Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - Egon the Monkey

#46
You can plant them inside the gardening zone, in such a way they are inside one of the objects within the gardening zone.
For example the whole Secret Garden is a gardening zone. You can plant the seeds inside one of the walls.
#47
I've seen enough Mighty +1 and Mighty +2 bows as drops to know this wouldn't break the game in the slightest. Hell, there's even a +3 with some drawbacks. The nice thing about Mighty is it's reliant on your STR score, so it rewards not minmaxing.

EfU  has got a lot better for bows since MW/GMW works on them, but the best use of them is still interrupting enemy casters. To do that, you need to be able to hit with enough brute force to dunk their concentration check.

Giving a  non-secret shop this sort of thing would be great. I'd rather be able to spend a big chunk of money to get the key item for my PC now, than to pray for a drop. Much like custom fullplate or a shop relic is expensive, but it's guaranteed to be available.  There are some great weapons of all sorts in unreliaable and inaccessible areas, but you are reliant on progress and luck to find them. An expensive shop would make finding a +2 Mighty bow so much more exciting because you just saved 2 grand.

Thrown weapons don't really compete with bows anyway, they have other niches.

  • The 0 Weight darts that you just carry as an emergency backup on your melee PC
  • Halflings.

Quivers would also be good because they solve the hoarder problem. If you have 200 +1d4 arrows, you will hoard them "until I need them" and probably die with them in your inventory. If you can make 20 a rest, you'll burn them whenever you run into a tough fight, as you can make more. Same goes for if you can buy them at sensible prices, as then they're just  consumable like blurs.

tl;dr: This is the same argument essentially for "why relic stores should be permanently available, not random spawns". That got added so priests were guaranteed the thing they needed to reach a decent power level. Please let archers do the same.
#48
Suggestions / Re: Perk Suggestion Thread
October 02, 2020, 02:25:10 PM
Dumpster Diver
We were discussing this on Discord, and it sounded genuinely awesome. The problem with Maiden of Woe being the ghosts are crap, and fairly kill on sight. Whereas attracting FLY summons... Disgusting and unlikely to make your friends, but more likely to be openly out.  I'm suggesting + sumnmoning points, as one issue with Maiden of Woe is the weak summons lower your summon budget.

L1:

  • Summoning theme changed to Insects
  • Flies circle the Sorcerer. Insect summons are drawn to the Sorcerer. (Player tool toggle)
  • +20 Summoning Points
  • +4 Disease saves, +2 Search.
L5:
  • When opening a chest, gain random loot like the Rogue Treasure Hunter perk
  • +4 Poison Saves
  • Sorcerer Token: Magic Fang 2/day
L8:

  • Stronger insect summons are drawn to the sorcerer
  • 10% Physical DI
#49
Excellent PC, one of the influences for Narkus not flipping some tables early on and running off to be Dr. Frankenstein for the Timeless Cult.
Thanks for getting me into Tinkering with Thorne's relentless pursuit of a particular thing. It inspired me to really push on the "I will build you things" aspect and make a lot of connections. He had this sort of quiet commitment, patience and anger to him, as opposed to the classic SMITE BAD THINGS undead hunter. Very fun PC who I wish I'd been able to do more things with. I look forward to more plans in 92, some of the stuff we did sparked my interest there too.

#50
Ah, well you can plant normal seeds like this, which is why they can end up inside walls and bushes.
#51
Suggestions / Re: Gity Golems with personality.
September 28, 2020, 09:40:23 PM
Back to the original point, the DM answer was "This is an incredibly evil and vile act akin to murdering a random bystander and ripping their heart out"
Unique names are irrelevant as the golems don't actually have a glowing blue name over their head IC.  Our characters have no reason to treat them as "Construction workers" rather than "Tools" or "Draft animals" like any other golem.

