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Author Topic: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items  (Read 3583 times)

Destinysdesire

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Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« on: April 11, 2015, 09:54:19 PM »
Okay so I was talking with Miuo and reflecting on the MASS number of gems that are basically useless and have little value, something we both agreed would be cool would be for arcane casters to need gems for circle 6+ spells, 1 gem per spell, gem varying on the spell. Would make casters more cautious with spells and give a use to the gems, by 6th circle its pretty easy to get a decent supply.

Item values, I cannot say how crazy it is to sell a merchant a ring for 5 gold then watch him turn and resell it for like 800 gold. We wouldnt even do that in real life so maybe a look to fixing some prices a bit, prices I think should be on unfavorable 25% of total sale, neutral 35% of total sales, favorable 50% of total sales. This would give us more reason to get loot rather then just leaving the rings around and such.

FinalHeaven

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2015, 11:27:43 PM »
If you're selling to the Vistani you're not going to get the best price.  Their reputation is the reason for that.

The mist camp Vistani merchant is a little better but the same idea applies.

You also have to keep in mind that what you're selling to the merchant is likely considered "junk" in regards to it's value to players.  A lot of expensive items that NPC merchants sell are sold cheaper by players.  I'd rather see a thriving player economy than NPCs paying more.



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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2015, 11:58:45 PM »
Okay so I was talking with Miuo and reflecting on the MASS number of gems that are basically useless and have little value, something we both agreed would be cool would be for arcane casters to need gems for circle 6+ spells, 1 gem per spell, gem varying on the spell. Would make casters more cautious with spells and give a use to the gems, by 6th circle its pretty easy to get a decent supply.

What would your equivalent be for divine casters? And non-casters?

I'd rather not see something like that, honestly. All classes have their aspects that make them special and differentiate them, yet it seems casters get a lot of flack for being what they are. If you want to introduce something to make players more cautious with increased power, then it needs to cover all classes, in my opinion.  Limits are already imposed by slots and resting durations anyway.

If it helps, I know someone will bring out the 'low-magic' argument. I've seen a few other NWN servers. If you consider 6th Circle to be uber high magic, their gear and spell changes will give you a heart attack. :P

I think gems and casters are fine as they are.

McNastea

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2015, 12:58:14 AM »
Well.. gems actually do have value. They're considered an "art type" item, meant to be sold by players. A way to give players a more interesting means of income from a dungeon than just handing them gold pieces while also not saturating the server in magic items.

There are a couple problems with this. First off, there are already rules in 3.0 about spell components and they aren't all gems. I know this isn't all PnP and it's not supposed to be, but it's just a point I'm making. Additionally, this would take dev time and I assume would need to be done with a hak update? That means going through 65 spells if you only count wiz/bard/sorc spells at 6+, which is a little arbitrary by the way. Not to mention there are more spells coming out in the next hak update. Then you have to figure in players actually knowing what gems go to what spells, all 65 of them, and being able to get their hands on them. There are loads of gems sure. I come by plenty of them. But, you mention the low lvl gems as being the ones that should be used? Those are found in low lvl duengeons, not something a mage casting 6th circle + spells is going to be around enough to have any significant number of anything. Also, there are plenty of gems, but are there enough to cover that many spells specifically? Or would each gem correspond to more than one spell? That would simply compound the issue I already mentioned of spellcasters simply not having the means to get what they need. If a mage needs x gem for x spell at circle 6+, what do you think that does to the mages and everyone else they support past that point? It severly cripples them, not a little and not just to an interesting rp extent, severerly. Suddenly these gems become resources that are fought over. Clerics need diamonds for one, exactly one, spell-and they have three types to choose from. Many of them still have trouble keeping stocked up. That's okay-it's just the one spell. Imagine the person that is making sure you're going to survive any encounter not being able to do what they're supposed to because they don't have a black pearl and a periodot and jacinth.

By crippling certain classes to that extent, you need to at the least cripple other classes. So I'd say make classes need to use gems every time they need to use a feat or you're just going to encourage incessant farming of the low level dungeons by high level characters for resources that they need-when low lvl players already whine about high lvls going near a low level dungeon in the first place.
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Feronius

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2015, 05:48:23 AM »
I would much rather see the gems utilised in one of the crafting systems, either as a standalone or incorporated in smithing as you can already make jewelry with that craft.

