Barkskin Potion Discussion

[Rave]

I don't understand the issue. This is the same as when they made spellcasters less dependable on their familiars, or their summons for example (the reduced duration).

If we are preaching for more encouraged whole party play, and different classes working together, then it would be just as legal and acceptable to give druids more importance too.

[Meriana]

I don't understand the issue. This is the same as when they made spellcasters less dependable on their familiars, or their summons for example (the reduced duration).

If we are preaching for more encouraged whole party play, and different classes working together, then it would be just as legal and acceptable to give druids more importance too.

This, basically. I do not get the common arguments for why someone has to solo - perhaps except time zone, but I have never seen the server EMPTY. The lowest has been 8 people on... I am certain some expedition could have been plannable by slight OOC co-ordination, along the lines of 'Oh, I would be interested in teaming up. My character now hangs around the church of blahblah, or the inn of lololol or the blood o' the vine tavern.' There are a few antisocial characters, but my less-than-moral characters typically can stand being around fools if it benefits them...

[Springer]

This, basically. I do not get the common arguments for why someone has to solo - perhaps except time zone, but I have never seen the server EMPTY. The lowest has been 8 people on... I am certain some expedition could have been plannable by slight OOC co-ordination, along the lines of 'Oh, I would be interested in teaming up. My character now hangs around the church of blahblah, or the inn of lololol or the blood o' the vine tavern.' There are a few antisocial characters, but my less-than-moral characters typically can stand being around fools if it benefits them... 

Because grouping would have no sense? WHat if there are necromant online and other are LG Mary Sue bunch, or character despises calibans but only ones nearby ARE calibans?
Or even moreso what if there are no casters online? It can be frustrating to no end to go somewhere without a caster. Such groups usually pose lot of risk and very inneficient.

What if char doesnt know any caster but even arranging grouping OOC why would casters show their talents to someone they dont trust?

[Rave]

This, basically. I do not get the common arguments for why someone has to solo - perhaps except time zone, but I have never seen the server EMPTY. The lowest has been 8 people on... I am certain some expedition could have been plannable by slight OOC co-ordination, along the lines of 'Oh, I would be interested in teaming up. My character now hangs around the church of blahblah, or the inn of lololol or the blood o' the vine tavern.' There are a few antisocial characters, but my less-than-moral characters typically can stand being around fools if it benefits them... 

Because grouping would have no sense? WHat if there are necromant online and other are LG Mary Sue bunch, or character despises calibans but only ones nearby ARE calibans?
Or even moreso what if there are no casters online? It can be frustrating to no end to go somewhere without a caster. Such groups usually pose lot of risk and very inneficient.

What if char doesnt know any caster but even arranging grouping OOC why would casters show their talents to someone they dont trust?

It is your choice to make your character and play him true to its flaws and characteristics.

If you plan on playing a more antisocial archetype to the extreme, expect to handle the consequences too. Its the same with MPCs and AMPCs, you need to know what you are playing, and learn to accept that sometimes it might help the story and the RP, but will cripple your playtimes. Difference is? it doesn't have to really cripple your playtime. 

Dungeoning is part of the game, yes, but it doesn't have to be the main part. Theres lots of fun to be had, without pixel bashing. But thats just my way of playing, and I'm not disagreeing with others choice of play, or damning them.

[Ercvadasz]

This, basically. I do not get the common arguments for why someone has to solo - perhaps except time zone, but I have never seen the server EMPTY. The lowest has been 8 people on... I am certain some expedition could have been plannable by slight OOC co-ordination, along the lines of 'Oh, I would be interested in teaming up. My character now hangs around the church of blahblah, or the inn of lololol or the blood o' the vine tavern.' There are a few antisocial characters, but my less-than-moral characters typically can stand being around fools if it benefits them...  

Because grouping would have no sense? WHat if there are necromant online and other are LG Mary Sue bunch, or character despises calibans but only ones nearby ARE calibans?
Or even moreso what if there are no casters online? It can be frustrating to no end to go somewhere without a caster. Such groups usually pose lot of risk and very inneficient.

What if char doesnt know any caster but even arranging grouping OOC why would casters show their talents to someone they dont trust?

It is your choice to make your character and play him true to its flaws and characteristics.

