Bag of holding and item weight.

[MadSeer]

I can get behind that. I mostly play STR characters...I do like the perks

[Mork]

Currently we dont want to implement bags of holding and items such as the ones you describe. Performance issues aside, it takes away yet another thing from STR characters, especially those in heavy armor.

There are too many PRCs, feats and systems that favor combinations of High DEX/INT characters more than High STR ones in heavy armor

To be fair - I think at the moment sneakers/assasins are in the worst position when it comes to build power.
There are some impressive STR builds that do crit dmg I've never seen anywhere else.

[mrm3ntalist]

Currently we dont want to implement bags of holding and items such as the ones you describe. Performance issues aside, it takes away yet another thing from STR characters, especially those in heavy armor.

There are too many PRCs, feats and systems that favor combinations of High DEX/INT characters more than High STR ones in heavy armor

To be fair - I think at the moment sneakers/assasins are in the worst position when it comes to build power.
There are some impressive STR builds that do crit dmg I've never seen anywhere else.

Have you tried an STR sneak assassin?

On the other hand, there are DEX/INT non sneak builds with more AC/Damage/Skills that any STR based character in heavy armor and shield.

[Vartigy]

Hell, i'd settle for a Potions Bag and a Scroll Binder Book.

[Skarain]

In my mind, I consider "Bags of Holding" to already exist - but they do only affect the amount of 'space' an object takes, not their 'weight'

If a Wimpy Wizard is able to squeeze 50.0 Pound Fullplate into his magical bag, that's great for him, but he is still carrying 50.0 Pounds worth of stuff. That stuff is Heavy! You -can- cheat with Magic to make yourself Stronger (Bull's Strength), but even magic has it limits (+4 str only), so he can maybe make with 1, maximum 2 50.0 Pound fullplates without being burdened down by the weight.

Secondly, our visual models in the game are limited. Even if you were able to carry all that stuff, most people won't bother emoting that they are carrying a strapped spear, ten swords, dozen of scrolls, twenty potions, seventy scrolls and a fullplate strapped haphazardly to their back - and still fight effectively! At most, they have the Backpack visuals from the Cloak - but most do not even have that.

Now.... I know this isn't 100% Faerun Lore accurate, but this is a Virtual Game. a Game have Engine Limitations. a Game have it Balance to consider. It may try to mimic D&D as close as it can, but it will still have limitations that a Pen & Paper game does not have.

It would not kill me or my immersion by pretending that in this world, Bags of Holding work differently and affect only the Space, not the Weight. What does it matter in regarding the story? It have virtually no impact. Only one rule of the universe that works differently.

My first 2 cents.

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Now secondly. When I first joined the server, I was hoping that Bags of Holding would exist, simply for the sake of convenience.

That is all that it really is. Convenience. Out-of-Character convenience.

The reason why we even need carry weight for is to carry all the loot we acquire from the wilds to be sold, either directly to vendor or to put into storage - and sell over on the forums.

It is a very out-of-characteristic need that pans out around grinding gold in order to buy better gear and equipment.

How many in here would be content with the amount of Carry Weight that they have, if they didn't have to do looting? I say without a doubt: Everyone.

From a Realistic, In-Character standpoint, a dungeon-delver who is physically weak but otherwise powerful, who is unable to carry the treasures they find themselves would want to hire a "lower level" commoner/soldier to carry things for them - just like wealthy people don't carry their own luggage on expeditions into the jungle or into the hotel rooms. They pay other people to do the heavy lifting for them.

In D&D this translates to a powerful wizard/cleric/sneak-assassin paying someone to carry their things while they do all the actual violent work and make sure the guy makes out of there alive - since if not, who is going to carry all those valuable items back into town?

In my opinion, this could be done on BGTSCC aswell. Heck, it creates RP when a wimpy wizard who can lever a town announces that they want to hire muscle (another PC) to carry their things. You go there, you dungeon-delve, and then you get into town, empty your bags, see what you have, and either divide the loot or pay up for the Brute for their services.

