Author Topic: Crafting Feat Idea  (Read 2051 times)

APorg

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Crafting Feat Idea
« on: November 26, 2022, 10:25:57 AM »
One thing that's always bugged me about the Craft approach on PotM is that, apart from the Ability requirements and the Muse feat, it's pretty divorced from the game mechanics. At first, this may seem like a positive feature, but this has a consequence: it means that the true cost of crafting has been displaced from game mechanics to the grind.

I don't think anyone would be happy seeing game mechanics completely replace the grind on PotM, and indeed in many ways the ship of design has sailed. But I think there's still space to re-introduce some game mechanic elements (namely Feat investments) to try and find a better medium.

So when I suggest the following Feat, these are my objectives:
(1) reduce the grind a bit by trading in a Feat for the privilege
(2) create game effects that encourage people to seek out mentors to roleplay while crafting and reward them for it

Quote
Feat: Craft Prodigy: <Craft>

You may take this Feat more than once. Each time, it applies to a different Craft.

When making a Craft roll for your chosen Craft where you suffer the -5 penalty for not knowing a recipe, failed rolls are rerolled once. In addition, you always reroll natural 1s once.

In addition, whenever another player character near you is flagged to earn RPXP and their Craft Level is at least 5 levels lower than yours, they get 50% more Craft XP (round up) on rolls in your chosen Craft.

So this Feat has two effects: it helps the owner a bit, and it helps potential mentees a bit.

I think this Feat will achieve the objectives outlined because it doesn't radically alter the maths of Crafting. There's no bonuses to rolls; rerolls help the Feat taker be more efficient with their crafting materials and time, but this will not be dramatic IMO. And the Feat directly encourages Mentor RP meaningfully, since a PC has to be flagged to earn RPXP to get 50% extra XP.

If the XP effect isn't quite workable due to technical efficiency, then I propose replacing it with the following:

Quote
In addition, other player characters around you get +2 to rolls in your chosen Craft.

In other words: this is the Muse effect, but restricted to a single Craft, and it can be taken after level 1.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 10:32:02 AM by APorg »
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MAB77

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2022, 12:17:45 PM »
Thank you for the suggestions. It is very timely as I was about to open a discussion with the player base regarding crafting in general. The idea of crafting feats is not new and still is currently being discussed, though first we should agree on the state of crafting on the server and on objectives to achieve.

1) Reducing the grind.

Yes, but again it needs to be replaced by something else. Right now the grind is the gate by which we limit master crafters. The recent changes really made crafting a lot easier than it ever was. We have more master crafters than ever. Too many in fact. Granted part of this was caused when some crafters suddenly became masters with the new DC thresholds. That part will subside in time as characters are shelved. But even with newer characters it's been very easy to achieve mastery in short lapses of times. So the grind as it is now is no longer the significant issue it once was. We should not/will not increase crafting XP until a different system is put in place.

What I would propose is to gate mastery of the crafts behind feats. All characters would still be able to reach mid-tier crafting levels on their own without any feat investments. They would still be able to craft higher-end stuff with a high roll. But to be able to craft high-end stuff reliably, they would need to invest into a craft mastery feat. Several ways of achieving this have been proposed:
- Simply gating DC 30 or 35+ stuff behind a given feat.
- Re-increase the high-end DCs, but have the mastery feat give a +20 bonus on a given craft and associated support crafts to bridge the gap.

The downside of course being that a lot of players that mastered all the crafts will suddenly lose their top-crafting abilities unless they sacrifice feats for those. So I can see this as not being popular.

2) Toning down some crafts.

Some crafted items are just too powerful. Nowadays many loot drop items are just sold to vendors because a mundane crafted item is better. Toning down their properties may provide reasons to use more loot drop items. I would for instance remove/reduce skill bonuses on armors. I'd also merge gauntlets and plated gloves into a single group of item. I would not touch enchanting properties. Though powerful, it is necessary for game balance in the end but I would drastically jack the XP cost for enchanting to make it a very serious sacrifice to go for one.

These are just musing. There is no plan to go forward with this at this time. But I want your opinions on the state of crafting and how to improve the current situation.
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yinyang

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2022, 12:23:13 PM »
Thank you for the suggestions. It is very timely as I was about to open a discussion with the player base regarding crafting in general. The idea of crafting feats is not new and still is currently being discussed, though first we should agree on the state of crafting on the server and on objectives to achieve.

