Kroderine Soul Primer
Kroderine Soul (also referred to as "KS") is a feat available to warriors, rogues, and monks and may be learned at any level. A character that chooses to learn this feat loses the ability to benefit from most defensive and utility spells, but gains damage reduction and abilities to help them deal with magical attacks.
Benefits of Kroderine Soul
- Increased Physical Redux
- Redux will also apply to damage from magical sources
- Magical Damage Reduction will be slightly lower than Physical Damage Reduction
- Duration of hostile spell effects is capped at 20 sec.
- Access to the Absorb Magic feat, which allows a character to absorb spells cast at them to gain a 2 minute enhancive boost to STR (+10), Max Health (+5-25), and Max Stamina (+5-25). Can be activated while in RT.
- Access to the Dispel Magic feat, which allows a character to instantly remove most negative magical effects on them
Drawbacks
Those who learn KS may not have knowledge of spells, whether learned via Spell Research or spell knowledge items, if they do learn one or more spells the benefits of Kroderine Soul will be lost.
Kroderine Soul characters also cannot receive the benefits of most beneficial magic, whether cast on them by others or from activating magical items. The spells will simply fizzle if someone attempts to cast them on a KS character. Monks above level 30 are the exception to this, as they may learn the Mental Acuity feat which allows them to cast Minor Mental spells of level 20 or below for stamina while retaining KS.
It should be noted that KS characters may still benefit from the following, as they are not considered "beneficial magic" for the purposes of Kroderine Soul:
- Floating Disk (511)
- Society abilities (Order of Voln, Council of Light, and Guardians of Sunfist)
- healing herbs, tarts, teas, etc
- Preservation (305)
- Raise Dead (318)
- Locate Person (116) may be used to locate KS characters, but only when they're dead
- Empaths may still transfer the wounds of KS characters. They may also transfer "exertion" from a character who has popped their nerves due to exhausting their stamina since Adrenal Surge (1107) will not work on KS characters
- Lichbane talismans
Is Kroderine Soul Worth It?
While Kroderine Soul can be learned by any warrior, rogue, or monk, whether or not it's right for any particular character is going to depend on their playing style. Those that rarely or never hunt with defensive spells on them will experience few, if any, drawbacks. However, those that rely heavily on spell-ups for hunting may have a significant adjustment period and will be the most likely to regret learning Kroderine Soul. Anyone thinking about learning this feat would be well advised to make sure they still have their annual fixskills available to them unless they want to be stuck with it until May 20 rolls around again.
Aside from the broad advice above, each of the three professions that can learn Kroderine Soul also have their own considerations, as do some races.
Warriors
Warriors are the least reliant on magic of the three professions and can easily learn Kroderine Soul straight out of character creation. For new characters, this may even be desirable since they won't develop habits that rely on having a spell-up they'll need to unlearn if they pick up KS later in their career. KS remains viable through-out a warrior's career, though those that achieve ten million or more experience post-cap may find more benefit learning spells if they're looking to min/max.
Of particular interest to warriors, the Absorb Spell feat gained upon learning KS can make hunting areas with magical creatures much easier. If activated when one sees the spell prep messaging for a creature, they will be immune to the next spell targeted at them and gain a significant boost to their STR stat (which translates to a boost in AS)).
Rogues
Coming soon
Monks
While Monks can train in Spell Research more easily than Rogues or Warriors (costing 43% and 68% fewer training points respectively), Monks can reconcile being the "most magical square" with Kroderine Soul through the use of a specific feat: Mental Acuity. This feat enables KS for Monks by allowing the first 20 ranks of the Minor Mental spell circle as a "freebie" (not losing Kroderine Soul status due to knowledge of these ranks) and casting those spells using Stamina, rather than Mana.
This allows Monks the unique playstyle of being able to spell up using Iron Skin and Dragonclaw, utility spells like Vision, etc. while gaining the protections of Kroderine Soul.
Smaller Races
Burghal gnomes, Forest gnomes, and Halflings should note that they will lose access to Strength (509). Since many squares of these races rely heavily on this spell to help with encumbrance issues, they should carefully consider how much losing its benefits will impact them. The CMAN Surge of Strength can be used to mitigate this loss, but some may not find this an acceptable substitute due to its cooldown period.