Guild Crystal Augment Suggestion

[IrritatedScientist]

Look, I know the common response to discovering Min Guild Level 45 loot is "Aw, nutz!"
(PLEASE don't reply to topic just to bash the MGL system)

I agree with that sentiment, but instead of complaining, I'd like to point out a different issue and maybe help to make the system better.

In my opinion, the Guild Crystal Augmentation system (referred to as GCA henceforth), once refined, could easily become more popular than the basic Eldritch rituals. NOT needing to find 9 Fragrant Drowshood Mushrooms etc; just find a desirable item with crystal slot, purchase a crystal, install the crystal at the stone of change. Simple.

Yet (ignoring the MGL) there are problems with the protocols of the system that should (please?) be corrected. Today my L5 Wizard was poking around the AH looking for a Spell Penetration III item when I found a Scepter of Something Majikal with a tiny crystal slot. Intriguing... lets just pop over to the Tiny Guild Crystal Augment vendor before I purchase it - just to see what I could do with it.

Know what I found?
Nothing useful.

Possibilities were +1 attack, and +1 acid/fire/frost/shock damage, and maybe something else that I missed. All useless in a scepter.

A Wizard should either be holding a quarterstaff, or dual wielding two enchanted items to maximize the item bonii. (Yeah, it ain't correct English, sue me) A wizard holding the right Q-staff (e.g. Lightning Rod) can contribute to combat, but a dual wielding wizard would be out of his mind to TRY to attack - since the BAB is low even before the TWF penalty. A +1 to BAB would be much less than optimal.

What would have been useful? Well, there's a Tiny GCA for +30 stacking spell points. That would be just the thing... oops, those are for rings only. Scepters are clubs (weapons). How about the GCA that give bonus to resistance? Sorry, armor/shield only, can't put those in weapons.

Three suggestions to improve the system and increase versatility of GCA.

1) Re-define the Scepter as 'jewelry'

[This isn't the place to get into the other problems with lumping Scepters into the "Club" category, so lets just say there are other problems with this classification and move on.] If it were re-classified as rings or jewelry, then the slot-able GCAs could include bonuses to SP, HP, haggle, bluff, negotiate, and various saving throws. Wonderful, just what a scepter should do.

2) Merge 'ring' and 'necklace' into 'jewelry' for GCA purposes.

This isn't a huge issue. I'm mostly curious as to why GCA Bluff bonuses are limited to rings, and Haggle/Perform are limited to necklaces. Since Haggle is often found in headgear and necklaces, I would think a *stacking* haggle bonus would be most useful on a ring or bracers. You can't stack a GCA haggle buff necklace with a Necklace of Haggling unless the slot is on the same necklace - and I'll be surprised to find a GCA slot on a Necklace of Haggling.

3) Remove the GCA slot from dropped items and make it a craft-able feature instead.

I'm sorry to suggest this here, because I know that most of the follow-up posts are going to "me too" this last suggestion. Please hear me out anyway.

Since the GCA items are usable by guilds that already qualify to have an airship (yes, except tiny GCA at L10), why not allow GCA slots to be installed on certain "allowed" items - but only on a special forge found in airships? [Or the Stone of Change for L10 guilds] Yeah, this modification to the system could lead to over-use, so certain items (like greensteel) should be impossible to modify this way.

Benefits of GCA being itself an augment include;

A) No issue with minimum guild level being too high

B) Players augment items they really want to, instead of hanging onto dropped items like Ogre Power Bracers of Sustenance (when they don't care about the sustenance part) just to use the GCA slot.

Now I'm not suggesting that the upgrade should be free and easy. It might create imbalance if any item could become a Medium GCA item, so there should be component required to perform the upgrade which aren't freely available.

...and I probably shouldn't have stuffed this all into one post. I really just wanted to help try to fix GCA on scepters.

Thanks for listening!

[sirgog]

I like the idea of an Eldrich Ritual to add guild slots.

Preferably, it would be one that required some level-appropriate components - something like the following:


Tiny Guild Augment Slot Ritual
Item (bound and attuned already)
100 Siberis Dragonshard Fragments
Rare essence (purchased in-game from a vendor for 100pp OR one Astral Diamond)

Small Guild Augment Slot Ritual
Item (bound and attuned already)
+1 tome (any)
Rare essence (purchased in-game from a vendor for 1000pp OR two Astral Diamonds)

Medium Guild Augment Slot Ritual
Item (bound and attuned)
3 Large Gnawed Bones (woot - they have a use again!)
Rare essence (purchased in-game from a vendor - 10k PP OR three Astral Diamonds)

Large Guild Augment Slot Ritual
Item (bound/attuned)
4 Epic Raid Token
Rare essence (purchased in-game from a vendor - 100k PP OR four Astral Diamonds)


The only issue would be that upgrading more than one item would seem like the way to go - perhaps only one crafted slot could function at a time.