Teaser #12 : Of Trade And Economy

[Dynamics]

An excerpt from The Depths of Norhaven: A Complete Guide, Volume Five – Of Trade And Economics.

- but her story is often a forgotten one. Such is sadly true for most of these men and women, common folk doomed to be forgotten by history as people who contributed little compared to the heroes who stood to face the opposition and evils of their time. I submit that without these individuals, without those willing to provide, we would be as lost as we were the first few days after fleeing from the surface. Take for example the parchment in which this book has been written on. If you were fortunate enough to hold a copy written on true parchment, someone (most likely an Averran) had to brave the surface wastes to in an effort to search for the wood necessary to produce paper. The ink that forms these letters comes from a small group of Elothi who process charcoal and various oils to produce small batches of the substance. The entire copy of the book you hold in your hands comes from a willing Scrivener within the Convocation, copying texts for the sake of spreading knowledge. It is these things that solidifies my belief that the colonies simple cannot function without the others. To ignore the others, to ignore the trade and goods they offer, is to ignore access to the essentials in what we call day to day lives.


A New Crafting System

One of the things we realized was a huge success in DC4 was the crafting system. It brought you guys together to work towards not only mechanical goals for your character’s equipment, but rich roleplay opportunities as well. Naturally as we strove to improve the persistent world as a whole, the crafting system received an overhaul as well - courtesy of Chevy.

Players will see a dynamic between a multitude of professions a character can choose to explore, expanding beyond the basic “Enchanter” versus. “Mundane” crafting we established in SoH. Gathering materials will become just as important as the actual crafting process, and materials will come from places other than monster’s loot bags. Your ability to both craft items and gather materials will be measured by ranks of skills, so one character simply cannot be a master of everything crafting related.

The crafting process begins with the basic resources to be gathered, and there are many different types of materials to harvest...

Gathering

The gathering skills have been broken down into the following categories. Higher ranks in the skill of course increases your chance of harvesting a node successfully.

[Mining] - The collection of ore and precious gems from the Depths.
[Foraging] - The collection of herbs, skins, and other animal-based materials such as bones.
[Vitrifying] - The practice of harvesting and processing the arcane based substance Crol, or commonly known as “glass” to the mundane.

Collected materials will come in different grades of quality which can provide benefits to an expert crafter. Your skill determines what grade of material you are able to harvest successfully. Players who wish to do so may invest a feat in improving their gathering skill.

Mundane

Non-arcane based crafters can work in the following fields.

[Alchemy] - The art of creating potions and poisons, as well as crushing gems to be used in enchanting.
[Smithing] - Techniques used to shape metals to produce (metal) weapons and armor.
[Bowmaking] - The working of wood and plant material to produce ranged weaponry and ammunition.
[Tailoring] - The stitching and weaving of leather and cloth to produce (cloth and leather) armor. Also includes cloaks, belts, and hats.
[Jeweling] - The working of precious metals to produce rings, amulets, and other trinkets.
[Trapping] - Tinkering and knowledge related to traps.

The basic mechanic behind crafting begins with a recipe contained in your inventory. Recipes represent your character’s knowledge about the particular item and the processes behind making it. A character must have the recipe in his or her inventory in order to craft the item, simply having the required materials and skills is not enough. You can acquire recipes in a variety of ways, though you’ll most likely buy the basic ones from vendors or colony specific merchants (you’ll need influence to purchase these). Recipes will tell you exactly what sorts of items you need, the gold cost, and required feats (enchanting only).

When it comes time to actually make the item, you’ll need to be near the appropriate crafting station. By using the recipe, you’ll invoke a skill check versus the difficulty of the recipe. If you succeed the check, depending on your skill and materials used you may create an item of a higher quality item that additionally has sockets (Used in enchanting).

These crafters can also opt to take optional feats to improve the quality of their work. One such feat, “Expert Crafter”, allows a mundane crafter to create their own special types of “enchantments” that improve their work even further. While you can only have one of these improvements active at a time and they are rather small bonuses, they do not consume sockets.

Enchanting

[Artificing] is the primary skill associated with enchanting, and is available to most arcane-based classes. While you can function as an enchanter with artificing alone, without the alchemy skill or another character with alchemy an enchanter may struggle completing recipes.

Enchanting functions off a socket system that many items of higher grades of quality possess. For example a Smithing specialist may produce a high quality longsword with two sockets. Each enchant costs a certain amount of sockets on an item in order to work, and the more powerful the enchant the more sockets it will cost.

