Focused Discussion: Crafting

[dedude]

Guys, take that wiki page with a grain of salt. Nothing is decided yet on how crafting will look on this server.

[Winterborne]

I am a bit disappointed that the enchanting of Existing items is not going to be a thing.

I do not think you should be able to take an item and add extra stuff to it beyond what it has already, but I think it's pretty reasonable to take an existing item that has some good stuff but one property that sucks and would make you want to vendor it and remove and convert that property to make it something you'd use. There's a huge number of stuff in the RIG system that just ends up being mostly useless, and if the property removed was a determination of a range of strength for a replacement property (Maybe modified by crafting skill) it could lead to a lot more stuff being usable for people.

Ex:

I find a +3 shortsword with +2 to two skills and -2 to one of those same skills (Yes, I have found items that gave +2 and -2 to the same skill).

I get an enchanter to remove the negative trait, and turn that -2 and one of the +2's into a +3 to a single skill and 1 piercing damage. So start with an item that you'd look at and be like "Ugh who would want that" and instead it becomes "That's a decent thing to start with, I could work with that". Caveat: My numbers here are arbitrary and there would need to be some tweaking to find a sweet spot for usefulness and power balance.

I like this because it would result in more things people could actually -use-. I can't stand how terrible the majority of items generated randomly are. You'd still have some randomness inherent to the system, but it would let people more reasonably find minor improvements to things without having to hope for a one in a million drop. The "costs" of various properties could be tweaked as well so that if there's various "levels" of power for a property, you can only replace a property with something slightly less powerful (eg, removing a +4 to skill from an item would only be replacable with a +3 to skill replacement).

[V'rass]

Enchanting will never be added... if they been promising for close to a decade and still have not added it then why do people keep thinking its coming when its quite obviously never going to happen. They can promise to add it as much as they want but until they do their promises are empty words. It is a shame but oh well.

[NeOmega]

I'd like to see consumables like ammo and kits to start with. These get used up, which grants the crafting mechanic more utility than anything permanent like gear.

Put more emphasis on component gathering to give the whole system added adventuring value. Mine this ore here, gathering that hide there, etc. Put these things where they make sense, like mines or caves for mining. Add smelting/refining/tanning/recycling to gain materials. Make use of trivial loot table items and trash.

Figure out how to add mundane bonuses without involving magic into the system, unless said bonus requires an enchanter. Make sure each subsequent enchantment has diminishing returns.

i was thinking, one of the first crafting feats should be "copy ammo", so when you found a cool RIG ammo, you could make more of them.

now i am reading the RIG discussion, (RIG is my favorite part of this server), and thinking, perhaps crafting could be added to existing items... ..but it is multiplied by the current value of the item to add a +1 anything to the item.

Just discussing the gold sink aspect here:
a sword with +2 would be valued at roughly 2000. it would have 3 enchantment points on it (+1 + +2 = 3). to add +3 to it would require (+1 + 2 +3 = 6) 6 x 2000 which would equal a mere 12,000, which is close to merchant cost. the caveat being, the sword was blacksmithed to only hold 3 enchantments so first a craft weapon specialist would need to dissassemble it, (destroying it in the process) and then make a copy that could hold 6 enchantments. then an alchemist to prepare the ingredients to fit in the sword correctly, and then a mage to seal it all together. so, all that work and gold for something that thunderhammer and his team can make for 5000, and sell it for 13000. the gold cost would be applied with each enchantment level added.

seeing how this is medium magic server, crafting blank weapons (as opposed to copies) would require multiple epic feats. for example, the first would be copy ironworking, the next would be copy silversmithing, copy coldiron working, and then copy mithral working, and then create iron working, create silver weapon, etc, etc. Also the armorsmith or weaponsmith could only craft three weapons types. no dwarves making ktanas and no kozukorans making dwarven waraxes, no rangers making full plate and no fighters making leathers, and only mages or monks constructing robes.

