This is a pitch for a group concept, open to anyone. I don't, in general, care for group concepts. and may not participate personally, but I would invite anyone with the interest to pick this up and run in any direction they like.. I think that because of its unique origins, this concept would most ideally be launched by a prelude with at least 4-5 players dedicated to continuing their PCs beyond day 1. If there's sufficient interest, perhaps the DM team would consider implementing the Seeds as a new non-app subrace.

QuoteThe Seeds of Vigilance believe themselves to be the inheritors of Abeir Toril. Blessed with a holy premonition by The Vigilance, they went into hiding for hundreds of years. I've spoken extensively with those who so recently arrived. From conversations with their augur, I estimate they finally emerged from their sealed tomb to find our Blackened World two or three years ago..

Eril, as the augur is called, has been a trove of information on what little of their history they deliberately retain. As he tells it, the Primants -- their first ancestors -- were a collective charged by a being they call The Vigilance with the task of recovering and restoring the world following a cataclysm which they refer to as The Shriving. It was foretold, Eril says, that the previous world would end by the consequences of a society so indolent that it did not care to save itself from a clear and approaching doom. The Shriving then is an act of penance for mankind, brought on not by a god's wrath, but by man's own hubris.

He says that their mission charges them to spread forth wherever they can reach, to reclaim the ruins of civilization.

When I ask about the rigidness of the Seeds' beliefs, he admits that some sects of their society, even among the group he arrived with, carry their own interpretations of the Edict.

Although supposedly many cultures were represented among the Primants, I believe centuries of limited breeding options lead to the formation of a unique physiology endemic of their bizarre pedigree. The range of skintones I've observed has been limited, but they are generally very pale, with most seeming almost translucent. Physically they tend to be lean, tall, and quick to fatigue. In dress, they express a high degree of individuality, enjoying wild hairstyles of extravagant color. For decoration, they show their affinity for gadgets and tools, which they wear like jewellery and value for practical utility.

 Eril accepts that his people are likely descendants of humanity, though judging by their sinuous forms, angular features and developed ears, I suspect that some amount of elven must be present in their ancestry.

I found few of the Seeds who were  willing to speak overmuch about their history. Even Eril, who was very knowledgeable on a breadth of arcane topics, had very little to contribute to the story of their past. They are, as a culture, so intensely focused on the present and future, that the concept of history has been abolished. To illustrate how deeply ingrained into their identity the dismisaal of history goes, they have forsaken even the bonds of parent and child as unimportant.

And yet -
They are bound by an enormous sense of tradition.

They believe in collective ownership among their own kind, yet talent is treasured above all else.
To master as many skills as possible is the golden ambition they teach their young.
Eril tells me of their manifesto, to be the seeds of a new civilization in the ashes of ours. That each seed must have many talents in order to bloom most beautifully..


There are some behaviors which are common to nearly all Seeds I've met.  To them we are the REMNANTS. We are each  the scattered debris of our own failed society. Their attitudes toward us vary. Many are arrogant, or patronizing, or bitter at us about the statewe left their world in. They carry themselves with an air of condescending superiority. Others are sincerely curious of our traditions, but hope to assimilate us into their own culture. Like tourists, some simply find our traditions quaint., but otherwise beneath their notice.

Above all, it seems they are ingrained with the drive to collect and preserve all things of value to their society. Somehave interpreted this edict as a charge to destroy those things which do not have value. Indeed, like their pasts, they pursue practical detachment to an almost ritualistic degree.
As a culture they seem to see all property as inherently theirs. While most act content with what they have, I've found that even the well-mannered  will perceive attempts to hold on to property without their permission as a kind of theft. Yet, between their own kind, they demonstrate a social mandate to share ownership of everything. Conflict over ownership, however rare, is handled in severe cases by neutral arbiters on a strictly utilitarian basis. Eril tells me that to harm another Seed in anger is severely punished by shunning or exile, but was horrified at the suggestion of execution.

For all my inquiring, I am still uncertain as to just how long the Seeds remained sequestered. Certainly their society was self-sufficient. They avoided the traditional pitfalls of prolonged isolation. They have only one legend, and it is the foundation of their society. Miraculously, their language is almost no different from ours, though they inflect strangely at times, and have some new words unique to their culture. I still cannot determine the exact nature of their worship. It seems that some divinity grants powers to their faithful, though whether it truly is Helm I remain a skeptic.

