¶ PvP RULES
Player vs Player Combat
There is NO PvP inside of the hub or the marketplace. It is a non-aggression area and anyone who engages in PvP, fires or shoots into the hub, or places explosives or other damaging items inside or within range of the hub buildings will get a strike. This applies to all admin buildings other than the arena. This does not exempt players from being held to consequences should they insult or cause strife in these areas. There are guards that will remove people from the admin property if there is a conflict, and the players can then resolve their issues elsewhere. If you feel that you need guards in a PvP restricted admin area please reach out to an admin in game or open a ticket and we will evaluate the situation. If you bring a thrall to the hub or the marketplace, it MUST BE on 'attack nothing'.
Kill on Sight (KOS) is banned on this server with two exceptions. An assassin on an approved contract, which means that the contract was given admin approval and has been found to establish proper role play requirements to initiate a contract, may attack the target of their contract at any time without a standard PvP initiation sequence. If you are not an assassin on an approved contract, all PvP must be initiated with proper roleplay to establish it and proper PvP intent steps being followed. The second exception is an open PvP area, which we have from time to time. Echoes of Hyboria season will have the open PvP area at the Chaos Fields. This is the new area to the southwest of the main map. What this means is that you can be attacked freely and without intent the moment you enter the area. If you are defeated, there are no PvP consequences other than your inability to return to the area for 30 minutes IRL. If you return, you will receive a strike. If you flee after being attacked, that is considered a loss and you cannot return for 30 minutes.
There are any number of reasons that someone may take offense at your actions, such as watching you shift into a lycanthrope, drink someone's blood, perform sorcery openly, raise or command undead, sacrifice others, or any other number of reasons. If someone witnesses you commit some action that they find offensive, you may find yourself in a PvP situation. People can declare PvP if they are genuinely offended by some action, but if we suspect someone is using this rule as a means to PvP without an adequate or reasonable reason, they will get a strike.
If you are killed without proper PvP intent you need to open a ticket after the combat has been resolved. It is possible that there was an approved contract out on you, it is also possible that the person broke the rules.
Due to several exploits and issues with truncheons, they are not allowed to be used in PvP.
Players can choose to script out their combat, or use opposed strength checks for hand to hand or grappling, but in the absence of complete agreement by all parties involved, game mechanics are the default for resolving disputes and PvP. If a third party attempts to join after the parties have agreed on how to resolve the scene, they must agree to the conditions already set forth by the parties. If they do not want to use scripting or opposed strength checks, they must wait until the conclusion of the scene and then they can PvP intent and use game mechanics for resolution. If the parties are using PvP game mechanics, our standard rules for joining apply.
Any aggressive or hostile action must be initiated through roleplay and followed with an OOC declaration of intent if both parties have not agreed to this action OOC. If you intend to declare PvP you should provide a role play post that provides the reasoning behind why you are moving to combat. This post should include any demands you have that the other party can comply with in order to stop the situation from escalating to PvP. Once you have made your in character statement to lead up to your declaration of PvP intent you must switch to shout and OOC declare your intent OOC, with your OOC target included. The aggressor's OOC declaration begins a three (3) minute timer for the defenders in this scenario to write their own roleplay post preparing to take one of the three options available to them:
- Surrender
If you are aggressed upon and PvP intent is declared but you do not wish to fight or attempt to flee, you may surrender to the whims of the aggressor. This means that the sequence moves directly to the OOC consequence phase, and your character does not take a wounds roll from being defeated in PvP. - Flee
If you are aggressed upon and PvP intent is declared and you wish to flee from battle rather than fight or surrender to your aggressor you may declare that you will PvP flee. Once you have declared that you will flee from your aggressor you have started a 30 second timer - once you have evaded damage for 30 seconds you will have fled from combat, locking you and your aggressor out of PvP conflict for 60 minutes. The defender must prove that they have fled for 30 seconds; shadowplay is an easy way to accomplish this. Players may agree OOC to suspend either timer, but both parties must agree OOC and it must be screenshot for reference. If you disengage, flee, leave the immediate area for any reason, and do not cause or take damage for 30 seconds, you are considered to have successfully fled. You cannot leave the scene and then return. - Resist
If you are aggressed upon and PvP intent is declared and you have resolved yourself to fight for your life then you mean to resist their demands. This means that you intend to fight your aggressor in PvP conflict and whoever is defeated will move into the OOC consequence phase. You may reassess the situation if you discover the odds are not in your favor and flee at any time, but the onus is on you to prove that you have evaded combat for 30 seconds. If at any point after the start of PvP your character is downed in combat, you must roll a 1d100 wounds roll and that is the injury you sustain that takes you out of the battle.
