As a frontline fighter I find that I often end up having to spend over 400 gold restocking my healing supplies after finishing a quest (usually three or four potions of serious healing and ten medicine bags), and that my share of the reward in most cases only make up for about 25% of these costs. This is seldom considered by those who share the reward money, making archers, wizards and cowards grow wealthy while frontliners remain poor.

Before hitting level 4 this was not much of a problem to me, since there were still ways of getting a stable income through the low level delivery quests and such. Being level 5 I am no longer eligible for those quest though, and I've had to withdraw about 1500 gold from my bank account to cover my expenses for healing supplies alone just in three days.

This problem may be worse in my case as I don't use expertise, often do my battles with a two-hander and don't wish to appear greedy being a paladin. I think many frontliners are feeling the same way about it though - it's a problem.

My suggestion is that you either make some of the quest-givers give us healing potions as part of our reward, that they can be given to those who spent the most, or that you place more healing potions as loot that we might find during the quests themselves.

Income is a problem, especially for Melee. I don't find this to be as much of an issue, even though I've been at the higher end for a while and quest little. I know this is because I have expertise and thus take few hits. However, I do still spend a good deal on quests on medicine I sometimes end up using on those who DO take hits.

So yes, I'd second the suggestion that the reward be altered somehow so that quests have more potion drops or something similiar.

They all laugh at whmpy snazrals defensive fighting, but pretty soon I'll be able to afford to buy them muahhaha!

Seriously though, if you play afighter whom constantly needs healing from being hit then you should either bring a defensive fighter (hmm snaz seems so much more useful now XD) or become one yourself. All that aside there's always the cleric option.

Naga They all laugh at whmpy snazrals defensive fighting, but pretty soon I'll be able to afford to buy them muahhaha!

Seriously though, if you play afighter whom constantly needs healing from being hit then you should either bring a defensive fighter (hmm snaz seems so much more useful now XD) or become one yourself. All that aside there's always the cleric option.

An alternative to the "Defensive fighter" option is to take the route of "Slaughter your enemies with huge damage before they get 2 swings". Digressing towards the main point though, I agree the gold income for frontliners is rather low. If you can't rely on a cleric to keep you healed up and healthy, you're going to be spending all your reward and more keeping yourself from the fugue.

Swinging for insta kills won't help you against things with insane hit points though. Besides blurb Karick is nearly always injured in combat XD. But he usualy has a certain cleric on his side.

Edit:

Also those wizards may be cowardly but in most cases you'd be dead or have used twice as muh potions if not for them. Income is a little steep however and I supose the fact that I get that little bit of guard pay helps a bunch.

Naga Also those wizards may be cowardly but in most cases you'd be dead or have used twice as muh potions if not for them.

Actually what I wrote was:

This is seldom considered by those who share the reward money, making archers, wizards and cowards grow wealthy while frontliners remain poor.

Wizards aren't cowardly - their place is in the back, away for the battle. By cowards I might have been referring to defensive expertise fighter pricks such as Snaz though. ;)

I think that this can be dealt with IC by having the fighters demand or ask for more money.

Sort of becoming redundant here, but--

1.) Bring someone who specializes in healing, and isn't a selfish bastard IC'ly.

2.) Bring a Wizard or Cleric able to cast protections on you, increasing AC, elemental resistance, etc. resulting in less hit point loss.

3.) Skill Focus: Heal, Higher Wisdom ranks make for more efficient heal kit use.

I'm well aware that the heal skill makes me able to better use a healing kit, and that the wisdom modifier adds to that. I'm already keeping the skill maxed, and am not about to reroll my paladin with an unnecessarily high wisdom score. I usually hand those to the cleric in the party though.

I do always group with a cleric, and couldn't have asked for a better one at that. When knocked down to 20% health in combat it's not wise to take it for granted that the cleric will be able to react in one turn though, or that he isn't occupied tending to someone else in need at the moment. That's when you drink a potion of cure serious wounds. Also, on most of the long quests such as the one for councilwoman Tyrelle, or the hook horror hunt, the healing powers of even the most capable cleric will eventually be drained. What I'm talking about here is irrelevant for smaller quests such as the brewery or the chosen, where the cleric will have enough power to take care of all of the groupmembers throughout the quest and the resistance we meet is not that considerable.

As a med bag whore myself, I sympathize. I die a lot too, but even when I HAVE money, it all goes to med bags.

