What was wrong with D&D 3.5 crafting rules?

[Mister_Peace]

Oberoni.


The Dungeon's Master Guide also assigns the fact that it is for sale. If you change that, then Oberoni (and making the class balance worse).

A_D is sometimes extremely terse.
"Oberoni Fallacy (noun): The fallacy that the existence of a rule stating that, ‘the rules can be changed,’ can be used to excuse design flaws in the actual rules. Etymology, D&D message boards, a fallacy first formalized by member Oberoni."

So, saying "A good DM obviously wouldn't go by the rules as they are written" is not really an excuse for the rules being poorly written.

[Philibusta]

I have a simple solution to the whole problem!

Follow these simple instructions:

Step 1: Get rich.

Step 2: Buy the Dungeons and Dragons franchise from Wizards of the Coast.

Step 3: Throw away everything WotC has done since they got their claws into the game.

Step 4: Begin printing AD&D 2nd Edition material again.

Step 5: Direct game developers to base their games off those rules.

Step 6: Enjoy!!!

Problem solved! Oh and you're welcome.

[Espoire]

The 3.5 crafting rules would be awful in a game like DDO. Only casters could craft, and requiring feats would mean that any remotely skilled crafters would be gimped actually questing.

All real crafting would be done on crafting bots, and unlike hagglebards, they would serve almost no purpose in questing.

Furthermore, plat and XP are extremely plentiful. Import the costs of items in 3.5, and the best gear would be trivial to get. That is not a wise design for an MMO that wishes to remain financially viable. Grind exists for a reason.

Aye, grind exists to keep us busy (and paying) where engaging game mechanics have failed.

That said, if Turbine wants us to grind for loot, we need something more to use it on. All told, I've spent about 200k plat on a +2 Metalline/Pure Good weapon and a +1 Metalline/Pure Good peaon, and those're the most grind-intensive* items I have ever "needed" to participate in endgame content. And I didn't grind for them, I just sold greensteel mats I got on my only run-through of the Vale quests. Other items might make the endgame easier, but what's the point? I'm already clearing it. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that I'm about to consume the last of the content this game has to offer and move on, one more grind that I plan to ignore won't change that.

Maybe that's WAI; I did spend $60 on four months of entertainment. A fair price, as far as I'm concerned, maybe that's just what Turbine is aiming for, a few months for some cash and then we move on.

*Admittedly, Minos Legens felt more "grindy", but if I wasn't enjoying the Vale quests, they actually took a longer total amount of time. The Draconic Vitality feat took a longer total amount of time, but that hardly felt grindly, I only had to run one elite after completing the quests to push my rep over. Also, that's a feat, not an item.

[Junts]

I don't quite understand what was wrong with using a combination of skills and feats instead of some sort of 'leveling system' in order to represent crafting skill. I also don't understand what was so wrong with using mostly common materials(refined metals, rare woods, gemstones etc), the occasional rare material(black pudding bones) and spellcasting to create them from.

What was so borked with a crafting system that more closely followed 3.5 edition rules that it had to be replaced by a complex and unrelated add-on system instead?

While we're at it, why can we still not craft potions and scrolls?

Mostly thati f it costs feats people would have just rolled up completely dead space crafting alts to do all their crafting for them and quickly disseminated nearly unlimited sums of high-end equipment with little effort or cost.

[dunklezhan]

I did not like the 3rd ed magical crafting at all. (note there was nothing stopping a fighter from taking the requisite skills to go make weapons and armour up to master crafted, they just wouldn't be magical - but they could produce the 'blanks' for their wizard/cleric friend)

Actually, that's not quite true - I liked the fact that it was a clear, unified system.

However I hated the doing away with special ingredients, I hated the XP cost (seriously, that made no sense at all to me) and I hated the feat requirements. I wouldnt' want to see any of that replicated in DDO. Drop the feats and the XP requirement and I think it would work fine - and in fact that's what they've done, with the exception of crafting consumables which I think is a serious oversight, and the balance (or lack of) they've included in terms of ingredient requirements and grind investment.