The mechanic to enchanting is similar to mundane crafting, requiring recipes and artificing skill checks to beat. Most enchants will require two steps; the creation of the Enchanter’s Glass and the Imbuement of the glass onto the item itself. As you fill up sockets on the item with enchant, the harder (read : higher the dc) it will be to place more enchants on that item.

As enchanting is a very powerful craft, players will be required to take enchanting specific feats to unlock higher tiers of artificing work.

Commoner

Not everyone is a sword swinging or spell wielding hero. While these men and women will most likely never make it into the books of legend, some might argue that they hold just as much importance to the survival of the underground-bound races.

The Commoner is a unique base class that differs greatly from the others. For starters, they do not gain any experience from combat (even if they are in a party with non-commoners). They do however gain experience from crafting, which will most likely be the bulk of where all their XP comes from. A commoner cannot multiclass (Except for one, and only one, instance), and they gain 2 HP/level in addition to low save and BAB progression.

Not all is bleak to a commoner however. They gain a high amount of skill points per level and have access to most skills as class skills (Including every mundane crafting skill except alchemy). They also have access to the Artificer PRC, the only class a commoner is allowed to multiclass to as mentioned earlier.

Artificer

The Artificer is a PrC for commoners who wish to focus on their crafting and perhaps explore new frontiers in that regard. Artificers, like commoners, have terrible HP, BAB, and save progression and gain no combat XP. Artificer unlocks the alchemy and artificing skills to the commoner and grants free Glassworking feats (though at a reduced skill gain).

[Fruitomancer]

Economics indeed! We finally receive the juicy details on the new crafting system. This makes for a very interesting teaser and based on what I've read here I believe it'll be an excellent system for fostering co-operative roleplay between people who invest in the various craft and gathering skills. One thing I particularly enjoyed with Shores of Haldun was the interaction between mundane and arcane crafters when the Disenchantment Box was finally added, opening the way for the production of +4 Cold Iron/Silver weapons with elemental properties, the height of what PCs could be capable of crafting; this takes that concept much, much further.

I do like the fact that the Commoner class opens the way for more non-combat orientated PCs and gives them a means to level-up and improve their abilities, it looks like they'll have an interesting role in that they'll almost certainly have to interact with more combat-orientated gathering PCs in order to get hold of the raw materials for their crafting endeavours. I like the fact this opens the way for people to roleplay Tailors, Brewers and various other professions that were once mechanically entirely in the realm of NPCs.

One slight concern from my point of view is those precious skillpoints, there are many classes that receive very few and have clear skills to invest in to make them viable - such as concentration, spellcraft and the likes - leaving very little left over for these skills. It strikes me that some investment in Intelligence will come in handy...

[Jaded Altruist]

I may have to make a kobold commoner as an alt.  Need to get a good Yiddish name for him too.

[Most Dangerous Gorgewall]

Are there any plans to normalize the skill points of the various classes or tweak the class skill list so that Fighters, Paladins, Clerics, Sorcerers, Warlocks, etc., aren't rubbish crafters who require a disproportionate build investment in order to participate in the crafting system? This would be especially troubling if not, since it's been revealed that crafting skills aren't the only addition to the skill list, so characters may be spread even further than usual. Dropping points into INT is something that everyone to my knowledge already does, just to meet basic build or RP requirements, never mind having to worry about if their character will now be incapable of being a Paladin both well-versed in his holy rites and blacksmithing without the benefit of being a 14 Int (hah! Paladin stat allocation) Human. It seems like asking a large number of classes to sacrifice for the sake of being able to do just one thing, while other classes (Wizard, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian[?]) have points to spare.

[MM]

Hasn't the decision always been there? In PnP for example. Well there you had some points to spare, but you could still decide to go full combat-minded with your skillset, if someone else in your party could do the other stuff.

I'm extremely pleased with how this system coming about, though I too would petition for some sort of global skillpoint boost if the skills being added in turn out to be very numerous. Clerics and Paladins etc, who are Multi Ability Dependent, usually dont have more than 10-12 in Intelligence, which translates to 2-3 skill points per level. Though as I said, I do see the appeal of the idea that if you want to go full munchkin, then you're going to have to depend on other characters, which should result in more RP interaction.

[Chevy]

Are there any plans to normalize the skill points of the various classes or tweak the class skill list so that Fighters, Paladins, Clerics, Sorcerers, Warlocks, etc., aren't rubbish crafters who require a disproportionate build investment in order to participate in the crafting system?

