Information & Images from Official UO.com Site

 

MAGIC ITEM SUB-CATEGORIES:
Item & Magic Effect Categories | Base Properties | Material Bonuses | Runic Bonuses 

Magic items have been an intricate part of Ultima Online since its very beginning, allowing players to enhance their abilities through the use of a special weapon, or a piece of armor, jewelry, or clothing. In Ultima Online: Age of Shadows, this fundamental system will be translated into an entirely new magic item properties system that will allow for a greater diversity of item effects and enhancements.

With this new dynamic system, there will be practically limitless combinations of magic properties available on magic items, allowing for a greater level of rarity and a wide range of new abilities and effects. By mixing and matching gear, players will be able to fine-tune their characters better than ever before.

Crafting Magic Items

Not only will you be able to find new magic items on creatures in Age of Shadows, but if you have a blacksmith or tailor, you’ll be able to craft them as well!

 

All types of armor will have base resistances associated with them (for example, all Leather Armor Tunics start with 2% Physical, 4% Fire, 3% Cold, 3% Poison, and 3% Energy resistance). However, when crafting with colored metal or one of the special leather types, the items that tailors and blacksmiths create will get an additional bonus to certain properties depending on the material that is used.

Each type of colored metal and special leather will have its own set of weaknesses and strengths when it comes to elemental damage (weapons) and resistance (armor). So, you wouldn’t necessarily want to wear the same suit of armor to fight a fire-breathing creature that you would if you were faced with one that attacks with cold damage. The same applies to weapons. A sword that deals more cold damage than fire would be more beneficial against an opponent with a weakness to cold.

Exceptional items will also gain bonuses, such as improved Durability, as well as a six percent Resistance bonus that is randomly distributed among the item’s elemental Resistances (see Resist Modifiers below).

 

This will provide an even wider market for these items, since warriors and mages alike will want to experiment with a wide variety of equipment combinations for every type of encounter!

Item Modifiers

The following list will show some of the various effects and modifiers that will be able to be added to weapons and armor with Age of Shadows. Not all modifiers can be applied to all items. In other words, you will only be able to use melee damage increasing items on weapons, and a Reflect Physical Damage bonus will only be usable on armor. Some bonuses can be applied to multiple item types.

Resist Modifiers:

These will apply a bonus directly to your character’s resistances, which can reduce damage done by attacks. These resistances include physical, fire, energy, cold, and poison.

Physical resistance, previously referred to as AR (Armor Rating), is now a resistance to physical damage. AR used to block a set amount of damage per hit – but Physical Resistance blocks a percentage of damage from each hit. For example, at 40% Physical Resistance, all Physical damage dealt to the player will be reduced by 40%.

Durability Effects:

Durability bonuses can be applied to an object once. A more durable object will last longer before wearing down or breaking.

Regeneration Effects:

These can increase the wearer’s natural Hit Point, Mana, or Stamina regeneration rate.

 

Defense Increasers:

This can increase the wearer’s chance that his opponents’ swings (or arrows/bolts) will miss.

Stat/Derived Stat/Skill Bonuses:

These bonuses will increase a player’s stats (strength, intelligence or dexterity), their derived stats (Hit Points, Mana or Stamina), or specific skills (Anatomy, Wrestling, Musicianship, etc.) while the object is equipped.

Damage Converters:

Normally, weapons do 100% of their damage as Physical Damage. Damage Converters can convert part (or all) of a weapon’s damage to one of the four Elemental Damage Types (cold, fire, energy, or poison), which in turn makes resistance bonuses much more valuable!

Speed/Hit/Damage Effects:

These properties can increase a weapon’s swing rate and chance to hit, as well as increase the maximum and minimum damage the wielder deals with wrestling, melee and ranged weapons.

Caster Modifiers:

These new magic item properties are by no means just for warriors – it’s a bonus for casters too! Magic-users will be thrilled to find that they can now use item modifiers to do things like increase their spell damage, lower their casting recovery time, eliminate the Meditation penalty for some items, cast spells faster and for less mana, or lower their reagent costs.

One bonus will even allow the caster to wield a weapon while casting, although spell casting time may increase. Another bonus will allow the caster’s Magery skill as a combat skill for the weapon (i.e.: Magery used in lieu of Swordsmanship for a sword). However, the wielder’s Magery skill is lowered while wielding such a weapon. (Note that using Special Moves associated with the weapon will still require the wielder to have the required amount of skill points in the actual weapon skill.)