If you plan on playing a more antisocial archetype to the extreme, expect to handle the consequences too. Its the same with MPCs and AMPCs, you need to know what you are playing, and learn to accept that sometimes it might help the story and the RP, but will cripple your playtimes. Difference is? it doesn't have to really cripple your playtime.  

And this is what may lead to all of us become happy hippies, giving rights to calibans, accepting them as well as rebels, and Count Strahd cooks our birthday cake.

It is a players choice you are right in that.
but if you keep removing tools available for folks, they will start to act differently. They will stop taking chances, they will stop making risky decisions, because the consequences will be much more harsher, and most of the time they are ALLREADY very harsh.

just think on it?
If barkskin potions would be removed, who would badmouth about Ezra anymore? risking that Krow wont buff him? Who would hate calibans anymore or fey? Risking that the above mentioned characters will not give them barkskin? Basicly the barkskin buff would be in monopole for druids only.

On another note, removeing barkskin potions would lead to more OOC party forming, because now you would have to grab the druids online, even if you do not know them.

The druid gets his +4 ac barkskin on level 7, not to mention he or she can rest, while your potions will run out. So no, i think this will not make the druid useless in a party, he or she has quite a lot of usefull spells to buff up the party beside this one.

-With removing the barkskin potions again the melee, non caster classes would greatly suffer again. Whereas the caster classes would not really feel any difference. I am sorry but i do not feel that another imbalance towards the casters would be a good idea now.

(It would affect, barbarians, rangers, fighters mainly, those that do not have ANY option of replacing this spell with another item or spell or spell like ability, that gives something for free, without any cost, beside gold.)

But if you think differently, than here is an alternative solution for the problem:
-NPC sold barkskin potions should be CL 4 so they give +3
-PC made barkskin potions should be CL 6 so they give +3 but last longer.

[Springer]

It is your choice to make your character and play him true to its flaws and characteristics.

If you plan on playing a more antisocial archetype to the extreme, expect to handle the consequences too. Its the same with MPCs and AMPCs, you need to know what you are playing, and learn to accept that sometimes it might help the story and the RP, but will cripple your playtimes. Difference is? it doesn't have to really cripple your playtime.

Dungeoning is part of the game, yes, but it doesn't have to be the main part. Theres lots of fun to be had, without pixel bashing. But thats just my way of playing, and I'm not disagreeing with others choice of play, or damning them.  

I was merely answering to the question why some people have to solo.

Just because its part of what their characters are.

I am not sure what you are trying to tell me in your post cause my doesnt contradict to what you just said.

[Rave]

It is your choice to make your character and play him true to its flaws and characteristics.

If you plan on playing a more antisocial archetype to the extreme, expect to handle the consequences too. Its the same with MPCs and AMPCs, you need to know what you are playing, and learn to accept that sometimes it might help the story and the RP, but will cripple your playtimes. Difference is? it doesn't have to really cripple your playtime.

Dungeoning is part of the game, yes, but it doesn't have to be the main part. Theres lots of fun to be had, without pixel bashing. But thats just my way of playing, and I'm not disagreeing with others choice of play, or damning them.  

I was merely answering to the question why some people have to solo.

Just because its part of what their characters are.

I am not sure what you are trying to tell me in your post cause my doesnt contradict to what you just said.

Because grouping would have no sense? WHat if there are necromant online and other are LG Mary Sue bunch, or character despises calibans but only ones nearby ARE calibans?
Or even moreso what if there are no casters online? It can be frustrating to no end to go somewhere without a caster. Such groups usually pose lot of risk and very inneficient.

What if char doesnt know any caster but even arranging grouping OOC why would casters show their talents to someone they dont trust?

Mine said it would encourage more groupings and other forms of communications. By your words, you were saying it would make little sense.

If your post wasn't meant to contradict, then I suggest rephrasing. But either way, I wasn't trying to snap back, or fire at you.

[Springer]

MY words were that there are situations when people arent capable to group. Such as...
Six people are online one of them is Lawful good paladin which hates orcs and calibans, other two are calibans, two others are evil necromants and one is CN mercenary without any morals who enjoys killing.
The only way for that paladin to group is to do it completely OOC, so unless he logs off he ll go to solo (considering he wants to dungeon).