No classes are getting bonus skill points, though class skill lists have been changed. Crafting skills tend to be class skills across the board with the exception of Artificing and Trapping, which are the province of spellcrafters and rogue/ranger-like classes respectively. This is not really a far cry from PnP D&D. The system is designed such that any single character regardless of class would be hard pressed to be a master at all crafting disciplines so as to encourage inter-PC cooperation and emphasize the need for inter-colony cooperation. To really be a comprehensive crafter, it requires a significant investment of skills and feats. Combat builds can still dip into the crafting system for one or two skills and see returns, but to really be a master crafter, you have to make a large investment. There's more of a choice to make.

Some classes are just going to be worse at crafting than others, too. It's never been my intention to create a system that all classes will be good at equally. The fact that paladins, for example, only get a few skill points per level indicates to me that they're not the best choice for crafting. That said, Smithing is intentionally broad so fighter types (who tend to have lower rate of skill gain) can choose one crafting skill and have it be useful to them. Knowledge, Religion is far from a requirement for paladins, by the way. They can be assumed to know all the rites and things they must commonly perform. Knowledge skills represent more of a scholarly exploration of the subject matter. Someone with Knowledge, Religion knows esoteric details and history. If you do dip into it, there's nothing saying you have to max it out either. If you want your paladin to be learned, drop a few points in Knowledge, Religion and leave it at that. If you absolutely must be the smartest paladin in the room, then that's your choice and you have to weigh that against the trade-off.

[Most Dangerous Gorgewall]

PnP D&D tends to be based around a mechanical balance (ahaha) before RP and that's reflected in skill point assignment; classes are generally given just enough or one fewer than what you'd expect to have to fulfill a "stereotypical" _______ build. Rogues are expected to dump everything into Hide/MS/Disarm/Set/Spot/Listen/UMD/Pick/Tumble/Conversation/Climb/Jump if they expect to not be horribly mutilated by a number of things that don't exist in DC, whereas Fighters get boring things like Climb/Jump, and in NWN2 are total clowns if they don't pick up Tumble (as there's nothing else to spend points on--which might change if the expanded class skills includes cool things like Heal or a detection skill ). There's a reason that 4E and most Western MMORPGs (and DC5 is at least a multiplayer online RPG, if it isn't massive) have forsaken build-based crafting in favor of having a completely independent system that sets every character on the same footing, regardless of class, and imposes an X number of professions / skill points limitation to prevent complete mastery of crafting. As it stands, a Rogue/Duelist could max all eight mundane crafting skills and 2.5 other skills of his choosing and still remain as competent in a fight as a Rogue/Duelist is bound to get; Wizards have enough points to throw away to snag the essentials, master some Lore skills, and max two or three crafts, with even more feats available to sacrifice to crafting than the Duelist. If Commoners get even SIX skill points / level, I don't see what's stopping them from maxing every profession as well if they're willing to forsake nearly every other skill--which, being a non-combat class, is not exactly a huge detriment. The only barrier at that point is how necessary crafting feats are going to be, but even if I assume they will be fairly demanding (say, two feats to a skill), I can see how a mechanically powerful adventuring troupe of four (five?) could be capable of doing everything, and certainly from within the same faction (unless there are going to be faction requirements on materials / tools).

Some classes are just going to be worse at crafting than others, too. It's never been my intention to create a system that all classes will be good at equally. The fact that Paladins, for example, only get a few skill points per level indicates to me that they're not the best choice for crafting.

Getting more on point, my other concern is that the classes who already get oodles to do out of combat or have a larger bag of "RP tricks" are also going to be the ones benefiting the most from this style of crafting. The way most events unfold, if there's a situation that doesn't involve a giant lizard monster that needs immediate killing, Rogue- and Wizard-types are going to be the ones you look at for a creative solution. One might say this is because they are more "creative" classes, but that's only because the tricks given to classes like Fighters and Paladins don't exist in NWN2 (unless those myou-knowv-whats include summoning lizards or walking on air). And it isn't exactly as though this is balanced by the fact that Rogues and Wizards are worthless in the lizard fight, because they aren't.

[Zenix]

Quote
Some classes are just going to be worse at crafting than others, too. It's never been my intention to create a system that all classes will be good at equally. The fact that Paladins, for example, only get a few skill points per level indicates to me that they're not the best choice for crafting.
Getting more on point, my other concern is that the classes who already get oodles to do out of combat or have a larger bag of "RP tricks" are also going to be the ones benefiting the most from this style of crafting. The way most events unfold, if there's a situation that doesn't involve a giant lizard monster that needs immediate killing, Rogue- and Wizard-types are going to be the ones you look at for a creative solution. One might say this is because they are more "creative" classes, but that's only because the tricks given to classes like Fighters and Paladins don't exist in NWN2 (unless those myou-knowv-whats include summoning lizards or walking on air). And it isn't exactly as though this is balanced by the fact that Rogues and Wizards are worthless in the lizard fight, because they aren't.

