Apologies to those of you who think this is getting to be a lot of words
for these changes! If it seems that way to you, just know that we're
moving ahead with our plan, and skip the rest of this message!


For Those Still Reading
-----------------------
We just made one change (that's the PLUS in the subject of this post),
explained below, and are about to put in the third part or step in the
changes to strength- and intelligence-based damage, as announced in
READNEWS ANNOUNCE 2682 (and followed up in 2683). Please read there for
background to what we're doing.

This is the third step in what will probably be four steps total in this
part of our overall changes to damage, defenses, and a host of related
things.

Earlier changes were announced in READNEWS ANNOUNCE 2679 and READNEWS
ANNOUNCE 2681.


The PLUS - Another Small Change
-------------------------------
Earlier changes (announce 2679) related to combining a bunch of damage
enhancements by adding them together before multiplying by base damage.
This we did, and it helped somewhat by reducing the combined effects of
multiple enhancements.

Till now, the strength- and intelligence- based modifications were
treated separately, being multiplied with each other in turn. Now, these
modifications will be treated as another enhancement and added in with
all other enhancements before affecting total damage, which should
reduce effects yet again, especially for extreme values of strength or
intelligence.


What's About To Happen Now
--------------------------
Change 3 (under "Soon:" below) will reduce total damage for above
average str or int (and increase it for below average str/int). Taking a
base damage of 1000, here's how all the steps look so far:

stat: 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Start: 1000 1069 1138 1208 1277 1346 1415 1485 1554 1623 1692 1762 1831
Ch. 1: 1000 1069 1138 1206 1273 1339 1404 1468 1531 1593 1654 1713 1770
Now: 1000 1069 1137 1203 1267 1329 1389 1445 1499 1551 1601 1647 1689
Soon: 1000 1069 1136 1200 1261 1319 1374 1425 1473 1518 1559 1594 1623

Don't forget: damage will _increase_ for those with stats below 11.

Total
Example Change In
Race/Stat Damage
---------------------- ---------
Xoran at 14 str -0.18%
Tsol'aa at 15 int -0.66%
Grook at 17 int -2.00%
Troll buffed to 18 str -2.90%
Grook buffed to 20 int -5.21%
Dragon buffed to 21 str -6.89%
? buffed to 24 -11.36%
? buffed to 25 -13.37%

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Lupar, in the year 467 AF.