The basic principles in the new crafting system I think are pretty sound:

1. Deconstruct existing items for ingredients.
2. Certain ranges of effects produce certain ingredients which can be reformed into any of the effects in that range later once you have enough of them.
3. Other ingredients are required for certain recipes which can only be obtained through questing/AH (i.e. collectibles, dragonshards)
4. As you craft, you level up in a crafting skill allowing you access to better crafting recipes
5. Ultimately you'll be able to craft unbound stuff which can be traded/given away

That's all good. The balance at step 2 ( the definition of 'enough', specifically), step 4 (the rate of levelling, the recipies available at each level), and the failure to include unbound stuff at launch to actually get some sort of economy going around this are the real problems.

My suggestions:

1. crafting levels should more accurately reflect character levels. I suggest splitting it into levels going up to 100 to mirror the number of 'ranks' a level 20 has.
2. recipes available at each rank should be useful to characters of that rank. If that means rank 1 has dozens and dozens of recipes - Great!
3. Some shard recipies should not automatically be known when you hit the relevant rank. The 'best' stuff - holy burst, the 'power' effects like vorpal, potency, any named loot-only effects, should be named loot from specific quests. As a crafter, you then have an ingame reason to do certain quests (e.g. you've heard that the minotaurs in Framework are crafting weapons that do a knockdown-on-crit, so you hope to find the recipe in their loot after you've dealt with them)
4. Include unbound crafting right from the off
5. Craft potions, scrolls, wands, ammunition, bags, for the love of thrud, BAGS!

Unfortunately 1, 2 and 3 would involve reworking the system completely. So I doubt they'll ever happen. 4 shouldn't be too hard though, presumably, if the press can already have it demo'd. I've no idea how easy/hard 5 would be (though I doubt very much they'd allow bag crafting since it would eat into store profits).

[voodoogroves]

Mostly thati f it costs feats people would have just rolled up completely dead space crafting alts to do all their crafting for them and quickly disseminated nearly unlimited sums of high-end equipment with little effort or cost.

Of coruse, if the items are BTA people are going to run up a random 20 toon (Hagglebard maybe?) and only use it for crafting.

[salmag]

Mostly that if it costs feats people would have just rolled up completely dead space crafting alts to do all their crafting for them and quickly disseminated nearly unlimited sums of high-end equipment with little effort or cost.

Thats exactly what's goping to happen with this system.

Run a character up to level 11,
make him/her your "crafting bot (only making unbound items),"
have your main characters supply your "crafting bot" with needed materials.

How does this differ from a character with crafting feats?

It you made the feats level appropriate 5,10,15,20, that would prevent those characters from "just" being crafting bots.

In all honesty, the only things hampering the use of 3.5 ed. PnP crafting are:

1. XP penalty - Due to finite quest XP (the fact that one loses XP everytime they run
quests over limits the amount of XP that can be gained/lost over time).

2. The "powers-that-be" want us to GRIND quests.

Everything else, could/should be added.

And crafting feats do NOT gimp characters, they just make characters diferent.

[dkyle]

Thats exactly what's goping to happen with this system.

Run a character up to level 11,
make him/her your "crafting bot (only making unbound items),"
have your main characters supply your "crafting bot" with needed materials.

In the current system, all crafting is BtC.

But even when we get unbound crafting, why would you do this? What's the benefit of having an unbound item crafting bot, instead of using one of your real characters to craft, particularly the one you play the most, and are most likely gather materials on in the first place?

And even if you make a "crafting bot", for some bizarre reason, why would that character be inherently any less useful in a quest than any other? The key phrase in the post you quoted was "dead space alt". I.e., a character which is less useful in a quest due to focus on crafting.

And crafting feats do NOT gimp characters, they just make characters diferent.

They make them gimped at running quests. Which is, far and away, the primary focus of the game.

[salmag]

In the current system, all crafting is BtC.

But even when we get unbound crafting, why would you do this? What's the benefit of having an unbound item crafting bot, instead of using one of your real characters to craft, particularly the one you play the most, and are most likely gather materials on in the first place?