Isn't this how it works in actual Tabletop P&P RP? That the loot of the group is divided to be carried among the people, then split at the town according to who can use what, and the rest is sold and the money divided - either evenly or how the group's hierarchy works.

--- of course, this would require fair play and honestly among the people involved Out-of-Character, that the Muscle do not simply keep the best items without even revealing them to the Wimpy char. Game-mechanically, you can not force them to reveal the content of their backpack.

Best kind of RP from this I can imagine coming out from Long-term partnerships, either between individuals or on Guild-level. Both because the extended interaction generates more Roleplaying between the characters, and because long-term relations tend to build more OOC trust towards the other player when it comes to Loot Distribution.

(I have a Rogue/Sorcerer character in P&P style D&D 5e Roleplaying group I participate in. He is the one who does most of the looting as the more 'religious' people tend to the wounded and such. Most of gem, gold and things he can make easily disappear end up to his own pockets without the rest of the group knowing, but the players itself are fine with it, since they see it happening and we can laugh over it Out-of-Character)

So yes, this kind of "Pack Mule" RP could definitely be done, providing the parties can trust eachother to be fair OOC with all the loot. Carry weight problem: Solved.

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Alternatively maybe a NPC "Pack Carrier" you can hire, be it a Goblin Slave for Underdark or a Human Commoner for surface, to carry your loot and things.

...Mind, i have no idea how that would work, whether it would be a good idea to begin with, since we'll quickly have EVERYONE running around with their personal NPC Pack-mule, again, for the sake of Convenience, which would not only strain the server for additional NPC's running around, but also brutally murder Immersion when EVERYONE have their "Joe the Pack Mule" NPC following them around.

If anything such NPC-based pack mule'ing was implemented, it'd need some deep, deep thinking.

For the time being, I recommend hiring a PC for it instead.

Or invent a Wand that reduces the weight of an Object to 0.0 Pounds for X/rounds. (same point: no idea if can/should be implemented. Could easily get exploited if can use on fullplate, then equip it: full protection, no weight)

That's my second two cents.

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Sorry for the essay. When I get on the mood, I tend to write a lot. >_>

[Mork]

From a Realistic, In-Character standpoint, a dungeon-delver who is physically weak but otherwise powerful, who is unable to carry the treasures they find themselves would want to hire a "lower level" commoner/soldier to carry things for them

Idea of paying some PC to carry your stuff and do some RP on the way sounds cool but said low lvl PC with high strength will do that ONLY for RP reasons - if he wants to play a servant character.

Otherwise - its not worth it. XP? nope - penalty will give you 1 xp. Gold? nope - gaining gold will be faster if you just camp couple lootspots available in near to 0 danger zones.

So yea - unless you plan to pay that PC mule epic amounts of coin whitch would not make any IC sense, or unless that someone agrees only for RP reason to follow you when he could gain much more otherwise then yea - it works... except most of the time it does not.

[chad878262]

Or you could get a party together...Say a Fighter, a Cleric, a Rogue and a Wizard.... We'll call them the balancing act. They could adventure together and the Fighter, maybe a Dwarf...could constantly emote grumbling about someone else taking a turn at carrying the loot bag.

I imagine it would be a real PnP like experience!

[Mork]

I imagine it would be a real PnP like experience!

Real PnP experience would be if main source of income wouldn't evolve around looting and selling trash.

As Skarain explained:

How many in here would be content with the amount of Carry Weight that they have, if they didn't have to do looting? I say without a doubt: Everyone.

So yea - in PnP there would not even be a need for a designated character to carry a loot-bag except perhaps like once per adventure encounters where team gets to dragons treasure or something, and even then treasure would probably be just teleported by a mage or carried in pocket dimension.

