Suggested Revisements to the Archaeology System

[Doofus]

Hi, I've been playing various pcs interested in the lore and secrets of the world since the chapter start. Notably, none of these PCs have actually ever achieved their goals due to me learning OOCly over time about the various skills needed to actually learn anything, both in the world and the Archaeology System.

Before I start, I know this system is entirely optional and I don't need to engage with it, but I do want to engage with it, I just want it to be better for me and everyone else who will engage with it after.

Currently, the main part of the system is collecting various bits and assembling them on a crafting table. These bits randomly spawn in certain areas and are placed behind a check to gather them. That sounds fine on paper, yes. However, to make the easiest "craftable" in the system, you need to make 5 of these checks. Then finally, another check to actually assemble the "craftable", that's six checks total for the easiest one. Another line requires 10 checks to gather, and an eleventh to assemble.

My current PC, with 16 Intelligence, SF: Arch can only make the "middle" and "hard" half the time. Meaning every time I fail a check, that's more time I spend wandering around the desert looking for ruined spots to make another check on. This is made worse, because the type of dig spot is random, depending on the area. Meaning even if I am 80% of the way done with collecting the pieces, the dig spot isn't guaranteed to be the item I need to attempt to create the "craftable".

When finally you assemble the "craftable" and enter its result, generally your reward after facing its dangers will be gated behind another check for a different skill, however, this one is worse. If you fail this check, you receive nothing, despite having spent a week gathering these pieces. On the expeditions I completed, my reward was an item that let me use it. To my surprise, using it gave me -another- check of an ever higher DC with an entirely different skill.

That's three skills and 8+ checks for the easiest line of expeditions, and its DCs range from mid to HIGH. The final checks, with the third skill, were so high I needed to find a bard who was purposefully built to challenge them. Despite the fact that my own PC's build is so warped to bend over backward for these checks.

I suggest the amount of DCs be either cut down, or the digging system within an expedition allows checks to be repeated rather than a singular save or suck.

[Doofus]

Also-

The Favor system is very much out of wack. The item which I pulled out of the dig, which required a week's worth of time, was twenty favor.

I believe the cheapest gear in the Black Market Dealer which has +arch on it is in the thousands. That is absurd.

[Don Nadie]

So!

On the amount of rolls This I think is very simple: the system is meant to hide mysteries for ppl for a few YEARS of the chapter. The amount of skills is meant for ppl to not exhaust the possible options too soon. The problems here are best solved by finding buddies who gather relics for you - or tagging along other archaeologist PCs!

On the variety of skills: I can understand a lot of your issues with the system, specifically the amount of high DCs of a variety of skills. However, I /personally/ think that the system is meant to encourage a variety of builds and PCs, who then have to cooperate.

So while I understand it is frustrating, I believe it also makes sense that Alejandro (for instance) needs to find a friend who's good with a shovel if he wants a chance at using the pieces. In this sense, if DCs were lower it'd become more normal to have tiny teams, which I am meh about. If anything, I do wish there were /more/ skills involved. /More/ artifacts requiring Spellcraft or Painting or Appraise to understand completely. (Obvs with lower DCs for the more rare skills, but still!)

On the DCs: The high DCs mean that at the beginning you are worse at it, and get better as you gather xp and equipment - still bearing in mind that different PCs will be better at it. So my own PC, who has literally built himself arround translation, will get a better chance. As before, friends help maximize challenges (I always tithe a priestess to give me Empowered Fox's Cunning, for instance!)

I will also say that there are lower and higher DCs all over. Some really significant things don't go higher than 30/25, whereas there is one artifact section where a DC 65 hid NOTHING. I think that randomness is kiiinda neat, in that it really imitates RL discovery XD

On the single digging DC: This I agree should be rebalanced. The only one per dig discourages inviting less expert diggers to work, because if it is a single chance, you need to maximize it. I got PCs I'd love to include more making them dig, but can't because if they don't roll super high (they are a bit ungeared), it throws away all the effort :S

Personally, I think it'd be good if there were more than one try per dig. I wish you could get a few tries - though after one succesful one, the chance of getting something useful should decrease inmensely. That way, it encourages not always trying to find the /best/ digger...

On the favor system: A revamp of this is absolutely required. Currently, the amount of favor of artifacts is so out of whack with what you can afford that nobody engages with it, and it is silly to have a system that is cool on paper but nobody engages with.

Ideally, I think the best bet would be for archaeological fragments to continue giving the same amount of points (I think its 7 or so per tiny piece?) and for archaeological pieces to give significantly higher ones (maybe between 50 and a 200, depending on rarity and importance). If it was done this way, with the prices of objects remaining the same, it'd give archaeologists an encouragement to not only engage with the system, but also to get robbed/rob others XD

[Halfbrood]

The only part of this we can probably easily look at changing is the Archaeology turn in numbers. When first created, we didn't really know how common/uncommon certain things would be and how easy it would be to do X, Y, Z so we set the turn ins conservative. We can probably look at amending them, and I think we can do it centrally, but will need someone more techy to look at it.