Important changes coming regarding the crafting system

[MAB77]

Greetings everyone. This is to inform you of important changes that will be coming to the crafting system.

Over the years, the introduction of new crafting options such as armor gilding, new components and the tailoring overhaul had a profound impact on the module on several levels. After careful consideration, we felt that it was time to rebalance some of the crafting properties. With this, we are addressing concerns that have been brought to us over the years by both players and DMs. Notably in regards to saving throw levels and enchanting, fixing inconsistencies and oversights in component properties, etc.

These changes may have significant impacts for many characters and will impact lots of items. The full details are presented below. The intent at this point is to implement this after the upcoming HAK release, once all the HAK related bugs are resolved. Though we felt it important to forewarn you of these changes and to give you all a chance to comment.

The changes

All crafts
- All crafted items that had an innate +2 or above saving throw bonus will see that saving throw bonus decreased by 1 point.

This is to address the main concern that saving throw bonuses on crafted items made some of the server content increasingly trivial as one gains in level. The inclusion of new material, and that of crafted hoods and cloaks particularly, kept pushing the boundaries of saving throw levels further over the years. This change scales back the maximum amount of saving throw bonuses to levels closer to what they were prior to the tailoring overhaul.

Enchanting
- Armors and clothings to have the universal and other saving throws reduced to +1 instead of +2.
- Ranged/thrown weapons enchantment bonus reduced to +2 instead of +3.
- The extra bonus that only applied upon enchanting armors and tailored clothes is entirely eliminated.

The change to saving throws on enchanting is in line with the point presented above. Most were already capped at +1, it really only impacts armors/clothings here.

The changes to ranged/thrown weapon has them match the bonus increase on enchanted melee weapons. It was left at +3 in the past because of balance issues, but we have since added a number of ranged weapon related feats to improve ranged weapon built and bridge the gap.

The elimination of the extra bonus for enchanting armors and tailored clothes is an important rebalance aspect. For the most part these were the tertiary skill bonuses armor and clothings were getting for being enchanted. We felt those were no longer necessary as, for the most part, the skill bonuses can be obtained in different ways now, notably through crafted cloaks and hoods. It does however have a stronger impact for linings that were providing special bonuses once enchanted (bodak, white stag, etc.). Those extra bonuses are now gone. Some lining options will be added or adjusted to retain these options in some manner if an alternative doesn't already exist.

Gilding
- Electrum gilding on armor, helms & bracers changed to AC +2 vs shapeshifters & corrosion resistance. Unchanged for weapons.

Possibly the change which will be felt the most given the prevalence of electrum gilding. It is redesigned to be what it should always have been: the best of gold and silver combined, but nothing else. The option to have acid DR is being reassigned to gargoyle lined armors.

Metal crafts
- Armors made of darksteel, dlarun, fever iron, arandur, arcane steel, astral driftmetal to gain the 90% of weight reduction property.
- On pieces of armor, arandur to provide damage resistance vs sonic instead of a saving throw bonus vs sonic effects.

Astral driftmetal will be added along the HAK update as a new rare loot drop as the force damage related component. The addition of the weight reduction on the mentionned metal types is to increase their use in making armors. They will still be slighty heavier than steel, but not by much, which makes it interesting to STR based characters.

The bulk of sonic damage effects just don't offer a saving throw to resist, thus making the saving throw bonuses of Arandur a bit ineffectual on armors. This change corrects the situation.

Armor Crafting
- Gargoyle hides linings to provide Acid DR 5/- as its basic property instead of a saving throw bonus.
- Bolt of Shadow Silk added as a new lining providing Negative Energy DR 5/-.

The change to gargoyle lining is to account for the change on electrum gilding. Darksteel will continue as the option to get acid ST bonus on armors. Shadow silk was already the tailoring option to get Negative Energy DR 5/-. The bolt will do the same for armors now. This is to compensate the loss of negative energy DR on enchanted bodak armors and comes with the advantage that it can be obtained before enchanting. The AC bonus vs undead for enchanted white stag armors is not replaced as this function is generally covered by platinum gilding/threads.