[chad878262]

Well, it is an online game... The only way looting/grinding doesn't happen is if you have a private server where 1 DM takes a group of 3-7 friends through custom adventures, just like in PnP... In a game where there will always be more players than DM's in game can handle there are going to be those out there looting, XP grinding or whatever. You don't have to grind...but what else are you going to do during your play times? Some honestly never grind, they wait until they find a group, they RP for a while and they literally are never solo. Generally takes longer to reach 30, which is fine for them because they want the group/adventure RP and don't necessarily care about leveling twice a day (or whatever).

Not sure the point about if we never 'have to grind' you don't. Unless your point is you want to fully outfit your PC with a bunch of epic gear....but you don't really need to fully outfit yourself with epic gear, it is just nice that if you wish to you have the option to grind out gold / items until you can afford said epic gear.

[Planehopper]

We are veering a bit off-topic here, but I think it adds into the discussion about alternatives to bags of holding, and solving the 'carrying the world' conundrum:

From a Realistic, In-Character standpoint, a dungeon-delver who is physically weak but otherwise powerful, who is unable to carry the treasures they find themselves would want to hire a "lower level" commoner/soldier to carry things for them

Idea of paying some PC to carry your stuff and do some RP on the way sounds cool but said low lvl PC with high strength will do that ONLY for RP reasons - if he wants to play a servant character.

Otherwise - its not worth it. XP? nope - penalty will give you 1 xp. Gold? nope - gaining gold will be faster if you just camp couple lootspots available in near to 0 danger zones.

It works just fine. Ask any number of lower level characters that have been hired by my character Zahven in the last week or so. I've formed a handful of parties of very low-level characters (ranging from level 2s to mid-teens) to accompany my epic level wizard on various quests and RP'd adventures. None of them have RP'd 'servant' characters.

Of course, there are at least two keys to success.

One, I do not join the party and only travel alongside them. I do my best to act as a typical DnD wizard. I rarely participate in the battles, save for the most dire situations, and use my spells to aid, incapacitate, and otherwise be useful without soaking the XP or taking any kills.

Two, they must want to RP, or at least tolerate my own RP. Since I am not getting spawn XP (and for many of these quests/dungeon dives I wouldnt really anyway) I rely on RP-XP to advance. It works quite handily, actually.

Otherwise, it works out extremely well for those that I hire (for paltry/realistic sums of coin, mind you). They are buffed and under the protection of an epic mage, they can fight up a CR group easily, and rake in XP very well. They are also earning RP XP, building connections with other players, and with the loot script the way it is, we are all looting the chests and earning coin that way just fine.

I have RP'd asking the brutish types to carry the heavy items when needed, since that is ostensibly why they are hired, but for the most part I just do it so that I am not another one of those epic characters running around in lower-level areas by myself adding zero to the server. It adds a bit of realism I think, as well, when an older wizard isn't RPing carrying a dungeon's worth of scrap metal to the merchant after every foray.

[Mork]

Chad I think you misunderstood. My point was not about making the game non-grindable, or changing main source of income in it.
My point was to show how your argument about PnP experience does not fit here.

If you're using PnP as argument against bags of holding (and it was my impression you tried to do that in your post) then you're kind of shooting yourself in a foot cause like it was explained before:
1. PnP has no real need for hauling tons of trash - game does.
2. PnP has bags of holding as fairly common item for those who can afford it, while our game does not have this item functioning at the moment.

Any argument originating from PnP naturally speaks for adding bags of holding to a game NwN2 and our server is.

[chad878262]

PnP also has not massive server lag caused by bags of holding.... *shrug*

My only point was really not about comparing to the mechanics of PnP, but the roleplay of PnP... You know, a 4 person party that all fulfill different roles within a party. I obviously failed to get it across appropriately in written word, but I really have no desire to compare the two mechanically, they are worlds different and there is no possible way to make them the same.

All that said (and if I read through the topics pages correctly), several devs have stated Bags of Holding are not going to be implemented, and a viable alternative would be to group up and agree to a 'loot carrier' and that everyone will either split the gains equally or be given their found items at the end of the adventure.

Sorry for the confusion, was really just trying to say that having a buddy around can alleviate a lot of loot grinding woes...