Today we released a small server-side update that includes a couple of changes. The most noticeable one is to the abjured condition.

Until now, an abjured combatant suffered a -2 penalty to all Arcane ability checks. While that's useful against certain combatants, it's a little narrow. As a result, abilities that create the condition, especially the Runecaster's Rite of Abjuration and Circle of Abjuration, weren't pulling their weight as much as we would have liked.

To make abjured more broadly useful, we've modified it to give a -1 penalty to Fire, Cold, and Spirit Damage inflicted, while still retaining a -1 penalty to Arcane checks. Now, effects that draw upon the Concordance for power will be weakened even if they don't require a check, and ones that do require a check will be both less likely to succeed and less damaging if they do. This should give low-level Runecasters in particular a boost against certain pyrophiles that are otherwise a bit challenging.

Today's update also includes a couple of engine changes that lay some groundwork for the larger updates we have in the pipeline. These shouldn't be noticeable, except for possibly making certain actions in the interface slightly more responsive.