Tailoring
- The textile skill bonus property for silk, linen and cotton clothings set to +1; Cold DR 5/- for wool.
- The weave pattern skill bonus on top tier clothings reduced to +2 and to +1 for twill pattern clothes.
- Electrum threads losing their acid DR, gaining AC vs shapeshifters instead. +2 for clothings, +1 for hoods and cloaks.

These changes are meant to rebalance tailored clothings vs armors. On items providing skill bonuses, both armors and clothings will now provide (depending on components used) the same amount of bonuses where skill points are concerned. The change to electrum gilding is reflected in the electrum threads losing their acid DR. While this option will not be immediately replaced, Note that a subsequent round of update, one focusing primarily on upgrading monk's crafted battle gear options, is also in preparation.

How the changes will be handled

The changes above will be retroactively applied on all crafted items for all characters. There will be no grandfathered items. This change will also update all previously grandfathered crafting items to their current version, not just those affected by these changes. We understand that it will be significant for a good number of items. You will be able to place your crafted items into a container, allowing the reimbursement of materials, patterns, templates and XP (if applicable) in the OOC - Main Hall. Read the following post for more details: https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=67956.msg781046#msg781046

Now, it is expected and understood this change will not please everyone. It will be too much for some, not enough for others, but this is the consensus the dev team agreed upon. That isn't to say this is all set in stone. We have a couple months before this is enacted and can still tweak a few things here and there before doing so. This thread is therefore opened for feedback and suggestions about the plan, but keep it to constructive comments only.

[Madame Trousers Son]

Will there be a mechanism in the OOC room to get refunds, or will we have to go through the DMs?... this sounds like it will be a lot of work...

[Skelni]

No one likes losing what they had. But I agree that a good majority of the changes are warranted - Saving throws ESPECIALLY.

The no grandfathering is, probably for the better. But I do argue this might leave some people in a bind. My situation being that I'm too low a level to re-enchant right now (or even close to for the near future) as I had just enchanted over a dozen items. So no trade-in value is going to allow me to replace my items with something else. What's the remedy for someone who doesn't get covered by this clause? Am I just doomed to carry items that I may not even want anymore? My situation might be hyper specific, but it greatly affects my PC for the foreseeable future.


Just to reiterate. I don't think I have an issue with any of these changes. Acid amulets will be more frequently used. That's good. Tailoring skills are a bit more reasonable, that's good. Less weight on all metals? That's nice to hear.

[Wilkins1952]

I think these are good changes though personally I think that capping the Weight reduction to 80% on all items and having them be the same weight would be better. than having some at 80% and others at 90%

[Holgard]

I might not be the smartest cookie, but this seems like a weird thing to announce now. Especially as it seems to be so vast and game changing.

[Lukey]

You mention tertiary stats being removed is balanced by them being accessible else wise, but what about those that aren't?

Enchanting gear for more appraise, for example.

[Madame Trousers Son]

Will there still be a way to get acid DR on robes? e.g. Gargoyle lining on robes? Or is that now no longer an option?

[Skelni]

You mention tertiary stats being removed is balanced by them being accessible else wise, but what about those that aren't?

Enchanting gear for more appraise, for example.

That appraise bonus is going away.

[DoctorLuxo]

I'm not too sure about the change on the skill points. As a monk player those changes are going to hurt a lot more to the monk class than anyone else except for some multiclasses with rogue. And the class doesn't really need to get hurt more imo, but my opinion could be biased by the fact that I am playing a monk.

[A humble sage]

On the whole I think these are good changes, to help shrink the gap between a lot of crafted gear and looted gear, particularly when enchanting becomes involved. Here's my thoughts from the perspective of a sufferer of chronic crafter-itis.

- All crafted items that had an innate +2 or above saving throw bonus will see that saving throw bonus decreased by 1 point.

I am generally in favor of this change to combat stat creep. One thing I would note is there are number of leather hides that provide (+2 save vs. cold, -1 save vs. fire). After this change they will be a worse choice than the (+1 save vs. cold) hides. It may be worth either downgrading the +1 save vs. cold hides to no effect, OR removing the negative save vs. fire, OR even to keep these hides at a +2 save, since these are not generally popular hides for usage outside of RP at present, and tend to be relegated to practice only.

