The Faction System
Scoring, Combat, and Points
Combat Related Interactions
Players in the faction system are able to freely aggress enemy faction members. However, faction mates are treated as "innocents" unless other circumstances override that status. As the faction system is designed to operate in conjunction with the other existing player-interaction rule sets that currently exist in Ultima Online, the Faction system will account for the integration of different player-interaction conditions. The conditions for Faction combat interaction are as follows:
  • Players cannot be in a party with opposing Faction members
  • The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely attacked.
  • The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is in an enemy guild (guild war) can be freely attacked
  • Although faction members can travel to Trammel (if they are not a murderer), there is no faction combat on the Trammel facet. However, all guild wars still apply.
  • Faction members can use all magic spells in combat when in a guarded area.
The precedence order for lawful aggression is by reputation, then by guild, then by faction. Lawful aggression is any aggression that will not flag the attacker as a criminal. Aggressive party actions are not listed because they themselves never allow free lawful aggression between players.

Faction Scoring and Rank
Faction players are able to gain "kill points" by defeating their faction enemies in battle. In addition, these kill points are used to determine a player's rank in the faction. There are two terms that players need to understand with the Faction point system. The two terms are "kill points" and "deficit".

Kill points
Kill points are earned when opposing Faction members successfully kill someone in an opposing Faction. The amount of kill points taken from the victim is 10% of the total kill points on the victim. The examples below illustrate the results from a battle, where the name "Winner" was victorious in the battle and "victim" was killed by "winner".

For example, assume the victim had 100 kill points and the winner of the fight had zero kill points. 10% of this goes to the victor, from the victim. Therefore the victim moves to 90 kill points and the winner of the fight now has 10 kill points. A minimum of 1 kill point is awarded each time a faction player dies, if the victim's kill point total is 19 or lower.

For non-whole number totals resulting from percentages, the end results are rounded downward if the result is not a whole number.

Example 1: Winner: 85 kill points, Victim: 18 kill points. Result from death of the victim, Winner gets 1 kill point from the victim, moving the winner to 86 kill points. The victim's kill points reduce to 17.

Example 2: Winner has 50 kill points, victim has 21. Result from the death of the victim, winner gets 10% of the victim's kill points, rounded down to the nearest whole number. 10% of 21, or 2 kill points. The victim then has 19 kill points, and the winner of the fight has 52 kill points.

When a Faction player reaches zero kill points and is then killed again, they move into a range called "deficit", where they do not have kill points at that time. Instead they have deficit points.

Deficit
Deficit is the total on a faction player that reflects whether they are below zero kill points or not. The most deficit points any faction member can have are 6. When a Faction member is at 6 deficit points, killing them will not increase their deficit and will result in no kill point gain for the winner. Each time a Faction member dies and they are within deficit, the winner that killed them will get 1 kill point for the kill unless the victim is at 6 deficit.

Example 1: A Faction member with 60 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 2. The winner of the battle will get 1 kill point, moving them to 61 kill points. The victim increases their deficit moving to a total 3 deficit.

Example 2: A faction member with a deficit of 3 kills a Faction member with 80 kill points. The victim (with 80 kill points) will lose 10% of their kill points to the winner, or 8 kill points. The winner of the battle moves from a deficit of 3 to having 5 kill points. 3 of the 8 kill points they won were used to get them out of deficit. The remaining 5 kill points the winner earns are added to the kill point total (since this player no longer is within deficit). Now they have zero deficit and 5 kill points. The winner can now be killed 5 times before reaching zero kill points again.

Example 3: A Faction member with 10 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 6. No points are exchanged in this example, since the victim is already at 6 deficit (which is the deficit cap). The victim will not gain any more deficit points, and the winner will not gain any kill points. Had the victim been at 5 deficit, the winner would have gained 1 kill point and the victim would have then been moved to 6 deficit.

The following rules also apply to Faction system killing:

  • Points are not given to players who kill friendly faction members.
  • Player score atrophies at a rate of 10% per day (with a minimum of 1 point) at approximately 10am local shard time. This atrophy ONLY affects characters with at least 10 kill points. This will occur whether the character is logged in or not.
  • It is impossible for the kill deficit value to exceed 6 points.
  • It is impossible to have non-zero values for both kill points and kill deficit.
Point transfer
Once a day players can transfer a set amount of kill points. The requirements are that both parties are members of the same faction, and that the one who is giving the points must have at least 10 kill points. Once transferred, player A (giver) loses 5 points and player B (receiver) gets 4 points (1 point is lost in the trade).

Transfer of kill points is triggered by a speech command. Saying "I honor your leadership" will give the player a target cursor that he can use to select the player he wants to transfer kill points to.

Titles
Once per day, all faction player scores are recalculated in order to assign faction rank. Titles vary within each faction as described below.