1) Reducing the grind.

Yes, but again it needs to be replaced by something else. Right now the grind is the gate by which we limit master crafters. The recent changes really made crafting a lot easier than it ever was. We have more master crafters than ever. Too many in fact. Granted part of this was caused when some crafters suddenly became masters with the new DC thresholds. That part will subside in time as characters are shelved. But even with newer characters it's been very easy to achieve mastery in short lapses of times. So the grind as it is now is no longer the significant issue it once was. We should not/will not increase crafting XP until a different system is put in place.

What I would propose is to gate mastery of the crafts behind feats. All characters would still be able to reach mid-tier crafting levels on their own without any feat investments. They would still be able to craft higher-end stuff with a high roll. But to be able to craft high-end stuff reliably, they would need to invest into a craft mastery feat. Several ways of achieving this have been proposed:
- Simply gating DC 30 or 35+ stuff behind a given feat.
- Re-increase the high-end DCs, but have the mastery feat give a +20 bonus on a given craft and associated support crafts to bridge the gap.

The downside of course being that a lot of players that mastered all the crafts will suddenly lose their top-crafting abilities unless they sacrifice feats for those. So I can see this as not being popular.

2) Toning down some crafts.

Some crafted items are just too powerful. Nowadays many loot drop items are just sold to vendors because a mundane crafted item is better. Toning down their properties may provide reasons to use more loot drop items. I would for instance remove/reduce skill bonuses on armors. I'd also merge gauntlets and plated gloves into a single group of item. I would not touch enchanting properties. Though powerful, it is necessary for game balance in the end but I would drastically jack the XP cost for enchanting to make it a very serious sacrifice to go for one.

These are just musing. There is no plan to go forward with this at this time. But I want your opinions on the state of crafting and how to improve the current situation.

I like the idea of crafting the best stuff being locked behind feats (whether hard lock or soft lock), though a lot of people will suddenly no longer be master crafters. Rebuilds should be given to those who would like to retain their mastery--they are after all giving up powerful combat feats.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2022, 12:28:18 PM »
I don't have much stake in this because I find crafting to be immensely tedious and thus a waste of the time I have to play.  That being said, I think increasing enchanting costs is definitely not a good idea.

The Feat idea could be neat, but then I would also say anyone who is a Master Crafter now deserves a relevel.



APorg

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2022, 12:55:23 PM »
I would really encourage some sort of mentoring Craft XP gain for students as well, something activated by the RPXP flag.

Quite apart from the issues of reducing grind and balance (two big topics in their own right), right now any time I spend RPing while crafting isn't giving me Craft XP, thus it's "suboptimal" (in a way of looking at things) to RP while crafting: the sooner I click all the buttons and finish all my crafting, the sooner I can go back to RPing without multitasking.

The idea then is to introduce a Craft XP bonus when you're RPing so that multitasking becomes optimal to gain Craft XP, in other words, the time I spend typing up responses are contributing to my Craft XP as well, just as RPing while dungeoning gives me extra regular XP.

The Feat idea could be neat, but then I would also say anyone who is a Master Crafter now deserves a relevel.

Yes, the idea of a Master Crafter Feat to gate high level Crafting is reasonable, but it'd probably be fair to give people relevels on the back of it, because suddenly my Master Alchemist will be scrabbling for a spare Feat.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 12:58:09 PM by APorg »
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yinyang

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2022, 01:18:06 PM »
What would be considered a master crafter and deserving of a rebuild? Being able to, currently, craft the highest item within their profession? Or just the higher tiers?

I am a fan of Aporg's idea. RPing during crafting is a joy, honestly, and one people usually only bother with if you have Muse. Roleplay surrounding crafting can be very rewarding but ultimately feels very detached from the crafting itself.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2022, 02:05:06 PM »
Thank you for the suggestions. It is very timely as I was about to open a discussion with the player base regarding crafting in general. The idea of crafting feats is not new and still is currently being discussed, though first we should agree on the state of crafting on the server and on objectives to achieve.

1) Reducing the grind.

