CSO: Sneak Peek

[Thief Of Navarre]

Peridan speaks at though we live in an ideal world where everyone is selfless..

*syke, syke culture shock!*

[gbbishop]

first! thank you kael!

second, i want to weigh in on the xp for crafting issue.

i hate the xp cost. it is merely a function of balance. you need to balance crafting with every thing else in the world. as someone said in post, xp is a very valuable pool... thus a strong way to try and balance power. i think this is the wrong way to go about it however and is contradictory to character development.

here is why i believe xp cost is wrong. ever the tinker, a crafter should live to craft not fear the cost to ones self. the xp system in sundren does not allow for extraneous use of xp. as you craft you should improve in ability (I'm not for awarding xp for crafting)

crafters love to make things. I am one IRL. i am constantly trying to make new things. granted i have yet to make a holy avenger but... my crafter characters are always putzin with things trying to make them better. hell if there was a recipe for a spoon i would probably make them.

in sundren xp is hard to come by, specially for some time zones. add to this level cap. imposing a xp cost will take a 15th level crafter and make them more or less retired... no one in their right mind will spend 1000xp on crafting and item when it took 3-5 dm sessions to get it... least if they ever want to get to 16 for the really good recipe items.

that leads me to my last point, you must meet certain level reqs to make items if you craft you loose xp and thus set yourself back from improving you crafting skills. how else does a crafter learn to carft... theoretically it should not be form killing goblins while i dont believe they should get xp from the act of crafting, i think it is more than enough that they get the shiny new item, i do think it is counter intuitive to sap xp.

so in effect, xp cost will make a crafter very reluctant to craft anything, which is contrary to the crafter archetype. xp loss i no longer the sole property of the FEN. finally it puts level capped crafter in an extremely tight spot.

now that i have stated why i think xp cost for item creation is wrong i would like to offer some suggestions.

when dm pnp, i often controlled crafting with rare/quest items. i found the best way to mitigate the power of crafters. it also brought them out from behind the crafters table and into the fray. i love kael's additional uses of the profession skill and gems and such. the fatigue penalty and so on makes great sense. all round top notch.

kael is also right in that TIME is the ultimate resource. you limit the rate of fire and you have better control of balance. rather than weaken the character like xp loss suggests.

if you still demand blood and soul and first born child - another option which you could entertain is modeled after the artificer from ebberon campaign setting... at each level an arty got a number of craft reserve... which he could use in place of xp for crafting items.

thanks for listening to my rather long winded scpiel.

peace

[Kaeldorn]

Thanks for the input!

The xp penalties will not likely be put in, as 'crafting fatigue' will be made the limiting factor in its stead. I also hope that DM's will not have to meddle with pricing. The problem we formerly had was that resources were cheap and easy to get for anyone, which meant the crafters could go really low and still make profit and had the options to either load the server with valuable items for too small a price, or overprice to stablish a disproportionate amount of wealth for themselves and having way better equipment than anyone else.

These price issues due to easily obtained resources should change when obtaining resources mostly shifts to gathering skills, of which the best nodes will be found in dangerous areas. This means that crafters will have to get out and fight sometimes, unless they intend to buy all they need from other characters who can then set a price for them. Ideally, this creates a healthy market effect. We'll see how it goes