even crafting the weapon, preparing the ingredients, and finally enchanting would require dc checks. they would not always be total fails, but the weapon crafter could roll a check, and fail, so the +2 sword could come out with only 5 slots, instead of 6. that would mean two level 1's could be added to the sword, (remember, a +2 would require 3 points, a +3 would require 6, and a +4 would require 10 points) with the attributes randomized. oops, schucks. now the weaponsmith would be on the lookout for the ingredients to complete the less than stellar sword. keep in mind this dc would assume the smith is maxxed out in craft weapon skill, and decked out in +3 and +4 craft weapon gear.

the alchemists job would be a bit easier, but would still have the fail checks, and need to acquire new items to re-try on the fails, with some of the items shattering, dissipating, or twisting into something else. a fun caveat to this would be sometimes the twisting would create unexpected gems/ingredients, maybe even more powerful. another fun caveat... ..the spell could have critical failure, and backfire. an alchemist preparing a rune of flame, would definitely want to be decked out in fire resistant gear.. ..and craft alchemy gear. so skill, and searching for these items would be a reason for existence on the server. adventuring to find them, asking around, etc.

then its the mages turn. everything hinges on him putting all the ingredients together. a good check, the weapons comes out as expected. a bad check... ..and some parts dont work. a critical failure, and the enchanting spell backfires... ..possibly killing the mage. and some of the more powerful enchantments might cause disintigration, meaning the mage could not be raised, (xp penalty)

all of these, would give a nice xp bonus. a big one if succesful, a small one if not-so succesful, and a tiny one on total fails / critical failures.


so... after all this effort... and luck... ..i dont think crafting +4 weapons and armor would be such a big deal. there may be some plate armors with all that awesome stuff, but the +4 armor enhance failed. a disappointed fighter, but it'll sell to a cleric well. also, the RIG would determine what is to be attempted to be copied, most of the time, and items would be destroyed, ending the "items are forever" thing. finally, lowbies could still find items of use, items to be reverse engineered.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=62422
the above thread discusses how id love to see the ingredients harvested for the alchemist. I am imagining the metals being in loot drops and maybe some mining. Since rogues are kind of left out of all this, maybe set trap would be required to place charges to get to a vein, (with obvious gailure risks) miners would also use a search check to find the vein, and then would have to set trap, or get a rogue/ranger to set the caharge, and the dc check the vein to mine pick a usable piece.

it would be really cool if somehow these veins could be found randomly. imagine dwarves slowly walking around the darkest regions of caves, looking for metal or gems. imagine groups adventuring, where dwarves arent running all over the place, but in search mode, walking between battles. (no, hell hasnt frozen over, the mining system was implemented).

[NeOmega]

What I would propose is this.

Items with +2EB or AC of their type can have 4 max enchantments on them. IE say a Plate Armor +2 AC 10% fire immunity 3 STR 4 Spot?

Items with +3EB or AC of their type can have 3 max enchantments on them.

Items with +4EB or AC can have 2 max enchantments on them.

sorry Calodan, I can't support this. Divine/Arcane Gish and Paladin can then use the very best crafted gear (then cast GMW) while everyone else basically can't. Also as M3nt/AoS said the idea is not to make crafting the most powerful gear, it is to make it more customizable (i.e. if you use a weapon that is not available in various stores.)

they still can now. why would crafted gear be any more uber powerful than RIG gear?
anyways, just make adding other goodies require a +n enchant on the weapon, where n= the number of goodies, if using the point system.

anyways, came back to say that component gathering should require teams. be it locked areas only specialized rogues could pick with +10 tools, or maybe having appraise or spot increase the chance of something being in a loot drop. maybe even have classes like "miner" that require 0 ranks in pick locks and disable device... their rough hands do not allow them to attempt such fine feats... ..and then some skills nevessarily require no skill points in mining, so rogues can pick locks, or mine, but cant do both. maybe mages required to enter sealed gates, etc etc. a scryer could find the ore, but because it requires such focus, he must specialize. also this way, it wouldnt require level 30's with awesome skill points to go mining, just the feats and investment in skills for better results.

