I like the changes, it's still a little niche-y, but not NEARLY as punishing to use. The Soul boost is a nice bonus.

Appreciate it.

Samsaren

>That's to make the vessel autonomously heal people rather than requiring the TOUCH

I don't agree with this. I like your intent, but the use I envision this will be at the empath garden (or where they gather), and aid the healers. Yes, others could use it as well, but hopefully they would the empaths tend them if present and awake. Automatically healing people will detract from that, as well as removing the "RP choice" from the character.

This is a spell I avoided as a young paladin as it was niche-y and spell slots were precious. I'm now at a stage (circle 51), where spell slots are still precious, but I can barely maintain the buffs I have during combat, let alone add another. An out of combat utility spell that pushes the paladin guild in serving the community... I just may pick this up today.

Mithgrek, player of, enjoying all these recent and upcoming development!

Let me give you an example. Look at Empathic link. You can boost any skill for your Empath so long as the other person is in the room, but you have to teach people to accept the link. That's insanely powerful, but no one uses it because that teaching component is more difficult than you'd think. I see the same thing happening here.

> Note: I don't expect as a paladin to receive any abusable vit healing ability that would allow me to keep pumping vessels full of juice without dying.

Yes, this. The owner of the vessel shouldn't be included in the auto feed primarily because of the penalties to using your own vessel.

As someone who plays an empath pretty heavily, I can say that I'd likely never use it. I can bring my own vitality up faster than I can read a room description to see if a vessel is there. I have spells to reduce or stop my own vitality loss or that loss in others, and

The only time I need outside vitality is if I wasn't careful and over-extended. In which case, a quick break all and prep/cast BS won't save me because I'm unconscious. That's when I need automatic help. Either through lilt, another Empath, or something like this. That's very rare.

I admit that you're more likely to see auto-feeding helping someone who wasn't paying attention or couldn't find an empath (and likely don't know about this vessel anyway). I still think that use case is both beneficial to the paladin and the game as a whole. A lot more beneficial for the game than a paladin setting one up in wyrvens for when their alt / hunting-buddy gets hit by the wing attack.

Armifer, I'm having trouble replacing a vessel I cast in another room. I tried casting VOS in empath's today in an attempt to save someone from a vit death, but I received the following message:

You already have a sacrifical vessel in another location, and cannot muster the energies to create one here.

I tried a min prep cast and a 100 mana cast at partial and full prep. I also tried in a different room. All failed in the same manner. Also, there appears to be a typo, which I've italicized above.

>>On that note: I apologize for the silence of the last few days, and probably proceeding for the next few. Real life is kicking me right now and distracting me from DR. It shall pass, but it's impeding my ability to fix and push out the Smite stuff as timely as I imagined.

We shall await your return with baited breath. Don't sweat it, we've muddled along so far, I can't imagine a small window of time shattering anyone's calm here.

Samsaren

>Yeah, right now it's a hard stop if you have a vessel in another room. When I get a moment I'll go back into the spell and make the new vessel override the existing one.

Thanks!

>On that note: I apologize for the silence of the last few days, and probably proceeding for the next few. Real life is kicking me right now and distracting me from DR. It shall pass, but it's impeding my ability to fix and push out the Smite stuff as timely as I imagined.

I honestly couldn't expect more than you're already giving us. I feel like we've already gained a lot in a couple short weeks. In any case, I hope the RL stuff is good, and hope you'll check in every so often even if busy just because Paladin curse.