And even if you make a "crafting bot", for some bizarre reason, why would that character be inherently any less useful in a quest than any other? The key phrase in the post you quoted was "dead space alt". I.e., a character which is less useful in a quest due to focus on crafting.



They make them gimped at running quests. Which is, far and away, the primary focus of the game.

There are plenty of reasons to make unbound items. First is, to auction and make money. Secondly, to pass onto an alt when your main has outgrown it or made greensteel.

As for the "dead space alt," not EVERYONE in game has EVERY character slot filled up, so there is a lot of "dead space" available.

While running quests is THE primary focus of the game, there is a LOT of downtime in which to do other things, i.e. PVP, Character maintenance, crafting, waiting for PUG to fill.

ONLY min/maxers would consider taking a crafting feat useless. With Feat re-spec, your "crafting bot" might only be "retired" from questing. Level them up to 20, then swap out feats for crafting => viola; Now you have a character (maybe that you don't play all the time anymore) that is "useful" and NOT "dead space."

Think outside the box.

[Chai]

I have a simple solution to the whole problem!

Follow these simple instructions:

Step 1: Get rich.

Step 2: Buy the Dungeons and Dragons franchise from Wizards of the Coast.

Step 3: Throw away everything WotC has done since they got their claws into the game.

Step 4: Begin printing AD&D 2nd Edition material again.

Step 5: Direct game developers to base their games off those rules.

Step 6: Enjoy!!!

Problem solved! Oh and you're welcome.

Step 7: ???

Step 8: Profit.

LOL

The video game that I know of that came closest to any edition of D&D rules was NWN. Even then, after creating my own server, jumping from server to server and seeing other peoples visions of how they see the game and feel it should be played was an eye opener, even after seeing the P&P version played so many different ways.

[Forgeborn]

What was so borked with a crafting system that more closely followed 3.5 edition rules that it had to be replaced by a complex and unrelated add-on system instead?

- Taking 1 day for each 1000 gold value of the item (ohh hey, I'm making this item, it's base value 10k platinum, it 'only' takes me 3 months and then some!)

- Taking 4% of the gold value as a cost in XP (in PnP XP isn't quite as.... abundant? as in DDO)

- Requiring access to a number of spells and the requirement of feats to be taken. (hey there crafting alt, since you will most likely want craft magic arms and armor, forge ring, craft wondrous item, and possible Bind elemental or craft rod/staff. All of that would be 4 feats taken just to be able to craft for most slots. That's not even counting that you'd want Exceptional artisan several times to reduce the time it takes to craft stuff (-25% each time you take the feat, can be taken multiple times, open for interpretation how it stacks with itself))


in other words: the current implementation allows for new/lower level players and characters to at least try crafting without needing to invest (much) in it, if you would pile the penalties on crafting that 3.5 has a lot of the player-base wouldn't be touching it.

(human wizard has 8 general feats, 5 class feats, most crafting feats are 'class' feats for them, so with 4 of those crafting feats, and 9x exceptional artisan it would still take more then a week to make a 10k platinum base value item. (7.5% of the time usually required))

[dkyle]

There are plenty of reasons to make unbound items. First is, to auction and make money. Secondly, to pass onto an alt when your main has outgrown it or made greensteel.

You're not answering any question I asked. I know full well why we'd want to make unbound items. This is manifestly obvious.

You said that the current system will encourage "crafting bots". I asked why you think this would be the case? I see no benefit to having one, instead of just crafting on a main.

As for the "dead space alt," not EVERYONE in game has EVERY character slot filled up, so there is a lot of "dead space" available.

Dead space in quests.

ONLY min/maxers would consider taking a crafting feat useless. With Feat re-spec, your "crafting bot" might only be "retired" from questing. Level them up to 20, then swap out feats for crafting => viola; Now you have a character (maybe that you don't play all the time anymore) that is "useful" and NOT "dead space."

So now the only decent crafters are characters that have "retired" from questing? Oh, yeah, that sounds wonderful.

[salmag]

You're not answering any question I asked. I know full well why we'd want to make unbound items. This is manifestly obvious.