[RaiderOne]

In my personal games we don't use crafting as its seen as a job or profession. Adventurers don't work these jobs, that's why they are adventurers.

On this server i think crafting could be a good thing if done well, or a pointless/economy destroying nightmare if done badly.

So NWN2 crafting is split into these areas;

mundane crafting (alchemy, armour, weapons, traps), which is skill based.
enchanting crafting (craft wondrous item, craft magical arms / armour, brew potion, craft wand) which are all feat based and require spellcasting class levels.

Mundane crafting is fairly easy to work with; though wizards due to their naturally high INT tend to be one of the few classes that can actually afford to spend the skill points on these. So it may be worth changing the attached ability score on weapon/armour to STR, even if only to benefit fighters/barbarians etc more.

For mundanes I would have the system require ingredients that you can find from various sources, mushrooms, beetle shells, ore, whatever you like. it may even require the character to have a minimum skill rank to harvest the ingredients. When the item is made the players skill roll can determine the quality/quantity of the item produced. So there maybe a recipe for alchemists fire bombs, you roll well and get improved bombs or extra bombs. I would probably do batch creation on these rather than singles. Weapons and armour could have an attached tag of sorts that makes them better suited for enchantment crafting, superior longsword, masterwork longsword, etc.

With enchantment crafting I would stick to recipes that can be found in books. I would make the books a requirement to use that recipe. And that all recipes are used from a crafting dialogue attached to the appropriate workbench. This makes these books valuable to the crafter (knowledge is power) and allows rare recipes to become part of the loot tables.

This enchantment crafting would essentially work as a shop with options. Your buying a set of enchantments that cost an amount determined by the recipe (gold, ingredients, etc) which you can apply to any appropriate item. These recipes control what is allowed, its not 100% player choice. So you may have a minor flaming weapon recipe that requires a superior weapon (that our mundane crafter makes) and x ingredients and x gold. When the item is made the weapon and recipe are combined, in this example it could be a +1 EB +2 fire dmg. Maybe theres a greater version that requires a masterwork weapon but gives +2 EB +2 fire dmg. Or whatever you decide to have as part of those recipes. These recipes may also have other requirements such as x arcane spellcasting levels, or divine casting levels, or deity, alignment, race, etc. No crafter gets to make everything!

Having recipes allows the system to function within the boundries of the existing economy. Some recipes may be better than items found in shops, some maybe worse. But because they are essentially an expansion to the shop system they can always be valid without being better. New recipes can be added to the game by adding more books that unlock dialogue options on the craft bench.

On a related note; If spells like greater magic weapon are a problem to this system change them to the following format.

GMW - makes weapon a +3 weapon, or adds +1 to its existing enchantment up to a max of +5.

That way you can still benefit from the spell but you can't have all your cake and eat it

[Laughingman]

I wish fishing/skinning and cooking worked like in RuneScape.

With 0 survival you could skin a rat and get a lesser vigor once cooked.

With 20 survival you could skin a bear.

Cooking rat meat has a DC of 10. If it fails it burns

Cooking bear meat has a DC of 30 but gives a cure serious wounds if successful.

You get bonus xp for skinning and cooking based on difficulty. Maybe only 5xp per rat and 20 per bear.

[NeOmega]

so ive thought of a whole other angle:
the basic idea is this. Each player can only get one item forged/enchanted. That item is bound to them, and is lost in rcr, death, retirement, etc.

the item needs to be a "base item"
first, the points:
a base item to be enchanted could first only have 4 points already imbued.
the table below is some of the suggested point values:
4 points:
weapon +1 enhance, +1 natural, dodge, armor
weapon special ability (blinding, poison, DC 14 only)
mithral armor, darksteel, adamantine, or zalantar
vampire +1
elemental +1
10% weight
damage vs alignment +3

