Naeldor - Old Forums

I've had a couple of requests for some functionality or items in Naeldor, such as fletching (i.e. crafting arrows) or herbcraft, that might be able to be handled by a crafting system. Before I dig too deep into implementing such a system, I wanted to get your thoughts on it.

For those who aren't familiar with it, crafting is something seen on many persistent worlds. It allows your character to gain skills in different "non-traditional" vocations, such as mining, armor crafting, gem cutting, etc. This requires the builder to place the resources in the world in the first place.

Right now, there are four general routes to choose from.

1. No crafting
There is the possibility that crafting could interefere with gameplay in a weekly campaign, as most of the non-Bioware systems require you to practice your skills to get better at them. Thus, this could potentially interfere with gameplay if players become more intent on "powering up" their characters than on roleplaying or playing in the manner we normally do. (On the other hand, if done correctly, it could add some roleplay possibilities).

2. Bioware/CEP crafting
I haven't looked to deeply into this, but I believe that Bioware and CEP simply use the current NWN skills (such as craft wand) and have some functionality with those skills, such as upgrading armor. The benefit of this is that skills you already might possess could be used. The drawback of this is that the number of skills is limited.

3. Third party crafting system
I could add a third party system to the modules, like Crafting Natural Resources Trade Skill System (CNR), UOAbigails Crafting System, or Ambrosia Tradeskill System (ATS). These seem to add many many possible skills. The drawback is that they seem to have no relation to any base NWN skills. Thus, all of the skills currently possessed by your character would have no carryover. So, even if you have a current skill in armor crafting, you'd start from zero in the new system.

4. Roleplay any crafting
Don't use any "built in" crafting system. Instead, if you want to learn a skill, you tell me, and we just roleplay it.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts on this subject, post and vote here.

Gem cutting!! *Asia's eyes start to glitter*

Like the usual gems we find, a character with this skill could make them worth more?

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that the way gemcutting works, is that someone with mining skill can mine raw materials from rock (mineable rock that needs to be placed by the DM). Someone with gemcraft can then turn the raw materials into gems. If nobody has mining skill, then the raw materials would need to be purchased from a merchant. That is one of the drawbacks of using such a system in a small campaign, instead of a persistent world. In a persistent world, crafting is largely player driven. The miners are out there mining the goods that the gemcrafters need, etc. Here, with only 7 players, I would need to make sure I place resources particular to the skills you all would have, since we can't count on other playes to generate them.

One thing I was thinking of, is that at some point you all may get to the point where you look into housing, if interested. When that time comes, if you have crafting, you could have a forge built, for example, if you are into smithing, or a workbench constructed if you are a gemcrafter. It is then something you could do each week if the server is up a bit before gametime, or afterwards (assuming we left off the session in a suitable spot).

Well I think it would be fun. Count Asia in for Gem Cutting!! She did come from the Barren Peaks remember...digging around in mountains and caves is not new to her, so it fits her bio that she could have some skill/talent for that sort of mining/cutting.

Buying the stuff in a store is good idea if you don't want to place it in game. But it is almost like a side quest. You don't want us splitting up and running all over to find materials. Though with your cmapaign and BBPs on the weekend, not sure if side quests could be possible. That way it would not interfere with regular game play and you can have some fun with the charaters. Finding materials can't be too easy, or safe. Lot's of nasty things in the gound, in caves, etc.. Besides the creatures, there are other dangers, falling debris etc.. We might need to rescue a player during the regular game if they get in trouble. Skotch could fall into a four foot deep hole in the cave and be trapped forever!! lol

Butr purchasing it works also, either from the store or directly from you if it fits. Most likely, I will miss at least one game a month for some time to come with the new job. So, if it is doable, that gives Asia her reason for being gone. She wondered up into the hills or somewhere to do a little digging or explore a good looking cave, beginning of the next game, she could pay you for the raw material and you can stick it into her inventory etc..

