It doesn't stop Blacktalon from infesting a Hartstone demesne or Hartstone from purifying a Blacktalon demesne?

Only for city-dwellers. Druids can infest/forceforest through them. You're fighting in a forest terrain. Expect it.

It gives you a massive advantage in defending your demesne since it takes 4 actions to get rid of your defense but only one to get rid of ours.

"You're fighting in a forest terrain" is no argument because, hey, you're fighting in a mage terrain but terrain doesn't take 4 dispells/realitychecks to get rid of!

No, but we require a higher discernment ability to get rid of yours.

And ANY tree, sapling or otherwise, can die in a single hit. MULCH TREE.

They're weaker when it's a "fake" forest, created by the druid. There's no way a sapling will take four chops to take down unless it's in a real forest.

Ah. That's not so bad then. (even if it would be nice if terrain did that for aquas when we're in the ocean or something... )

How does that make sense? Sapling is in Druidry, the main skill that defines a Druid, while Terrain is in Illusions, a sub-skill for Mages that is shared among Geomancers and Aquamancers. You really don't need anything else.

I wasn't serious

Adding to the above, there's a variety of other factors to take into account, like if the person is an Axelord or not, what the damage stats are on the axe, the strength of the person chopping, etc.

Not all lumberjacks are equated equal!

Uh oh.. now we're going to see lots of people tooting the stats of their axes, wearing flanel, eating pancakes, and singing "I'm a Lumberjack" all day.

What have you done to us, Estarra?!!

Heh, that was about the only thing I got out of it when she attempted to explain all the subtleties of the skill and the ways to combat it.

Such things are too complicated for me at this time in the... morning.

In case we've not said it enough - thank you.

Coding time = nothing.
Design time = months.

Ya, that's what I was told on software engineering classes heh.

Finally, us Tae'dae Axelords have a use! Big Strength + Big Axe = Bye bye Hartstone.

Question: Does having the chop ability in environment increase an Axelord's ability to chop, or is having it just in Axelord enough to chop at full strength?

Actually, glomdoring axelords have no purpose in killing the trees - unless you're working for Magnagora, now?

Blacktalon should be able to, at least I'm told, infest/force through the trees. ONLY mages are stopped by them.

Chopping down Moonhart Trees, as well as just gathering wood.

Also, if any Geomancers are assisting us and there's no Blacktalons nearby to infest.

What moonhart trees? And it's such sucky roleplay, that. "Well, there's no blacktalons, can you Geomancers come and kill Maeve's forest, so that we can win? Thanks!"

UBER sucky. Like, yea. Suckier than my demesne.

How so? I don't think the taint has a 'wastelands' effect on the Faethorn Forest.

"Hey, Magman, we need to PWN Faethorn. Get your ass in there and clean up their demesnes."

So... not all reality checkers are created equal!

Make it so that it's harder for certain races/classes to break an illusioned terrain in certain places (highways, cities, etc.) That would make both terrain and sapling balanced and very much equal to one another.