Don't forget that prowess in combat and physical power also can get you influence in RP situations. I.e if you're the most powerful fighter in the known world, people will probably listen to you regardless of your skill points. But a more diverse skill set will probably encourage RP. People with arcane knowledge will seek out people with religious knowledge or knowledge of nature, and so on.

[thewanderingmystic]

Also, that's a reason multiclassing and PrCs were built into DnD 3.5
Pure fighters are just that: pure melee damage houses that specialize in being good in combat.
If you wanted to build a fighter who was "more clever" than your average fighter, whether from an RP standpoint or purely build mechanics, you'd be more than welcome to go fighter/rogue or maybe fighter/mage (wizard/sorc). You could PrC to a class like Eldritch Knight or specialize in attacks of opportunity with your bonus backstab damage while you invest more in crafting and "cleverness" type skills. The 3.5 edition rules are very good for mixing flavors to suit your RP playstyle.

as a side note on skills: I've noticed things like Lore are being broken down into the more PnP based knowledge skills like religion and arcane. What will be the mode of identifying items we find as drops from here out?

[Chevy]

There's a reason that 4E and most Western MMORPGs (and DC5 is at least a multiplayer online RPG, if it isn't massive) have forsaken build-based crafting in favor of having a completely independent system that sets every character on the same footing

Psh. The Elder Scrolls series? Dragon Age? The Witcher? Crafting is favored by rogues and/or the magically inclined in all of those. It goes without saying this was the case in the boxed versions of NWN1 and NWN2 as well. Crafting isn't class-neutral in MMORPGs for any balance reason. MMORPG devs want everybody to be crafters because crafting in MMORPGs is a huge time-sink and they make money on people paying them for the time they spend on the server watching meters fill up. WotC removed crafting as skills from 4E because they aren't "heroic." Fair enough, I suppose, though we're not limited to a 4-person party on DC, so we can afford to have less heroic, more utilitarian PCs who've traded off combat skills for non-combat ones. Hell, we have a commoner class now.

Getting more on point, my other concern is that the classes who already get oodles to do out of combat or have a larger bag of "RP tricks" are also going to be the ones benefiting the most from this style of crafting.

Rogues and wizards have more utility than other characters. This isn't new and it wasn't my intention to somehow equalize utility between classes with the introduction of a new crafting system. Fighters are more straight forward combatants with little utility. I'm not trying to mess with that niche. If you want to play a class with more utility, pick a utility class. Fighters did lose things like grappling and climbing in the translation to NWN, but rogues and wizards lost a things like acrobatics, scrying, flying, planar travel, and such so it's really kind of a wash. We are trying to bring caster classes into better balance combat-wise. The crafting system will help with that, since fighters benefit the most from good gear. Some of the over-powered spells and invocations are being toned down as well.

[Andy]

Sorry lads, blind tonight and side issue in all of this.

What categories will lore be broken down into?

Arcana, Religion... What else?

The overhaul to the crafting system is looking well good by the way. I'm impressed.

[Talio]

When it comes to straight mechanical combat, Wizards and Rogues can't match Fighters. The Rogue relies on getting Sneak attacks, which requires time wasted on Feint or HIPS spam every round, or a buddy to distract it for you. For DC4, I found myself almost entirely reliant upon summoned creatures to do the bulk of the fighting with Sigwin, since he could almost never reach the end of a level appropriate dungeon before running out of spells if he tried to use straight combat magic. Extending the duration of summoned creatures made it viable to solo as a Wizard at higher levels, and prior to that it was a very painful process to engage in direct combat. Even after the summons were beefed up, it was still a tedious process.

The reward in playing a Wizard was in the additional functions/power available only through DM assisted rituals and applications of magic not supported by the game engine. The reward in playing a Rogue from what I've seen is the chance to easily get involved in cloak-and-dagger intrigues, and do well. Or to use creative tactics, like placing traps or sneaking around to plant bombs or figuring out how a mechanical thingamabob works and then breaking or fixing it as the situation demands. The "oodles" of non-combat abilities and "RP Tricks" are a very big part of what makes a Wizard or a Rogue interesting to play, since they are undeniably lacking in most mechanic reliant combat situations when compared to a Fighter type.

Death magic can be powerful, but what can you really do against an opponent who is immune to instant death and has 2000+ HP and saves through the roof, when your most powerful mainstay spells can only deal a maximum of 120(Averaging 60, in theory) damage and is halved by a successful save? You could dump every single spell slot into a damage dealing spell and hope it's enough, which it might not be, or you could memorize a couple utility spells to weaken and disable it so your Fighter buddy can have an easier time of killing it for you.

