In a response to the 'On plaing low stats" thread.

I've noticed alot of people (ie Low int fighters,) Or people who generally dont otehrwise RP knowing anything about magic spells, and being fooled by certain effects and whatnot., because they have low spellcraft/lore.

This is great, and I love them for it.

But one thing that I find really annoying, is when these same people suddenly know what every 'identified' magic item does. Just because the eingine has it visible, does not mean you as a character know what it does. This leads to situations such as "Item A dropped on ground, Player A, High int high lore/spellcraft character, announces interest at the same time player b (low ins/spellcraft/lore character, announce interest at the same time. Player B then mentions how Enchantment C is better able to help his skills, despite this enchantment being quite obscure or some such.

This is, when you break it down - A derivitave of the "I want Loot" mentality. The desire of the player wanting awesome items. personally, I think people should try to stay IC, and not think about, "holy shit that item is -amazing-, I need it." They need to start thinking "Would my character know what this does? Would my character be able to recognize this is magic at all, or even does anything?" I think it speaks more for someone's character if they will stay IC and pass up an amazing item for this reason, than them Metagaming knowing that the item is, or pulling the absolute bullshit "I think that looks nice, I want it" line.

The people that stay Ic and pass up loot like that, are the people I'm more likely to make mention of what the item actually does to them, before someone else takes it. (if i'm on a high skill PC)

Just try to remember folks. It's not about your loot. Even the most tricked out people can be taken down. (look at fireheart, his shit was -amazing-) In the end, it's about the fun. Try to remember it. Alot of times, by us giving something up, it contributes to the fun of others, by keeping things IC and avoiding hassles.

[/rant]

Don't ID stuff on the ground and help out those guys without Lore! Its what I do. I'll just say, "Hmm, an interesting item. Let me take a closer look." Then ID it in my inventory and decide I want to keep it--then I PhK everyone in the party but the paladin. For him, I hit a dispel magic and then a Hold Person and leave to face the random spawns that will inevitably pop up after I leave.

If the item is identified, its reasonable to RP knowing what it does.

I disagree. low spellcraft and lore means you dont know about that kind of stuff.

Some things are obvoius, like damage bonuses or stat boosts.

But items which actually deal with MAGIC, it makes sense without a decent understanding of magic, (lore and spellcraft ranks) They would not in fact be able to discern what it does. They -may- be able to tell tehere is indeed magic on it, but aside from that, I do not think they should just 'know it'

I agree with Cruzel, though I have been victim to this for a long time.

I think this is more of a mechanical/enforcement issue. Additionally, IMO, and in the long run, it's not worth it to run to a Lore guy everytime you find a slimy club because you think it might be that one special "Slime Club of B'loo'balgab'boo'saakkha the Slime Lord" with +5 EB and +2d6 acid damage.

I'd rather go do trolls than chase down wizards. :roll:

But as Oro stated, don't go around identifying loot on the ground to provide "free" lore skills to the dredges of society unless they are your friends, which means you are a shmuck for being with them anyway.

But once something is known/identified you can't RP not knowing it. If I am supposed to RP not knowing what identified loot is, then which ones do I know and which ones do I RP not knowing. It gets too messy and hard to think.

Also I do believe folk would quickly pick up on the many recurring loot found, unless they just showed up in the underdark - give 'em a week or two and they will have seen most of it once or heard stories told of it over an ale.

One of my characters almost never gets interesting loot as he does not have the INT, WIS, or personality to get what he wants. He does pick up leftovers that are often useful in the end. He is happy, life is good, etc. But most characters are greedy adventurers who need everything cool to live another day.

I will agree that it sucks, but the RULE is that if it is identified, you automatically know what it does. "What you see is what you get." I think it's definitely cool when someone plays to not know what an item is even if it already has been identified, but we'll never hold that against someone.

I'll repeat a statement from the days of yore, way back when NWN was young and 8 STR, 8 DEX, 8 CON, 18 CHA fighters were all the rage...

"If you want to intentionally handicap your character, by all means, go ahead and rock out with it. Just because you elect to smash your kneecaps in, however, doesn't mean everyone else should have to do so as well!"

-SI

Where was Cruzel when the thread I started was being locked :wink: ... https://efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/35/35761/identifying-items/index.html

Lore is an underappreciated skill that some (not all) players take advantage of. If you use the NPC merchants, it costs 150 gold to get something identified in EfU and 100 in normal NwN. To perform this skill, especially for free, without at least role-playing it out is rather ludicrous in my opinion. It would be like a lawyer taking a case pro-bono, there would have to be a very good reason to do this.

Perhaps simply lowering the 150 gold that the NPC’s charge would help resolve this issue. Instead of upping it 50 gold from the normal NwN 100 gold price, lower it 50 and only charge 50 gold to ID something. Being that better that half the items found cant be sold to the same merchant NPC that ID them anyway most players are simply unwilling to dump that kind of coin on something that is going to be dumped in the cleaning ladies wheel barrel anyway. The 150 gold pricing causes a vicious circle that makes players have to use others to ID things and then gets into this lore role-playing debate. People would pay the 50 gold and can just ‘pretend’ they were informed of all the items abilities.

Take away the cause and the debate fades away...