Enchanting
- Armors and clothings to have the universal and other saving throws reduced to +1 instead of +2.
- Ranged/thrown weapons enchantment bonus reduced to +2 instead of +3.
- The extra bonus that only applied upon enchanting armors and tailored clothes is entirely eliminated.

I've less experience with enchanting, so the only comment on this is that it's a shame to see the nuance of the extra bonuses go, but probably for the best, as the information wasn't generally retained IC to know what material would give what bonus when enchanted.

Gilding
- Electrum gilding on armor, helms & bracers changed to AC +2 vs shapeshifters & corrosion resistance. Unchanged for weapons.

Spicy!

But I would agree with this change, potentially even going so far as to recommend retaining the AC at +1 to provide a market for silver gilding to be still a valid choice instead of just weaker electrum. (gold gilding is already niche enough it doesn't have any fear of being eclipsed, and technically still provides a bonus over electrum if someone wishes to go that way)

While gilding is rarely something for a Barovia-locked PC to be doing, the access to gold is significantly more limited, but obtainable enough that smiths who travel the whole core will be happy to provide electrum without extreme pricing. With this change, Silver is likely to only be used for training or for making into electrum in my opinion.

Metal crafts
- Armors made of darksteel, dlarun, fever iron, arandur, arcane steel, astral driftmetal to gain the 90% of weight reduction property.
- On pieces of armor, arandur to provide damage resistance vs sonic instead of a saving throw bonus vs sonic effects.

Only seeing good changes here, the weight on those made them rarely(never) picked armor options! I do agree with Wilkins that even at 80% weight you'll still see many people preferring steel over these metals, but 90% is absolutely better than the full 100% and only a true madman would advocate for nerfing the weight reduction on steel items.

Armor Crafting
- Gargoyle hides linings to provide Acid DR 5/- as its basic property instead of a saving throw bonus.
- Bolt of Shadow Silk added as a new lining providing Negative Energy DR 5/-.

This one is liable to be the most sneakily relevant change, at least for leathers. I like this change to Gargoyle hide, but I suspect it will lead to increased foot traffic to the (to my knowledge) only location gargoyle hide is found, which is already a bit over-popular. I might suggest including other places where gargoyles can spawn, or changing up the spawn in that location somehow to prevent it from becoming too heavily trafficked if the hope is for increased relevance of gargoyle hide.
no comment on Shadow silk.

Tailoring
- The textile skill bonus property for silk, linen and cotton clothings set to +1; Cold DR 5/- for wool.
- The weave pattern skill bonus on top tier clothings reduced to +2 and to +1 for twill pattern clothes.
- Electrum threads losing their acid DR, gaining AC vs shapeshifters instead. +2 for clothings, +1 for hoods and cloaks.

I have less experience with tailoring than the other crafts to know how extensive these changes are, but they all seem reasonable to me. I always found it a little weird that plain wool provided more cold resistance than the thickest of furs.

On the whole though, I think these changes are good for keeping numbers from getting too out of hand. Good updates!

[MAB77]

I think these are good changes though personally I think that capping the Weight reduction to 80% on all items and having them be the same weight would be better. than having some at 80% and others at 90%

This is to keep steel relevant. Steel is supposed to be the staple metal arms and armors are made of, so a decision was made to keep steel slightly lighter as its main advantage over the other metals.

[MAB77]

Will there still be a way to get acid DR on robes? e.g. Gargoyle lining on robes? Or is that now no longer an option?

I'm not too sure about the change on the skill points. As a monk player those changes are going to hurt a lot more to the monk class than anyone else except for some multiclasses with rogue. And the class doesn't really need to get hurt more imo, but my opinion could be biased by the fact that I am playing a monk.

The other thread about monk gear was partly started with this in mind.

[myrddraal]

So...broad strokes...

Enchanted gear like say, a cloak, that gives extra parry and con, the extra value provided by enchanting for parry and concentration are going to be nullified?  Does this also include things like flame snake lining no longer will provide 15 fire damage reduction after enchanting rather than 5 before enchanting?