Its just sometimes even if there are people online there is a little reason to party with them unless you want just OOC dungeon red clicking (but there are better games outthere designed specifically for that kind of time spending) Your characters cant be accepting of anyone. In some setting dwarves hate elves, in faerun allmost all of the surfacers wont go anywhere with a drow and so on and so on.
Of course its timezone dependant the more people play the more variants there are to find chars fitting to group with your char.

[MadMage99]

just think on it?
If barkskin potions would be removed, who would badmouth about Ezra anymore? risking that Krow wont buff him?

this gave me many lulz.

[Aahz]

if you keep removing tools available for folks, they will start to act differently. They will stop taking chances, they will stop making risky decisions, because the consequences will be much more harsher, and most of the time they are ALLREADY very harsh.

In fact this has already happened with previous changes. Something to keep in mind.

[respawnaholic]

One more comment: I think completely removing NPC Barkskin merchants would be a mistake, too.

You should always have a NPC substitute in cases of failure of PC market. Bervis Honey or Morninglord Tonics are good substitutes for when PC markets can not deliver healing potions. Equally, it's probably a good idea to keep one or two NPC Barkskin merchants somewhere, but perhaps raising the price of the potions. Or something.

+1. One of the drawbacks of a player driven economy is there can be large stretches of time where some of the things you need are not available because the PCs in question running all the smiths, alchemists, or herbalists arent on, or dont have enough stock to sell anything.

[Meriana]

Stuff.

I confess that I *am* very rusty on alignments, having a more relativistic viewpoint myself. However.
What if LG Mary Sues don't know necromancers are necromancers? Then they can pose as something else (although weakly) and team up, bending LG Mary Sues to their own uses.

What if character despises calibans and inactivity, but most of all - undead? Would she not be able to put up with the horrid stench of a womb-freak for a short while? After all, this means that even less danger lands on the character - the womb-freak is expendable, after all.

No casters? Better be smart with 'em swords, then. I personally find magic too casual on the server, but I play a wizard myself. (Direct questions of "are you a wizard?" when down in dungeons are unamusing... I should likely downplay her magic much more, though... Digression.)

Venturing together, which provides very ample opportunity for roleplay, does not require one to spill all characters' beans, though. Mera often pretended to simply be a bad crossbower before...

LG paladin and CN mercenary team up and go to a dungeon. 'Tis very simple if neither know much of the other...

Necromancers and calibans already mentioned.

Be creative! Go group! Roleplay an expedition which won't be successive - or which won't yield max reward, since not at highest possible place for level. At least *I* find such things fun, and, ultimately, have no other marks to go by than to offer the best advise I can, to further the debate.

Of the various DM events I have been in, none, save for one rather minor, mysterious one, have been "successful". But they were amasingly fun, all on the very brink of utter defeat, only to return tired and exhausted, yet alive...

However, this is a discussion of whether it's possible to group, or whether one must solo, and whether one MUST have barkskin to solo. (No?) Hawving briefly skimmed through earlier portions of the thread, I find it weird that potions of barkskin are sold in infinite number anywhere, seeing the general lack of potion availability.(Keep in mind I am newb if there is some magic store of magicalness in Forlorn.) The complaint raised with regards to removing them then was the lack of available resources... So improve this in return, simply? Not all herbalists are druids, and vice versa. I hope.

[Gorasin]

This whole thing sounds like crying from the original poster about being able to sell potions. I think that was their whole reason to create this. That's a pathetic reason to call for the removal of something.

[APorg]

One more comment: I think completely removing NPC Barkskin merchants would be a mistake, too.

You should always have a NPC substitute in cases of failure of PC market. Bervis Honey or Morninglord Tonics are good substitutes for when PC markets can not deliver healing potions. Equally, it's probably a good idea to keep one or two NPC Barkskin merchants somewhere, but perhaps raising the price of the potions. Or something.

+1. One of the drawbacks of a player driven economy is there can be large stretches of time where some of the things you need are not available because the PCs in question running all the smiths, alchemists, or herbalists arent on, or dont have enough stock to sell anything.