I am forced to admit that there remain many unanswered questions on the nature of the Seeds of Vigilance; I suppose there is much to learn.

-Anonymous Scholar

[/RIGHT]
 


 

HELLO

As a (POSSIBLY?) returning player looking for information to get started playing on the server, looking through spell changes is a colossal pain in the ass. Having been around this place for a million years, I happen to know that keeping spell and mechanics changes up to date is ALSO a colossal pain in the ass.

My suggestion is to use a spreadsheet hosted through Google Drive, where anybody can suggest edits, and only a limited few can approve or make edits without approval, which will serve as a single repository for (publicly available knowledge of) spell change information!

I already got it started. I'll be leaving it open for all to edit for a limited time in case anybody enthusiastic about the idea would like to have a go at it. If this gains traction, I'll script some features to make it easier to manage (eg. checking for duplicate entries, adding a database of vanilla spells (if I can find one) to rapidly populate entries.

The spreadsheet is located HERE:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hUatkYvIx31vfDhdzk79GOTOgFBq9QAA9NfO0Bkih_0/edit?usp=sharing

It's probably fairly obvious that I populated the first few columns just by going through Tala's Spell Changes thread (here: http://www.efupw.com/forums/forum/information/efu-mechanics/81477-efu-spell-changes) in order and filling things in.
The fun thing is that once all the data from that thread is populated into the sheet, there will remain no requirement for it to remain in that order, and it may instead be sorted by any column a user might desire (by downloading duplicating the sheet to their own drive and manipulating the sheet as they wish).

The biggest benefit though, is that as changes get made in the future, it will mean there is only a single place where updates need to be made; no old threads to go searching through, and no wrestling with the god-awfully archaic markup language used by vBulletin (or vBulletin's INEVITABLE descendant.)

Some minor things to add to the laundry list of prep for final sanctuary (or not!)

The map in the house of governance is outdated:


The Sanctuary citizens have pretty outdated gossip:


Since the map for Upper Sanctuary was redone and flipped around, EVERY SINGLE ENTRANCE on the east/west axis (at least) to interior areas is flipped from how it physically should be.
This is particularly confusing in the forge area under where the Spellguard tower used to be, which has entrances in each cardinal direction, and is usually used as a 'passing through' area if it's used at all.

The Secretary (Jelena Dobbins?) at the former site of the Spellguard Tower stands very far away from the desk, so the only way to talk to her is to go all the way around the desk.

I didn't check, but I'm willing to bet Clerk Myrta Kleidt still refers new adventurers to the Spellguard Tower to get their safety cloak...

I'm sure there's a whole lot else, too.

<3

The way potion brewing works in EFU is that potions have a fixed price determined by a bit of code in game. Prices can be manually adjusted up or down by DMs as needed, but have been more or less static for the last ten years. That's fair enough, the DMs have it balanced to what they feel is the sweet spot for cost/reward.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the way it works right now, however, I propose that potion brewing, which is a reasonably stable and (let's face it) boring source of income for so-inclined-characters, could be implemented in a better way, which could add meaningfully to the setting's narrative, introduce a more dynamic economy, and allow the DMs to just as easily (or more easily) adjust the balance as they desire.

What I'm proposing boils down to a fluctuating economy, where brewed potions will fluctuate in price according to the following equation. If any of this is unclear, just be patient, I'll provide examples afterward.

CurrentPrice + kPS(sin(Q)) where:
k is some constant value determined by the DMs reflecting the amplitude of fluctuation
S is the level of the spell being brewed into a potion
P is a secret floating point variable which represents the stability of the market. A value of zero means that prices will remain fixed at their base rate, a value of 1 means they will fluctuate by as much as K at each adjustment.
Q is the random seed of the equation, and would typically be some function of the server's internal clock at a particular moment in time when prices are recalculated.

Outside the equation there are some further important elements to consider:

1) Maximum and Minimum boundaries for potion prices. These would be expressed as base price plus or minus some nkS where n is an integer multiplier, applied to the constant factor and spell level of a given potion.

