I got stuff robbed from my pack today, and it set me to thinking "how do I track down the thief, all armor looks the same." If there was an NPC like Anvilkine who would engrave just names onto an items relatively cheaply, it would stop wilderness deaths being risk-free super loot for anyone who stumbles on a pack. You could use it personally (and risk it being spotted on a search or a fugueing), but not flog it off easily.
Stolen kit would be effectively untradable to lawful chars or friends of the victim, and would be a risk in case the victim took revenge. It would *increase* conflict, not make things easier. There could also be a "fence" in a dangerous location, who for a higher price would erase the owner's name.
I approve of cheap engraving, though engraving a name shouldn't be cheaper than any other word. If the cost is to be lowered, I see no reason to not lower it for the entire service.
That's a neat idea.
Make basic engraving for cheap, and then eventually having options to engrave in gold, silver...whatever, at a high cost.
It'd make nice presents, and in time would bring opportunities to track notorious PC relics in the game.
I like this idea!
Yeah in all seriousness make it harder for us evil-doers when it comes to stealing from other people's packs, that's one of the things I generally frown upon.
I've found that the amount of drylooting has been at a high compared to the old setting, interestingly enough.
Engraving should not be cheap enough to spam on every single item. Most likely you would need some sort of leatherworker for branding boots and gloves with a name or for cloaks a tailor.
Personally, I'd rather have the DMs (or even PCs!) be in control of engraving items because personalized engravings should take some time to fulfill the order and the orders before it. While it would be repetitive work it seems better for immersion and other reasons.
What we would need in addition to this is that anyone wearing armor (or any other equipment) engraved with someone else's name is as soon as you get close to them, a message pops up saying "Bob draws a sword with 'Fred's Harvester of Blood' engraved on the blade." Otherwise this isn't very useful, you'll have to either convince them to allow you to search their inventory or SD them and look through their inventory to see if your stuff is in there. But yes, I agree, this would be awesome.
The price on Anvilkine before was 1000gp per engrave per item. If you guys want this I'll keep it in mind for whatever smithy merchant pops up.
While that is true I don't think 1000 coins was a realistic price for the engrave. It was also kind of immersion breaking being 1000 coins for some small amount of simplistic lettering. While engraving wouldn't be cheap it wouldn't be that much.
Yeah, and I never knew anyone who had an engraved item. My suggestion was that a simple engraving should be abut 100 gold, maybe less. The downside would of course be that it would be less sellable when you're done with it, as "Ted" isn't likely to want armor with "Bob" written on it.
It would result in more "Hey! That's MY bloody armor you're selling" moments, and make selling stolen goods suitably risky. I've had characters that have both nicked out lost packs and been robbed blind by opportunist thieves. Short of heavily dyeing everything and spotting it FAST, there's no way to recover gear stolen in this way. Unless it's super rare or DM loot, it's impossible to figure out who got it. This is especially true for the Standard Issue Corsair Banded.
1000 gold isn't much for an engraving considering how tedious a process it is. Also if you want the item to be thief proof so badly it should be worth investing that kind of gold into the item. There are ways to get decent gold in efu:a they just require doing riskier quests. I'll give the majority of poor folk a hint, these quests do not involve Trogs or Nightrisers >.>
i think 500 would be a more decent amount :) easier to get but still mildlyl expensive or make the engraving price a percentage of the items total worth
@Goblin Butcher.
If it was that much to engrave, it's worthless to do it, as it's cheaper to buy more armor. That's the point.
I disagree on this. When it comes to things like engraving. They are not a necessity, they are a luxury. And Luxury items and services should come with a luxury price tag.
Cluckyx nailed it. I do agree 1000 is stiff, but 100 is ridiculously low.
Any way to make it proportionnal to the item base value?
I suggest 500 gold. Not too stiff but not too easy either.
After all, 500 gold is practically unheard of, so far.
I'm reckoning more along the 700-800 mark. Reserving it for all but the most successful of adventurers.
I can even see a business in famous adventurers "signing" equipment
Why would an engraver trying to make money reserve his service for only the really successful adventurers? Can you see some NPC hiring the NPC engraver to make a metal sign for his offer to do it for 800 gold or tell him to piss off? Unless engraving can change the actual description (other than ____'s Sword) by having special designs on the item itself IC be made rather than paying a fortune for some letters it's just some lettering. Most people are going to avoid spending the gold anyway. I suggest 300-400, to be merciful to duel-wielder PCs at least. Personally, I'd rather have the option of a possibly DM-ran one... although time consuming there can be a cost-to-quality depending on the job.
How about an intermediate solution?
Instead of having individualized equipment, you can simply mark ANYTHING with a number of choices, such as a single letter, an eye, a stick figure, a tree, a bird, a mountain, Mona Lisa, whatever. This would cost only 100 to 250 gold (which in our economy is damn expensive!)
Originally, I set the price high because it was a luxury, and because I don't want to see people walking around with a completely personalized set of equipment. Well, I added the engraver as promised, and the price is set at 350GP. We'll see how it goes. If engraving gets obnoxious, I might up the price, but if it looks good at 350GP I'll leave it there.
Ah, great. I just realised that the engraving could actually lead to interesting stuff like PC factions agreeing on a mark for all their armor and the like.
I'll check it out later. Plus it's a good gold-sink other than consumables. Cheers.
I think that price is just about right.