Or players quit because of RL, or are banned, or drop characters... Either way, PC attrition is a threat to PC markets and can easily cause a failure. *nods*

[Ercvadasz]

The thing is, as i noticed it most of those who are in favour of removing said potions are
a, casters
b, newbies
c, both
d, everything else

I do not want to sound rude and harsh, but most of the newbies have yet to discover how HARD and HARSH the server can be. Because most of them are casters have most likely not encountered the famous Dice is out to get you situation, nor what 3 ac can mean when you are trapped, surrounded, or fighting a seriously overpowered enemy.

Not to mention that those in favour of the removal of these potions are the ones that absolutely have no use for it. Sorcerers and wizards. You reach level 9 and you are basicly set, to overcome anything that an even leveled duo or trio of meleers will likely have major difficulties with.

About failed expeditions? I think i am one of the players that can say over 90% of his financed expeditions failed, basicly because there was hardly any time when a caster and/or a cleric was available. I could have asked OOCly half the casters online or clerics to give up what they were doing to join my party, but would have that been RP? or it would have been more like something in Dungeons and Dragons Online? Where you just open an LFM for what you are looking for? Sorry i take immense time in preparing for expeditions, and the major cause is, there is hardly any caster or cleric available, not to mention druids, yeah i know though luck, i should switch timezones.

And according to the logic about well infinite number of barkskin potions? Well i suggest than the complete removal of all purchasable scrolls, it just does not make any
sense the mages have every scroll in inifinte number, not to mention this is apparantly a low magic server, it is insane to be able to buy EVERY scroll either at the mages tower or at the other few places.
It is just insane that all those scrolls are so easily accessible for everyone, not to mention all you need is a few delivery missions to be able to buy them.
Wonder what reaction would that get from wizards and sorcerers?
I am sure you would all clap and agree.

Barkskin potions are the scrolls of the meleers, just it is their only option...the only difference is, there is no variety in them, in which what type of barkskin potion you would like to buy.

Here is a deal, let us remove the option to purchase scrolls from ANY npc merchant, and you can remove barkskin potions as well.
You could sell to an NPC merchant, but you could never buy it from them, it would even improve the player run economy!

[Dread]

I do not want to sound rude and harsh, but most of the newbies have yet to discover how HARD and HARSH the server can be. Because most of them are casters have most likely not encountered the famous Dice is out to get you situation, nor what 3 ac can mean when you are trapped, surrounded, or fighting a seriously overpowered enemy.

Excuse me, I am going to derail this little thread a bit.

This paragraph is rather pedantic; basically, you're repeating what others have posted previously, more or less claiming that "newbies know nothing about the server, it doesn't belong to them blah blah blah", and that is hardly fair. If anything, I think newbies know pretty well how hard and harsh the server can be, perhaps more so than the veteran player, who might in some cases be breaking immersion by staying outside at night in front of the Lady's Resting Place or the Temple, because they know they can probably solo werewolves or whatever is tossed their way.

To provide some form of contrast, the newbie tries to tackle most dungeons with his new character and finds them difficult, even with lots of help, and they either learn pretty quickly not to go outside, either by listening to other people's warnings or the hard way. The former case is generally hilarious, because often not soon after I see the player warn a newbie about the dangers of Old Night, I see him standing out right in the middle of it all, standing by the obelisk, emoting [smirks] a million times. Sometimes, this is justified - the sneak who's doing dirty deeds isn't going to do his or her work at night, and the Ezrite has the Legion to fight. However, in most cases it's just an illustration of how smug we can be to new meat, where we assume that they can't figure things out for themselves and need the more wise members of the player base to explain how things "ought to be", in-character and out-of-character.

Okay, putting this thread back on the rails... honestly, I've no preference either way as to what happens to barkskin potions, so long as they can be craftable pretty easily through herbalism (I have no idea if they are, because I don't see many people bothering with it if they are, indeed, craftable). Obviously, not many people know or care to know a druid, given their nonstop ramblings about nature (and the evils of civilization and how cities are bad and golly gee did I mention how much I liked nature?), but they do know a herbalist, and the herbalist can find a fair amount of income through the selling of barkskin potions.