RIPnogarD

Perhaps simply lowering the 150 gold that the NPC’s charge would help resolve this issue.

Noooooooo! Market breaker.

Yeah, I gotta go with this one. ID costs are too high on EFU since items are largely unmarketable (to the NPCs) and end up in the trash heap (honestly, I throw mine away since if everyone dumped stuff in the cart, the newbies would be pretty tricked out fast!) . To preemptively defend the DM position on this, I am sure it's to encourage a PC-based economy. In theory this is great, and PC merchants can indeed make a killing. However, for those of us who do not live online, it's a drag to whore oneself in the marketplace when you've only got a few hours a week to play. I want to RP and kill stuff, not stand in the market with my gear spilled on the floor on the off chance someone walks by and buys my ubiquitous wand of sleep (4 charges) for 30 gold.

If I knew of some PC merchants who BUY stuff, that might make things a bit interesting, but unless it's a high ticket item, they're not generally interested (who wants 50 @#$ sleep wands clogging their inventory?)

Solutions? Sure: Reduce the cost of IDing items by NPCs Make friends with high lore skill REALLY encourage PC merchants through more persistent storage (yeah, I know about the Arms) and decreasing competition from NPC merchants. How? I have long advocated for limits of ALL items in NPC merchants - they start at server reset with whatever they are going to have, and when it's gone, it's gone. Sure, some items might be unlimited (sling stones, clubs, torches, or whatever) but the better stuff should be really limited. Talk about giving a survival feel to the server! If the NPCs then bought PC stuff on top of that, maybe it wouldn't suck to get a goblin horde of cruddy armor and rusty axes anymore becuae they know they could be sold in town. If that's all that's available, then the newbies would be thrilled to see it show up in Norma's hands ;) This could be enhanced by implementing the long-promised additional crafting system for PC-produced weapons, armor, and so forth. I don't think this would imbalance the server if the raw materials were made sufficiently rare and/or the cost of productions sufficiently expensive.

PD

RIPnogarD Where was Cruzel when the thread I started was being locked :wink: ... https://efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/35/35761/identifying-items/index.html

Lore is an underappreciated skill that some (not all) players take advantage of. If you use the NPC merchants, it costs 150 gold to get something identified in EfU and 100 in normal NwN. To perform this skill, especially for free, without at least role-playing it out is rather ludicrous in my opinion. It would be like a lawyer taking a case pro-bono, there would have to be a very good reason to do this.

Perhaps simply lowering the 150 gold that the NPC’s charge would help resolve this issue. Instead of upping it 50 gold from the normal NwN 100 gold price, lower it 50 and only charge 50 gold to ID something. Being that better that half the items found cant be sold to the same merchant NPC that ID them anyway most players are simply unwilling to dump that kind of coin on something that is going to be dumped in the cleaning ladies wheel barrel anyway. The 150 gold pricing causes a vicious circle that makes players have to use others to ID things and then gets into this lore role-playing debate. People would pay the 50 gold and can just ‘pretend’ they were informed of all the items abilities.

Take away the cause and the debate fades away...

Tangent What long-promised additional crafting system? While there are benefits to such, we're not interested in creating a system for smithing/mining, etcetera. I think it removes the focus from storytelling and places it on farming.

I was thinking of these promised skill changes: [quote="Skill Changes"] Craft Weapons - Bioware crafting is not supported. Eventually we will be adding a custom craft system that will make use of this skill. Craft Weapons - Bioware crafting is not supported. Eventually we will be adding a custom craft system that will make use of this skill. Craft Traps - Bioware crafting is not supported. However, Craft traps has been reassigned as Engineering/Tech Knowledge. Consider this skill to be like lore for technology. It is used with siege weapons and svirf tech for example. There are a number of places this is already used in the game.

9lives

Tangent What long-promised additional crafting system? While there are benefits to such, we're not interested in creating a system for smithing/mining, etcetera. I think it removes the focus from storytelling and places it on farming.

Ah, the sins of the fathers..

Consider it indefinitely on hold?

Um, I think?

I was thinking of these promised skill changes:

Skill Changes

Craft Weapons - Bioware crafting is not supported. Eventually we will be adding a custom craft system that will make use of this skill. Craft Weapons - Bioware crafting is not supported. Eventually we will be adding a custom craft system that will make use of this skill. Craft Traps - Bioware crafting is not supported. However, Craft traps has been reassigned as Engineering/Tech Knowledge. Consider this skill to be like lore for technology. It is used with siege weapons and svirf tech for example. There are a number of places this is already used in the game.

I suppose this could be taken to the skills being used as some other function like craft traps did, but it doesn't say that is the case.

I also must disagree with the notion that the game would be reduced to WoW/Ultima logging and crafting and logging out - not any more so than players who log in, drop a couple of scrolls or potions, and log out again. A competing server limited you to the number of crafting attempts possible in a certain time period, just for this reason. Personally, I think it would add a lot of flavor to have PC-crafted items. It seems silly to have a bunch of dwarves, for isntance, who cannot craft armor and weapons. I know others' opinions differ; it's just my thought.

9lives

Tangent What long-promised additional crafting system? While there are benefits to such, we're not interested in creating a system for smithing/mining, etcetera. I think it removes the focus from storytelling and places it on farming.