3 points:
damage bonus vs alignment +2
1 deflect
10% elemental resist
20% weight

2 points:
silver, cold iron
damage bonus vs alignment +1
5% elemental resist
40% weight

1 point:
skills, +hp
enhance +1
mithral weapon or duskwood weapon

for the first enchantment, the player would need, ingredients and gold, and could add 4 more points, but not adding to the base attribute. (for instance, if it is +2 hide, +2 move silent, they would have to add the points in a different area, be it other skills, +1 enchant etc.)
the items would not be particularly rare, the gold not more than 10,000, and it would be handled by a NPC.

for the second enchantment, the player would have to be level 5, could add 4 points wherever they wished. (with a max skill of 3, max HP of 12 (7 points hp +5 added for HP boost), max enchant would be +2.still requiring the materials and gold. now the gold is closer to 20,000. This would be available as a quest, with an NPC at the end doing the enchanting.

for the third, the player would need to be level 12. they could again add 4 points wherever they wish, with skills capped at 4. This would require an enchanter to come along with them to a special magical forge somewhere, (unless they themselves had the required feats and skills) It would be an area with cr rated to the highest member of the party. so if the crafter is a level 30, so are the monsters guarding the forge. this is when the crafter would need their skill checks to combine the ingredients and enchant the item. The forge room would be small, and have an antimagic field, (to prevent contamination?) as well as a ward that strips all buffs. skills would be from items and rank in skill only, and failure, depending on the attemped enchantment could lead to real bad bad stuff, from implosion/ disentigration for failed +3 enchants, to level 30 fireballs for failed fire +1d4, to level drain for attempting 10% negative energy resist or +1d4 neg energy. if all die, the item is left in the forge bench, and must be retrieved within a few days (perhaps a kemo storage). If not, the character can start a new item.

for the fourth layer, the player would need to be level 20. they could again add 4 points wherever they wish. this forge would be through a portal into an extraplanar level. It would be guarded by cr 26 (for dynamic cr up to 30), and again require the enchanter. This particular forge would require finding the celestial alignment required for the portal to line up with the forge from someone with high lore:planes, (basically a password), and the level would also be filled with epic traps, locked doors, sneaks, and magically sealed gates requiring various lore checks to open, the idea being to get your epic forged item ,you need to gather an epic party of various skillsets. the forge room would again be like the one for the third layer, warded and sealed, with the entire paarty inside. failure would result in certain death for the entire party, and the item lost in the planes forever. (start again from level 1 with your unique item).

[RaiderOne]

so ive thought of a whole other angle:
the basic idea is this. Each player can only get one item forged/enchanted. That item is bound to them, and is lost in rcr, death, retirement, etc....

This sounds like the typical MMORPG spend your life collecting ore to rank up your ore skill to be better at collecting ore so you can rank up your ore skill better.

Not everyone has the time to go make their own personal special signature thingy-me-wot-sit, i don't mean that in a player way, but characters are meant to be realistic people inhabiting a world.

[NeOmega]

so ive thought of a whole other angle:
the basic idea is this. Each player can only get one item forged/enchanted. That item is bound to them, and is lost in rcr, death, retirement, etc....

This sounds like the typical MMORPG spend your life collecting ore to rank up your ore skill to be better at collecting ore so you can rank up your ore skill better.

Not everyone has the time to go make their own personal special signature thingy-me-wot-sit, i don't mean that in a player way, but characters are meant to be realistic people inhabiting a world.

huh?

no. you need a crafter to come with you. you dont forge it yourself, unless you spend massive feats and skills in it. so even if you have a crafter, you cant use it to accompany your non crafter to forge their weapon.

there is no ore collecting or ingredient collecting required. you can trade for the items, whatever...

[electric mayhem]

I am a bit disappointed that the enchanting of Existing items is not going to be a thing.