You said that the current system will encourage "crafting bots". I asked why you think this would be the case? I see no benefit to having one, instead of just crafting on a main.
To dust off a character that is not fully in use or a "mule." It makes it easier to focus one character, who might get better results than your main, especially if crafting is his/her focus. The same as a "Hagglebot." It's another way of playing - specializing all your characters (not just for combat). I have a level 12 Monk right now that just so happens to be my mule. I plan on making him my crafter using this system. If they introduced the Crafting Feats, I would've used my wizard.

Dead space in quests.
Crafting Feats on characters do not equate them to "Dead Space" (even IN quests); however, it does make them more reliant on the equipment that they make/buy, especially Offensive Wands. It makes those useless wand/magic item enhancements more viable. There ARE more than enough Feats to go around (unless you min/max ALL your builds), especially if you are a Wizard.


So now the only decent crafters are characters that have "retired" from questing? Oh, yeah, that sounds wonderful.
I never said the "ONLY" decent crafters. I used that as an example of one way to "possibly" do it, especially for the min/max crowd. Not everyone TRs their characters. Some don't care to. There ARE different ways to do it. Just saying.

Responses in ORANGE.

This type of Crafting that they are developing promotes the same gameplay style as what introducing the Crafting Feats would. Especially if the crafting levels are kept separate from character levels. You just have to look more closely at it.

AND Casters should be the ONLY classes capable of Enchanting Items. If melee characters want to use devices to take the place of finding a caster, that works too. But having more options/versatility in the game is better overall for the game. That would mean more Feats/Enhancements/Skills (including crafting).

[Seikojin]

What's this now? First I've heard of new ingredients dropping in Shroud.

Sorry, not the shroud. I meant the vale. But if you poke around on the forums, you will see screenies of it and I think they are on the wiki too.

[dkyle]

To dust off a character that is not fully in use or a "mule." It makes it easier to focus one character, who might get better results than your main, especially if crafting is his/her focus. The same as a "Hagglebot."

There's a good reason to make a Hagglebot: the mechanics encourage spending some build resources on Haggle to make the best Haggler. But being a better Haggler means spending less build resources on abilities that are useful in questing.

But the current crafting system has nothing like that. You don't spend build resources on it, you just get it. There's no reason why an expert crafter would be any less an effective quester than a character with no crafting ability.

I still do not see any reason why a mule would be better as a crafter than a main.

Crafting Feats on characters do not equate them to "Dead Space" (even IN quests); however, it does make them more reliant on the equipment that they make/buy, especially Offensive Wands. It makes those useless wand/magic item enhancements more viable. There ARE more than enough Feats to go around (unless you min/max ALL your builds), especially if you are a Wizard.

"Dead Space" is subjective, but between having a crafting Wizard, and having a non-crafting Wizard, it should be obvious which one will tend to be more useful in a quest. And in DDO, it's easy to have both, which means your non-crafting Wizard gets all the benefits of your crafting Wizards crafting, and none of the downsides of having to pick up crafting feats.

I never said the "ONLY" decent crafters. I used that as an example of one way to "possibly" do it, especially for the min/max crowd. Not everyone TRs their characters. Some don't care to. There ARE different ways to do it. Just saying.

And I say having a rules system that encourages making crafting bots, or retiring characters from questing, is a bad idea. The game is about questing. Forcing players to choose between crafting effectiveness and questing effectiveness is not a good thing.

This type of Crafting that they are developing promotes the same gameplay style as what introducing the Crafting Feats would. Especially if the crafting levels are kept separate from character levels. You just have to look more closely at it.

It really doesn't. Having crafting be totally separate from normal leveling is exactly what makes it different.

AND Casters should be the ONLY classes capable of Enchanting Items.

I don't see how that's a good game mechanic idea.

But having more options/versatility in the game is better overall for the game. That would mean more Feats/Enhancements/Skills (including crafting).

More is not necessarily better. I do not consider the notion of Crafting-bots at all a good thing.

