Alchemy

[DollarPhil]

Johannes was talking on IRC just now about feedback the alchemy system, and suggested starting a thread, so here you go.

The alchemy system's got a lot of good points, but a few significant drawbacks that make it hard for players to get into.

The good points are:[LIST=1]

• The mechanism is simple. "Put the things in the box, use the item on the box".
• Lore and EFUSS crafting are available to all, so most PCs can gain a basic level of understanding if they try, but sutable classes can excel.
• The recipes promote RP in trading both information and products (My PC's selling cheap Mage Armor potions he crafts)
• The systems promote exploring the island to find where valuable reagents spawn.

The drawbacks are:[LIST=1]

• There is no feedback from the system. Say you're making a poison, and it calls for a toxic plant. It wants Nightshade, but you're using Hellebore. All the other reagents are right, but you have no way of knowing that. Or maybe you have everything right, but in the wrong ratio. You have a large number of potential combinations, but no way of knowing if it's correct until you get a "DC failed or DC beat" message. Therefore trying combinations is time consuming and boring.
• Recipes are randomly dropped, and so inconvenient to acquire. There is no benefit to putting effort in to look for them, as then can drop anywhere. The only way to actively find them is purchasing or information trading.
• It isn't clear what ingredient is useful for what in some cases. Some are used in both weapons and potions for example

The drawbacks though, can be cleared up without a huge system overhaul. Currently, recipes are inconvenient to learn and don't reward actively looking. They could however be made simple to learn, but costly in time, money or effort. This way devoted PCs will progress better than lucky ones who uncover cool recipe drops.

 For example:

• In the same manner as setting lore placeables with lore checks, add some with full or part recipes. And for the part recipes, have other placeables that contain the remaining part, so PCs with the motivation can search for them. Put these placeables all around the server in odd locations.
• Hide recipes in word puzzles in books, item descriptions etc. to reward players who think to solve them.
• Sell "ancient alchemy manuals, Wilderness Herb Guides, Blessed Tomes" and so on at shops. Make them expensive books that have an Item Special Power like for notes. Have them contain a variety of infomation requiring different levels of Lore check to read.
• Distribute information on failed but close recipes, so that PCs can make it work by experimenting with only 1 or 2 different ingredients.
• Have information from notes/books/etc on likely "alchemical ratios", so the number of reagents most potions require and so on.
• A scripted quest that is one time only and gives a medium-power recipe 100% of the time. Let the PC choose what system they want the recipe for, and make it a reasonable level, team quest, to encourage running an expedition.
• NPCs in far flung areas with persuade/bribery checks who will give you a random tip about a recipe.

[Echigo]

I really like this idea. I think it'd be a perfect addition.

[Johannes]

Please keep the ideas coming. I am concerning myself personally with this project.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

Special Recipes for dyes!

[prestonhunt]

Dyes are already in the system, nub, and I believe I saw a recipe for them once.

[SkillFocuspwn]

I think the main problem with it is that it concerns itself primarily with luck / accumulated knowledge. I haven't spent time doing it myself but from what I've seen the only ways to do it is to hope you find recipes or randomly throw things at each-other.

I don't know what to propose but making things more interactive and more available with effort rather than luck to expand your repertoire. If this cause trouble with too many potions going about for whatever reason, making the reagents much harder to find and accumulate, even with some only being on quests / in exploration areas.

[Craig210]

How about the rarest of combinations available have a chance of backfire? Chemical burns etc.

I agree more IC direction is needed, perhaps DM quests. But not so much as to flood the system and make it basic knowledge to everyone.

[Nihm]

I believe the main problem with the system is that "experimenting" to learn combinations becomes strangely so much easier when a past character has had this knowledge
 
I think a player tool that allows wanding another with the abililty to use a recipe to "teach" it to them would be a better way, if possible.
 
Original recipes would be consumed when used.  Therefore the only possible way to use a recipe would be to either find the recipe legitimately or be taught.

[Mort]

I really like the idea of the recipes needing to be learned before they can be sweet much like a wizard learns spells from scrolls.

Once learned, a recipe could be crafted into an item similar to a spell scroll to be passed along to another.

It would make the administrative aspect of giving hints / rewards in herbalism / alchemy more tangible, easier to handle for builders and easier to handle for characters.

It would remove the OOC problems as well.

[Ideal_Misconception]

Hm... It would be quite useful if recipes came with a power to copy themselves over, possibly with a slightly increased DC or reduced effectiveness (to make sure original copies retained value). It could simply be a requirement to have the recipe or a copy of it in the box along with the ingredients.

The drawback, I suppose, would be the sudden voiding of most people's recipes.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

Make em work for it.

[DollarPhil]

That, however would mean it would not be possible to learn anything  besides from direct hints. How would that work anyway if PCs  died and lost their gear, or nobody on the server knew the recipe?  Finding a recipe "legitimately" would reduce alchemy even more to  getting the lucky drops or trading to someone who did, which is what these suggestions were trying to move away from.

How would it work? Would reading a relevant hint item wand you as able to create the item, and then you have to figure out how? Would hints give you 100% of the information and how to create it? (which would be rather boring). Could be better if you could be wanded for reduced DC but could find less efficient recipes by experimentation.