PvP Intent locks the scene. Once the three (3) minute timer for the defenders to write their roleplay posts and to choose a response has passed, or when everyone in the scene has responded, the PvP conflict begins. Unless you own the land you are fighting on you may not join a PvP scene in progress. If you believe that someone has joined a PvP scene in progress but does not meet one of the rules above for an exception then you should immediately open a ticket and contact an admin to review the evidence. It is strongly encouraged that anyone interested in creating conflict utilize a program to record their gameplay to prevent any (s)he said/(s)he said arguments - we recommend shadowplay or OBS. For the record, any death in a PvP scene (after PvP intent has been declared) is a PvP defeat - even if you fall to your death or die to wildlife in your attempts to flee from conflict.
If you happen upon an active PvP scene and you are on your claimed land, you can join the fight by shouting “PvP Join” and then you must follow all other PvP rules. You cannot join a scene that is in the consequence phase regardless of the location. You cannot rely upon ooc information and then join a PvP scene in progress - if you are told OOC that a PvP scene is happening or about to happen and you show up, you are metagaming and you will get a strike. You must organically learn of the encounter.
Example:
Loxi Ladyparts is washing her unmentionables when Brutus Buffalobrain rolls up on her and demands she hand over her silkies. Loxi refuses and Brutus PvP intents her. She resists, and they go after one another. On the other side of the clothesline is Muscles McPhee, who was hanging up laundry. He walks back over to the washing tub and sees the skirmish just outside of his own house. He owns this land, and by the gods, nobody is going to attack Loxi on his watch. He shouts “PvP join” and jumps into the fight.
Example 2:
Loxi Ladyparts and Brutus Buffalobrain have already concluded their fight and Brutus is in the process of handing out his consequence for the defeat when Muscles McPhee wanders over. He is locked out of the scene.
If you are PvP intented, you can take no action other than speaking before declaring your response (surrender/flee/resist). This includes casting spells, drinking potions, eating food, etc. The moment you take an action, such as casting a spell, you are defaulted to resist and PvP can begin immediately. You cannot cast RP spells once PvP has been initiated.
Proper PvP Intent Steps to SURRENDER*
Digby smiles dryly at Ismerelda, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Your money or your life, wench.”
Digby shouts: (( PvP Intent - Ismerelda ))
Ismerelda scowls, reaching under the bar and retrieving a pouch of coins. She places the coins on the table, glaring at Digby. “Here, everything I have on me. Take it and leave.”
Both players have provided a role play response to the player vs player intent with Ismerelda surrendering to the demands made by Digby in his statement. Role play would continue naturally at this point without PvP conflict.
Proper PvP Intent Steps to FLEE*
Digby smiles dryly at Ismerelda, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Your money or your life, wench.”
Digby shouts: (( PvP Intent - Ismerelda ))
Ismerelda turns on her heel and flees, leaping over her bar and attempting to escape her attacker.
Ismerelda shouts: (( PvP Flee ))
The start of PvP is never until both parties have typed OOC their intention to flee. The emote describing your decision to flee is superfluous here and may be skipped in favor of simply shouting your OOC intention to flee from the PvP combat. YOU CANNOT port your way out of PvP even if your intent is to flee. You must flee on foot.
Proper PvP Intent Steps to RESIST*
Lodbron scoffs, glaring at the man opposite him as his hand moves to grip the hilt of his sword. “I will take your tongue for that insult, and any of your weak Nordhome who draw steel on your behalf. Defend yourself or kneel before me, worm.” The Jarl draws his sword from its scabbard and moves to attack Hagrid and the company of nords.
Lodbron shouts: (( PvP Intent - Hagrid and any Nordhome members who resist ))
Hagrid raises a brow, stepping back and readying his spear. “Posture all you like, Lodbron, but Nordhome will weather this storm just as we have all others.” Hagrid shouts: (( PvP Intent - Lodbron and any who aid him ))
Both players respond to the scenario with a role play post and an out of character intent to engage in player vs player combat. If you are acting as a group you should state something about your group in your role play post, ordering them to attack the other party or otherwise indicating them in the statement.
