Spotlight - The new RPG system
Hello Paxians,
With the arrival of Path of the Adventurer, we’re rolling out the most substantial RPG and combat update to date. These changes have been in development for nearly six months now, and they represent a foundational rebuild of Pax Dei’s core systems.
The reasons behind the changes
Combat in Pax Dei has, until now, lacked some depth, with limited tactical options and gear choices that didn’t matter enough. This update addresses those concerns head-on by:
Creating distinct combat roles (Tank, DPS, Healer) without forcing rigid builds. Hybrid builds remain viable, especially with mixed armor and gear synergies. Your identity on the battlefield is up to you.
Making gear matter: armor, weapons, and spells now contribute significantly to your strategy and effectiveness.
Giving players more control through a tactical combat system, improved UI, and a shared resource called Spirit.
Aligning progression with playstyle: The more you use a piece of gear, the more experienced your character becomes with it.
Introducing Item Power to make gear scaling visible, meaningful, and skill-dependent.
This is more than a patch, it’s the first step toward a new Pax Dei.
Updated combat system: deeper, smarter, and more purposeful
Item Power and Progression
Every weapon and armor piece now has an Item Power score that scales with both gear quality and your combat skill level. In addition, Armor Skills have been introduced. These determine your effectiveness with specific armor types. Higher-tier gear requires higher corresponding skill to use.
Combat XP is now gained from killing enemies, and it contributes directly to leveling up specific weapon and armor skills. The harder the enemy, the more XP you gain. Party members in proximity share XP, especially when fighting veteran enemies (marked with a skull).
Fewer equipment slots, more impact
We’ve consolidated some equipment slots (e.g. shoulder and top slots are now combined) to streamline gear without diluting build depth. Each remaining piece carries more weight in shaping your character’s abilities and stats.
Gear: more than just stats
We’ve redesigned all armor classes to support specific combat roles:
Heavy Armor: High physical resistance, increased threat generation, bonuses to blocking, crowd control effectiveness and resistance. Tanking, survivability and crowd control related spells
Medium Armor: Balanced survivability and damage, frontline dps and frontline utility spells.
Light Armor (Clothing): Weakest defense, strongest damage and healing done, spells for healers and spellcasters.
Core gear pieces - head, chest, legs, and feet- now have built-in spells, even at common quality. With 36 unique spells across wearable gear, every piece of armor you choose matters from the start. We’re also adding incentives to mix armor types to tailor spell and stat bonuses to your build.
Examples of spells on gear:
Heavy Armor:
On Head: Taunt – Taunts an enemy, temporarily forcing them to attack you. Additionally, the target's damage is reduced by 25% for 4 seconds.
On Chest: Ironroot Grasp - While channeling, the caster becomes immobile, entering a trance-like state. Enemies within range are chained to the ground.
On Chest: Windlash – Pull an enemy towards you and chain them in place for 2 seconds.
Medium Armor:
On Chest: Ambush – Become invisible and gain empowered attacks while hidden.
On Head: Jester’s Flask - Throw a flask that splashes on impact, reducing the movement speed of affected enemies by 40% and reducing their physical damage dealt by 12%. Lasts for 10 seconds.
Light Armor:
On Chest: Divine Shield – For the next 4 seconds, reflect all melee damage taken back to the attacker and heal for the same amount.
On Feet: Spirit Stride – Increase your movement speed by 20% and regenerate 5.9 spirit per second for 7 seconds.
Weapons: three specials per weapon
All weapons now grant three unique special attacks and there are no more generic final-hit bonuses. Each weapon type has a distinct identity, helping define your combat rotation and strategy.
Examples of weapon abilities:
Mace:
Earthquake – Smash down violently, fracturing the ground beneath you. The impact deals 403 damage and weakens enemies, reducing their damage dealt by 12.5% for 8 seconds.
Greatmaul
Tempest Command – Become the eye of a storm. Command violent winds to spiral around you, pulling nearby enemies into your reach. Enemies are chained for 2 seconds upon landing.
Greataxe:
Sunder – An overhead chop that reduces the target’s physical defense with stacking armor shred.
Vicious Sweep - Swing in a broad arc, dealing 354 damage. All enemies struck gain armor shred charges equal to the highest stack count among targets hit.
Sword:
Interrupt – A kick that interrupts spellcasting and silences the caster if successful.
Greatsword:
Guard Breaker – Perform a heavy rising slash that breaks through blocks, dealing 348 damage. Successfully breaking a block briefly stuns the enemy.
Healing Staves: better tools for healing
Three new Healing Staves, each with a full kit of healing spells, bring dedicated healing roles to dungeon groups.
Examples of healing abilities:
Cleric Staff:
Divine Missive – Fires a projectile that splashes for 202 health to all allies within 4 meters.
Divine Intervention – Heal a target below 40% health for 380, otherwise heal for 175 health.
Sylvan Staff
Regrowth – Give a stack of Regrowth to an ally, providing 15 | 30 | 45 health per second for 8 seconds. After 3 stacks have been applied, the next stack will overflow giving 173 health and removing all stacks.
Overgrowth – Heal allies within 7 meters based on the number of Regrowth stacks on them for 111 | 137 | 130 | 232, and refresh the duration of all Regrowth effects.
New Resource
These abilities consume Spirit, a new resource shared across melee and magic users, adding an extra layer of timing and choice.
Improved dungeon experience
We have completely rebalanced the game, with a specific focus on difficulty. Progression should feel smoother and content we design to be harder (for example, dungeons) should be more challenging.
We’ve improved AI behavior on navigating to and around players. This means that the previous temporary teleportation fix has been removed. Issues with pathing should be rarer, but if they happen, enemies will reset position instead of teleporting to your party.
We have revisited aggro management and made it easier for tanks to hold aggro using their new spells and tank weapons (Maces and Greatmauls).
UI and input updates
We’ve made input and interface improvements to combat, including:
A new default keyboard layout with access to all 7 abilities - no modifiers needed.
HUD updates to display your Spirit pool and new party targeting/self-cast options.
What’s next
These changes aren’t just about the now, they lay the groundwork for what’s coming:
More crafting depth tied to gear identity.
Richer loot tables and smarter item distribution.
More build diversity and better dungeon composition.
These updates ensure Pax Dei grows into a world where your gear choices, playstyle, and combat decisions shape your journey.
We’ll be sharing more info about crafting changes in an upcoming spotlight. But for now, we’re thrilled to bring you the first taste of a Pax Dei where every swing, spell, and stance means something. We’re building Pax Dei with you, and this RPG update is one of the most significant steps yet in bringing the world (and its conflicts) to life.
Pax vobiscum, The Mainframe Team