2) The minimum interval before prices are recalculated again. Potion prices would (I think!) necessarily have to be calculated when the module loads. This could be hourly or daily (meaning in practice, every time the server resets), or every few days, or every few weeks, or months. It could even be just whenever a DM decides to let the prices adjust. I think every ten days would probably be the best bet, but that number is completely arbitrary.

---

As an example, I generated the following graph with the following data:

Base Cost = 60gp
Spell level = 2
P = 1.1 ( economy should fluctuate slightly more than normally )
n = 1.2 ( Constant multiplier to determine minimum and maximum prices )
k = 5 ( Constant to determine absolute value of variance of prices )
Q = a set of pseudo random values between 0 and 100


Effectively, these numbers mean that a Potion of Blur (which is brewed at 60gp before cost of bottles and experience) will be brewed for between 48 and 72 GP.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n649302[/ATTACH]

in the graph, the orange line represents actual prices in game with boundaries in effect. What you'll see is that when prices dip too high or low, the line will flatten out until the 'hidden' price starts adjusting back in the other direction.

Now, these numbers certainly shouldn't represent a final product. The formula definitely needs work, as the variance in price on a third level potion would be even greater. It would be reasonable to express concern over potions of blur being brewed for 48 GP. It would be very straightforward to have the minimum and maximum boundaries be adjusted separately. For example, if the minimum boundary were at (.5 * nkS) and the maximum boundary at (2*nkS), you would instead have a minimum cost of 54GP and a maximum cost of 84GP. This would raise the average cost of the potion, and isn't particularly recommended.

---

There are a few other ways this could be implemented, and I'll endeavour to list the advantages and disadvantages of each.

* As written above, the implementation would require the scripter to use a NWNX database to store the current price of each potion, as this is what the next price of each potion will be based on.

* Instead of setting the price of a potion based on historical values, the prices could be determined from only the base price. With this implementation, prices would necessarily have to be adjusted every time the module loads, would be more random, and would make the prediction of prices impossible. This would effectively defeat the purpose of the system, which hopes to create a "realistic" economy that could give rise to new avenues of financial roleplay and manipulation, such as speculation and investment (buying or brewing potions when they're cheap, selling them when they're expensive, undercutting rival merchants, etc...)
The upshot is that this would be a lot easier to implement, and would not require that much extra work for somebody who knows their way around NWNX and EFU's database back-end to alter into the above-outlined implementation.

---

There are some important considerations that whoever implements this system would have to decide:

1) Will all potions be priced individually, or will potion prices be adjusted up or down by some constant factor? (eg potions of blur and strength both costing 60+13 gp to brew, vs potions of blur at 60+15gp and potions of strength at 60-2gp)

2) What would be the most reasonable minimum and maximum boundaries for brewing cost?

3) Should this pricing system be extended to other crafting systems (ie Wands and Scrolls)?

4) How frequently should prices be updated?

5) What other features should be implemented to make this more user friendly? An IG tool to adjust values on the fly? Handlers for Alchemical items or perks which flatly decrese (or increase!) the cost of brewing?

---

What I envision for this system is for it to create a new dynamic marketplace, where effort corresponds to reward, - compare the diligent brewer who adjusts her prices every week with the lazy one who sets a constant price and never adjusts. A market place where the only people who can know for sure what a fair price for a potion is are those capable of brewing them. (Fighters no longer able to dicker down the price by saying "I know it only costs you 60GP to brew that, sell it to me cheaper").

I've generated an Excel Spreadsheet in which interested people can toy around with the numbers to see if they can come up with a set of parameters that create an ideal distribution of prices. Keeping in mind that prices SHOULD be random, and that going below the current base price is desirable, as long as prices over the long term average out to be approximately the same as base costs are now.

If you're interested, you can grab it from the attachment below. (I solemnly swear it isn't a virus. <3)

I can't say that I will have the time in the near future to script this system. However, when free time returns to me, if there's enough interest in the system I've described here, I may be willing to put it together. In the meantime, please let me know what you think, request features, make suggestions, criticize my maths, forecast doom or point out some potential problems and solutions. The key here is constructive criticism.