Consequences:
Once PVP has ended, the losing party must return to face consequences. Both sides must notate in their character sheet tickets that the PvP is over and document the incident, as well as any wounds rolls from being downed in PvP. Both parties must provide a screenshot of their inventory before and after the PvP consequences are meted out and any person who was downed in PvP must make a wounds roll to determine their character's status when they return to the consequences. It is up to both parties, victors and losers to discuss together a reasonable outcome to the conflict. The victor(s) will provide one consequence to be inflicted upon the losing person(s) - this consequence cannot be something that would result in the direct loss of a life until the rules for "story driven conflict" have been met (detailed below). You may not force a player to roll on the wounds table after defeating them in PvP because you have already caused that in the course of defeating. The one exception is when someone surrenders, as you may then strike them down and leave them to their fate, causing them to roll wounds. Should the loser(s) not consent to the outcome as presented then one of two things will occur. The loser(s) can choose to offer to lose their equipped gear (armor and weapon they fought with) to the winner, or they will lose one of their lives, which counts toward your three (3) death limit before your character is permanently killed, and at that point, the victor will still be able to take your armor and equipped weapon and up to 25 Pippi gold. If the roleplay consequence is declined and the victor wishes to avoid killing the defeated player, they may instead request to loot the defeated for some specific item, which the defeated player may still decline and simply lose one of their three lives. The victor is under no obligation to offer looting instead of death should the roleplay consequence be denied. Players may request that the admin team review the consequences being offered, upon which the player requesting the mediation should open a ticket with screenshots of the consequence phase and await further input from staff. The consent sheet you fill out in Discord does not prevent someone from giving you any consequence they choose that fits their character or the scene. The consent sheet serves three purposes - it confirms you are at least 18 years old, it lets other players know your characters limits for role play, so if they are looking for a particular type of role play they have an idea of who might be open to what they want, and third, it prevents people from giving consequences they themselves have not consented to in their own consent sheet. If you do not wish to play out a scene, offer an alternative. If that is declined, fade to black or opt to take the character death.
- If a third party comes to the scene during the consequences phase, they must leave the area. They cannot stay and watch or participate in any way. Consequences is an OOC phase and players who were not part of the fight have no place there.
- If a third party comes to a PvP scene that has just ended the consequence phase, they may ask OOC for a brief description of what they see. This is not information they can use IC unless they choose to remain there IC. This is just to give them the information they need to decide whether or not to remain. If you leave, your character does not have have this information. The moment the consequences have been given the scene reverts to IC and if they choose to stay they do so at their own risk. Their presence at the location after being given a description of what they see is all the RP reason needed for those still there to declare PvP intent. An example of this is as follows:
- Lady Wanderleqs comes upon a scene with dead bodies scattered around and three, angry looking individuals cleaning off their blades. Wanderlegs (OOC - what do I see?) Bloody Mess Guy (You see dead bodies - are you here IC?) Wanderleqs (No, I leave) Wanderleqs immediately leaves the scene and does not have any knowledge of what she saw or what transpired. Alternatively, Wanderleqs (Yes, I stay). Bloody Mess Guy (PvP Intent).
- Sir Fights A Lot defeats Running Guy. Fights A Lot presents extreme mutilation as a consequence. Running Guy does not accept Fights A Lot's consequence. Fights A Lot then asks Running Guy to submit to looting rather than being killed, allowing Fights A Lot to take what he wants from Running Guy’s inventory. Running Guy declines and opts to take a death instead.
- When choosing consequences be aware this is a game and we do not wish to ruin the experience of those we are roleplaying with. That being said, consequences should match the characters of parties involved as we are a roleplaying server driven by consequence. If you are going to maim someone you would do so by scarring them, taking an eye, taking a hand, etc. You cannot not give a single consequence which reduced a character to an invalid.
- Each character can be resurrected four(4) times by a capable spellcaster before their soul can no longer be bound to their body.
- The action of offering a consequence and the decision about accepting the consequence is all done out of character. Once the outcome has been determined, the involved parties return to being in character and the scene resumes in character where it left off, just after the defeat of the player. Consequences are issued out of character to keep the actual character interaction flowing smoothly. It doesn’t make sense for the parties to remain in character for the consequences because after defeating someone, the two parties would not then chat about what action will be taken as a result of the loss. There are special rules about third parties happening upon an active scene - please read those rules above.
- Any consequence that includes capture must still adhere to the 4 hour max rule (unless otherwise agreed to by parties OOCly) and the 30 minute RP rule (if no RP for 30 minutes while in game the captive can escape by posting in IC RP their escape).
- All parties please remember to take screenshots of all consequence phase interactions should a problem arise that requires admin mediation. If there is a disagreement, please contact an administrator.
- Any consequence that involves the loss of a body part can only include one body part.
- Anyone who refuses to return for consequences will receive a strike and will lose an RP life.