Yes, this is a problem, but what is the solution? I think this is actually an IG problem, more than and OOG problem, honestly, and unfortunately.

Everyone really should consider this thought- people don't always have to recieve equal pay. Noone says we have to have "equal opportunity employment". :) Talk your group leader into letting you get more pay- if you really deserve it, you might just get it.

And if you play a non-melee character and you see this happening... tip your frontliner!

Honestly, some of the quests have a pretty poor payout. Its far better to address the specific quests though rather than generically claim they all have a poor pay out.

Mandarin is a piss poor healer, but most groups that quest with him I'd hazard don't lose out and spend more on healing than they earn on the quest simply because he's "good enough" as a healer and often I know the groups I travel with use a good strategy to maximize our effectiveness.

If you want to make a suggestion, by all means I'd suggest identifying specific quests where the payouts aren't good. I've noticed several, and often make a point of acknowledging what looks like a poorly balanced risk/reward ratio.

Increasing the payouts on quests might take care of the problem frontliners have, but would also unbalance things further as those who don't rely as much on healing supplies would grow even wealthier. The only true way I can think of to make it more balanced would be to be able to find potions on some occations that would end up where they are needed.

To be more specific, adding a few corpses with healing potions to the Councillor Tyrelle quest would be very good. As would it be to place a few with the corpses on the hook horror hunt.

My remarks:

(1) Vendor potion prices increased recently in preparation for PC potion-brewers being able to compete more easily (previously, the prices were practically identical). Unfortunately due to some issues on our end (and for whatever other reasons) there don't seem to be very many potion brewers or wand makers (I believe wand prices are still too expensive).

(2) As others mentioned, IC demanding that the gold be first used to pay for supplies and then divided is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged. It is also perfectly welcome for characters to demand a higher percentage of the gold, or whatever else. There is no OOC expectation for equal division with scripted quest payment.

(3) Simple potions like blur or barkskin can do a huge amount to decrease the damage you take. Again these potions may be difficult to find at PC-crafted prices, but they are extremely effective.

(4) I'm definitely aware that some quests are not rewarding enough, or are plain old broken, and reminders of which ones have issues is very helpful for me. For instance, I know the goblin fortress has a payment that combined is usually over 2k counting drops. It's also one of the more dangerous ones though. Other quests are extremely non-lethal but rewarding in other ways.

(5) A lot of bosses dropped potions, but then people complained when they just drank them. So now many of them drop healing herbs.

But I'm definitely keeping this issue in n mind, and am sympathetic. I am constantly making adjustments to keep the server risk/reward balance right and rewarding, although it is intended for EfU to be a challenging and difficult server where real prosperity is a difficult acheivement.

I believe this is an issue.

If we're going to go into specifics like in Howland's post, the Council's Dunwarren quest will almost certainly leave the party in negative figures for net gold gain from the quest.

It very well may be that this is intentional, but I believe it may be starting to actually discourage people from doing this quest because they plain can't afford to. I usually come out with a couple of coins for my trouble, but I should think the healers will have a gaping hole in their pocket; one which, even if I were to offer up my share of the reward, wouldn't be filled.

To me, the other quests seem to be well balanced in rewards, even though I don't play a fighter and I'm doing rather well for myself financially, so wouldn't know what it's like from a tank end of the spectrum.

Schattenjäger I do always group with a cleric, and couldn't have asked for a better one at that.

Ladocicea I usually come out with a couple of coins for my trouble, but I should think the healers will have a gaping hole in their pocket; one which, even if I were to offer up my share of the reward, wouldn't be filled.

On the more risky quests, say the Gnoll and Stinky Sewer quests, I usually use for about 300-500 gp on Healing Kits. That should really be absurd, seeing as the reward (for the entire group) doesn't always get that number. I am constantly struggling to keep my coin above the 10 gp, so I can at least rest every once in a while. But perhaps (I don't recall who said this in this post, and I can't be bothered to look it up 8) ) it is an IC issue. Make the warriors receive an extra share, as well as the healers, and please, by all that is holy, I beg of you, PLEASE give those healing bags to people who actually have skills with healing. Wasting a healing kit with Smackuz Da Orc, with his -1 heal skill, is a damn waste, when others have a skill of +10.

I beg of you, PLEASE give those healing bags to people who actually have skills with healing. Wasting a healing kit with Smackuz Da Orc, with his -1 heal skill, is a damn waste, when others have a skill of +10.

This is a criminal waste of money.