I do not think you should be able to take an item and add extra stuff to it beyond what it has already, but I think it's pretty reasonable to take an existing item that has some good stuff but one property that sucks and would make you want to vendor it and remove and convert that property to make it something you'd use. There's a huge number of stuff in the RIG system that just ends up being mostly useless, and if the property removed was a determination of a range of strength for a replacement property (Maybe modified by crafting skill) it could lead to a lot more stuff being usable for people.

Ex:

I find a +3 shortsword with +2 to two skills and -2 to one of those same skills (Yes, I have found items that gave +2 and -2 to the same skill).

I get an enchanter to remove the negative trait, and turn that -2 and one of the +2's into a +3 to a single skill and 1 piercing damage. So start with an item that you'd look at and be like "Ugh who would want that" and instead it becomes "That's a decent thing to start with, I could work with that". Caveat: My numbers here are arbitrary and there would need to be some tweaking to find a sweet spot for usefulness and power balance.

I like this because it would result in more things people could actually -use-. I can't stand how terrible the majority of items generated randomly are. You'd still have some randomness inherent to the system, but it would let people more reasonably find minor improvements to things without having to hope for a one in a million drop. The "costs" of various properties could be tweaked as well so that if there's various "levels" of power for a property, you can only replace a property with something slightly less powerful (eg, removing a +4 to skill from an item would only be replacable with a +3 to skill replacement).

just like the enchanter in diablo 3. That would be awesome

[NegInfinity]

I wish fishing/skinning and cooking worked like in RuneScape.

With 0 survival you could skin a rat and get a lesser vigor once cooked.

With 20 survival you could skin a bear.

Cooking rat meat has a DC of 10. If it fails it burns

Cooking bear meat has a DC of 30 but gives a cure serious wounds if successful.

You get bonus xp for skinning and cooking based on difficulty. Maybe only 5xp per rat and 20 per bear.

You can "take 20" on skill rolls. So a character with 0 survival would be able to skin a bear if they have time and are not being distracted by angry wolves in vicinity.

-------

Anyway, I'd be pretty fine with default neverwinter 2 crafting system, or the way it was implemented on sigil. It went like this: you needed a recipe, components, and "soul essences". The essences were dropping from monsters, but rather than dropping directly, they had to be obtained from animal parts which had to be distilled... via alchemy. So all systems were tied together.

The standard dnd crafting system is also decent enough:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cr ... cItems.htm

Except that you'd need to remove xp cost to prevent certain exploits.

[RaiderOne]

You can "take 20" on skill rolls. So a character with 0 survival would be able to skin a bear if they have time and are not being distracted by angry wolves in vicinity.

Common sense says if you don't know how to do something you don't get to take 20. It doesn't matter if it takes me an hour to do it, without the training its going to be a mess. Ever seen those rose tomoto shapes that can be cut? Wanna try taking 20 next time your in the kitchen

[NegInfinity]

You can "take 20" on skill rolls. So a character with 0 survival would be able to skin a bear if they have time and are not being distracted by angry wolves in vicinity.

Common sense says if you don't know how to do something you don't get to take 20. It doesn't matter if it takes me an hour to do it, without the training its going to be a mess. Ever seen those rose tomoto shapes that can be cut? Wanna try taking 20 next time your in the kitchen

Common sense does not apply to DND, plus your common sense is wrong here.

Can you make a table out of piece of wood if you have a lot of time on your hand and tools? Probably. Even without the training. Won't be the best looking table, of course.
Can you make a table while people are shooting at you? Now THAT requires training.

And given the right tools, supplies and time the tomato thing is doable, as long as the wanna be chef has a brain and nobody is making them hurry. Taking twenty takes twenty times longer, you know.

[Okan]

Well the condition for taking 20 is not only spending more time in it. You can take 20 with something you can do if there is no penalties for failing. That is why open lock is a skill that you can take 20 because if you fail you cannot open the lock but you can try it "20 times again" hence taking 20. Now, you can fail to cook and waste your ingredients, you can fail to skin your animal and ruin your pelt. I dont think those type of survival checks can or should done with taking 20.