Are other metal properties going to be effected aside from what was listed with electrum having its acid DR taken away and AC to shifters added?

How does this effect things like deflection AC for cloaks? (one of the sole reasons I personally enchanted one)

Will the 3 extra ac from armor being enchanted remain in place?

Are secondary properties such as resistance to death magic from Bodak lining going to remain and are they now the more attractive aspect of enchanting said pieces of equipment?

Will there be a full list of the changes to lining properties before and after enchanting made or will it be full FOIC?  Because this will make a sweeping change to what EVERYONE is currently wearing, enchanted or not.  People have spent months (in some cases perhaps even actual years for the rarer metals like arcane steel) gathering funds or acquiring items with an understanding of how they functioned as they did rather than how they are being changed to be.

Are there plans to impliment other items to help increase peoples skills like discipline to avoid a character being knocked down?  For non martial classes those values when enchanting were very important.

[Caelumaresh]

My question is mainly;

I see a lot of changes to metallic ingredients, but how are they going to hold up against non-metallic? For those of us who are playing druids, that is. Especially those Druid players like me, who prefer NOT relying on wildshape as a go-to tool for EVERY situation?

One example being thick chitins 60% weight reduction versus steel's soon to be 90%?


EDIT: I only have experience playing with druids and non-metallic gear. I am an advocate for Druidic people that do not wish to rely on wildshape as their final tool.

[Madame Trousers Son]

The other thread about monk gear was partly started with this in mind.

Ok, so we're talking specifically about shifting robes with energy DR to monk only robes?

I can understand maybe cutting down a bit of energy DR across the board and giving monks some niche crafting options, but completely removing energy DR options from casters seems a bit much.

[Anarcoplayba]

The only thing that truly bothers me is the no materials/armors exchange.

Being direct: I spent a whole lotta time farming adamantine to make a bodak electrum enchanted full plate. In a swoop I lost all the planned equipment and ended with a completely different stuff?

At least an app for exchanging equipment would be nice.

[Caelumaresh]

The only thing that truly bothers me is the no materials/armors exchange.

Being direct: I spent a whole lotta time farming adamantine to make a bodak electrum enchanted full plate. In a swoop I lost all the planned equipment and ended with a completely different stuff?

At least an app for exchanging equipment would be nice.

This too, for those affected most. An app to filter out the redundant apps.

[MAB77]

The only thing that truly bothers me is the no materials/armors exchange.

Being direct: I spent a whole lotta time farming adamantine to make a bodak electrum enchanted full plate. In a swoop I lost all the planned equipment and ended with a completely different stuff?

At least an app for exchanging equipment would be nice.

This is the main recurring concern yes, but the issue is that it is extremely difficult to reverse engineer the crafted armors. It is unthinkable to ask for DMs to manually refund crafting components for every items that will be changed. I will be looking at options, but if we can't make the refund automatic, it just won't be.

An option that may be possible though is to automatically convert bodak lined armors to the new bolt of shadow silk linings. You will still lose Acid DR and ST vs death, but you will retain Negative Energy DR and AC +4 vs shapechangers.

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

My question is mainly;

I see a lot of changes to metallic ingredients, but how are they going to hold up against non-metallic? For those of us who are playing druids, that is. Especially those Druid players like me, who prefer NOT relying on wildshape as a go-to tool for EVERY situation?

One example being thick chitins 60% weight reduction versus steel's soon to be 90%?


EDIT: I only have experience playing with druids and non-metallic gear. I am an advocate for Druidic people that do not wish to rely on wildshape as their final tool.

It's my understanding that the weight reduction quality counter-intuitively works opposite to how you'd normally perceive it; steel isn't being reduced by 90% of it's normal weight, it's being reduced to 90% of it's weight. If full plate weighed 100 lbs, steel full plate would be 90 lbs and chitin 60 lbs. That being said, I believe there's currently an array of rare drop wood materials that can also be used in crafting, such as Zalantar etc.