- You cannot take an RP life as a consequence without prior admin approval. If your history with the other person has risen to the level of a life loss, you must open a ticket BEFORE you encounter them, detail your reasons for
Story Driven Conflict:
The Exiled Lands are full of criminals and ruffians. At some point your story could very well end up in a place where it makes perfect sense that one or both parties would wish for the death of the other and the above consequence rules will cause an endless loop where both parties are forever embroiled in a conflict that they cannot bring to a conclusion. Because Maelstrom is a role playing server first, we require that you establish a storyline before you are able to give a consequence that results in player death. In order to establish that you need to record evidence of your interactions with the player you believe that your character would kill - we suggest screenshots - and open a ticket to explain why your character is now ready to kill them with the evidence of your role play to establish that you have a compelling story that needs to be able to work towards a conclusion. It should go without saying, but just to confirm, you must have established a storyline that involves clear and direct conflict with the other party before an admin will approve death as a consequence. Even if the loser consents to death as a consequence, it must still be approved beforehand by the admin team, with the consenting player putting in a ticket that they understand they are not required to consent to loss of life and they are doing so because it makes sense for the story.
PvP while fighting NPCs
If you are fighting NPC bosses (dungeon bosses, bounty bosses and world bosses) and someone comes up and attacks, you can immediately engage them in PvP without typing PvP intent. If someone comes up while you are fighting a boss and they do not want to steal your kill, they must ask if you need help and wait for a response, and if no response is given or the answer is no, they do not get involved unless they want to run the risk of being attacked. If you enter an area where someone is fighting a boss and you don’t leave, you run the risk of being attacked by the person already engaged in the fight with the boss.
If someone wants to steal a boss from someone who has already engaged that boss, they must RP it first, and it must be longer than one sentence. They must then follow up with <PvP Intent> shout in local and give the person fighting the boss time to respond with one of the actions listed (attack the person who declared PvP intent, which is the same as PvP Intent or PvP Accept; step away, which is the same as surrendering the boss (this is not surrendering to PvP and has no consequences attached to it) or flee (again no consequences attach). The only time consequences will apply in this scenario is if the response is to attack (accept the PvP) and there is a PvP loss that comes as a result. For example:
- “Smack Daddy runs up to challenge the wanted madman known for poisoning his victims but stops short when he sees another there. Angry that he will be unable to take him in and collect the bounty, Smack Daddy glares at the thin woman, scoffing as she hurls orbs and shoots arrows at him. This is no way to fight this man! “You! I want this man for myself! Stand back and let me have at him! <PvP Intent>. Small Waify Woman hears the man and turns her bow on him, firing at his head. If he wants this bounty, he can try to take it. Small Waify Woman’s arrow finds it’s mark and Smack Daddy crumbles. She turns her attention back to the bounty, finishes him off and then walks over to Smack Daddy (consequences will be applied here). Alternatively Small Waify Woman hears the man and turns to look who has come to interrupt her hunt. The man’s size is formidable, and she thinks the bounty is not worth the trouble of fighting them both. She shrugs and disengages, leaving the bounty to the newcomer (no consequences attach).
** This is the one situation where the defending party does not need to type a response to your PvP Intent – they can continue to fight the boss, fight the person if they PvP intent and want to defend their position, or they can leave.**
Assassins will need to conduct an interview with an admin before receiving the tag and being able to take contracts. Apply here.
Follow the link above to learn more about being an assassin.
Exploits:
- Exploits, deliberate use of bugs and broken mechanics to one’s advantage are prohibited. One example is the use of water to heal/avoid damage and/or fatality. While in the water your 30 second flee timer stops and is reset once you are running on land again. These exploits are punished at the discretion of the admins depending on severity. Abuse of broken mechanics is considered an offence to common decency, defense of ignorance (willful or not) is not a defense or an excuse for actively exploiting PvP mechanics.
- Use of animation cancels in order to feint, use of invulnerability frames during rolls from spears/swords etc is not considered exploitative. Abusing mechanics to gain infinite stamina, removing animations from your character in order to deal unreactable damage and so forth are, however, considered exploits.
- Pets/thralls can be used for open world PVP-intent if they are visibly seen out in the world and/or rped to be there. If you do not rp it out then they cannot be rezzed out for combat.
- If for any reason the server crashes before PVP-intent is given players have to wait 15 minutes for players to log back in before engaging.
- Explosive jars must be placed on flat surfaces and cannot be used as ‘sticky’ bombs to place into peoples walls, flooring, ceilings, or otherwise exploited.
- Explosive jars may not be used in open-world PvP intent situations.