Yes, but again it needs to be replaced by something else. Right now the grind is the gate by which we limit master crafters. The recent changes really made crafting a lot easier than it ever was. We have more master crafters than ever. Too many in fact. Granted part of this was caused when some crafters suddenly became masters with the new DC thresholds. That part will subside in time as characters are shelved. But even with newer characters it's been very easy to achieve mastery in short lapses of times. So the grind as it is now is no longer the significant issue it once was. We should not/will not increase crafting XP until a different system is put in place.

What I would propose is to gate mastery of the crafts behind feats. All characters would still be able to reach mid-tier crafting levels on their own without any feat investments. They would still be able to craft higher-end stuff with a high roll. But to be able to craft high-end stuff reliably, they would need to invest into a craft mastery feat. Several ways of achieving this have been proposed:
- Simply gating DC 30 or 35+ stuff behind a given feat.
- Re-increase the high-end DCs, but have the mastery feat give a +20 bonus on a given craft and associated support crafts to bridge the gap.

The downside of course being that a lot of players that mastered all the crafts will suddenly lose their top-crafting abilities unless they sacrifice feats for those. So I can see this as not being popular.

2) Toning down some crafts.

Some crafted items are just too powerful. Nowadays many loot drop items are just sold to vendors because a mundane crafted item is better. Toning down their properties may provide reasons to use more loot drop items. I would for instance remove/reduce skill bonuses on armors. I'd also merge gauntlets and plated gloves into a single group of item. I would not touch enchanting properties. Though powerful, it is necessary for game balance in the end but I would drastically jack the XP cost for enchanting to make it a very serious sacrifice to go for one.

These are just musing. There is no plan to go forward with this at this time. But I want your opinions on the state of crafting and how to improve the current situation.

Opinions tossed around:

1) I dislike the idea of gating Master Recipes behind feats. A lot. The crafting system is IMO a time sink to those who want. You do not NEED to be a crafter and in fact, in general, it is easier to buy whatever you need than hunting for the resources. Some classes are more feat starved than others (and that is normal and balanced) but creating a feat requirement to be a competent crafter, IMO goes against the biggest virtue of the crafting system: it rewards dedication, not mechanics.

2) *IF* too many masters is a problem (and I do not think it is) I'd prefer to see the old DCs reinstated. I prefer anytime a system that demands effort to be mastered than a system that is behind a exclusory option. I'd prefer, in a wizard, another spell focus than a "craft wondrous potion".
2.1) I do not think that too many crafters is a problem because too frequently "Masters" disapear and suddenly what was an easy fix becomes a hardship. Also, there is the old aged problem of playing times etc.

3) One thing that I am in favor (despite seeming apparently contradictory) is a a "soft gate" consisting in a difference between the last tier DC and pre last tier DC so big that players who do not have a reasonable bonus would be almost denied its success. For instance, a diference of 20 between pre-last tier DC and Last Tier DC would demand a bonus of at least +5 in the atributes so the person could succeeed in a natural 20. Yes, I know that some people would only hire a dozen muses to grind this last level, but verossimilitude aside, I prefer that than a gatekeeping feat.

4) Also, I'd love the feat "intuitive crafter" or anything like that on: it gives a +2 in the selected craft.

5) I'd love to see enchanting with more options than enhancing the current item atributes. Yes, enchanting is powerful, sure, but I'd love to see options: Make the item keen, give wizzies, sorcs, clerics etc. Spell Slots, etc.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2022, 04:15:15 PM »
If the perception is that there are too many master crafters, how many is too many?

For alchemy and herbalism I don't think there could be too many.  Consumables get consumed and gatekeeping those behind a harder grind or "dealing with masters" is absolutely awful. I've been doing herbalism  because my character was on blind drive after levelling to 10 fighter. Did one harvest temple run after a few days of being in "fresh" and back to blind drive again.

In those four or so days I've amassed over 600 extra herbs stored in 20/20 bags, and of the herbs I have already been able to use I'm current level 31+2 herbalism. The true seeing and animal potions are probably all I'm going to be doing for good XP now, since I can't acquire the Mist Weed on my own-- which leads to the next point.