Using reagants in your roleplay is fun to spice things up a bit, but having to constantly gather and always carry with you a ton of additional materials in your inventory to cast spells in this game is mostly a hassle I would personally rather do without. I would rather use that to explore the more intrigueing stories this server has to offer. Of course you can roleplay the gathering, that could be pretty cool, but after a while or with your second character it will probably turn into a bit of a chore pretty quickly.
It might be interesting for powerful summoning spells, although a lot of summons tend to be quite shortlived on this server which could result into somewhat of an anti-climax.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 05:59:28 AM by Feronius »

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2015, 04:51:33 PM »
I would much rather see the gems utilised in one of the crafting systems, either as a standalone or incorporated in smithing as you can already make jewelry with that craft.

Using reagants in your roleplay is fun to spice things up a bit, but having to constantly gather and always carry with you a ton of additional materials in your inventory to cast spells in this game is mostly a hassle I would personally rather do without. I would rather use that to explore the more intrigueing stories this server has to offer. Of course you can roleplay the gathering, that could be pretty cool, but after a while or with your second character it will probably turn into a bit of a chore pretty quickly.
It might be interesting for powerful summoning spells, although a lot of summons tend to be quite shortlived on this server which could result into somewhat of an anti-climax.

Having gems (or other items, for that matter) have a use in crafting might be a fun addition.  It would be kind of neat to incorporate some of the folklore properties of gems in the creation or enchanting of items -- for example, amethyst traditionally provided protection from poison and intoxication, so you could have someone incorporate amethysts in their crafting, and get something like an ironguts spell out of it (say, 1 charge per amethyst used, or something like that).  Just food for thought.


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Indigocell

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2015, 12:17:30 AM »
Okay so I was talking with Miuo and reflecting on the MASS number of gems that are basically useless and have little value, something we both agreed would be cool would be for arcane casters to need gems for circle 6+ spells, 1 gem per spell, gem varying on the spell. Would make casters more cautious with spells and give a use to the gems, by 6th circle its pretty easy to get a decent supply.

What would your equivalent be for divine casters? And non-casters?

I'd rather not see something like that, honestly. All classes have their aspects that make them special and differentiate them, yet it seems casters get a lot of flack for being what they are. If you want to introduce something to make players more cautious with increased power, then it needs to cover all classes, in my opinion.  Limits are already imposed by slots and resting durations anyway.

It might be interesting for powerful summoning spells, although a lot of summons tend to be quite shortlived on this server which could result into somewhat of an anti-climax.

If Gems or reagents are to be introduced as spell components, I would much rather they actually add some flavor to the spells rather than impose more of a restriction than anything else. I agree with these two. The idea of using gems for more powerful and interesting summon spells was discussed before but I don't think it went anywhere. I still like that idea because the vanilla summon spells are very short-lived and just not balanced for the difficulty of most spawns on this server.

McNastea

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2015, 12:22:57 AM »
No really

How does something on these guidelines do anyting but hinder a couple classes to the point of breaking them for dungeoning terms?

At least wizards have the excuse that they need all of them (gems)

Sorceres now need to farm like crazy to be able to cast the spellls that matter for their class and take advantage of the fact of their class as well (their ability to cast a lot more spells)

It's an interesting idea. But I also think that as is, it's a bad one. Just me though ;)
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Jeebs

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2015, 01:25:07 PM »
  Personally I'd just be happy if some merchants were made to offer more for gems. One of my characters will not go into cities, so for his bank account I started collected gems that could be traded when I needed the coin... however, lately it seems these gems are near worthless and that I would have to sell a whole bag's worth for maybe a few hundred GP. I do like the idea of having other uses for gems as well, though I'm not sure about the reagent idea. I know some gems, like Malachite, have uses for detecting acids and the like. More of that would be a neat idea, even if it is only IC/RP. Alternatively, crafting was brought up... how about using gems to make benign rings that can be sold to vendors for a bit of coin, and can be enchanted for various effects based on materials used? People have been griping that gold and certain other metals have no real use in-game, so that could be something.

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2015, 01:52:04 PM »
If we ever made material spell components, they'd follow the rules in the D20 SRD, and very few spells in the rules require gems as a material component.

That having been said, we have no plans on adding material spell components after we added them to resurrection and raise dead.