DMs will state outright OC, that yes they are and killing them is Evil. Except, right, it's not unless you know they're a person! If you kill a character who's been polymorphed into a chicken, and  you believe they're a chicken.... You haven't intentionally murdered someone. You have intended to kill a chicken. It's a tragedy, not the callous, deliberate killing of another person. In the same way, there's no moral conflict about the MASSIVE EVIL of killing city golems unless it's obvious to Joe Noob that these are People, not Things. Since golems have been known to speak and communicate with other people, this should be widely known. The easiest way to do this is just to give the one in the Open Door intelligent and meaningful conversation options to show "Yes this is a person, they all are". 
#52
Suggestions / Re: Spells Suggestions Thread
September 28, 2020, 01:13:44 PM
Drop Horizakaul's Shout to L3 for Bards
They get Fear and Confusion as L3 spells as they are thematic for Bards and it means Necromancy and Enchantment are actually worthwhile SFs.
If Bards got Horizakaul's Shout, it'd go some way to making evocation bards worthwhile. Yes you can fire Wounding Whispers but that's more a defensive spell with damage, than a big area damage and interrupt.
#53
Suggestions / Make the seed power Unique Power Self Only.
September 26, 2020, 06:18:57 PM
It's possible to plant seeds (both normal and druid) in locations where it's physically impossible to reach, destroy or harvest the plants. If the power could only be used where you are standing, these accidents and exploits would be preventable.
#54
Always great fun for sardonic exploration with. Shame we never got past the Inanimate Nemesis :(. Curse you, Door.
#55
Suggestions / Re: Brimstone Lodge
September 25, 2020, 10:39:57 AM
TBH, all the persistent craft tables could use a balance.
There's a base in Ticker where for a mere 20k +500 a month you can get a +0 Herbalist table.
Or for a one off Prestige cost, you can gain permanent access to a boosted alchemy table?

There's a reason we've had a succession of Peerage Alchemy dealers. A secure crafting table alone is a big deal as it means you can do bulk experimentation. A secure boosted table is amazing. I thought it had been removed because it was such an incredible benefit to alchemy. I think we could use more secure +0 or +5 tables for rent. Then you can start out making the low-grade alchemy/herbalism/tinkering to order, but making the big deal items requires going to dangerous bits of the server and finding labs.
#56
Suggestions / Gity Golems with personality.
September 25, 2020, 10:23:29 AM
Someone asked in Discord if it was OK to attack city golems, as they are blue NPCs.
Quote from: PigadigThey're a living, sentient, sapient being that isn't harming you.
Therefore it's a vile act on the level of randomly deciding to murder a bystander in a tavern and rip out their heart.

To which I did a massive double take.  They're sentient? They don't generally behave like anything but uncommunicative automatons. I'd always percieved killing a city golem as a Chaotic act, like smashing up a part of the City infrastructure. And advised against it IC on the basis of "don't vandalise important machines" not "HOLY SHIT DON'T RANDOMLY MURDER SOME DUDE". The only reason I'd even suspect they might be intelligent is I found RWG posting a screenshot of one talking to him.  There's a hint of "some form of intelligence" in the description, but based on them not ever talking or doing anything, I assumed it was at the level of "guard dog" not "people".

Could they maybe have some more indication the city golems *are* sentient? As generally golems aren't, and the city ones don't show signs of person-level intelligence. I've come across three so far and they just all stand around ignoring you. There's the Sad Dead Golem encounter but all that indicates is they can be friendly. A dog can be friendly. If you want PCs to treat them like people, not machines, they need to behave like people, not machines. Which  probably means giving them some conversations that show signs of a personality.  Which means not only are people more considered about whether to attack them, they might try interacting with them rather than treating them as furniture.
#57
Suggestions / Re: Apothecary + Tinkering
September 23, 2020, 10:37:03 AM
I'll add that it's possible to buy Brew Potion and Craft Wand now. This is a very positive change, but means you're not sacrificing a character pick to get an economic feat to fund your crafting. 

Where Tinkering really suffers is in the low-mid power level items. The high-power stuff is really cool. But most of the things I've made in schematics are either trash, or cheaper and easier to make with Alchemy or Herbalism.  I largely funded my herbalism research by selling cheap L2-3 spell items and grenades made from shop trash. I can't do that in Tinkering because you can't make much good stuff to order. Even with about half a dozen PCs at a time funnelling Tinkering reagents to my character, I can't do anywhere near the amount of experimentation or reliable production that I can in low-grade Alchemy or Herbalism.  Objects are a bit too rare compared to Alchemical reagents, but not too bad. Schematics are just so much more awkward to get than the other crafting systems' Tier 1 items.

Specific issues:

  • You can't make enough ammo. The DC on "50 +1 damage ammunition" can be in excess of 60. You'll burn through those in half a quest, and you can't reliably hit that DC at most labs. Similarly, siege ammo is produced in single shots. You can't make or carry enough to make a siege weapon useable. You're better off just buying the ammo.

    • Bundles or quivers would help there, as then you could store multiple shots as a single item in a chest.
    • As would lowering the DC on basic ammo and upping the output to say, 200 rounds. Enough that you can make a meaningful amount that's worth selling or using.
  • You can't get enough supplies for the low-level crafting.