I don't think there's too many crafters, or that too many should be a concern. The reagents to make the harder things are the real gatekeeper. If you don't have invisibility & mindblank & stealth, or are a reasonably high level, you aren't going to have the means to make use of the high level craft to collect adamantine or mist herbs, or mine for gold and platinum in the dangerous places, or be lucky enough to find Cyrite for the mythical arcane steel.

I don't think having a perception of too many crafters and balancing around that is the way to go.

The good things to make are gatekept by the difficulty of the reagents to gather. If "someone" needs to process it then one person in every five (the standard adventuring party) should be able to have that capability.

One in five may seem like too many masters-in-training, but in a 200+ pop server with 100 or so players online at peak times already bottlenecking each other for resources when roaming fields, or doing the few dungeons that could drop rare metals too many times to the point those metals just won't drop at all (either by value or flagged-for-loot characters) the actual production of end-game items is severely limited already by many other factors beyond levelling and levelling training.

~~

If there were to be a crafting feat, I'd simplify it to a one-off skill focus that adds a +3 to the modifier, and you could only choose one craft for it. It'd ease the strain a little of levelling it up, but people are still capped by their capabilities to acquire the reagents necessary to level up.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 04:17:07 PM by zDark Shadowz »

yinyang

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2022, 04:37:42 PM »
I don't think there's too many crafters, or that too many should be a concern. The reagents to make the harder things are the real gatekeeper. If you don't have invisibility & mindblank & stealth, or are a reasonably high level, you aren't going to have the means to make use of the high level craft to collect adamantine or mist herbs, or mine for gold and platinum in the dangerous places, or be lucky enough to find Cyrite for the mythical arcane steel.

This is a really, really good point. While it's great that non-crafters have the ability to contribute a bit to crafters and make money from it, you wind up in a difficult position if you are focused on crafting, once you get to a certain tier of difficulty. You either have to get it yourself, or rely on purchasing or being donated the more difficult ingredients. The ingredients tend to heavily favor, as zDark Shadowz points out, certain builds or abilities. Speaking personally, past a certain point these materials are a hard bottleneck against further progression.

I'm not sure that's something that can be easily solved, if it can be solved at all. It's an inherent problem with the fact that the server is designed like an MMO, rather than an RP server.

A crafting feat that allows you to disassemble crafted items to get back a small portion of the materials would be game-changing, for characters who want to focus on crafting and especially those who are not high-level or stealth builds. It provides a unique ability, has interaction and thus is more interesting, doesn't gatekeep anyone else, and lessens the worst of the pains without reducing the grind.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2022, 05:46:18 PM »
My own take is that crafting grind should be there, but gating it behind feats is too hindering in my opinion as some builds would struggle to fit in those requirements. I think in general I grinded my crafts and will grind more on my character, and might do so on some other ones, but it feels rewarding to have achieved mastery in some crafts (even before the recent change). Top tier master crafted items are still rare given how chance based it is to access certain drops, so having a feat gating the possibility to obtain an item from said drops feels redundant to me.

Overall, I am in favor of bringing back some more grind to the crafts (DC 60?) But I strongly would advise against gating high level crafting behind feats or anything else, unless drops of rare materials became more common, which would allow people to fail with less worry on some crafts (right now, if a dragon-scale item needs to be crafted, only a master crafter would ever try that or be allowed to try that to nullify failure chances due to the drop's rarity).

Regarding toning down crafted items.. wasn't the purpose of those to assist non-magic user in bridging the gap with magic users? I don't find these items to be outrageously powerful if you take into consideration the time invested to obtain them and the fact a magic user would have access to the benefits offered by enchanted gear, whereas a mundane wouldn't.

MAB, to better understand, which are the items or item stacking combination you deem too powerful?
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Calad

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2022, 06:21:21 PM »
The one thing that sets POTM crafting apart from all other servers' crafting systems, and the reason it's my favourite is;


it rewards dedication properly. If indeed one puts in all the effort they can, they can achieve high levels at each craft, and that is realistic and rewarding rather than a "spending limited amount of points in between crafts" system, or a feat gated system, or a character level gated system. I would not wish for POTM's crafting to be like the others.

Crafting also gives high levels something to do when there's not much going on, or nondungeoning characters a purpose when they cannot find RP. It's a way to spend your gold, and get something still valuable for yourself in return after already having acquired every piece of gear you have. But if we gated crafts behind feats, it'd take away all these positive things.

