At what level are the base classes closest in power to one another?

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <trying to translate...>

henesua wrote...
...
My thinking was that prepping scrolls and a wand with commonly used spells would benefit the caster not other classes (the krit's system restricts item use to the class which created the item) by allowing them to cast more spells between rests. It should also provide a meaningful choice on an adventure between using up a resource that costs XP to create and retreating home to rest. I do need to calibrate the XP penalty to be just right to make it meaningful, but eventually should be able to.

We're on the same wavelength there. Items shouldn't dominate, but rewarding crafting and preparation shifts the emphasis in play styles a bit away from Log-in-and-slay to log-in-and-play.  My preference ;-)

WebShaman wrote...
Where there is a DM involved, things normally do not get out of hand (there are many ways to "control items" in a DM enforced environment).

This is actually why I am concerned. I am working on the module to move from DM managed sessions to a PW model.

What I used to do PnP and plan to (somehow) implement in Amethyst is to generate nemesis characters. When the PC was created, I also put somewhere in the world someone who opposes them and advances (along a different path) roughly with them. 

I *also* created nemesis for exceptional items.

There is a secret organization in Amethyst that is actively trying to prepare for Armageddon (because it *is* coming). One of their activities is to collect all the most powerful items for their armory... by whatever means necessary and at whatever cost in lives and pain is needed. They actively hunt down artifacts and uber-weapons when they come to light.

There is also an active thieves guild who would consider such items objects of opportunity - again subject to how visible they are. That is an important consideration. If PCs keep their uber-things on the down-low, their odds of keeping them go way up.  But flash that sword of god-slaying (Dragon Half reference) and you may as well paint a target on your back :-) Thanks to Failed Bard, rumors *do* get around...

Between these two mechanisms and a few other random thoughts I've had I'm hoping to apply soft limits to item creation and use. That is, powerful items are possible, but you'll have to use them cautiously.  I love soft limits ;-)

And if the set up is tweaked properly, DM intervention should not be required.

<...pencil lead into electrons>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

henesua wrote...

Hmmmm, I installed the Krit's system because I thought it would benefit casters in Arnheim, not other classes. Casters have one big disadvantage in Arnheim, resting is limited, and I have halved many spell durations relative to real time (spells that used to last 2 real minutes per level now last 1 minute/lvl). This means that casters will go through spells a little bit faster, AND after they use up their spells, they have to wait until they can rest and replenish.

I am admin of Action PW high-magic, lvl 40 oriented and even default NWN crafting is quite imbalanced.

wands are more beneficial than scrolls or potions - they cost more or less the same, but they have over 30charges and added to this all, if the spell is arcane the wand is usable by all arcane classes, if divine again all divine classes. This allow to use most wands without single rank in umd. Especially imabalanced is improved invisility, if cast by cleric the wand is usable by ranger, druid, cleric and paladin without UMD. With a duration around ten minutes and 30charges, why would anyone make a scroll or potion right?

I think that The Krit changed this to restrict the wands for the class that can cast it which is how it should be(something Im considering for CP as well), however UMD cost is still very low and caster level is higher. That would mean even longer buffs which are by default around 5 minutes (negative protection, death ward, freedom, ii...). Also it would mean that nobody would ever wanted to make a scroll of those few spells that are by default better than on wand, like greater magic weapon. UMD users will benefit greatly from any improvements into caster level.

What Im planning is to set caster level of scroll to the caster level of the creator, but only if that scroll is used by the creator himself. That shoul be more balanced than wands, as they should have 1/2 CL per DnD rules anyway and they have too much charges.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 23 novembre 2012 - 03:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               As I mentioned earlier, the trick is ensuring that the XP cost is high enough to make a PC think twice about selling the item, and low enough that they'll still use the ability for themselves. I am also restricting the number of stores that will buy this stuff.

You are correct about the Krit, he did restrict crafted items to the class which crafted them.

[edit]
I appologizxe for hikacking this thread. But I do think it is still on topic as magic items are a major consieration ini game balance
[/edit]
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 23 novembre 2012 - 03:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

henesua wrote...

As I mentioned earlier, the trick is ensuring that the XP cost is high enough to make a PC think twice about selling the item, and low enough that they'll still use the ability for themselves. I am also restricting the number of stores that will buy this stuff.

really? how this could solve anything?

if the cost to create crafted wand/potion/scroll is still reasonable to make it, what prevents players to sell it on their own to other players which will overpay the price for the XP loss of the creator? And that is only if rules forbidden item transfers, which for example we do not. But even if you do, still there is whole black market with this '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I don't consider a PC driven black market to be a significant contributor to the problem. The problem in my view is craft grinding to generate income, and that relates to whether stores will be a conduit for the release of many of these items into the game.

