World of Torr The Law

Life in the cities can be ruff. Almost anything is considered a crime in the cities and the guards don't give anyone any slack. There are dozens of infractions you may accidentally commit and suspects are usually considered guilty until proven a heretic! It would be wise to familiarize yourself with the laws so as not to break them (unless you really want to).

Players who are pick pocketed, attacked or otherwise victimized by another player must yell out "GUARDS" for the guards to respond, NPCs automatically call for the guards whenever they are victimized. It is recommended that you pick a quick slot and make it a Text Macro that yells GUARDS so you can call them quickly. You can do this by Right-clicking an empty quick slot and selecting Text Macro, then give it a display label and enter GUARDS for the text, you can then simply click that quick slot to call the guards from then on. Guards must be in perception range to respond to anyone calling for help. Calling the guards for no reason is called "Crying Wolf" and if you cry wolf more than twice within 60 seconds you will be arrested!

Guards will not arrest someone unless they openly committed a crime, picking pockets successfully will not warrant an arrest, a thief would have to fail his attempt and be noticed. However players carrying stolen goods who call for guards for any reason will be arrested. Don't call for the guards unless you haven't done anything illegal yourself.

Every Kingdom has generally the same legal system. The laws are enforced by guards in all populated areas and will respond to any illegal act. It is also important to note that every kingdom keeps a separate criminal record on you. Being wanted in one kingdom does not make you wanted in another. When you commit a crime you will get a message to the fact as well as a journal entry to describe your legal situation. There are dozens of crimes that you can commit and each crime has an associated demerit value associated with it as follows:

Crime	Demerit	Description
Attacking a Commoner	3	Any physical attack or harmful spell inflicted on a Commoner. Can be applied multiple times but only once per commoner per round.
Attacking a Player	3	Any physical attack or harmful spell inflicted on another Player. The victim must yell "GUARDS" for the authorities to respond.
Killing a Commoner	10	Dealing a death blow to a commoner
Killing a Player	15	Dealing a death blow to Player. Player does not need to yell "GUARDS" for the authorities to respond.
Killing a Player on Trial	20	Killing a player who is currently standing trial.
Assaulting a City Guard	5	Any physical attack or harmful spell inflicted on the local law enforcement. Can be applied multiple times but only once per guard per round.
Killing a City Guard	15	Dealing a death blow to a city guard
Assaulting the Court	10	Any physical attack or harmful spell inflicted on a Judge or Juror. The executioner is considered a guard. Can be applied once per round.
Killing a Judge	20	Dealing a death blow to a Judge or Juror during trial
Entering a Trial Area	2	The Inner court, where the accused stands at trial, is always off limits to the public. Entering that area will provoke an arrest.
Escape from Prison	10	Crossing the threshold of your jail cell door when you are still imprisoned will apply this crime.
Escape from Trial	10	Fleeing your trial when you are the accused will warrant this crime. If your demerits are 20 or more you will be shackled and will not be able to move unless the executioner is attacked first
Slaughter of Animals	3	Dealing a death blow to any farm animals within city limits which you do not own.
Public nudity	2	Wearing no armor at all is illegal. If a guard perceives you while you are naked, you will be arrested.
Petty Theft	2	Pick pocketing or Stealing an item whose value is 100g or less
Larceny	5	Pick pocketing or Stealing an item whose value is 500g or less
Grand Larceny	10	Pick pocketing or Stealing an item whose value is over 500g
Royal Larceny	20	Pick pocketing or Stealing an item from Royalty at any value
Burglary	10	Unlocking a door to a home or property that you do not own.
Performing Black Magic	5	Summoning Evil Ritual Circles is illegal anywhere. If a guard perceives such a ritual, you will be arrested
Consorting with Monsters	5	Having an Evil familiar or summoned pet is illegal anywhere.
Arena Interference	8	Attacking an arena monster or a player in the arena while you are not in the arena yourself is a crime. Players attacked in this way must yell "GUARDS" for the guards to respond.