[Gorasin]

Jumping on the band wagon of the scroll removal. I say remove all the scrolls buyable in the server if we remove the potions. Fair is fair. If we are going to hit the melee lets hit the mages as well. They can find their scrolls like a mage is supposed to in pen and paper and it will make finding a scroll all the more worthwhile to the mage. It will remove all the scroll dumping at the vistani camps because mages will value them more since they cannot just go up to the tower and buy them like we do with barkskin. It would introduce more partying since mages will take other players out to more dangerous areas to find the beloved scrolls they need and desire. I see that improving roleplay just as much as removing barkskin potions. Everyone says we need to do things to improve roleplay so lets do this and see if that improves roleplay. Don't want to hear any crying from the mages since the majority on this thread talk of improving roleplay and what I am suggesting as well will improve roleplay.

[MadMage99]

Venge, that was the worst summary of druids I've ever seen... But back on subject, I'd say leave the potions as they are. I don't feel like getting half a dozen OOC party invites a day because melee'rs want their Barkskins.

[Emomina]

I am against the proposal of removing them from NPCs, but its not a dire loss.

I don't see the appeal to removing them, you honestly either don't need them at all or use them until you get your own ac high enough with levels.
I basically only use them with one character and that's to get just an extra 2 AC against things with amazingly high ABs in the 30s etc.

What I like about having AC items available is that you don't have to make optimum armor class builds to be able to do something challenging without getting hit too often to point of failure. For example, you can make a 18 DEX rogue using studded leather, and whilst you lose 2 ac from the less than optimum armor/dexterity combo that won't mean you get hit every time. Removing barkskin potions from merchants effectively lowers the entire character base maximum AC by two. I love druids, I enjoy having one in the party but there just not enough of them to provide an alternative natural type AC boost.  If all enemies had their AB moved down 2 or at least 1, then they could be removed without any negative affect.

But, really its juts an extra 2 AC of a specific type that is not found in any other sources beside Shadowshield (a level 7 mage spell, self only), so its place in the DnD buffs is unique enough to warrant it being very widespread used. Its not going to make your druid any more useful to others than they are already (quite considerable, any Druid that does not see that has bad ic friends) I cast barkskin and some 8 other spells on characters I buff when I am one of my two barkskin casters. I see newbs drink a barkskin potion sometimes before I explain how much better, in every way, that player character buff barkskin is. Removing barkskin won't negatively affect gameplay, but will encourage more druids and plant domain clerics, and also will give a distinct pvp and pvm advantage to characters who are friendly terms with either of aforementioned barkskin casters or have the crafted versions or are either mage or UMD user.

Oh, and removing scrolls affects UMD casters much more than mages, I can not remember the last time my mage character used a scroll. My higher levels either use a shadowshield scroll or have the amulet of dodging (+3 natural armor amulet) so removing barkskin is moot on them.

And finally, I recommend adding barkskin to the Rangers spell list, which I have brought up before. If we are going to rely upon casters for barkskin instead of NPCs, at least add to the amount of characters that can fulfill that need.

[respawnaholic]

Jumping on the band wagon of the scroll removal. I say remove all the scrolls buyable in the server if we remove the potions. Fair is fair. If we are going to hit the melee lets hit the mages as well. They can find their scrolls like a mage is supposed to in pen and paper and it will make finding a scroll all the more worthwhile to the mage. It will remove all the scroll dumping at the vistani camps because mages will value them more since they cannot just go up to the tower and buy them like we do with barkskin. It would introduce more partying since mages will take other players out to more dangerous areas to find the beloved scrolls they need and desire. I see that improving roleplay just as much as removing barkskin potions. Everyone says we need to do things to improve roleplay so lets do this and see if that improves roleplay. Don't want to hear any crying from the mages since the majority on this thread talk of improving roleplay and what I am suggesting as well will improve roleplay.

Why hedge bets. Remove all potions or any expendible charged item remotely useful to a fighting class except what can be made / purchased via the player economy. Ok? good? NOW require all mystic or divine spells to use a set ammount of spell ingredience in order for casting to occur. Too harsh? not fair? swap out the words spell ingredience for potion or varnish and youll notice a large number of classes already get to deal with components when they want to cast spells anyway. What one player considers trite or insignifigant is going to mean a very great deal to another character. Can we all just agree that barkskin potions are relatively minor and move on to much more serious issues ....like repealing the fatigue system?