If only players are buying these items, then you won't have all that many in game and more importantly players will work out the costs between themselves. Spell casting crafters will have to weigh the cost in XP versus the GP they'll be getting from their clients, AND they will also have to weigh whether they want to give that much power out to potential competitors (assuming you have some PVP in place).
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 23 novembre 2012 - 05:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               In my little m/p experience with various builds and charcaters, the levels at 12-15 appear to somwhat equal in their capability of survival. I know this is when I generally find play to become more enjoyable than lower lvls, and still quite challenging as opposed to Epic environs.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               About wand crafting...

First, while I totally agree that greater availability of items that duplicate the feats or class abilities of classes will tend to reduce the usefulness of those classes. However, making the feats that a class can take more useful can also make that character more useful. Feats that allow casters to cast more spells makes casters more valuable to a party. Crafting wands, scrolls, and potions effectively allows a caster to cast more spells. Not that it can't be abused, but it's important not to forget that it makes the caster more valuable, too. Meanwhile, spells cast from items will seldom be more effective than those cast by the caster in terms of caster level and save DCs, and in those instances where they are, it is no worse with The Krit's ABCM system than with the default.

Regarding the economics of it: Wand crafting isn't a direct cash cow for the crafter because crafted wands are undervalued at sale time (unless stores have unusual buy/sell markups). That is, it costs significantly more to craft a wand than the wand is worth. For example, a wand of GMW at level 15 with 50 charges has a toolset value of 11250, but cost three times as much to craft. A mage isn't going to be making any money selling these to stores. Even getting other players to pay his gp cost to craft isn't a good deal for the mage as the xp hit is significant unless the PW has lots of farmable areas or the crafter isn't trying to keep up with his friends, level-wise. In any case, by default crafting wands isn't a money-maker. The ABCM system doesn't make the problem any worse than the default system and arguably makes it less severe because of the tighter class restrictions.

Really, the issue with UMDers being able to use (over overuse) these wands is sort of the opposite. They have such a low toolset value that a low UMD enables using them. Of course, it would be easy to modify The ABCM system so that the wands were restricted to the race and/or alignment of the crafter as well, which would make them a bit harder to use with UMD. Combine that with a value increase property or some useless property like spell resistance to make the wands' value the same or higher than their crafting cost and UMD skill level of 25 will be required to use the better wands. Of course, higher-level dedicated UMDers will have that skill level, but that's sort of the point of the skill...

And, of course, if one is really worried that crafted wands used by someone other than the crafter are a real balance problem, there is a simple solution.

SetDroppableFlag(oWand, 0);

'>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MrZork, 24 novembre 2012 - 01:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

henesua wrote...

You are conflating an issue of game economy with one of game balance.

Enabling spell casters to make their own items does not mean that these items will be readily availble in stores for those invested in the UMD skill to cash in on. These are two separate issues that only overlap in a module with bad store design AND an inadequate XP cost for creating magic items.

No, I wasn't.  I'm not talking about stores at all.  I'm talking about a PC making a wand and selling/giving it to other PCs.  A character who is also to use imp invis, GMW, flame weapon, etc on himself as a non-caster (due to UMDing these wands) is a lot stronger than the same character without UMD.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

No, I wasn't.  I'm not talking about stores at all.  I'm talking about a PC making a wand and selling/giving it to other PCs.  A character who is also to use imp invis, GMW, flame weapon, etc on himself as a non-caster (due to UMDing these wands) is a lot stronger than the same character without UMD.

I tend to agree that UMD allows for more versatility; thus being more powerful. However, in the early lvls, such power is fairly limited. This is one of the reasons I contend that 12-15th lvl seems to be the target area the OP is seeking, as one that is somewhat addicted to playing with Rogue skills including UMD.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               A question related to the balance issue since there appears to be plenty of admins here in one place...

How do you guys prevent muling?  I am referring either to 1) the use of a persistant storage per account, 2) dropping items logging and relogging with another toon and 3) simply passing items (like crafted wands) to a server-mate and then retrieving with another toon on the same account?  These are the only methods I've seen used. There may be more, though.