Thanks :)

HELLO everybody. Two Sanctuary Championships under our belt, and a third one on the way. I'll be back to my regular schedule now, so Friday nights are more difficult to do at a decent time. The poll here is to work out the best time to host the event, so please vote above, and comment below if a different time works best!

In EFU:M there was a randomized quest by Bastian Gallenheart to go to a determined location in the module and return safely with a map item. For much of EFU:R the quest was given by Charlene Kadar exclusively to Wayfinders.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring this quest back, as I recall it being a spectacular way for me to grab players with basically no start up time to just get out of the town and go do stuff with a fair reward.

HI! Before you start griping the obvious gripes, check the forum you're in. This is the Player Workshop, and I'm not asking whether this is something that would be worth doing, and I'm not suggesting that the DMs implement this. I'm soliciting ideas for a project that I'm considering working on, to benefit the server at large.

I have a few questions that I'd like some feedback on:

• If there were an EFU crafting system for things like weapons and armors, what would it look like?
• What pitfalls does it need to avoid?
• How can it avoid those same pitfalls?
• How accessible should the crafting system be?
• How good should the rewards be?

Traditionally, crafting systems in NWN (and other games) aim for something approximating realism and widely miss the mark. In Skyrim, if you craft 600 iron daggers you can work with god-metal. In (especially modded) Minecraft, in addition to having the resources to craft things, you need to construct increasingly specialized tools, workbenches, etc, in order to make useful things.
In Vulcano's NWN crafting system from way back when, crafting pretty closely followed PnP rules, requiring that you would farm resources, have access to a work-station, and across multiple rests, make a number of crafting skill rolls which could each potentially destroy your work, and at best would earn you "points" toward completing the item.
The result of this system was usually people running between inns and workbenches trying to finish their full plate (which took about 30 rest cycles), or mindlessly wandering the wilderness to mine (farm) ore from veins which only spawned in certain locations.

In short, a disaster.

So here are my thoughts:

OBJECTIVE:
A crafting system in EFU should de-emphasize farming as much  as possible, while encouraging exploration, discovery, and cooperation.

A crafting system, successfully implemented, would provide a valid avenue for characters to earn an income, in a setting where viable PC employment options can be counted on two hands.

Perhaps the most difficult requirement is developing a crafting system that contributes to the setting's story in a positive way.

DESIGN:
caveat: this is all theory-craft, nopromises, and nothing set in stone.
Metalworking and Smelting go hand in hand.
Smelting lays the ground work. In order to work metal, you need to smelt metal first.

In order to smelt, a PC will need a Forge. Forges are of varying quality (maximum temperature reachable), and require fuel, which can be mundane or magical. Temperature is a control for item quality. Some factions and associations may have access to forges - perhaps the city may also rent forges out for a nominal fee.

A forge works a lot like an alchemist table in that you put valid materials into the crucible; a base metal plus some modifier material, and can get a wide range of alloys which will convey different benefits to the final product.  Naturally, many combinations will ruin the materials put in, and successful combinations will require skill checks (The higher of the NWN Craft skills + EFUSS Smelting) to avoid ruin.

The effects of different types of smelted materials would affect things like the weight of the finished product, the product's susceptibility to metalworking improvements ( more on that later ), as well as the more obvious effects - a weapon crafted from silver would have a bonus against Shapechangers, Cold Iron against outsiders and fey.

Once an alloy is created, it needs to be poured into a mould. Crafting basic weapons is as straightforward as having enough of the dominant material available in the crucible and pouring it.

The most basic metals would be available in the wilderness for mining - Iron, copper, and carbon are reasonably commonplace, and not good for much besides mixing and experimenting.

Less common metals (eg. silver, lead, platinum) would not be available in the wild, instead requiring purchase (or plunder) from exotic locales.

The rarest metals of course, would have perhaps no scripted way to acquire at all (eg. mithral, adamantine, darksteel).

It would be possible to acquire base metals by melting down equipment found while adventuring (compare to 'Sundering' magical items for components). Most gear would be assumed to be made from Iron, unless it has a 'Material:' Property on it. Plot items would not be meltable, the system would require special handling for items with reduced or increased weight. Items of certain material types would still need a forge hot enough to be melted down.