[LackofCertainty]

I said I was done with this thread, but you know I just couldn't stay away.

First off, I'm happy to see that some people and even some devs support the idea. (at least in theory)  After the first page or so I was starting to think I was the only one who doesn't like the degannwy drug dealers.

As iconoclast menioned earlier, barkskin is not a do or die spell.  Most players have easy access to +1-2 nat ac amulets, so really it is a quibble of 1-2 ac. (that's 5-10% less chance of being hit)  Just today, my monk got into a group of four and went to some dungeons that I honestly didn't think we were going to make it through.  We had a Bard, a Fighter, an Archer (rogue) and me.  Three meleers. (greatsword using bard, sword and board fighter, and flurrying monk) Of the four of us, the only person who used barkskin potions was our bard.  We managed.  There were a couple close calls with the greater dire spiders, but we managed. No deaths, and a full clear of max spawn spiders.  

When people talk about absolutely needing barkskin, I feel like it's mainly in a solo'ing perspective.

MY words were that there are situations when people arent capable to group. Such as...
Six people are online one of them is Lawful good paladin which hates orcs and calibans, other two are calibans, two others are evil necromants and one is CN mercenary without any morals who enjoys killing.
The only way for that paladin to group is to do it completely OOC, so unless he logs off he ll go to solo (considering he wants to dungeon).

Its just sometimes even if there are people online there is a little reason to party with them unless you want just OOC dungeon red clicking (but there are better games outthere designed specifically for that kind of time spending) Your characters cant be accepting of anyone. In some setting dwarves hate elves, in faerun allmost all of the surfacers wont go anywhere with a drow and so on and so on.
Of course its timezone dependant the more people play the more variants there are to find chars fitting to group with your char.

The core of this post is that you are saying "Sometimes people are forced to solo."  That is fine.  There are no rules against solo'ing on this server.  However! The devs have clearly stated that they balance the game for party play.  If your arguement for not removing barkskin is that it would ruin the balance for solo play, then it is not a valid argument for the server.  There are plenty of other reasons you can support for why barkskin shouldn't be removed (in fact I listed some of them back in the first post) so choose one of them to raise you flag on. : )

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Not to mention that those in favour of the removal of these potions are the ones that absolutely have no use for it. Sorcerers and wizards. You reach level 9 and you are basicly set, to overcome anything that an even leveled duo or trio of meleers will likely have major difficulties with.

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I have two characters that I actively play at the moment.  One is a melee combat sorc/RDD who constantly packs at least 10 barkskin potions to give her decent ac.  The other is a monk who currently doesn't have any barkskin potions, mainly because I'm just a little sick of them. (having said that, he just earned a good bit of money tonight, so he's probably going to buy them anyway, because he needs all the ac he can get)

Both of my charactes use/will use barkskin potions heavily.  If they are not removed from the game, I will probably carry a stack on both of them bare-minimum.  Removing them from the game will not somehow magically make my character stronger while everyone else gets hurt by the change.  There is no giant conspiracy here, just my feelings on a specific aspect of the server.



One last thing.

This whole thing sounds like crying from the original poster about being able to sell potions. I think that was their whole reason to create this. That's a pathetic reason to call for the removal of something.

This post reads like a big middle finger to me, personally. (which I guess it was clearly meant to be, since I am the original poster of this thread)  

I guess I have three things I want to say in response:

1. My herbalist character is a level 6 (just dinged today) monk.  I can barely make cure-moderate wounds pots.   By the time I am able to reliably get barkskin mats, I will be able to make: A. Haste Potions and B: Cure critical wounds potions.  I don't know about you, but I think those are bigger money-makers, myself.

2. I very plainly listed my reasons for why I personally dislike barkskin potions, and what I think both the pros and cons of removing them would be.  I supported my side, but at the same time tried to honestly bring up the counterpoints to it.  Once the thread got going, I then switched into posting my personal opinions on the subject, because there were plenty of people to carry the torch for the other side.  I'd like to think I did my best to make a decent discussion thread, and I'm sorry if you disagree.

3. Your post makes me think that you are a [insert a not very nice word here].

[Heretic]

Ok ok.

Lets all be friends.


Lets think about lets all be friends, locking the thread to give it a rest.