Seems like a difficult set of action to secure but I am no scripter and am curious as to whether this would factor into the balance issue at all.  Getting full UMD power is just a single skill dump, naturally.

edit:

BTW, at say Level 12, a UMD rating of 20 is easily attainable with a single dump class an skill focus and a bit of CHA rubbed into the mix. That's 300,000 value.  With high CHA 25 would be within reach, doubling the capacity to 600,000 value (vanilla, of course).  Have never figured out how crafted wands' values were determined so have no idea what is possible.  I do know that some wands will craft higher caster levels than would be expected, though. A level 7 cleric creating a HotG wand that casts at level 20, for instance.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 24 novembre 2012 - 07:07 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Elhanan wrote...

I tend to agree that UMD allows for more versatility; thus being more powerful. However, in the early lvls, such power is fairly limited.

Almost the reverse, really.  A wand of Lesser Spell Breach/FlameWeapon/Improved Invisibility is even more powerful when the max level is 12-15 and casters have far more limited spell slots.

HipMaestro wrote...

How do you guys prevent muling?  I am referring either to 1) the use of a persistant storage per account, 2) dropping items logging and relogging with another toon and 3) simply passing items (like crafted wands) to a server-mate and then retrieving with another toon on the same account?  These are the only methods I've seen used. There may be more, though.

Is this related to balance in any way or purely something you're wondering for RP reasons?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 24 novembre 2012 - 07:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

Almost the reverse, really.  A wand of Lesser Spell Breach/FlameWeapon/Improved Invisibility is even more powerful when the max level is 12-15 and casters have far more limited spell slots.

If such items are readily available, I guess. However, this has not been my experience on PW's; more solo mod environments.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Shadow continued this discussion in comments. I've quoted our conversation below.

The gist is that these arguments against Better Craft Magic are (somewhat) relevant in High Magic environments, because resources (xp, gp, items) are not scarce so therefore an admin/DM can't use the game economy to balance out the play. Therefore one more thing that makes items more powerful tilts the balance too much in favor of the UMDers.

For my own purposes this doesn't matter as I am implementing a low magic environment, but I can accept that my argument is not universally applicable.

ShaDoOoW 15 hour(s) ago
well you are viewing this issue from economy side, whether Im from game global balance, im unsure what "Better Craft Magic" does with economy balance, im just pointing out that it definitely make game imbalanced from character power point of view

henesua 15 hour(s) ago
My point is that economic factors keep the balance with regards to player to player selling of items. Player A does not benefit from creating an item unless they use it, and even then it costs a certain amount of XP and gold to do so. If Player A sells to Player B, A only benefits in terms of what they receive from B. They lose XP, and then give a power benefit to another player. The crux of the matter is that XP cost must be high enough to make selling a crafted item a difficult decision. And if this is the case, you are unlikely to see it done very often, and even when it does happen, one player sacrifices power in order to give power to another. While B's power level does increase, they likely have to pay something in exchange for that increase, and it is up to A not to let B get the upper hand over them. Furthermore since we are taking XP from players, from a global perspective it doesn't matter if B gains at the expense of A. Overall the players have paid for the new item to enter circulation.

I suppose the exceptional case is if a new character spends XP for an item to give to another character and is never played again. Should we be concerned about this?

ShaDoOoW 14 hour(s) ago
i dont know your environment, neither your increased costs, i can only speak for what I can see in my environment which is high magic - fast levelling where players specifically makes crafting characters to stock up their UMD characters with craft items. I was supposing that this might happen even in low-magic environment with restricted item transfering. Generally, UMD-characters are stronger than others, they gain via UMD all what they are lacking of. So if someone will want to play character like this, thinking bard/rdd or rogue/monk they will need to supply themselves with crafted wands, scrolls and potions. If rules doesn't allow them to transfer it from their own characters, they will just ask someone to do that for them - if its their friend they can even get it for free - you certainly know those parties that supplies themselves, ruining economy right? Or they tell some stranger to make it - and if the cost to make it is reasonable for selfuse, it will be reasonable to sell it to the other player which will simply overplay the XP cost with GP.

henesua 14 hour(s) ago
with this kind of crafting you can only create items that have spells that you can cast. So the UMD focused characters don't benefit unless someone else produces the item for them. That is one reason why the game economy is critical here because it influences the supply of items from crafters to UMD characters. If the XP cost is high enough to limit the supply, I don't see the problem. It seems that you are arguing that it is not possible to have a high enough XP cost to make a difference. In my view XP is the most valuable resource in a module that allows leveling, so I am having a hard time understanding how a significant XP cost would not ensure scarcity of these items. And if they are a scarce resource how can they unbalance play?