Metalworking is a secondary process carried out on a newly crafted weapon, used to refine it and give it properties associated with craftsmanship, irrespective of the quality of its material - Sharpening swords, adding weight to hammers, adding spikes, runes, patterns, sockets (more on sockets in another post, maybe) - can confer a variety of significant bonuses (or penalties, on mistakes!) which, at the low end should mirror the quality of gear found in low-level quests, at the middle range should resemble set-piece tier equipment, and at the high-end (mithral, adamantine, and very-special alloys), should be on par with DM-loot.

---

A word about accessibility:

It's not desirable for all PCs to have equal access to blacksmithing, just as it's not desirable for all PCs to have equal access to scrying or alchemy. The most important part of crafting weapons and armor has to do with having the tools and space needed to do the work. A Forge would be a substantial perk for factions and associations, and a master forge should be exceptionally hard to come by.

In this way the system avoids an over-saturation of PCs, while making certain that this sort of crafting cannot be done in (social) isolation.

Mining is relegated to being useful only for low-end recipes, making learning the system accessible without turning it into a matter of farming mineral spawn points.

---

A word about farming:

Farming for items already exists in EFU in a number of forms. Lairs  require certain items be gathered in order to reinforce / level them up.  Alchemy requires (literally) farming herbs for use in recipes.  Placeables where Minerals can be mined already exist, and ideally this system would integrate those without fuss.
I'm not saying it's a positive thing, or that it's a desirable part of a good crafting system. I'm just saying that there is precedent.

Grinding is out of the question, and would hopefully be avoided altogether.

---

I hope I've been clear to this point. This has taken altogether longer to write up than I expected, and there's still a great deal more that needs to be worked out and put down in words.

I understand there's a lot of (well-intentioned, and mostly fair) hostility toward the idea of a crafting system, and that there is likely to be a lot more of that in this thread. I hope you guys will bear with me and offer constructive thoughts. I firmly believe that crafting has a place in EFU, and that the key is in finding a form that fits EFU's balance of story vs gameplay in a compelling way.

Yeah, I know it would be easier for players to just get their act together and not make inappropriate sendings

and I know it's kind of a a non-trivial scripting task, but:

My suggestion is to give Clerk PCs the ability to screen sendings made by players.

How it would work is like this:
[INDENT]A PC approaches a messenger to make a sending

Moments later all currently logged on PCs in the Government Faction, inside the city, receive the message and are asked to veto the message if it's inappropriate.

If it is inappropriate (or if they have an otherwise compelling IC reason to block the sending) they use a widget they carry with them to vote against it.

If no blocks are registered, the sending will go off a few minutes after it's paid for.

[/INDENT]In principle it's as simple as that. Adding checks and balances - or even just making it a functionality that DMs can use - seems like it should be pretty simple additional features.

In the absence of a better system altogether (like using actual messenger NPCs who go to areas of the module and make relevant announcements for a price) I think this represents a good stop-gap solution.

While the sending system is very important from an OOC standpoint for the sake of keeping the action of the server coherent, I think it feels more like an OOC convenience than an immersive storytelling device. In that case, any step taken that would sensibly make the system feel less like a game mechanic and more like what it is - a device controlled by the government of Sanctuary as a tool of power, authority, and privilege- would be an excellent move indeed.

Plus, I think it would provide the maligned and unfortunate Clerk PCs with a tangible responsibility and a tangible ability to effect policy within the city.

Something, I fear, they are sorely missing.

edit: Disregard! It's working Fine!

Minstrel Free resting perk doesn't seem to work at House of Heroes. I haven't tested it anywhere else, but Evgeline Gnagglehuff charges 10gp each time as normal.

Character is Fiona Gildenglass on account TalesWellTold

Currently level 4, but I don't know that the level even matters, there's no indication that they do, in the perk announcement.

In order to create placeables that glow in EfU, give the placeables tags according to the visual effect you want.