And when the time comes, a house for Asia sounds good. *thinks back to the good old PW Server worlds when Asia was part of a clan/guild so to speak. Remembers the MANSION she had....three storys, kitchen, library, bedroom, guest bedroom, terrace, a portal to every other part of the world..ahhhhh...* course it didn't compare to brat girl Winsome's PALACE that was basically it's own world!!! Could wander in that place for hours!!!! hmmm, wonder if she ever figured out who kept throwing eggs at her home? lol

For gem crafting then, I think your vote would be for one of the third party systems (because I don't think it is doable without add-on scripts)? Or roleplaying it?

Bigbluepaw's Sunday campaign is over now, but I'm getting ready to move in a few weeks, so my schedule is a bit chaotic now. Maybe in mid or late summer we'll be able to do some personal quests again, but no promises.

Regardng housing, if you ever get to the point where you want to look into that, either individually or as a group, you can bring it up in the Player Requests forum. I'd need to know where you are looking, and what kind of house, so I could figure out what is available, the building or purchase cost, ongoing maintenance costs, etc. I'd probably dig out my old DM Guide for pricing guidance. If it is somewhere where new construction is possible (not downtown Spectaro, for example), you could even design something in the toolset and I could figure out a price. We'd then decide whether the purchase takes place out-of-game or in-game.

As I've said earlier I'd love to be able to craft arrows (and possibly bows). I downloaded the three systems you pointed us to. The UOAmbrosia was the only one I actually installed and it seems to work fine.

As far as crafting skill, I have none now since (as far as I know) you can only make regular items under the NWN rules. If we needed that skill I would propose that you allow us to redo a few levels (remove xp and then give it back so that we can redo our level ups for 2-3 levels).

However, it seems to me that the third party systems are more flexible.

Lind

I spent more time with the UOAmbrosia system this morning and it seems close. My main concern is that (they claim) it is hard to modify recipies. As I talked about in the other thread, I'd love to be able to craft "interesting" arrows based on materials gathered along the way and I'm not sure how much flexibility the UOA tools will provide you.

As for setup, we might consider a crafting room attached to the starting area. We would have to acquire any materials in game (buy, find etc) but the task of actually making stuff could be done before/after our sessions (assuming we are in an area that would have crafting stations available for use). Perhaps you have to pay a fee to use the equipment (can you put a teleporter in the start area that can only be used for a fee?).

I was thinking something similar as far as pre or post-game crafting. With respect to crafting skills that require tools you'd always have with you, you could craft before or after almost any session (and maybe I'd even have other times where I could put the server up for this). If you need something like a forge, for example, pre and post game crafting might be limited to times you were near a civilization when the previous session ended.

I should have time to look into the UOAmbrosia system this weekend, now that I have some direction.

V, I just installed and ran through the CNR. It seems to do a good job as well and perhaps the flexibility in recipies will be the clincher. I can easily see Asia doing all the gem work, myself doing the woodwork and Zap doing the enchanting etc. UOA has more specific skills, but I'm not sure if that is a distraction or a benefit.

There is a temptation to spend time on just working up your abilitites, but as long as the materials we can use to craft are limited in supply and as long as the crafting is actually done before/after the sessions I don't see that as a problem.

Further thoughts after looking at recipies etc.: I don't see us making our primary weapons with UOA (because of the stated difficulty with making custom recipies). I do see how CNR can be used for this. The current recipies are all "useless" for our primary weapons (we all have better stuff already). However, I can't see why you shouldn't be able to use these crafts to upgrade weapons further and further. Since there is an increasing risk of failure as you attempt more complicated upgrades this should serve as a disincetive. Further, the upgrades would require materials that may or may not be easy to find. Under this scenario, all of a sudden we'd have use for all those bonecutter's blades we've gotten from the half-ling assassins as well as other "mediocre" weapons and armors. As long as we have a big assortment of upgrade options it may well be worth it to save those items we come across and try to make something better out of them instead of just selling them as we've done in the past.