While a Wizard does also get some very powerful disabling spells, saves over 20 make most of these incredibly unlikely to work(Due to the fact that NPC's in NWN2 only rarely decide to roll anything below 11 on their 1d20 when making saves), and the primary purpose of disabling something is so that something or someone else - Like a Fighter - Can more effectively kill the disabled target. Which still means you need a more combat focused class to do the bulk of the damage. In battles against "Giant Lizard" encounters, the bulk of my time was always spent just watching after casting a few buffs, a disable or two, and summoning a creature. Which is fine, because it at least gives the more combat oriented characters a chance to shine and perform their role.


The overall point being that I don't see a problem with a powerful combative character lacking the ability to be equal to a less combative character in performing non-combative functions without making significant sacrifices to his combative ability, either by multiclassing into a class suited to the things he wants to do, or by picking stats/skills/feats which are not optimal for the primary functions of your class. Given that a Fighter gets a total of 11 bonus combat feats by level 20, they are much more capable than others of spending their 7 standard feats on crafting related feats without entirely neglecting feats which are directly useful to their class.


Yes, the Commoner will be able to master a large number of crafting and other non-combative abilities, but they are nearly worthless in a fight. Yes, a Rogue/Duelist could also focus on mastering many crafts, but let's be honest... How effective is a Rogue/Duelist in combat when compared to Fighter builds?

[Most Dangerous Gorgewall]

Oh, come on, Talio. Rogues and Wizards are not terrible at combat. You can make an AC or Str-based Rogue that can go toe-to-toe just as well as a Fighter, and Wizards can buff AC and AB to Fighter levels and then summon a level 20 Fighter that can also cast Fireball. A 20 Cleric will beat a 20 Fighter every time unless you're not allowing any spellcasting at all. Even when dungeons were changed to be more punishing to buff-and-fight classes like Cleric and Wizard, they were still more solo-capable there than mundane classes! (As an aside, Feint isn't a wasted turn at all--it's broken.)

The argument that Fighters should be bad at RP solutions because they are designed to mechanically wail on things (and even then they aren't the best at it) falls flat on its face as well given that this is a role-playing server. The Fighter should have as many opportunities to role play out of combat as the Wizard and Rogue and Cleric, and this is really what this all boils down to. I reject the notion that your "reward" for being "bad" at mechanical combat should be the ability to do cool stuff out of combat or in events or crafting, and that the Fighter's "penalty" for being "good" at combat should be being boring as hell. How is the ability to stomp on things with numbers really well a benefit in an RP server? If we thought it rewarding to see large numbers fly over things' heads and solo dungeons, we wouldn't be playing on a coop RP server, we'd be grinding by our lonesomes in an MMO or playing Diablo.

All classes in NWN2 are combat classes in some way, shape, or form. They are given tools to help them succeed at beating up creatures so they can get XP, and they can do this very well if built "correctly". To say that Fighters are a more combat-oriented class than Wizards is just stupid, because they're both leveling up the same way--combat!  Fighters are more "sit there and auto-attack" oriented, which is already boring and unfulfilling without lumping "can't do much in RP" in with it. I played a 7 Fighter/13 Barb (and those extra Barb skill points are all that kept me from killing myself from boredom) and the extreme enjoyment I got out of demolishing dungeons and being a mechanical badass was such that I would minimize the game and watch videos on YouTube or literally leave the computer and make a sandwich. That's not fun. Having no skill points is also not fun. Being limited to "kicking well" as your solution to everything, especially when Wizards can just turn into a golem that kicks way better, is even more not fun.

[Dynamics]

Get commoners / Get paid.

[thewanderingmystic]

I will say that I believe Gorgewall has a point, in that all classes can be highly effective in combat (exception being Commoner apparently, as it is specifically designed NOT to be). Still, my original point stands, that if the basic fighter isn't working out of combat for you, you can always multiclass. If you want skill points, add rogue. The extra backstab damage certainly won't go to waste with your combat skills, and the extra skill points are what you're after. Or go wizard! Again, the extra skill points will get you that out of combat utility you want and the buffs that you'll have access to will certainly be useful. Heck, you might even ALSO learn to enchant on top of crafting. Plus then you can USE the massive, enchanted greatsword you make!
3.5 rules are not broken in or out of combat by any measure, and I don't think anything the DC staff has done has changed that.

Bump (for both me an Andy): anything you guys can say about the breakdown on the knowledge skills? I'm still curious how magical items drops will be identified now. It kinda goes with my character concept actually.