Faction Titles
Rank Score Minax Council of Mages Lord British Shadowlords
1 Below 20% Defiler Mystic Defender Servant
2 20% - 39% Defiler Mystic Defender Servant
3 40% - 49% Defiler Mystic Defender Servant
4 50% - 59% Executioner Diviner Sentinel Keeper of Lies
5 60% - 69% Executioner Diviner Sentinel Keeper of Lies
6 70% - 79% Executioner Diviner Sentinel Keeper of Lies
7 80% - 89% Warlord Luminary Crusader Bringer of Sorrow
8 90% - 94% Warlord Luminary Crusader Bringer of Sorrow
9 95% - 99% Dread Knight Archon of Principle Knight of Virtue Agent of Evil
10 99.1% - 100% Avenger of
Mondain
Inquisitor of
the Council
Knight of
the Codex
Purveyor of
Darkness

Death at the hands of a Faction Enemy
In order to add more permanence to the results of faction battles, and add meaning to death in combat without inflicting further economic damage upon the deceased, faction players are subject to a temporary skill loss penalty of 33% when slain by a faction opponent. As described in the time-based operations chart, this penalty lasts 20 minutes. This penalty is also applied if a faction character commits "suicide".

Note: This penalty is not applied when a faction player is killed by a non-faction player, faction mate, or non-enemy faction monster.

Looting Interactions
As a result of the combat-oriented nature of the faction system, many cases will arise in which players have the opportunity to loot the corpses of the fallen. As these rules must also be integrated with the currently existing player interaction rules, the rule set described below defines the complete listing of possible looting interactions.

Looting Rules:

  • Players will not be able to loot each other through the faction system at all while in Trammel. The only possible looting of faction members within Trammel will occur through other systems such as guild war status, not because of Faction status itself.
  • Players cannot be in a party together while in opposing factions.
  • The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a fellow faction member cannot ordinarily be freely looted, a fellow faction member who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely looted.
  • The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status. Example: A faction member in an opposing guild can be freely looted as per the standard guild war looting rules.
  • In order to remain consistent with other consensual pvp systems (such as guildwar) and in order to prevent "blue looting" exploits, players are unable to freely loot fallen faction opponents unless they dealt lawful damage to the fallen player. Note that "freely looting" means looting without criminal flagging.
  • Faction players that do damage to an enemy faction player will be added to the list of people that can freely loot the enemies body should he die.
  • When a faction player reaches full health, the list of people that can freely loot his body will be cleared.
  • Damage done to an enemy faction member by a placed faction trap will add the trapper to list of people that can freely loot the enemies boady.
Faction Credits
Parts of the Faction Credit system are currently unavailable. When this system becomes fully available, players will be notified.

Factions and faction players can receive "currency" in the form of silver ("silver"-looking coins) that are useable for various faction-specific needs and luxuries. Silver can be earned by both players and factions themselves through a variety of means, and may be spent in a variety of different ways (described below). The lists below demonstrate the sources of silver income and targets of possible expenditure.

Credit Income
Faction Player Income:
  • Slain faction enemies: 40 silver pieces for every 1 kill point received (note: slain enemies who have a kill deficit greater then 0 award NO credits). Players will not be able to get silver from the same opponent multiple times over a short period of time. It will take a while before players can get silver from the same person again.
  • Slain monsters with faction affiliation:
    • Minax: Ogre Lords - 30 silver
    • Council of Mages: Wisps - 20 silver
    • True Britannians: Silver Serpents - 30 silver
    • Shadowlords: Daemons (not summoned daemons) - 30 silver
Player Tithes are 0 - 100% of all faction player silver income. This is set by Faction Commander in increments of 10%, with no more then one change every 24 hours of real time. Points taken from this tithe are placed into a Faction Treasury stored at the factionstone. The currency can thereafter only be distributed by the faction commander to the individual town treasuries under the faction's control. Once the faction credits are allocated to a particular faction controlled town, the finance minister and Sheriff for that town can use these credits for various expenditures, such as Faction vendors or guards. A successful town capture earns the Faction 10,000 credits.

Players may move and transfer silver in the same way that they manipulate standard coinage. The faction commander may disburse silver to a particular city by using the faction stone, selecting "commander menu", then selecting "transfer credits".
The commander will be given a listing of cities under the faction's control, and after selecting a city, may enter an amount of credits to transfer.

Silver Use
Silver can be used by Faction craftspeople and/or to obtain the following items (crafting the listed items requires the crafting player to have the requisite credits). Faction craftable items can only be crafted in a town being controlled by that faction.

Faction Scrolls: These are Faction Imbued scrolls of heal, greater heal, harm, fireball, and lightning. These scrolls may be used by a pplayer of at least 90 inscribing skill upon a faction-crafted gnarled staff, in order to charge the staff with a number of charges of that spell. The number of charges is equal to 40 divided by the circle of that spell (rounded down). Example: A lightning scroll would provide the staff with 10 charges of lightning, a fireball scroll would provide 13 charges of fireball, and so forth. Staffs (staves) cannot be recharged. A new staff must be created in order to accept a new enchantment.