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dark_majico

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2015, 06:14:16 PM »
Okay so I was talking with Miuo and reflecting on the MASS number of gems that are basically useless and have little value, something we both agreed would be cool would be for arcane casters to need gems for circle 6+ spells, 1 gem per spell, gem varying on the spell. Would make casters more cautious with spells and give a use to the gems, by 6th circle its pretty easy to get a decent supply.

Item values, I cannot say how crazy it is to sell a merchant a ring for 5 gold then watch him turn and resell it for like 800 gold. We wouldnt even do that in real life so maybe a look to fixing some prices a bit, prices I think should be on unfavorable 25% of total sale, neutral 35% of total sales, favorable 50% of total sales. This would give us more reason to get loot rather then just leaving the rings around and such.

Personally I do feel there is sometimes a need for players to be more cautious with spells, in some cases it's poor roleplay, and it might stem from players not understanding the class or some core mechanics. It's frustrating to see people casting Shield or Endure Elements because it starts raining, or magic missiles and acid arrows being used to put out camp fires. People resting outside in the middle of a street, or running around the corner to pray or rest and refresh spells for a battle. I think these things should be addressed but spell components are not the answer. Spell components, gems or otherwise would probably destroy the module, it's a big change and its some serious  :censored: to be messing with and it just isn't worth the risk.

Preparing Wizard Spells:

Spoiler: show
A wizard’s level limits the number of spells she can prepare and cast. Her high Intelligence score might allow her to prepare a few extra spells. She can prepare the same spell more than once, but each preparation counts as one spell toward her daily limit. To prepare a spell the wizard must have an Intelligence score of at least 10 + the spell’s level.
Rest

To prepare her daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but she must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If her rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, she still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions

If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on her resources reduces her capacity to prepare new spells. When she prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells she has cast within the last 8 hours count against her daily limit.
Preparation Environment

To prepare any spell, a wizard must have enough peace, quiet, and comfort to allow for proper concentration. The wizard’s surroundings need not be luxurious, but they must be free from overt distractions. Exposure to inclement weather prevents the necessary concentration, as does any injury or failed saving throw the character might experience while studying. Wizards also must have access to their spellbooks to study from and sufficient light to read them by. There is one major exception: A wizard can prepare a read magic spell even without a spellbook.
Spell Preparation Time

After resting, a wizard must study her spellbook to prepare any spells that day. If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to achieve the proper mental state.
Spell Selection and Preparation

Until she prepares spells from her spellbook, the only spells a wizard has available to cast are the ones that she already had prepared from the previous day and has not yet used. During the study period, she chooses which spells to prepare. If a wizard already has spells prepared (from the previous day) that she has not cast, she can abandon some or all of them to make room for new spells.

When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if the wizard prepares more than one-quarter of her spells.
Spell Slots

The various character class tables show how many spells of each level a character can cast per day. These openings for daily spells are called spell slots. A spellcaster always has the option to fill a higher-level spell slot with a lower-level spell. A spellcaster who lacks a high enough ability score to cast spells that would otherwise be his or her due still gets the slots but must fill them with spells of lower level.
Prepared Spell Retention

Once a wizard prepares a spell, it remains in her mind as a nearly cast spell until she uses the prescribed components to complete and trigger it or until she abandons it. Certain other events, such as the effects of magic items or special attacks from monsters, can wipe a prepared spell from a character’s mind.
Death and Prepared Spell Retention

If a spellcaster dies, all prepared spells stored in his or her mind are wiped away. Potent magic (such as raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection) can recover the lost energy when it recovers the character.



Sorcerers and Bards


Spoiler: show
Sorcerers and bards cast arcane spells, but they do not have spellbooks and do not prepare their spells. A sorcerer’s or bard’s class level limits the number of spells he can cast (see these class descriptions). His high Charisma score might allow him to cast a few extra spells. A member of either class must have a Charisma score of at least 10 + a spell’s level to cast the spell.
Daily Readying of Spells

Each day, sorcerers and bards must focus their minds on the task of casting their spells. A sorcerer or bard needs 8 hours of rest (just like a wizard), after which he spends 15 minutes concentrating. (A bard must sing, recite, or play an instrument of some kind while concentrating.) During this period, the sorcerer or bard readies his mind to cast his daily allotment of spells. Without such a period to refresh himself, the character does not regain the spell slots he used up the day before.
Recent Casting Limit

As with wizards, any spells cast within the last 8 hours count against the sorcerer’s or bard’s daily limit.
Adding Spells to a Sorcerer’s or Bard’s Repertoire

A sorcerer or bard gains spells each time he attains a new level in his class and never gains spells any other way. When your sorcerer or bard gains a new level, consult Table: Bard Spells Known or Table: Sorcerer Spells Kno
wn to learn how many spells from the appropriate spell list he now knows. With permission, sorcerers and bards can also select the spells they gain from new and unusual spells that they have gained some understanding of.