However I also think, crafting feats (ones that give bonuses) shouldn't be introduced to everyone. Instead I would like to see a Commoner class who's adept at crafting, with crafting feats available only to them. Noncombat, perhaps, they could get double the RP exp and no exp from combat in return for being skilled crafters. This might result in 'more master crafters' but like others said.. I do not see it as an issue especially with consumable crafts, and we have enough new characters created monthly to support the rest of the crafts as well.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2022, 06:34:13 PM »
I also think that the craft feats should not be gating players, instead, they should be making players who invest in them to be more efficient in crafting. As Calad said, people enjoy POTM crafting because it is very accessible.

Another example of a good feat might be enabling players to craft more items with fewer materials. Like using one herb to create two potions or using fewer ingots to make armor or weapons.

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2022, 06:52:05 PM »
Rather than crafting, maybe "gathering" feats would be better. Like an herb collection feat where there's an 'x' amount of chance, no matter how low, that you can get an extra herb. Or hide.

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2022, 06:57:58 PM »
I wouldn't mind crafting feats being added for crafting levels, rather than character levels.  Working out the feats for a character build is bad enough without having to worry about also having to ration out even more for the sake of crafting.  Maybe an option of several once a character reaches the skill cap for a craft, like smelting giving you a chance to find gems in your ore as an example.  Something neat, but not insanely good like double smelted rewards because for adamantine, arcane steel etc it would be way too good.

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2022, 07:20:40 PM »
I wouldn't mind crafting feats being added for crafting levels, rather than character levels.  Working out the feats for a character build is bad enough without having to worry about also having to ration out even more for the sake of crafting.  Maybe an option of several once a character reaches the skill cap for a craft, like smelting giving you a chance to find gems in your ore as an example.  Something neat, but not insanely good like double smelted rewards because for adamantine, arcane steel etc it would be way too good.

+1 big fan of this idea
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #15 on: November 27, 2022, 04:32:55 AM »
I cant stand crafting so i will bring nothing to the discussion re: feats linked to char level/craft level.
I might make notice that char levelling is timed in order to avoid grinding 2 to 20 levels, which thing does not exists for crafting -given enough materials and muses around (which is another thing that I really never wrapped my head around... pretty face = better potions? Mah...).

What I would subscribe to is any solution that would create synergy and RP among crafters because it's a very solo experience. If a mentorship "feat" would exist, i would remove the muse feat to crafting and leave it only for performance checks, and give it to the masters of respective arts (master for herbalism = +5/6/7/whateva on potion making only, etc).

I would also expand laboratories so that there can be more stations available so that more people can work at the same time, as in a "class". If you have one cauldron only, the mentorship is too restricted.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2022, 07:48:52 AM by Maffa »


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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #16 on: November 27, 2022, 12:31:29 PM »
[...]I might make notice that char levelling is timed in order to avoid grinding 2 to 20 levels, which thing does not exists for crafting -given enough materials and muses around[...]

This is by the communities majority's preference. We discussed several times in the past about the possibility of increasing CXP assorted with a soft CXP cap, to reduce the grind, reduce the need to gather huge amount of crafting components, as well as give more time to crafters to RP and dungeon. But the majority spoke (twice) in favor of retaining the grind and the ability to powercraft one's skills to mastery.

[...]What I would subscribe to is any solution that would create synergy and RP among crafters because it's a very solo experience.[...]

The current system is perfectly capable of creating synergy and is absolutely built with this in mind. This is even why we gathered most crafting stations in a single hall in vallaki. So that crafters may help each others. It is only a matter of personal choice if you want to do it alone or not. The big problem being that a given player can master all crafts on his own, and many elect to do that. Short of restricting the number of crafts one can master, I doubt this behavior will change anytime soon.

I would also expand laboratories so that there can be more stations available so that more people can work at the same time, as in a "class". If you have one cauldron only, the mentorship is too restricted.

Quite the opposite in fact. "Shortage" of station actually helps with RP and synergy. Forces players to cooperate. But we did already add stations where it felt necessary in the past. It's at a good balance point right now.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2022, 12:34:16 PM by MAB77 »
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2022, 04:04:39 PM »

Quick thought -- those with the Muse feat offer a nice little boost to everybody else, but do they get any corresponding benefit from standing around watching/helping other people craft?  Other than just the RP xp that you get from dialog I mean? 

