Everything that has changed since v0.11.0.

Advanced classes (v0.13.0)

At level 25 every character can choose an advanced path. Go to your own guildmaster and type specialize to see your two options. The choice is permanent and purely additive: you keep everything your class already has, and keep learning its skills as you level.

Every path gives you:

• an augment, a passive that strengthens something your class already does;
• +1 to the most one stat can be trained, and raised by gear;
• 30 advanced points for your path’s skills and spells and a small pool shared with other paths. specialize list shows what you can learn, specialize buy learns it, and specialize default buys the recommended package for two points less. Advanced skills can also be bought with gain, from saved creation points or training sessions.

The eight paths:

• Knight (warrior): parry, dodge and shield block succeed a tenth more often. Intercept blows aimed at your group, challenge its attackers onto yourself, and toughness for extra hit points.
• Monk (warrior): a chance at an extra attack every round, bare-handed or with fist weapons, and parrying without a weapon. Stunning blow, flurry and a fourth attack.
• Priest (cleric): healing spells heal a quarter more. Renew, purify, guardian spirit, martyr and devotion.
• Templar (cleric): your buffs last half again as long, and your maladictions land as if you were three levels higher. Zeal, aegis, hallow, smite and judgment.
• Rogue (thief): +15 to stealing and sneaking, guards stop your lock picking only when they are ten levels above you, and thief skills improve twice as fast. Opportunist, vanish and cheap shot.
• Assassin (thief): backstab and circle hit 30% harder, and envenomed weapons don’t weaken with use. Circle, critical strike and mark for death.
• Wizard (mage): damage spells hit 15% harder. Spell penetration, meteor and disintegrate.
• Sorcerer (mage): maladictions and charms land as if you were three levels higher, and hex and soul leech hit half again as hard. Hex, soul leech, confusion, dominate and empowered enchant.

Shared between paths: dual wield (second <weapon>), riposte, hamstring, the wards (greater ward, absorb magic and anti-magic shell), brew, scribe, spellcraft and arcane reservoir. Each path’s help lists what it can buy and for how much: help knight, help priest and so on.

Also in v0.13.0:

• Fist weapons, a new weapon class trained by hand to hand and the monk’s weapon of choice. Leather handwraps and iron knuckles are sold at the Vesper weaponsmith, issue cestuses are carried by guards, and seven named fist weapons between levels 25 and 50 are wielded by monsters across the world.
• Empty vials and blank parchment, for brewing and scribing, are sold in the Vesper magic shop.
• Spells cast on an object, such as identify, now work on gear you’re wearing.

One experience curve (v0.12.0)

• Every race and class needs 2000 experience per level. The old race and class experience penalties are gone, and races are balanced on their stats, traits and skills alone. help races compares them all, and help <race> has the details.
• Everyone gets 60 creation points (humans 70), and a class default package costs 60. Points you don’t spend are saved: spend them later on skills and groups with gain at any guildmaster. They never turn into trains, practices or stats.
• Humans gain an extra practice every level, and every human stat maximum is one higher.
• Three new racial skills: the yeti’s roar, the orc’s war cry and the fairy’s discern. Racial skills now work whatever your class.
• Low intelligence no longer slows learning. It costs mana and spell damage instead.

Seventeen new spells (v0.12.0)

• Curative: aubade (wakes any sleep and wards against it), cleanse (tries to strip every harmful spell at once), regenerate (faster healing).
• Creation: banquet (feeds and waters your whole group), kindle (refuels a light, the Lamplighter’s craft), spectral blade (a conjured weapon in the shape you know best).
• Weather, outdoors only: hailstorm (hits every enemy in the room), moonbeam (strongest at night), tailwind (halves your group’s travel cost).
• Harmful: wither (damage every round of a fight), blight (rot on every enemy in the room, fliers included).
• Maladictions: silence (no casting or scrolls), insomnia (no sleep, slow recovery), dread (the victim may break and flee).
• Illusion: mirror image (decoys that soak up blows), veil (hidden and sneaking), phantasm (a horror that no save and no sanctuary can blunt).

Group prices were reset to match what each group now holds.

Every spell and skill checked (v0.12.0)

Every spell and skill a player can learn was checked against what the code actually does. The highlights:

• Heal restores 100 hit points plus your level. Harm, chill touch and weaken grow with the caster’s level. Enchant weapon and enchant armor hold at most one point per ten caster levels, plus one.
• Cancellation works on you, your group and your pet. Cure blindness also clears kicked dirt and smoke. Poison and plague no longer stack. Mass healing heals only your group, pets included, and works in a fight. Heat metal sears monsters instead of making them drop their gear.
• Steal works for thieves outside a clan, and rare monsters can’t be robbed. Recalling out of a fight works more often the better your recall skill, not less. A hasted backstab no longer doubles up. Rescue works when you’re already fighting. Parry suffers against an attacker you can’t see. Enhanced damage helps weak blows too. Envenomed weapons wear off properly. Sneaking past a much higher-level monster is now harder, as it should be.
• Exotic weapons improve 2% a level; orcs use them at full skill from level 1.
• Class default packages now cost 60 and hold more. Mage adds meditation, clear cast, quick cast and twin cast; cleric adds meditation and clear cast; thief adds envenom, haggle, parry and enhanced damage; warrior adds dodge, fast healing, kick and berserk.
• Weaponsmaster is cheaper for mages, clerics and thieves, hand to hand is cheaper for everyone, and haggle for clerics and warriors. Clear cast and twin cast cost more.
• Word of recall, farsight and change sex are no longer taught; recall and scan do the first two for free. The lore skill, which never did anything, is gone. The scroll of identify sold in Vesper now identifies (it used to cast shocking grasp), and the magic shop sells a new wand of appraisal.
• Twelve monsters in the Astral Plane, the Drow City, the Marsh and Hell had become impossible to attack. They can be fought again.

A smoother start (since v0.13.0)

• Creating a character is smoother: help no longer stops halfway at “[Hit Return to continue]” and swallows your answer, the customization screen lists the skills you already have, and typing done too early brings the menu back.
• Long help pages and lists now break cleanly between pages.
• A new login message with recent changes, and the welcome line now says Insomnia.
• Help brought up to date: chat (which replaced gossip), channels, scan, colour, train, gain, death and the plain help summary. story opens the night-books of Vesper, the wizlist names Insomnia’s gods, and a long list of typos and broken lines is fixed.
• The website is live at insomniamud.com, with a Play page that connects straight from your browser.