have
so many damage-reducing defenses that you're nearly impervious to
damage. What the change actually does is this: if before, somebody hit
you with 1000 damage, and you had 10% damage protection from an algiz
rune sketched on you by someone else, that would take off 100 damage,
leaving 900 damage still coming through. If you had 10% more damage
protection from an earth spiritshield given to you by someone else,
then that would take off 10% damage from the original 1000 damage, so
another 100, leaving you with 800 damage received.

After this change, instead of the 2nd damage reducer being applied to the
original 1000 damage, it'd be applied to the damage that had gotten through
- so 10% of 900, not 10% of 1000, meaning it'd reduce damage by 90 instead
of 100. This change is currently only for those defs I mentioned above,
and it only affects those who cannot put those defs on themselves --
if you're a Runelorist and you can give yourself Algiz, then Algiz works the
same as ever for you. If you're, say, a Sylvan and you get your Shaman
friend to give you Algiz, then you're going to get less damage protection
from it than before when combined with other damage-reducing defs. In short
(yes, I know it's too late to be short) if you don't generally go around with
damage-reducing defs you can't get from your own class, this won't affect
you much at all. If you don't generally go around with a whole lot of defs
up, this won't affect you too much. If you do, you will probably notice a
decrease in your 'tankiness'.

The 2nd and 3rd changes are to address stuns overlapping on hits to the
point where the opponent doesn't get unstunned until death. The 4th is a
general boost to the Serpent class against damage-dealing classes.

These changes were tested through last week on a test server and
discussed on the Achaea Forums. Thanks to everyone who contributed! More
combat changes are being tested and forthcoming. If you have an interest
in being involved in the testing/discussion, you'll want to pay
attention to the pinned topic called "Test Server" in the general combat
section of the Forums at http://achaea.ire-community.com.

Penned by my hand on the 21st of Glacian, in the year 413 AF.