On Cutting Wood / Mining Ore

[Dredi]

Hello!

So, fairly new to posting and to the server in a more general sense.

Question is: Gathering materials for the relevent crafting skills require time spent gathering materials from nodes across the server. For Mining and Wood cutting this can be very difficult / time consuming for lower strength characters - this exists to the point that people have noted taking (Improved) Power attack purely for this (Which themselves have strength requirements)

From what I can gather, this is an intentional design - given that more difficult materials tend to have increased Damage resistance, but for a lowly 12 strength rogue, cutting down an oak tree (5dr) with a 1d6 damage weapon could take full hours of real life time.

So.. here's a few idea's to maybe make it a touch more accessable for certain characters.

1. Give the woodcutters hatchets and mining picks the feat: power attack and some negative to offset this from being used in combat, such as a significant negative to AC while equipped.

With the current implimentation of the system this is perhaps the most simple way to do things and allows a character to output enough damage to more consistantly mine a particular resource while people invested into imp.power attack and strength would still be considerably faster.

2. Have the damage resistance slowly wear down as it is attacked / as it takes damage

This is more difficult, i've definately seen it implimented before but I've not enough experience with NWN's scripting to say "This is exactly how you would do it" so I may be wrong. It is admittedly my preferred implimentation, this means that the benefits of current builds and feats (Re: power attack / high strength) would remain unchanged, but that lower strength characters can more quickly gather resources in the long term.

3. Impliment a more "on hit" or "on struck" based custom system which is entirely unreliant on physical damage dealt

More scripting still, possibly unreasonably so given the relatively minor impact and far from my preference but put up here for considerations sake.


So uh.. thoughts?

[SardineTheAncestor]

My woodcutter character is high strength but even I'm not opposed to this, since the wearing down of the DR could represent the axe wedge in the tree getting deeper and deeper as it nears being felled. Some people are so high strength they can cut trees down in a few swings though, maybe there just needs to be a boost to lower strength characters somehow. Power attack on the axe might be it.

I'd also like to see 2h 1d10 or 1d12 woodcutting axes, but I don't know if there's a model for it.

[THE STREET WARRIOR]

Bull's strength, apply magic to the axe or hire someone to cut wood for you. You're character isn't built for physical labor, why water it down? There are crafts that characters will not be efficient at or will be impossible for them to do. Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it should change.

[Dredi]

While there may be an argument for not making any change at all, I don't really feel that's a fair argument.

Reasoning? - This is the only aspect of any crafting which is heavily impacted by your base attributes.
Would it feel fairer if we were to say, prevent people from collecting hides without adequate dex, herbs without wisdom and alchemy ingredients without Intelligence?

Of course not. - My view of the crafting system is that any character can go into any craft with enough time, patience and materials. While certain stats will help you and give you a natural edge starting out in some of the crafts none are as objectively locked out to progression as smelting and woodcutting are based purely on your base attributes.

[zDark Shadowz]

Cant collect hides/reagents if you cant kill the creatures. Cant cut the wood if you cant damage it.

Theres a plethora of ways to inflict damage to inanimate objects. If you cant harvest it yourself because of a crippling build/roleplay decision, hire someone who can.

Option 3 is okay but getting wood without cutting it probably wouldnt yield the kind of wood you need for bows. The ore you want is from following veins, there might be some easier surface stuff but you really have to dig hard and deep for usable material usually.

[Dredi]

I think the statement "A plethora of ways to damage inanimate objects" while strictly correct is not actually accurate in this specific context.

Yes, you can fireball a tree, but thats not going to yeild any wooden chunks.
Yes, you can put flame weapon or an elemental varnish on the axe, but that is actually counter productive (Elemental damage does NOT help mining/wood cutting)

The actual only things that you can do is Magic Weapon / GM Weapon (Or the relevent magic varnish) which increases your base damage, OR use bulls strength which increases your base strength and thus your melee damage, but if you dont have magic then you're paying not insignificant amounts for what are relatively short term and minor benefits.

All I was suggesting is that maybe after hitting a tree or ore vein for 5/10 minutes, it gets a little bit easier to progress with that specific vein. I didn't expect that this would be such a controversial change.

[Iridni Ren]

My view of the crafting system is that any character can go into any craft with enough time, patience and materials. While certain stats will help you and give you a natural edge starting out in some of the crafts none are as objectively locked out to progression as smelting and woodcutting are based purely on your base attributes.

Because you are new, your premises aren't accurate. The craft of enchanting is available only to certain classes at certain levels. And all crafts are restricted by base attributes in that you cannot pursue a craft in which either of the associated stats has a negative modifier. Something like that.

Mostly I'll just warn you that crafting is not something to pursue if you are reluctant to devote hours upon hours to highly repetitive tasks that often end in disappointment and frustration (as well as vast sums of PC gold frittered away).

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

I may be mistaken but in both cases for mining and felling trees there are specific weapons that have hidden scripts on them that increase their efficacy at their jobs, namely the woodcutters handaxe and a similar mining pick. Also as near as I can tell the frequency of nodes dropping items isn't based off damage dealt. A developer familiar with these things would have to confirm either way.

[Tycat]

I may be mistaken but in both cases for mining and felling trees there are specific weapons that have hidden scripts on them that increase their efficacy at their jobs, namely the woodcutters handaxe and a similar mining pick. Also as near as I can tell the frequency of nodes dropping items isn't based off damage dealt. A developer familiar with these things would have to confirm either way.

This. I think power attack mode also helps at low levels. It can be frustrating when you are both new and low level, but once you have it down it’s not so bad. I think leaving it as is would be just fine.

[Quartermaster]

Given the ability to craft heavy picks, as well as hand axes, I'd rather see these crafted items have better chances on the ore and trees. As an example, a crafted copper ax, and/or pickax could get a 20% better chance for a ore or chunk to drop. Bronze, 30%, iron 40% steel 50% and so on. I also think to make this sort of better gear to harvest/mine really be useful, and in ties with another thread i made about players dropping the current mining pickax and tree ax everywhere, I suggest the idea that those weapons be breakable on on the trees and ore veins.

[Iridni Ren]

Devs will work on what they choose to work on. That said, and although I won't argue any of these changes are bad ideas, I also don't think any of this is good bang for the buck in terms of limited Dev time.

Additional complexity inevitably means additional bugs, so whereas asking for small, incremental changes may be very inconsequential in terms of game balance, by the same token such changes have littleed impact versus their cost in effort.

[noah25]

I always recommend fixing this problem in one of two ways:

1) Pay a good ol barbarian to do it for you. Let them rage and then pay them.

2) Take improved power attack. Its incredible how fast it makes the process.