My only "beef" with crafting systems, at least CNR and ATS (never seen UOA in action) is the sheer numbers of things you need to craft, along with how much time it takes to do the crafting, just to raise your skills. Especially considering how far we are in the game, I think it'd take many sessions to get our skills to where we'd be making anything remotely close to what we already have at our disposal.

Is there any chance the "crafting experience" could be increased from standard if these go in?

Oh and on my own personal note, if it wouldn't be too much trouble could we still have trap components from the bioware system added to one of the start-area merchants? I've been putting any excess skillpoints of Skotch's into the craft-trap skill, and I'd love to get some more traps in his bags for combat purposes

I think we could try to figure out a way to bump up your skill a bit, if the system allows it, to reflect that you all have been around for a while. One thing I did read in one of the crafting systems was that the reason it is so hard to raise your crafting skill, is that people generally aren't good at everything - if you are out adventuring, you're not home practicing your craft, and vice versa.

I will make a note to add trap components to the start area merchants.

Venture wrote:I will make a note to add trap components to the start area merchants.

And the crowd goes wild!

Thx

To give you an update on crafting, I've imported most of the scripts and erf files for CNR into the module. However, I'm now reading up on databases, as one will need to be implemented to get your crafting skills to carry over from module to module. I'm not sure that this will be ready for the next module. It depends on what I can get done tomorrow night.

Well, I got the database working, but the more I look at this the more I am having second thoughts. First and foremost, I'm wondering how much of it would be used, and how much it would detract from the game. I can't see someone stopping in the middle of an adventure to bake some pies, for example. The cost/benefit analysis could be a problem, as I will need to place hundreds of components, recipes, ingredients, and tools into each module for the various skills. My thoughts are that perhaps some crafting could be handled through roleplaying, instead of having it be a prebuilt part of every module. Anyway, before I bog down the current module with loads of crafting stuff, let's discuss this before or after tomorrow's session.

Lets get this back on track... My thoughs on crafting are the following:

Without crafting, the only way to improve our gear is to find something new and better. It has a number of problems. First, it means each drop has to be targetted for a certain party member (or a few members) in order to improve on what they currently have. Second, once they get this new item they now have an old item to either sell or give to someone else in the party (thus it may lead to a chain reaction of improvements). Finally, some great items we find may not be useful to anyone in the party (guess I already mentioned that).

I can see a crafting/incremental improvement solution that remedies these weaknesses. I propose that the DM incorporates rare "components" that, when applied to a current item (weapon, armor or whatever), gives that item a new or improved property. Make these components general enough that there can be a realistic choice within the group (or by whoever picks up the drop) as to how to use the component. For example we might find a magic whetstone that, when used on a blade, will sharpen that blade so well that it gets a "keen" attribute. Another idea is a long boneshard that first needs to be hardened by someone (or some other components) and then can be used to improve any bow (or crossbow) by increasing it's "mighty rating" by 1 (because it increased the bow power). Other components might rovide some kind of elemental resistance when used on any kind of armor etc. etc.

This setup has a couple of benefits. First the DM doesn't have to decide which item should be upgraded (although the rest of us might have to shake down Skottie on a regular basis). Second, upgrading one item doesn't free up another item (to be passed on or sold). Finally, a drop doesn't have to improve on all the attributes of the current items in order to be useful (if I want to improve my bow it has to have to be equal or better in both attack rating and mighty rating).

In order to make things even more flexible and interesting you might want to make it a two stage process... 2 or more components create a new component that, in turn, can be combined with an item to provide some new or improved attribute to that item. The purpose is to make the improvements hard to combine and make sure that there are trade-offs... if you use this component for A it can't be used for B.

Many of these ideas are represented well in the Harper's Tale series of modules (very well done btw). However, the did not go quite as far as I'd like it in terms of multiple uses AND you cannot improve an item that is already enchanted (in most cases).