Clerics:


Spoiler: show
Spells: A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list. However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells, below. A cleric must choose and prepare his spells in advance (see below).

To prepare or cast a spell, a cleric must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a cleric’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the cleric’s Wisdom modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a cleric can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Cleric. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Wisdom score. A cleric also gets one domain spell of each spell level he can cast, starting at 1st level. When a cleric prepares a spell in a domain spell slot, it must come from one of his two domains (see Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells, below).

Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2015, 05:17:31 AM by dark_majico »

Indigocell

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2015, 08:32:54 PM »
People not roleplaying their resting appropriately is something that can be addressed on an individual basis. If you are going to criticize the way people rest, you have to take into account the context these tabletop rules were created. In a tabletop game, generally you would "fast forward" through the 8 hr resting period in roughly the same amount of time it takes a pc to turn a corner to plop down for a rest (less than 30 seconds). It's not at all unbalanced if you consider it that way.

The 4 hours IG time that a pc has to wait should be enough, I suppose you could always increase that to 6 or 8 if you disagree.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2015, 08:37:13 PM by Indigocell »

dark_majico

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2015, 05:16:01 AM »
People not roleplaying their resting appropriately is something that can be addressed on an individual basis. If you are going to criticize the way people rest, you have to take into account the context these tabletop rules were created. In a tabletop game, generally you would "fast forward" through the 8 hr resting period in roughly the same amount of time it takes a pc to turn a corner to plop down for a rest (less than 30 seconds). It's not at all unbalanced if you consider it that way.

The 4 hours IG time that a pc has to wait should be enough, I suppose you could always increase that to 6 or 8 if you disagree.

Well that's true in table top where everyone is accelerated on the same times scale as everyone around the table, but where other players are present and doing whatever they are doing and others are resting for 30 seconds, I don't agree with the fast forward rest. I don't think that time between rests is the be all and end all solution, I think some restrictions on where you can rest is probably the way to go, inn rooms, camp sites, something can be done with dungeon areas too.

Reigh

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2015, 09:16:15 AM »
Idea, incorporate gems into a new crafting system able to create rings, necklaces. Add further support to be able to enchant them using the enchanting system.

de_reguer

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #14 on: July 05, 2015, 08:03:26 PM »
Idea, incorporate gems into a new crafting system able to create rings, necklaces. Add further support to be able to enchant them using the enchanting system.

+1 this. Would be allot of fun if also a lot of work to implement. Maybe make it also so that their enchant-able. I know the server historically shies away from stat boosting items, but this might be a way to implement it in a controlled manner. Speaking for myself only after awhile all the stacking skill bonuses from enchanted equipment starts to become meaningless and opaque, and might go some way towards explaining how the gargoyle equipment dilemma was un-diagnosed for so long. It would also be a nice way of incorporating those rare and random gold and platinum veins into the server economy in a meaningful way.

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #15 on: July 05, 2015, 10:08:16 PM »
Idea, incorporate gems into a new crafting system able to create rings, necklaces. Add further support to be able to enchant them using the enchanting system.
That is our plan and it will happen eventually.

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Mcskinns

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Re: Suggestion - Gems for spells + Values on items
« Reply #16 on: July 05, 2015, 11:26:35 PM »
There are merchants out there that pay more than the mist camp Vistani man.  Depending on the appraise skill and favorability of the roll I have gotten close to double his coin elsewhere.

I also run a small IC business buying the vendor trash from others at considerably higher coin than the Vistani men pay, and then sell for a few percent more to the merchants around the Core.

To the point, I regularly sell Glowjars for 96 gold each.


If your the sort who seeks to make a good bit more coin from your vendor trash, shoot me a PM to arrange an IC meeting and we can discuss business ICly.  While I do not have anything on the forums here advertising, I have on occasion left a random flyer or sat around the mist camp with one.



As the gems go, it could be nice to have the local banks buy them at set prices a bit higher than the vendors would, making them a viable source of trade.



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