I hate it when a warrior is on near death and I'm just about it heal him, do the action, and watch, to my dismay, as I receive the message "You cannot heal someone that is already being healed" as he uses a kit on himself for 3hp when I could've potentially given him 20+.

Coldburn

I beg of you, PLEASE give those healing bags to people who actually have skills with healing. Wasting a healing kit with Smackuz Da Orc, with his -1 heal skill, is a damn waste, when others have a skill of +10.

That's Goodbrain, Not Goobrain!

Many quests now have a persuade check to get more reward at the end in the form of potions.

I didn't really test it, so let me know if it isn't working.

The DCs vary according to each quest.

https://efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/11/1178/goon-guild/index.html

Howland Many quests now have a persuade check to get more reward at the end in the form of potions.

I didn't really test it, so let me know if it isn't working.

The DCs vary according to each quest.

Beautiful, thanks for dealing with it Howland.

Bit reluctant to mention this, but there's also a (largely undiscovered) adventuring zone which was designed in part to be an easy source of healing.

The area won't give much in the way of XP, but practically every monster will drop a healing potion or healing bag.

I bet the monsters are super powerful and drop 1 bag each. You sadists, you.

Well, I haven't seen many people there yet. But it's intended to be fairly safe.

Hint: it involves lizards.

Howland Hint: it involves lizards.

Deep Lizards: Nifty.

Apart from that, how about lobbying for healing? My Priest provides healing to some for free, or even at crafting cost- Making no profit at all, but it's a win-win situation, since the others will do you favors as well. I can understand that this is a moot point if we talk about a whole, evillish deal, but at least Team Law and Team Good can benefit from it greatly, without collecting bounties on criminals all the time.

I know where it is! :P

I know where it is! :P

Most of this is an IC issue.

At least the 'everyones an equal partner' feel, is thankfully breaking down here, as it should. Most of Faerun isnt an egalitarian place, especially the underdark. That koblold rogue should be lucky if it gets a halfshare. You can sort the divisions out before, during or after the mission, all much pvp potential and fun.

Less pay for archers or low contributers seems quite fair. And unfair distributions also ought to be happening. The underdark is not an equal opportunity employment workshop.

The inequality feel can mean you have a reason to take the lesser powered characters on, but they dont get the same reward. Leader selected distribution of potions works well too, if done skillfully.

Yes, all too many times people throw hundreds of gold healing themselves when others could have done it at litterally a tenth of the cost. Many characters out there have taken +3 heal as a feat, and have +heal items too. Its not hard to have +15 effective heal at lvl 5, especially if you're a cleric. Cal has to leap in with lighting fast obsequiousness to heal some warriors who Im sure have far less heal skill than he does. Perhaps we need the CoA system of 'take your armour off to heal', which might make it more obvious, and means we take a break for a moment after combats.

The OOC issue, is AC/equiptment inflation. High AC warriors dont get hit as much, spend less on healing, more on gear (particularly to make thier AC higher), and get ahead, low AC ones fall behind. IC this ought to be the survival of the fittest, but if we could close or tone down some of the AC rorts, that would be good.

1- the tumble AC bonus, pushes everyone in fullplate to want a rogue lvl or two just to dump points into tumble, and get +1 ac in fullplate (+ sneak attack). If this was based on 'effective skill' not 'points in skill', then that works a bit better. Or if the bonus is not magic armour but 'dex bonus', that also limits the 'uber ACs'.

2- Expertise/improved expertise. NWN2 and the 3.5 rules hold that the max bonus/penalty is equal to your BaB. This would cut down on the wizard rorts, and the huge effects at low lvls.

Alternatively, make it a max of +/-3 instead of 5, still a great feat to have, and probably taken by most fighters still, but slightly less extreme.

COA high lvl fighters have to be minmaxed on AC, due to the vast ABs of their foes. If the system lets a minmaxed fighter get significantly higher acs, it gets to a point of 'minmax or die' for the frontliners. This is an OOC issue to some extent, dependent on incentives in the game system.

Jadelink

This issue is no longer troubling me now, as improvements have been made in-game so that potions are easier to come by and a wonderful Gondsman has learned how to make the very cost-effective wands of cure serious wounds. :)

Jadelink That koblold rogue should be lucky if it gets a halfshare.

Schattenjäger This issue is no longer troubling me now, as improvements have been made in-game so that potions are easier to come by and a wonderful Gondsman has learned how to make the very cost-effective wands of cure serious wounds. :)