Synergies.

[CelticHound]

Ahhh. That's excellent news. Now I wonder if this can be used to achieve generator-only synergy benefits, because that is something that can rescue the poor lad in some of his deficiencies.

A quick note on how synergies appear in the data files. For any given effect on a given skill, there is a formula. For example the formula for the the elemental damage boost of Vengeance (just grabbed a copy of skills.txt from the PhKeep, since I don't have the beta on this comp) is:

Code:

ln12+(skill('Resist Fire'.blvl)+skill('Resist Cold'.blvl)+skill('Resist Lightning'.blvl))*par8+skill('Salvation'.blvl)*par7

(par7==2, par8==5 and ln12 is skill-level based formula that I can't find the definition of. Ruvanal! Jarulf! Help!)

To change that to use full skill levels including adders, you'd just change the "blvl"s to "lvl"s, I think. Also Ruvanal recently gave some ideas on only allowing specific skill adders.

Anyway, to answer your question, the synergy benefits can be stuffed into the formulas for any of the aura (shared) or passive (personal) attributes.

Funny you should mention that. I had speculated on the possiblity of using those auras for Thorns synergies allowing Thorns to achieve an elemental damage return. It was after I considered a Sanctuary synergy (magic damage reflection on Thorns versus Undead) that I started to realize the implications of teaming up with a summoner Necromancer and figured the potential might force it back to worthlessly low power returns for game balance.

Not if the additional damage was personal to the Paladin and didn't get passed on, though. :)

And virtually lock the Paladin into shield-only builds?

No, that's the beauty of it. If Holy Shield gave Defiance a % damage reduction synergy, it would work whenever you were running that aura, not when HShield was up. This would give 2hd weapon Defiants a reason to pump HShield, though not to use it.

-- CH