Whenever you commit a criminal act which involves stealth (Breaking into homes, Pickpocketing, Assassination) everyone in a 30 meter radius will get a chance to spot and/or hear you which will be the same as if a guard saw you. This includes Guards, Commoners, and players who are not grouped with you. Victims of a crime (i.e. Pickpocketing) do not get this additional check at all but do get the standard BioWare one. The Difficulty (DC) checks will be (Hide vs. Spot) and (Listen vs. Move Silent). If the spotter does not have a clear line of sight to you (around a corner, blocked by a big object) then only a listen check is made. There are modifiers for distance which should be taken into account:

Spot: The DC modifier is 0 at 15 meters. For every meter the spotter is closer to you its -1 to the difficulty and +1 DC for every meter past 15 meters (30 meters is maximum spotting distance ). For example, you try to break into a home, if you have a Hide of 15 and a guard has a spot of 5 at 15 meters away, his DC is a straight 15 (bout 50/50 chance with a skill of 5), but if he's only 5 meters away his DC will be 5 (pretty much automatic)

Listen: Hearing checks are done the same way except that there is no DC modifier at ZERO meters and then a +1 DC for every meter away the spotter is. Listening ignores walls you can get "detected" by a guard who is on the other side of an alleyway if he hears you!

Lighting / Visibility: Any check done during Dusk/Twilight has a DC bonus against someone to SPOT you of +3 but a penalty to HEAR you of -3. At night its +5/-5 and indoors or underground it is +8/-8.

Pickpocketing: Due to its subtlety, Pickpocketing has a straight +10 DC penalty against anyone trying to spot you. Nearby people also do not get a chance to Hear a Pickpocketing attempt. A Pickpocket attempt done at night for example will start off at DC 15 against witnesses event at point blank range.

If you are spotted or heard you will see a message declaring who spotted or heard you and at what difficulty they were successful at. You will also be forced to play the "pickpocket" animation for about 3 seconds before being able to move. The door you opened will also be immediately locked.

Being stealthed has no bearing on this check neither does being silent or invisible, this is probably temporary until it is coded better to handle those situations. Just because you are invisible doesn't mean guards don't notice and hear doors opening up or suspicious players hanging around homes that don't belong to them, they catch thieves for a living!

If you commit an illegal act the guards will immediately come after you and attack. When they have beaten you down to the ground you will be arrested and taken to the local kingdoms prison and await your trial. After a few minutes in prison, your trial will start and you will be transported to the cities public court.

At your trial the judges will ask you if you to enter a plea. Claiming you are guilty will guarantee a punishment but will reduce the maximum sentence the judges will place on you while claiming you are innocent will cause your verdict to wither be greatly increased or decreased depending on whether the judges believe you or not.

After entering a plea, the judges will ask the common people to voice their opinion on your guilt or innocence. At this point any other players will be able to use a nearby lectrum and select whether they wish to support or boo you. The opinion of the other players greatly influences the decision of the judges. However the amount of crime demerits leveled against you is still the starting point to their decision. It would take several people claiming your are innocent to get away with several murders but even a few people can swing your sentence into a more favorable one (or vice versa).

The four types of punishment that judges can impose as well as what amount of demerits you can expect them at are as follows

If you have 20 or more crime demerits when you are arrested then you will be placed into a different type of cell and be "Shackled" during any jail time and during your trial. When shackled you cannot do anything at all are are essentially paralyzed. The only way to escape while shackled is if someone picks the lock on the shackles themselves

Whenever you are arrested you will have all items you are carrying tranferred to the Jails Vault for safe keeping until you are released. Upon your release you can simply open any of Jail Vault chests and retrieve your belongings. While in prison you will be given Jail Rags to wear (walking around naked is illegal).

The system does allow for escape attempts and forced rescues. The jail doors are locked but can be picked and the jail guards are carrying keys to the jail cells. If you are not shackled you can try to run away or attack the judges while you are on trial but you might not get very far without some help. Escape is possible especially with help from the outside however the penalties for escaping are quite high and anyone who helps you escape will surely take a hefty warrant themselves.

Just because you stay away from a kingdom where you murdered 16 children, mugged 3 judges and have 23 counts of public nudity does not mean you are safe from the law. Any other player can take out a bounty contract to have you brought in. This means at anytime, at any place, you can get ambushed by another player, beaten down and hauled off to prison under the same system as if a guard arrested you.

The system was built with player exploitation in mind. Leaving the game or getting yourself killed on trial in an attempt to avoid the penalties will not only fail, it will increase your penalty as soon as you enter the game again. Upon re-entering the game, even on a different day, you'll find yourself in jail and await trial again, except this time your crime score has been increased even more. The entire trial process is being kept track of in the database and players DO NOT get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to disconnects during trials. It should be noted that even execution carries an XP penalty that is based on your current crime score. Being executed with 30 demerits and being executed with 90 demerits is more than a 3x difference in XP penalty!. Running away from trial is just another crime as far as the system is concerned and there is no way to avoid the penalty of the courts, only make it worse. It is in your best interest to go along with whatever penalty you receive from trial, even execution.