Sorry, not the shroud. I meant the vale. But if you poke around on the forums, you will see screenies of it and I think they are on the wiki too.

OK, yeah, I knew about the Vale ingredients. Curious what they're meant for, too.

[Seikojin]

...snip...

More is not necessarily better. I do not consider the notion of Crafting-bots at all a good thing.



OK, yeah, I knew about the Vale ingredients. Curious what they're meant for, too.

I agree, for ddo, craftbots would not be good.

On the liver server, I plan to use my haggle character for crafting because any and all broker content that I have plat to dump into will be useful in getting trash to decon into ingredients.

Yeah, I am curious too. For now, collect them parts! LOL

[Matuse]

1. XP penalty - Due to finite quest XP (the fact that one loses XP everytime they run
quests over limits the amount of XP that can be gained/lost over time).

Logical fault: There is infinite XP available in the game. Explorer rares NEVER run out.

2. The "powers-that-be" want us to GRIND quests.

Cause nobody does that currently anyway, right? Next thing you'll be talking about how half of the changes in U9 are to sell more SP potions in the DDO store, right?

I see the new crafting as the perfect way to be rid of all of those ridiculous true law bastard swords of tendon slice that I keep finding. Mulch them and make something decent out of it.

I got 250 crafting skill in Everquest in Smithing, Tailoring, Baking, Brewing, Fletching, Pottery, and Jewelcraft as well as 200 in Alchemy, which were the caps at the time. So I know all about severe crafting grind, and the DDO method doesn't even come close. All you have to do is...your normal quests! Almost everything you pull is an ingredient! No spending 15 hours as the only player in the Gorge of King Xorbb slaughtering stuff 50 levels below you for the 100 pieces of rare drop magical clay that you need to cap your skill!

[salmag]

I agree, for ddo, craftbots would not be good.

On the liver server, I plan to use my haggle character for crafting because any and all broker content that I have plat to dump into will be useful in getting trash to decon into ingredients.

Yeah, I am curious too. For now, collect them parts! LOL

I plan on doing the same thing, which effectively turns your Haggle character into a Crafting character. There are many people that will be doing this...

Logical fault: There is infinite XP available in the game. Explorer rares NEVER run out.

But you cannot sustain enough XP to craft through Explorer rares for 3.5 ed. crafting.

Cause nobody does that currently anyway, right? Next thing you'll be talking about how half of the changes in U9 are to sell more SP potions in the DDO store, right?

True, but people are grinding for GS ingredients and rare named item drops. If you put in 3.5 ed. crafting, Grinding would decrease. Casters would just make the items you want.
And NO, there are other issues regarding SP changes...

[salmag]

I agree, for ddo, craftbots would not be good.

On the liver server, I plan to use my haggle character for crafting because any and all broker content that I have plat to dump into will be useful in getting trash to decon into ingredients.

Yeah, I am curious too. For now, collect them parts! LOL

I plan on doing the same thing, which effectively turns your Haggle character into a Crafting character. There are many people that will be doing this...

Logical fault: There is infinite XP available in the game. Explorer rares NEVER run out.

But you cannot sustain enough XP to craft through Explorer rares for 3.5 ed. crafting.

Cause nobody does that currently anyway, right? Next thing you'll be talking about how half of the changes in U9 are to sell more SP potions in the DDO store, right?

True, but people are grinding for GS ingredients and rare named item drops. If you put in 3.5 ed. crafting, Grinding would decrease. Casters would just make the items you want.
And NO, there are other issues regarding SP changes...

[Seikojin]

... Snip...
I got 250 crafting skill in Everquest in Smithing, Tailoring, Baking, Brewing, Fletching, Pottery, and Jewelcraft as well as 200 in Alchemy, which were the caps at the time. So I know all about severe crafting grind, and the DDO method doesn't even come close. All you have to do is...your normal quests! Almost everything you pull is an ingredient! No spending 15 hours as the only player in the Gorge of King Xorbb slaughtering stuff 50 levels below you for the 100 pieces of rare drop magical clay that you need to cap your skill!

Try Horizons crafting. o.o