Faction Players

  • Craftable Items
    • Armor (metal types): 1,000 silver
    • Armor (leather types): 750 silver
    • Weapons (melee): 1,000 silver
    • Weapons (archery types): 1,000 silver
    • Clothes: 500 silver
    • Scrolls: 500 silver
  • Items Purchased (from faction npc vendor)
    • Horse: 500 credits (must be rank 2 or higher to ride)
Factions
  • Town Improvements
    • Level 1 Guard: 5,000 silver
    • Level 2 Guard: 6,000 silver
    • Level 3 Guard: 7,000 silver
    • Level 4 Guard: 8,000 silver
    • Reagent Vendor: 5,000 silver
    • Ore Vendor: 3,000 silver
    • Wood Vendor: 3,000 silver
    • Stablemaster: 5,000 silver
  • Craftable Items
    • Floor Traps (tinker crafted): 1,000 silver
  • Other
    • Town Control Extension: 20,000 silver for 1 day (maximum 7 extra days). Town control extension allows for the Faction to continue to hold control of a particular town, as long as they already have control of it.
Faction Craftable Items
As described above, players who craft items and are in the faction system may use silver to imbue an item upon creation with "faction" properties.
  • After crafting an item, a faction player with available silver will receive a window asking if they wish to imbue the item with factional properties.
  • A faction item is named as such (ie: a faction plate helm).
  • Faction items are "temporarily enchanted" for a period of 21 days (3 weeks) from the time they were crafted. During this three week period (real 3 weeks, not in-game time), the items will not be stealable and will remain with the player using these items upon death and resurrection. After 3 weeks, the enchantment effect wears off and the item will become a regular crafted item with no special faction properties.
  • Faction items gain a hue appropriate to the faction of the maker. The crafting player will be asked whether to hue the item with the faction's primary or secondary color.

Faction Colors
Faction Primary Color Secondary Color
Minax Blood Red Black
Council of Mages Blue-white Blue
Lord British Purple Gold
Shadowlords Black Green

Faction items can be worn only by players in the faction, and only if they have sufficient rank to equip the item (See the chart above in regards to the rank system).

  • Rank 1: 4 items
  • Rank 2: 4 items
  • Rank 3: 4 items
  • Rank 4: 5 items
  • Rank 5: 5 items
  • Rank 6: 5 items
  • Rank 7: 6 items
  • Rank 8: 6 items
  • Rank 9: 7 items
  • Rank 10: 8 items
  • Commander: 9 items

Faction Floor Traps
Floor traps are created by players in the faction system with the tinkering skill.

There are 4 types of floor traps available to Factions:

  • Spike Trap
  • Saw Trap
  • Gas Trap
  • Explosion Trap

Properties:
  • The tinker must have at least 90 skill to attempt to create a floor trap.
  • A faction may have a maximum of 15 traps placed at any given time (total).
  • Traps can only be placed in cities and/or faction strongholds.
  • Traps will only affect opposing faction members.
  • Traps can only be removed by opposing faction members through the use of the remove trap skill.

Faction Credit Interface
  • Silver is represented as silver coins.
  • Silver is "blessed"
  • When a player earns silver, they are placed in the player's pack.
  • When a faction earns silver, the amount is "credited" to the faction's factionstone.

Faction-Allied Monsters
In order to provide more interaction with the Faction system and the surrounding environments within Britannia, a variety of monsters in the Felucca lands will gain factional properties. These factional properties will cause the monsters to be non-aggressive towards players of the same faction, and have a faction credit value to players of opposing factions.
  • Faction monsters only spawn on the Felucca facet. Daemons, wisps, ogre lords and silver serpents will spawn as normal on both facets. They will appear normal and function as they have before to those players not in Factions. However on the Felucca facet, the monsters associated with Factions will appear and behave somewhat different only to Faction members. Faction associated monsters will highlight orange (using the cursor) to opposing Faction members and be aggressive. They will highlight blue and be non-aggressive to members within their associated Faction. Example: Ogre Lords will highlight orange and be aggressive to the Shadowlords faction, while appearing as blue and be non-aggressive to the Minax Faction.
  • Faction players may attack friendly (associated faction) monsters with criminal consequences.
  • Aggression toward a friendly monster will cause the monster to attack the aggressor.
  • Faction monsters will be attacked on sight by guards.
  • Faction monsters are not tamable.

The Monsters:
Minax: Ogre Lords
Council of Mages: Wisps
True Britannian: Silver Serpents
Shadowlords: Daemons

Faction Friendly Kills
As described in the combat interactions section, friendly faction members are treated as innocent in every way (barring other circumstances). As a result, killing an innocent friendly faction member is treated as a murder under the reputation system.