[Drakill Tannan]

While i like mort's suggestion, i can see 4 problems with it:

Figuring the recipies out on your own is not posible anymore. If your PC has been researching alchemy and happens to get a combination right, he still can't crafted, even if it is all ICly legit. While the PC could post this in the Journal section and hope the DMs to notice and give him the drop, you could experiment OOCly without doing anything IC and cheat the DMs into giving you the recipies, so this is not posible. This means experimenting is useless now.

If the recipie drops are left as they are now, a PC will be able to teach the recipie without having figured out the ingredients or proportions, and that makes no sence.

If the recipie drops are changed to detail the exact amount/reagents, then experimenting ceases completly, and recipies that have as an additional challenge to figure them out are no longer posible (think, for instance in the shadow trinketure, finding it must have been hard, figuring it out however, was also very dificult, yet it was worth it)

It's all about luck now: if they drop, you can learn them, if they don't, then you can't. DMs can drop them for you if you ask them and prove worthy, but only if there are DMs online when you are playing. PCs can teach them, however it's again, all about the schedule: if you can log when this PCs are online, you might learn them (i imagine PCs will be jelous with recipies) else....

From what i can read in the OP, the problems as of now are:

1.- Experimenting is too dificult, because there is no feedback. Mort's propoed sistem solves this, but at the cost of removing experimentation completly.

2.- Recipies drop randomly, so it's about luck. The new sistem only makes this problem worse, instead of fixing it.

To solve this two problems, my suggestions are the same as the OPs.

[Ideal_Misconception]

One could always add a small, automated system of experimentation, that takes raw materials and gold, and gives you a chance to gain a new recipe, or a partial one. I imagine there would still be rare drops, but it would open things up for those who can't constantly hunt for them.

[Johannes]

To address how we might fix our crafting system, I would like to draw attention to a couple of important points of criticism which have been raised:

SkillFocuspwn says, "I think the main problem with it is that it concerns  itself primarily with luck / accumulated knowledge. I haven't spent time  doing it myself but from what I've seen the only ways to do it is to  hope you find recipes or randomly throw things at each-other."

Luck really doesn't seem like a fair basis for distributing crafting knowledge, as it is too often wasted on people who neither want nor need it. More importantly, the success of any player concept which is based in some measure on the crafting system is contingent on luck, which demands a gamble possessed of such improbabilities that these concepts are dead before they are even written.

Drakill Tannan says, "It's all about luck now: if they drop, you can learn them, if they  don't, then you can't. DMs can drop them for you if you ask them and  prove worthy, but only if there are DMs online when you are playing."

The resolution of these astronomical  improbabilities, by that very fact, demands DM intervention to bring them within  the realm of possibility; intervention in the form of DMs following  around crafter PCs, dropping recipe hints on how to enhance their herb  bags and wipe their noses. Needless to say, none of the DMs are jumping at  the opportunity, and this avenue is closed.

Thus we must discard luck as the primary basis of the distribution of recipes, and exchange it with a basis of determination and entitlement. One way we could achieve this is to swamp quest loot with books, add recipes upon gaining levels or put them in stores; however, Craig210 raises another important point,

Craig210 says, "I agree more IC direction is needed, perhaps DM quests. But not so much  as to flood the system and make it basic knowledge to everyone."

By lowering recipes to the level of platitudes, we murder the purposes of mystery and exploration which stoke player interest in the project. A good approach, I believe, would need to directly reward determination and hard work. The solution may have already been provided

DollarPhil says, "There is no feedback from the system. Say you're making a poison, and it  calls for a toxic plant. It wants Nightshade, but you're using  Hellebore. All the other reagents are right, but you have no way of  knowing that. Or maybe you have everything right, but in the wrong  ratio. You have a large number of potential combinations, but no way of  knowing if it's correct until you get a "DC failed or DC beat" message.  Therefore trying combinations is time consuming and boring."
SkillFocusPwn says, "I think the main problem with it is that it concerns itself primarily  with luck / accumulated knowledge. I haven't spent time doing it myself  but from what I've seen the only ways to do it is to hope you find  recipes or randomly throw things at each-other."

If we do not want to completely revamp the system, we will need to work with what we already have; and what we have is recipe drops, and trial-and-error. With a good feedback system, the latter might actually become of practical use in finding recipes. I believe that such a system is well within our means. All that would be left for us to do is figure out a way to make the experience enjoyable. Craig210 provides,

Craig210 says, "How about the rarest of combinations available have a  chance of backfire? Chemical burns etc."

This doesn't even need to apply specifically to failed crafting. Let it apply to any attempt made to throw items together in an alchemy, herbalism or consecration kit. The effects can be dangerous, consistent and a function of the "cost" of the items used. With negative effects (such as being set on fire, exploding or splashing acid all over you) consistently associated to specific combinations of ingredients, perhaps we will even see the opening of a completely new form of inter-player conflict between crafters: intellectual sabotage.

Finally,

DrPhil says, "Sell "ancient alchemy manuals, Wilderness Herb Guides, Blessed Tomes"  and so on at shops. Make them expensive books that have an Item Special  Power like for notes. Have them contain a variety of infomation  requiring different levels of Lore check to read."

A full recipe in a store ruins the recipe for everyone and extinguishes enthusiasm, but books and treatises with vague hand-waving in them are a different can of beans. Vague clues can provide a starting point for experimentation and, ipso facto, increase player engagement. Availability of these books in stores and far-flung but otherwise non-random places would also be excellent for addressing concerns of the role that luck plays in a successful crafting character.

I am still highly interested in your ideas. Please, keep them flowing and perhaps we will have a formidable crafting system by the time we are done.