I had a nice little RP interlude at the herbalist cauldron with a Muse, but I felt sort of bad that they are helping me significantly (with crafting xp and RP xp) and only getting half of that benefit in return.  I know that there are Muses-for-hire out there, but that strikes me as a somewhat dissatisfying RP relationship (but perhaps that is just me -- I like things to develop more organically).

Is it possible for the Muse ability to give some other benefit to the Muse, apart from making them popular for crafters to befriend?  The Muse ends up sacrificing time for not as big a reciprocal reward, unless they like RPing their nights entirely at crafting stations.

(in full disclosure, none of my characters are muses, so I am not suggesting this out of self interest)


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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2022, 06:01:47 PM »
The muse feat exemplifies the ideal that roleplay is its own reward and it is quite perfect as that. If anything I would like to see more feats that benefits other rather than oneself. Though in this very case, while the benefits are indirect it remains a highly marketable ability. I've seen muses lavishly rewarded for their times even though they were not "muses for hire". You as a player certainly have the opportunity to reward, or not, the muses that help you. You can't have it more organic than that.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #19 on: November 27, 2022, 07:56:56 PM »
The muse feat exemplifies the ideal that roleplay is its own reward and it is quite perfect as that. If anything I would like to see more feats that benefits other rather than oneself. Though in this very case, while the benefits are indirect it remains a highly marketable ability. I've seen muses lavishly rewarded for their times even though they were not "muses for hire". You as a player certainly have the opportunity to reward, or not, the muses that help you. You can't have it more organic than that.

+1

I agree with MAB both that:

1. Muse is already very rewarding and popular, and I think MAB understated just how true this is. It's a very common pick for high charisma characters. It's not just powerful and rewarding in RP+coin/other benefits--it also makes nearby bards significantly stronger.
2. Feats that *only* benefit other players are really cool. Also understated. They're really, really, really, really cool and I've love to see far more feats like them.
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APorg

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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #20 on: November 27, 2022, 08:46:29 PM »
One thing I will say is that if we are going to make Feats a little more compulsory for Crafting rather than nice-to-have time-savers, I do think there are too many separate Crafts for this to be entirely fair. I think it would make sense for Feats to affect an entire Craft chain.

E.g. If you take the Master Crafter: Tailoring feat, you'd get a bonus to Tailoring and Weaving. Ditto for Leatherworking and Leatherboiling.

The separation of some crafts feels more like an attempt to spread out the Ability dependency and diversify the grind rather than corresponding to neatly balanced concepts. For example, I definitely think Herbalism Mastery would be worth one Feat (ditto Alchemy). I question whether Weaving or Leatherboiling would be.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #21 on: November 27, 2022, 09:48:31 PM »
Just throwing in my two-cents as a player who's most known as a crafter at this point. I have an extremely mixed opinion on the idea of further gatekeeping for crafts.

There is definitely stuff that could be better about the way crafting works on POTM. People talk about how much grind is too much, and that'll have a lot of different thresholds depending on the individual. Personally, I dislike the fact that right now the best way to do crafting (outside of potions/alchemy which is kind of it's own thing) is to learn all of the professions on one character to create a sort of uber-crafter.  I could see a lot more RP generated when crafters are cooperating and coordinating different crafted goods. Several of the crafts require multiple different materials from different fields. Right now if I need leather patches to make my armors on a smith, I'm better off learning tanning for myself than to network with a leatherworker and buy leather from them. This is due to several factors, such as player availability and length of time before characters get shelved, but sadly it is more reliable to simply learn every craft on one's own than to try to maintain a network of crafters who can help each other. The only crafts I've seen traded like that are alchemical essence for arrow-makers and high-end leather patches for armors and tailoring, due to how few leatherworkers there are able to work high end pelts (the number of high-end hides sold to the vistani makes me cry sometimes). In theory there are three steps to most crafts (raw materials -> worked components -> finished product) so it feels like you could get more RP out of the process if cooperating with other crafters was a better solution than simply "doing it yourself".