Hit Effects:

With these bonuses, weapons will have a much greater range of effects. Some may include double damage against specific monsters, or may leech Stamina, Mana, or Hit Points from the target and transfer them to the weapon’s wielder. Others will lower the attack rate or defense rating of the target.

Hit Spell Effects:

Each time a weapon with one of these properties hits a target, it will have a chance (given as a percentage) of firing a spell effect on that target, such as Magic Arrow, Harm, Fireball, Lightning, and Dispel. Hit Spell Effect items have unlimited uses.

Area Damage Effects:

Like Hit Spell Effects, these properties give weapons a chance to cause area effect damage around the wielder. The damage done by these effects only harms targets the wielder can legally attack, so there is no worry of accidentally harming an innocent. Attacks can be made up of cold, fire, energy, poison or physical damage.

Use-based Targetable Effects:

These effects contain charges of different spells, such as Heal, Greater Heal, Magic Arrow, Harm, Fireball, or Lightning. Unlike Hit Spell Effects, these can be activated at will by the item wearer.

Additional Effects:

Night Sight – A permanent, non-charged, light source that raises the ambient light level for the wearer.
Luck – Raises the wearer’s Luck statistic, which increases the potency of magical properties associated with loot on monsters the player kills.
Lower Requirements – Lowers the strength, dexterity, and intelligence requirements to wear an object.
Reflect Physical Damage – Reflects a portion of Physical Damage the player receives back at the source of the damage.
Self Repair – The item repairs its durability over time.
Enhance Potions – This property increases the effectiveness of potions used by the wearer by a percentage.
Best Weapon Skill – Uses the player’s highest weapon skill to attack with the weapon, instead of the specific skill needed for the weapon.

 

Runic Crafting Tool

 

By using a Runic Crafting Tool (Runic Hammer or Sewing Kit) to craft an item, tailors and blacksmiths will be able to craft more powerful artifacts with additional bonus properties generated from the list of magic effects above.

 

The number of properties and their intensities (relative strength of the property) are determined by the type of Runic Tool used. For example, a Valorite Runic Hammer has the chance to add more bonus properties to an item than a Shadow Runic Hammer, and any properties added to the item have a higher average intensity rating.

 

Since these tools will yield such powerful results, this new way of crafting will challenge even the most accomplished crafters, making the results quite unpredictable. While the crafter is certain to get a better item from crafting with a Runic Hammer, they cannot choose which bonus properties will be applied to the item.

 

Enhancing Items

While items made out of iron or plain leather, either crafted or found as loot, lack the special material bonuses applied by using Colored Ingots or the unique Leather Types, a skilled Craftsman still has the ability to enhance the item after the fact.

 

Plain weapons or armor can be imbued with Colored Ingots or special Leather through the process known as Enhancement. Success will add the metal or leather’s fixed properties (bonuses) to the item.

 

This means that once you’ve been lucky enough to find a superior item as loot on a monster, you can seek to improve it by imbuing it with special materials. However, imbuing an already existing item with Colored Ingots or unique Leather Types is difficult to say the least.

 

Failing an Enhancement attempt will cost you some of your materials, but there is also a very good chance of destroying the item. Once imbued, the item is considered to have been made out of the special material infused into the item, so it can never be Enhanced again.

 

The inherent difficulty in Enhancing an item works as a balancing factor, since you already have a superior item with magical properties you undoubtedly desire, and you are seeking to even further increase them. Enhancement is definitely not a choice to be made by a squeamish Crafter, for the chance of destroying your prized possession is high. But the rewards can be well worth it!

 

Item Insurance

Last but definitely not least: With the addition of all these exciting new magic item effects, the ability for players to bind objects to their spirit and take the bound objects with them when they die will also become available, allowing players to use their prized possessions without fear of losing them on the first day out.

 

For a fee (per each item you wish to insure), your equipment can be insured against death. When you die, all of your insured items remain with your ghost. When you return to life, your insured items will return with you. Each time you die, you will need to renew the insurance on your items. Stackable items will not be able to be insured.

 

Players also have the option of auto-insuring their items upon death, by opening the Context Sensitive Menu (single left-click by default) on their avatar. you can then choose to have all of your items auto-insured, so that you don’t have to re-insure each item when you die. With auto-insurance, any item that you had previously insured will be re-insured upon resurrection (assuming you have the funds).