[MAB77]

Fair warning. I will not tolerate foul language or any comments that do not follow our standards for posting. Those will just be summarily deleted.

Comment constructively or none at all.

[Zyemeth]

If offering a conversion for bodak to shadow silk I will DRASTICALLY less pissed off at this. It basically makes my character's entire life savings spent to get adamantine armor lined with it completely tossed in the trash.

I can live with the rest of the changes. Would it be considered to reduce the damage of the oozes that hit for a flat 60dmg a little to compensate for the now much more rarely found acid DR? Even just by 5 points. Taking 120 damage from a crit can instant kill most non-martial characters and even some who are martials with death by massive force.

[Kireek]

My comment was deleted.

This is unfair, and is frankly nonsense. I cursed in the last post to give a sense of my sentiments here.

I spent money on materials I have NEVER been able to get myself, and the compensation is I get the xp back?

NAH, I want the materials. The materials is the things I can't get. XP has no value to me.

I overpaid, but I spent 1.5 million on this- my character went from 2.5 mill to 1 mill, I lost a lot for this, for basically a terrible change. Goods, not XP. Goods.

[MAB77]

My question is mainly;

I see a lot of changes to metallic ingredients, but how are they going to hold up against non-metallic? For those of us who are playing druids, that is. Especially those Druid players like me, who prefer NOT relying on wildshape as a go-to tool for EVERY situation?

One example being thick chitins 60% weight reduction versus steel's soon to be 90%?


EDIT: I only have experience playing with druids and non-metallic gear. I am an advocate for Druidic people that do not wish to rely on wildshape as their final tool.

It's my understanding that the weight reduction quality counter-intuitively works opposite to how you'd normally perceive it; steel isn't being reduced by 90% of it's normal weight, it's being reduced to 90% of it's weight. If full plate weighed 100 lbs, steel full plate would be 90 lbs and chitin 60 lbs. That being said, I believe there's currently an array of rare drop wood materials that can also be used in crafting, such as Zalantar etc.

Actually steel is not touched at all being already at 80% of weight.
It's only the listed metal that gain 90% of weight whereas they had no weight reduction at all in the past.
A fever iron plate for instance was a good 10 pound heavier for its minor ST throw bonus vs fire, it was barely used at all. The change still keeps it heavier than steel plate nut just by 5 pound, increasing the chance of it being used.

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

Actually steel is not touched at all being already at 80% of weight.
It's only the listed metal that gain 90% of weight whereas they had no weight reduction at all in the past.
A fever iron plate for instance was a good 10 feet heavier for its minor ST throw bonus vs fire, it was barely used at all. The change still keeps it heavier than steel plate nut just by 5 pound, increasing the chance of it being used.

I'm not overly familiar with the exact percentiles, so I'll nod and agree to that correction, but is my understanding of the weight reduction quality correct for the purposes of Chitin still being far, far lighter?

[Caelumaresh]

My question is mainly;

I see a lot of changes to metallic ingredients, but how are they going to hold up against non-metallic? For those of us who are playing druids, that is. Especially those Druid players like me, who prefer NOT relying on wildshape as a go-to tool for EVERY situation?

One example being thick chitins 60% weight reduction versus steel's soon to be 90%?


EDIT: I only have experience playing with druids and non-metallic gear. I am an advocate for Druidic people that do not wish to rely on wildshape as their final tool.

It's my understanding that the weight reduction quality counter-intuitively works opposite to how you'd normally perceive it; steel isn't being reduced by 90% of it's normal weight, it's being reduced to 90% of it's weight. If full plate weighed 100 lbs, steel full plate would be 90 lbs and chitin 60 lbs. That being said, I believe there's currently an array of rare drop wood materials that can also be used in crafting, such as Zalantar etc.

Actually steel is not touched at all being already at 80% of weight.
It's only the listed metal that gain 90% of weight whereas they had no weight reduction at all in the past.
A fever iron plate for instance was a good 10 feet heavier for its minor ST throw bonus vs fire, it was barely used at all. The change still keeps it heavier than steel plate nut just by 5 pound, increasing the chance of it being used.

Thanks for the answer