Apothecary + Tinkering

[Random_White_Guy]

Return the Apothecary Level 8 boost to Tinkering.

There is a criminally short supply of +Craft Trap items to be found in the module compared to the other Crafting options. A non-herbalist focused PC can get upwards of +11 heeal from just the sheer amount of +heal items spread around, the same can be said to a lesser extent for +spellcraft (Though that does have a secondary use with saves). Craft Trap is a sacrificed skill for crafting that has no otherwise use at all.

Almost all wizard gear itself has spell levels + lore which makes it ideal for Wizards to have multiple purpose tools.

A Wizard with Empowered' Fox's Cunning can boost his intellegence +7 which translates to a huge boost to both Craft Trap and Lore, meaning +3 tinkering. Atop that it's easier to quest as a wizard than it is as a rogue so the innate levels of Wizard boost by at least +1 (level 9 wizards far more common than level 9 rogues)

That's +5 to tinkering just for existing as a Wizard, which a rogue taking a crafting focused perk will never have.

Add to that the ability by which Wizards can effectively print money via trading scrolls, potions, wands. And to that Tinkering is 90% based on "Purchasing Reagents" from other PCs. Either Bundles or Schematics need to be procured/purchased and Wizards have infinite income.

Again, something a Rogue would have to sacrifice a level 8 perk to obtain.

All in all it paints a pretty broad brush picture.

+15 tinkering to Rogues to match the boost to Alchemy and Herbalism.

[Egon the Monkey]

Having played an Apothecary Tinkerer for several months, I'd broadly agree. I would suggest bringing the bonus back, but only as +8. Which means that once you count your Rogue levels, you'll have around +15 total to Tinkering.  As it is, it's bizarre that I can easily get a much higher herbalism score than I can Tinkering, when Tinkering is the Rogue's crafting tree. Heal loot is trivial to accumulate, and the Physician Perk's a +4. On top of that, the DCs on Tinkering are just higher by a *lot*. I have made the same devices in Tinkering and Herbalism, and the DC in Herbalism has been often around 20 lower! And the Herbalism recipes could all be made out of shoploot. Whereas Tinkering means I have to haul round bulky schematics I can only make one of per 24 RL hours.

I have bought up a lot of gear for crafting and whereas all the generic Necromantic loot for example has Heal/Lore/Spellcraft, nothing I have ever seen has Lore +Craft Trap. Heck, the only good craft trap gear I can reliably find is the screwdrivers in the starting shop. The Handy Backpack has Craft Armour(!) but not Craft Trap.

I know it was changed to stop Rogue double-dipping on Tinkerer. But without self buffs, and with Craft Trap having literally no other use, it's painful to invest in. I make spellcraft checks in DM events all the time, and extra saves is amazing. And Heal is a skill so fun and useful that I literally built my character around it.

Finally, the schematics. Although you can write your own, the weight stacks up. Much like Blood Vials, could these be reduced to 0.1 lbs, so it is more practical to stash a bunch of them? They're paper blueprints after all.

[Scrappa-yeti]

Might I suggest just a lowering of the DCs on tinkering? Having just played a herbalist, I can agree that the DCs in tinkering seem eye-wateringly high, even for common-or-garden made items.

It would open the field up to rogues more generally, without having to specialise in the one Perk that is already very good for the other bonuses.

[Electrohydra]

As someone who's already played 2 apothecary tinkers and 1 non-apothecary tinker, please don't. The bonus stacking with rogue's level bonus just made it apothecaries where just so much better then anyone else it was impossible to balance.

I think there are 2 issues here, tinkerings state in general, and how good rogues are at tinkering compared to wizards/other classes. It would be wrong to conflate them.

For the latter : I'm not against giving rogues who want to actually specialize in tinkering more options, but it shouldn't be as high as +15 and they shouldn't get it for free just because they are alchemists. It could be something as easy as giving the Engineer perk a small (+2 or +3) bonus to Tinkering, or a whole level 8 perk (Machinist?) that grants a slightly larger bonus (+5 to +7) while also granting other bonuses which would be useful to a tinkerer, such as being able to draw more schematics and bonuses to using what tinkers make (ammunition, traps, siege weapons, etc).


On tinkering as a whole, it certainly feels like a weaker options then both alchemy and herbalism and though it's a lot improved since the start of the server, it could certainly use a little more work.

Lowering the DCs a little certainly wouldn't hurt, at least on the low tier basic themes. This would help not just rogues, but also allow for characters like an archer ranger who wants to craft their own arrows.

Adding Craft Trap on existing/new items (Not hammers! Neither rogues or wizards can use those) would let specialized tinkerers itemize for what they want to do more. (Although if the only Craft Trap item you've seen is the screwdriver, I recommend looking around more, you are missing out on the best item for crafter rogues)

Increase availability of rare bundles. These are so rare as to be virtually non-existant to most PCs.

Add static, hard to reach tinkering benches with bonuses. Many strongholds or other restricted areas have alchemy or herbalism benches that grant a bonus, but -as far as I know-, none of them have tinkering benches.

