House Safety
Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:25 pm
Even behind a locked door, you can still be damaged and killed by players while you are in your home and they are outside of it.
Earthquake
The Earthquake spell has a range of 8 tiles, and can reach any player in any house at any time. The two exceptions would be while in a castle or keep which has "secure" courtyards (i.e. no one has a rune to recall there). These are, for all practical purposes, non-existent.
The Earthquake spell take about 60% of a player's health, but can never kill a player. So as long as you are in your house and not taking damage from other sources, no one will be able to kill you with Earthquake spells. If you are taking damage in your house (for example, sparring with an NPC for weapon skills, or casting magic on yourself to raise Resist Spells), you could be damaged from Earthquakes to a very low health, and your damage source, whether NPC or magic, may be able to finish you off. To avoid such calamities, have a healer macroing nearby, and ensure your training macro (for things like spells) includes a check before targeting that ensures you are at 100% health. Your macro will look something like this:
Cast Flamestrike
Wait for Target
If (HP>99), Last Target
Loop
Meteor Swarm and Chain Lightning
Meteor Swarm and Chain Lightning are, for all practical purposes, the same spell. So let's use MS as an example since it's reagent cost is lower. These spells will damage all characters and NPCs on the tile they target, plus a two-tile radius in each direction. This makes them hit a 3x3 space. Like most spells, they also do absolute damage, not a percentage of health, so they can kill you directly.
Imagine you are in a small 7x7 house, standing against one of your walls. An enemy can cast Meteor Swarm and target the outside of the wall you are standing against. The MS will damage that tile, plus two tiles in all directions, including inside your house, so you will be damaged. Even one step further inside, you could still be damaged. The only place in your 7x7 home that you are safe from these spells is the center tile:
The same rules apply for large brick houses, patios, and two-story houses. Any place in the red boxes would be safe from Meteor Swarm, assuming the house is locked. I tried to illustrate the places in a house, if portions are unlocked, that you would still be safe:
Towers, Keeps, and Castles
Lastly, we have the three "fortress" homes. Despite their names, they have recently become the least safe homes in Brittania. Due to an era-accurate "bug", players can target spells on the ground inside these houses. (This is accomplished via either a circle of transparency in the Options, or a "relative target" in Razor). Paradoxically, as the player backs away from a house, they can target spots under the foundation further and further towards the inside of the home. What this means is that, assuming courtyards are compromised, there are no safe places from Meteor Swarm within these houses! In some instances, the geography surrounding one of these houses would prevent a player from backing away far enough to see deep inside, and so some tiles may be safe.
These fortresses also create vulnerabilities in *other* houses as well. Due to the height one can reach on a tower wing or keep/castle turret (and/or by climbing a footstool stairway on such a house), you can potentially have line-of-sight on the roof of nearby houses. This means you can target a point on the roof towards the middle of the house... in which case, since Meteor Swarm damages all mobiles on tiles regardless of height, you can damage people under the roof within the house. It is almost impossible to predict the LOS your neighbor will have from their tower/keep/castle to your nearby brick/patio/2-story, so it would be wise to befriend them and try to see for yourself... or befriend them in hopes they never climb up and drop Meteor Swarms on your roof Alternatively, you could buy up any tall homes in the vicinity, or choose a home that has no big homes nearby it.
I will attempt to take screenshots within some of these houses, in order to better illustrate the safety zones (my Paint skills are awful, so if anyone wishes to supply screenshots for me, they're welcome to as well). Please feel free to comment below if you have any corrections to my statements above (I haven't tested this as extensively as some of you have, so please let me know if something is missing or incorrect).
Earthquake
The Earthquake spell has a range of 8 tiles, and can reach any player in any house at any time. The two exceptions would be while in a castle or keep which has "secure" courtyards (i.e. no one has a rune to recall there). These are, for all practical purposes, non-existent.
The Earthquake spell take about 60% of a player's health, but can never kill a player. So as long as you are in your house and not taking damage from other sources, no one will be able to kill you with Earthquake spells. If you are taking damage in your house (for example, sparring with an NPC for weapon skills, or casting magic on yourself to raise Resist Spells), you could be damaged from Earthquakes to a very low health, and your damage source, whether NPC or magic, may be able to finish you off. To avoid such calamities, have a healer macroing nearby, and ensure your training macro (for things like spells) includes a check before targeting that ensures you are at 100% health. Your macro will look something like this:
Cast Flamestrike
Wait for Target
If (HP>99), Last Target
Loop
Meteor Swarm and Chain Lightning
Meteor Swarm and Chain Lightning are, for all practical purposes, the same spell. So let's use MS as an example since it's reagent cost is lower. These spells will damage all characters and NPCs on the tile they target, plus a two-tile radius in each direction. This makes them hit a 3x3 space. Like most spells, they also do absolute damage, not a percentage of health, so they can kill you directly.
Imagine you are in a small 7x7 house, standing against one of your walls. An enemy can cast Meteor Swarm and target the outside of the wall you are standing against. The MS will damage that tile, plus two tiles in all directions, including inside your house, so you will be damaged. Even one step further inside, you could still be damaged. The only place in your 7x7 home that you are safe from these spells is the center tile:
The same rules apply for large brick houses, patios, and two-story houses. Any place in the red boxes would be safe from Meteor Swarm, assuming the house is locked. I tried to illustrate the places in a house, if portions are unlocked, that you would still be safe:
Towers, Keeps, and Castles
Lastly, we have the three "fortress" homes. Despite their names, they have recently become the least safe homes in Brittania. Due to an era-accurate "bug", players can target spells on the ground inside these houses. (This is accomplished via either a circle of transparency in the Options, or a "relative target" in Razor). Paradoxically, as the player backs away from a house, they can target spots under the foundation further and further towards the inside of the home. What this means is that, assuming courtyards are compromised, there are no safe places from Meteor Swarm within these houses! In some instances, the geography surrounding one of these houses would prevent a player from backing away far enough to see deep inside, and so some tiles may be safe.
These fortresses also create vulnerabilities in *other* houses as well. Due to the height one can reach on a tower wing or keep/castle turret (and/or by climbing a footstool stairway on such a house), you can potentially have line-of-sight on the roof of nearby houses. This means you can target a point on the roof towards the middle of the house... in which case, since Meteor Swarm damages all mobiles on tiles regardless of height, you can damage people under the roof within the house. It is almost impossible to predict the LOS your neighbor will have from their tower/keep/castle to your nearby brick/patio/2-story, so it would be wise to befriend them and try to see for yourself... or befriend them in hopes they never climb up and drop Meteor Swarms on your roof Alternatively, you could buy up any tall homes in the vicinity, or choose a home that has no big homes nearby it.
I will attempt to take screenshots within some of these houses, in order to better illustrate the safety zones (my Paint skills are awful, so if anyone wishes to supply screenshots for me, they're welcome to as well). Please feel free to comment below if you have any corrections to my statements above (I haven't tested this as extensively as some of you have, so please let me know if something is missing or incorrect).