THAT BEING SAID, I would not be in favor of adding a feat requirement to crafting without significant consideration. I know for a fact that I couldn't fit a series of feats for crafting into the build for my crafter, which has become the character's primary source of RP and interaction on the server for the majority of her time after the initial group of characters she was RPing with were shelved or closed. The character was not initially built for a crafting focus beyond selecting muse, and was several levels in before crafting became the primary focus of the character. I know that I would not have had the feats prepared ahead of time for that direction if the feat-locks were in place. There are several classes with limited feat room and it would slate certain classes to become the "crafting classes" rather than crafting being separate from class mechanics.

I could see some benefit to improving the need to specialize towards particular crafts rather than having a "one-stop shop" for crafted items, which is what most crafters end up becoming, but I think that mechanically limiting crafters will increase the odds of people making crafting alts that get kept in the closet until they're needed, since they'll be "sub-optimal" for adventuring or other content in the module. There is definitely serious room for improving the RP aspect of the crafting situation, (for instance limiting the number of different crafts available to a single character or letting the player select some bonuses similar to the background skill bonuses to help slate the character towards certain crafts instead of others) but I would be strongly opposed to mechanical build sacrifices being the solution to limiting the number of master-crafters, at least without a serious re-evaluation of the bonus feats disparity between some of the classes.
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2022, 10:09:53 PM »
My guilty opinion.

Give us commoner class. Commoner class is able to do any of the crafts and fully level them out. All other classes are limited to advancing a single craft of their choice.


Gives you all the RP you'd need. The master (Commoner) smith needs his dope platinum that you can only get in the hells of elsewhere (because he can't do it himself). He either sets up deals with the adventurers. Or he makes a friend. Or it's on material commission etc. etc. Cause as it is right now - Eventually anyone's gonna get high enough level or powerful enough where they just acquire this stuff on their own. So where's the interaction there?

Muse is a cool feat. But when you stack 5 guys in the same room just to stand around so that the crafter dude - who could make only copper wares up to this point - is now making you adamantine immediately, it's just really jarring. We have a concern of crafter alts that just wait in the wings to be brought out again for some quick order? Well we have that right now with muses. I know many others who just have a muse waiting around in key locations for some quick help to do crafting. Is it sleazy? Yeah probably, but nothing's stopping anyone from doing this. I would almost go to say it's the worst case scenario that we have level 2's just standing around waiting to be logged into just to make a "grindy game mechanic" obsolete because you took a feat at level 1. And I'll be damned to say if I haven't had people just show up and help me with this to obsolete any challenge associated with crafting - I'm saying I don't think this should be the norm.

Humble Sage is also very right that it's simply way better and smarter that you have one character that is (somehow) a master crafter of absolutely everything. The crafts feed off of each other and it simply is better for everyone else in the long run when it's all centered in on a single character. I make this sound really gamey-number-crunching but that's because it is. And as cool as it would be to roleplay with a guy who just does nothing but master his trades. It's the fact that anyone else can pretty much do it given enough time so, it's only so endearing up to a point.


I might sound like I'm knocking on stuff a lot here, but the thing is that there isn't really any sacrifice attributed to crafting - Whereas in PnP and base NWN, you have the crafting skills themselves, which would require skill points to advance into. It's not like that here on PotM (whether for better or worse) but that it means investment into it isn't so much as a character, roleplay decision as it is so much as an optimizing one. After all, who's gonna put skill points into Crafting if they weren't serious about it from the start?
« Last Edit: November 27, 2022, 10:12:04 PM by Skelni »
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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #23 on: November 28, 2022, 11:44:50 AM »
If you want to make crafting a mechanical investment as part of someone's build, then you can't simultaneously insist that they grind the system and invest ludicrous amounts of money into it. It's just a massive turn off. Either you can make it a skill point investment like any other skill, with feats that benefit said skill, or you can make it separate from the level grind. However, people seem to enjoy crafting for when their mechanical grind is red capped.

As for crafted items being too powerful; Only to mundanes. If you're trying to become a ninjalooter, or simply master stealth, you can't beat high-end loot pool gear. If you're any form of spellcaster, you can't get spell slots out of crafted gear.


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Re: Crafting Feat Idea
« Reply #24 on: November 28, 2022, 02:17:33 PM »
The idea of offering a trade off between mechanical investment and grind is entirely workable.
“Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo