Crafting system - healing potions

[Loreweaver]

Author: blatob [ Thu Aug 06, 2015 12:28 am ]

It was brought to my attention that it would considered as desirable to have a system which could enable PCs to make their own healing potions with ingredients found in nature.

That would require certain skill and level, but would be, for PC in question, cheaper then buying the similar level healing potion form a vendor.

This would, to extent, enable easier soloing the dungeons on the server, and it could provide certain economical moment - PC selling said potions to others.

PC could produce less potions then what is available in stores, hence there's no fear that the system would make significant impact in a sense that PCs would stop buying potions form vendors.

What are the thoughts of players and team in regard to this suggestion?

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Author: Toros [ Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:32 am ]

I like the idea of people being able to craft potions, especially healing potions but I feel that's the purpose of the brew potion feat.

I think it's a great idea, but I think we could solve the difficulty with making healing potions, and the relative rarity of spell crystals at the same time, by having them be part of the same system.

If you harvest in natural areas, perhaps you get something that can make weak healing potions. If you harvest in natural dungeons, perhaps you get something that can be made into a strong healing potion.

Harvest ectoplasm from an undead boss area, get something you can eventually refine into a necromancy crystal. Get the heart of a grey render, get something you can refine into a transmutation crystal.

This would help with healing costs, provide a reason for arcanists to hunt down rare magical creatures, creates natural plot hooks, and help with the apparent lack of spell crystals.

Like I said, I think that finding components for brewing healing potions is a great idea, and I think a lot of the same work to get it running could also make an amazingly cool system for generating the components for spell research that encourages more adventure and coordination.

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Author: Copper Dragon [ Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:29 pm ]

Work with the Brew Potion feat, and potentially, if a balanced, non-redundant system's designed around it the neat additions could be expanded onto the Craft Wand feat. Scribe Scroll wouldn't benefit much from extra ingredients, I suspect, although Spell Research for wizards could as per Toros.

You could reshape these crafting feats into a system that either:
A) requires ingredients no matter what you wish to brew / craft;
B) requires ingredients to enhance what you wish to brew / craft, but can still use the brew / craft feat without ingredients for 'normal' results.

Option B) seems more flexible and user-friendly than A). It means you can go out to hunt ingredients for more potent crafts but that process is not required. You'd like to avoid a farming phenomenon.

Tackling this would be a large undertaking though, one that I don't think one builder should have to do alone. Monster inventories (or OnDeath scripts), dungeons, loot spawns might need adjustments or additions, items would need to be created... It's an add-on system that I'd rather see players helping with concretely, maybe volunteering in PMs to help with item making and descriptions. And of course, before all that, the team has to see use in this.

I could see an add-on system being nifty, but one can also always RP "needing ingredients" and setting out to dungeons like that. This does not solve the aforementioned shortage of Spell Crystals.

~ Copper