The tags which exist, and which should hopefully be self-explanatory are:

o_Shadowed
o_Barkskin
o_Stoned
o_Iced

as well as:

o_Glow_Color


Be advised that unless you add additional scripting to your module, you won't actually see the visual effects when testing things in single-player, nor while toolsetting.

where Color is Red, Purple Green, Blue, Orange, White, Yellow, Brown, or Grey

So for example the Tag would read o_Glow_Green

For other VFX, you can create give an object the variable 'nVFX' and assign it a value corresponding to the Visual Effect you want, from this page. The Object needs to have the tag "o_VFX"

I'm working on a script that will allow for it since, for highly  aesthetic areas, it may be very desirable to see things as they will be  once imported to EFU. Don't uh, hold your breath though.

Please make it possible to dig holes with shovels in the Windy Canyon.

Also in more other areas, please, it seems like it's quite rare for the option to be available at all, and this makes me unreasonably sad.

There are a few climbing zones where ropes and grappling hooks don't seem to work. That is, you can fire a grappling hook, and it will ask you to make a roll when you click it, but succeeding does nothing, and failing still causes damage.

To the best of my knowledge, these include Underdark - Windy Canyon - Eastern Heights, and Quickstone Caverns, the latter of which is not normally accessible. I know there are others, but I don't know the names of them off-hand. If someone else can chime in with other locations with this issue, that would be awesome.

The Oghman Priest in the House of Knowledge will take the money, the body, and say "It is Done", without actually casting the raise dead spell.

As I recall this was a very frequent issue in old EFU as well, and any other time that an NPC cleric with Raise Dead was available.

Could we just make Candles of Life the standard product of paying 1500gp for NPC raises?

...to join an already existing Tabletop RPG I'm running on Skype. The system is Dungeon World, the setting is homebrewed, and the time is at 6PM EST at least every other week. If you're interested, and you can commit to showing up at that time, send me a PM, and if you're awesome, we'll take it from there.

You'll definitely need a microphone that doesn't sound like it's in your ass, by the way.

Thanks for your interest. Love and Kisses.

I suggest climb checks should automatically take 10 unless the climber is in the vicinity of hostile creatures, or engaged in combat, per P&P and good sense.

When you've got 26 climb, and you're just out for a jaunt, and you roll a 1 on a DC 12 climb check, it's silly to fail a check where there should reasonably be no risk at all.

Edit: Realized a flaw with the suggested implementation.

Should only be Take 10 on checks where Take 10 is an automatic success. If you try to take 10 on a DC you can only beat on a 15 you shouldn't be stuck taking 10.

So the check would look like:
If no hostile creatures are nearby
AND
If player is not in combat
AND
If Climbing + 10 >= DC of this climb check

Then successfully perform the action!

The "Application Process" Link midway down the forum index page (just above Submissions and Results forums) leads to a page that no longer exists.

The screenshots forum could occasionally really use a [timg] tag for images. This makes it so images post as reduced-size thumbnails, which, when clicked, expand.

This saves on users' bandwidth, and keeps the tables from getting all fucked up by wide pictures, and making threads unreadable.

That's... really all there is to say. It's the only secret I kept, and  it's all you need to know about Scrave's backstory. All that was ever  important to understanding him is that his motivation (and my  motivation) was to do something Awesome.

That said, I played  Scrave in a Pen and Paper game where our quest's goal was to essentially  punch God in the face; after a long series of trials and tribulations  we discoverd God wasn't all he was cracked up to be in that setting, and  punching him in the face just didn't seem that fun anymore. You can  kind of see then how Scrave's personality and motivation came into  being. How could I resist bringing such a ham into EfU?

Here's  some pretty pictures. Most of them explain themselves. There are more,  too, but I'm not sure if it's kosher to share yet. Just imagine Scrave  chilling out with dragons, smoking a pipe and being a huge baller,  alright?









And a bonus, one from a character born from a similar mentality.

Bastian Gallenheart's mission appears to have an invalid destination.

Today the destination was a Sealed Hive deep inside of Nebezzdos.

I couldn't begin to list all the places I searched, but you can trust that I was very thorough in the Sunken Enclave, and even made my way out to Hyrelican's Seat.

Please add a spawnpoint to Island - Forgotten Forest - Secluded Quarry, I think it would be pretty neat.