ShaDoOoW 13 hour(s) ago
told you already, if the cost is reasonable for selfuse, then it will be same as well reasonable to sell it, there is no reason why the crafter wouldnt sell it if the buyer that offers enough money to compensate the XP loss. Its rather whether is the XP/GP cost reasonable to do it at all. One could even make a wiz/cleric character that will specialize for craft in order to make easy money - the demand for craft items - especially when you improve them will be there, IMO its just a matter of time when someone realise the market potential there and make a character for that.

And, once you no longer levelling up, what stops you from supply whole module with crafted items?

henesua 12 hour(s) ago
your last question is significant, which is why I mentioned that exception in my prior comment. However, I'm not convinced by your other argument, that an XP cost is insignificant prior to max level. Perhaps it is because I don't understand what you mean by "High Magic environment". Are items a more significant contributor to power than class levels in a High Magic environment? If that is true, then I can see where you are coming from. My interest is primarily in modules which focus on character abilities rather than item abilities so I've not considered this case. I admit in an environment in which power is gained more through items than character level, that XP cost is not relevant enough to matter.

still I would think that a higher XP cost would still ahve some impact. I guess your argument is that you run the risk of eliminating crafting entirely in this case. I wonder if that is actually true. I wonder if in a high magic environment if the cost was say 1000 xp per spell level and then a multiplier on top of that for each charge, how it would play out on your server....

ShaDoOoW 3 hour(s) ago
I guess your argument is that you run the risk of eliminating crafting entirely in this case - yes, thats my opinion in my environment, where is free transfering, such cost increase would only make craft items more valuable - 1000*spell level*charge is really much, but that is redundant if each player can make special crafting character which they do not need to play and equip. They just need to level it with at least 200k xp above which can be done really fast especially if its caster.

henesua 1 second(s) ago
I see. this is largely an issue of different environments then. ok. point taken.

               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 24 novembre 2012 - 12:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

henesua wrote...
I am using The Krit's A Better Craft Magic, which applies the creator's caster level (roughly) to the spell stored in a crafted scroll, wand, or potion. And have not yet seen how this will affect play. Any feedback as to how this adjusts the balance of power would be greatly appreciated.

Again - ABCM, as it is, is highly unbalanced. Maybe henesue that if you raise the cost to create magic item, then it will restrict the UMDers, but I dont think so anyway.

henesua wrote...

I am curious about what you mean by D&D PnP rules for scrolls, wands and potions.

In DnD rules it works this way:
general rules:
- the cost to create item is (base cost for item type)*(spell level)*(caster level)
- XP cost is 1/25 of GP cost
- you can set caster level of crafted item below your CL but not higher
potions:
- base cost is 50GP
- you can craft potion only of nonpersonal spell (big con)
- crafting a potion takes one day
scrolls:
- base cost 25GP
- crafting scroll take one day per each 1000GP of cost
wands:
- base cost 750GP
- crafting scroll take one day per each 1000GP of cost

The PRC has a crafting system allowing to craft anything in game which mimic the time requirement. I had once a PW using this but we found it very bad choice. The time requirement was simply a AFK time. Player simply started crafting when he ended game and tomorrow after several IG days passed, the +5AC ring was done.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 24 novembre 2012 - 02:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Again - ABCM, as it is, is highly unbalanced. Maybe henesue that if you raise the cost to create magic item, then it will restrict the UMDers, but I dont think so anyway.

We've already hashed this out. I see your point for a high magic environment but the reasoning of your argument does not extend beyond that.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

henesua wrote...
I am curious about what you mean by D&D PnP rules for scrolls, wands and potions.

In DnD rules it works this way...

That question was to WebShaman because I wanted to know what he meant. Specfically what aspect of the PNP rules would apply in the case he was discussing. I suppose he meant the transference of caster levels to the items which is why I brought up ABCM. But I'd rather he tell me what he meant than guess. I know the PNP rules.

ShaDoOoW wrote...
The PRC has a crafting system allowing to craft anything in game which mimic the time requirement. I had once a PW using this but we found it very bad choice. The time requirement was simply a AFK time. Player simply started crafting when he ended game and tomorrow after several IG days passed, the +5AC ring was done.

Interesting. I supppose if you adjusted how time for crafting was tracked you could make this more relevant. I hadn't considered the time restriction in this, which would certainly help control the rate at which magic items entered the game. It seems to me in this case that one day should equal one real day. But that would also be a harsh penalty as you'd remove a crafter from play during that period as well.

I assume that they enter cutscene mode and become uncommandable until the time is up. And that this kind of crafting only occurs in a safe environment.