    • Most elemental reagents are incredibly easy to buy at shops cheaply or find as default drops. Many Tier 1 herbalism reagents are trivial to make out of junk or can be bought for <10 gp.
    • Yes, you can draw one Schematic a day. But you can't get them in bulk unless you persuade a bunch of people to learn Tinkering and draft for you.
    • If Tier 1 theme reagents exist in the Tier 0 loot table for Tinkering, they are incredibly rare. I've found lots of recipes for tier 1 reagents in Herbalism and none in Tinkering.
    • Many herbalism  and alchemical reagents are 1 square 0 weight items. Schematics weigh half a pound each and take up 4 squares, so I can't just keep a box full of them to fill orders.
  • Tinkering is full of red herrings. You can craft high DC items that are useless and sometimes cannot even be used as crafting ingredients.
I've had success in basically treating theme items like lottery tickets and having a standing arrangement of "Bring me parts and if I make a thing with them I will give it to you". 

I understand that Tinkering is much much lower risk than Herbalism or Alchemy,  but the drop in risk /reward from Herbalism to Tinkering is nowhere near the difference between Alchemy and Herbalism. High DCs don't "make up" for lower risk, they just make you reliant on super labs. Also, wierdly, some of the weak items like ammo have higher DCs than the more powerful items.

  • There's nothing I've faced from herbalism  that a prepared rogue can't kill, tank on Evasion or just run away from.  Failures are annoying, or dangerous, or stuff that might be expensive to fight. Failures on Alchemy can straight up instagib you, and you need high level buffs to survive high level alchemy.
  • In both Herbalism and Tinkering, the greater risk is "random spawns on the way to the lab" or "Someone who doesn't like your PC stabs them in the back while they are crafting". I really like Herbalism because you get used to the idea of risk without the frustration of instagibs.
  • The risk/reward on Herbalism is just so much better than Tinkering because you can reliably make useful stuff in bulk. If someone orders 5 grenades off me I can make them in one go in Herbalism. In tinkering I have to wait 5 days to draw up schematics. 

The one thing Tinkering really does have going for it is there are a number of weak persistent labs, so there's less chance of bumping into someone else's trouble. In general I'd love to see more persistent or spawned labs, so there's more uncertainty over where a crafter might be working. They don't have to have bonuses, just make it so you don't have to choose between "excessively safe faction base lab" or "that one accessible herbalism table where everyone expects they can gank you".
#58
Suggestions / Fish in Tehoto
September 22, 2020, 07:39:17 PM
You can't buy fish in the store. You can't go fishing. Could the water plane have some more fish please?
#59
Suggestions / Re: Apothecary + Tinkering
September 20, 2020, 11:45:14 AM
Having played an Apothecary Tinkerer for several months, I'd broadly agree. I would suggest bringing the bonus back, but only as +8. Which means that once you count your Rogue levels, you'll have around +15 total to Tinkering.  As it is, it's bizarre that I can easily get a much higher herbalism score than I can Tinkering, when Tinkering is the Rogue's crafting tree. Heal loot is trivial to accumulate, and the Physician Perk's a +4. On top of that, the DCs on Tinkering are just higher by a *lot*. I have made the same devices in Tinkering and Herbalism, and the DC in Herbalism has been often around 20 lower! And the Herbalism recipes could all be made out of shoploot. Whereas Tinkering means I have to haul round bulky schematics I can only make one of per 24 RL hours.

I have bought up a lot of gear for crafting and whereas all the generic Necromantic loot for example has Heal/Lore/Spellcraft, nothing I have ever seen has Lore +Craft Trap. Heck, the only good craft trap gear I can reliably find is the screwdrivers in the starting shop. The Handy Backpack has Craft Armour(!) but not Craft Trap.

I know it was changed to stop Rogue double-dipping on Tinkerer. But without self buffs, and with Craft Trap having literally no other use, it's painful to invest in. I make spellcraft checks in DM events all the time, and extra saves is amazing. And Heal is a skill so fun and useful that I literally built my character around it.

Finally, the schematics. Although you can write your own, the weight stacks up. Much like Blood Vials, could these be reduced to 0.1 lbs, so it is more practical to stash a bunch of them? They're paper blueprints after all.

#60
Suggestions / Re: Weapon proficiency (Dwarf)
September 17, 2020, 11:19:23 AM
That would be absurdly good for Clerics, Sorcerers and Bards, as it's basically free Martial Proficiency. If you want a 2-handed weapon, /c two_handed a Waraxe!
Giving Dwarves Light Hammer would IMO do for "thematic cultural weapon" without giving another free feat to a race that gets a lot of combat bonuses.