[Random_White_Guy]

Wizards are good at every aspect of EFU. Rogues have to burn a very important level perk to take a crafting perk already and it is nowhere near as good as it is to be a Wizard in any capacity. Wizards rule at PvP, Questing, Exploring, Alchemy. Having just played a crafting focused PC My options for alchemy were spend a fortune on supplies to protect myself from random encounters or lose 10,000 XP from one random high level death spawn ripping my face off.  A Rogue can go all in on alchemy and all it takes is a Wizard finding a Boosted Table to be a god of crafting while a Rogue still has to worry about a bad roll ending his career for days on end.

Giving Rogues a chance to actually be crafting PCs of the server if they're willing to sacrifice a level 8 Perk which is a huge sacrifice for a rogue to take, isn't a bad thing considering 90% of Rogue survival is based on clever use of gadgets, gizmos, magic, and more.

Having a Rogue be forced to take even more Perks, which again I cannot emphasize in strong enough terms, is a bad idea. Wizards have to do nothing to be gods on the server. Rogues have 3 perks, many of which are useful and it already hamstrings compared to a Wizard which has bonus feats, extra perks, free crafting, and more for FREE without a single choice made. If a rogue is being forced to take a Level 8 perk to become a capable crafter it's silly that they remain one of the worst tinkerers on the server. The only other thing I can think of which would bring parity would be-

Remove Wizard Bonus to Tinkering as they are seam focused on EFU this chapter and Craft Trap/Engineering Wizards feels like a hold over from EFUR.

Make it Rogue + Bard focused and instead of Craft Trap have it be UMD Based since most Rogues and Bards stock heavily UMD anyway and there are items scattered around for UMD use and having UMD as a used skill over Tinkering allows Rogues to not waste an entire skillset only to be "The second best" at something.

As for the "Rogues already good at other crafts with Apotehcary" the point is as a crafting focused PC you need a variety to crafts to work on because reagents, plants, and bundles are rare to come by. There's nothing worse than committing a PC to something only to have scarcity drive you to not using your perk at all while you await something to show up.

[Random_White_Guy]

Also just to hit the math.

A Rogue with the Alchemy or Herbalism perk isn't even close to as good as Druids or Wizards/sorc for one simple fact: A Level 8 Wizard already gets its Wizard Levels to Alchemy. So that's +8/9 native score outright.

The same for Druids with Herbalism. Level 8 or 9 Druid? +8 or +9 vs Herbalism.

The Rogue Apoth perk is mostly a stop gap and a catch up, and a nudge higher for burning an entire level 8 perk and still retains the risk of death by Alchemy far more often than Wizards or Sorcs who take up Alchemy.

The counter though? A Wizard with Tinkering? Also gets + 8 as a Rogue for Tinkering, but also can boost their intellegence for Lore/Craft Trap boosting well beyond a rogue's capability for free every resting. This is for free, this costs no perks, no changes to gameplay, or anything. So a Rogue would have to burn a perk (Engineering) to gain "More Tinkering Focus" while a Wizard... has to cast Fox's Cunning?

Which it gets for free every rest.

[Egon the Monkey]

I'll add that it's possible to buy Brew Potion and Craft Wand now. This is a very positive change, but means you're not sacrificing a character pick to get an economic feat to fund your crafting. 

Where Tinkering really suffers is in the low-mid power level items. The high-power stuff is really cool. But most of the things I've made in schematics are either trash, or cheaper and easier to make with Alchemy or Herbalism.  I largely funded my herbalism research by selling cheap L2-3 spell items and grenades made from shop trash. I can't do that in Tinkering because you can't make much good stuff to order. Even with about half a dozen PCs at a time funnelling Tinkering reagents to my character, I can't do anywhere near the amount of experimentation or reliable production that I can in low-grade Alchemy or Herbalism.  Objects are a bit too rare compared to Alchemical reagents, but not too bad. Schematics are just so much more awkward to get than the other crafting systems' Tier 1 items.

Specific issues:

• You can't make enough ammo. The DC on "50 +1 damage ammunition" can be in excess of 60. You'll burn through those in half a quest, and you can't reliably hit that DC at most labs. Similarly, siege ammo is produced in single shots. You can't make or carry enough to make a siege weapon useable. You're better off just buying the ammo.


• Bundles or quivers would help there, as then you could store multiple shots as a single item in a chest.
• As would lowering the DC on basic ammo and upping the output to say, 200 rounds. Enough that you can make a meaningful amount that's worth selling or using.
• You can't get enough supplies for the low-level crafting.


• Most elemental reagents are incredibly easy to buy at shops cheaply or find as default drops. Many Tier 1 herbalism reagents are trivial to make out of junk or can be bought for <10 gp.
• Yes, you can draw one Schematic a day. But you can't get them in bulk unless you persuade a bunch of people to learn Tinkering and draft for you.
• If Tier 1 theme reagents exist in the Tier 0 loot table for Tinkering, they are incredibly rare. I've found lots of recipes for tier 1 reagents in Herbalism and none in Tinkering.
• Many herbalism  and alchemical reagents are 1 square 0 weight items. Schematics weigh half a pound each and take up 4 squares, so I can't just keep a box full of them to fill orders.
• Tinkering is full of red herrings. You can craft high DC items that are useless and sometimes cannot even be used as crafting ingredients.

I've had success in basically treating theme items like lottery tickets and having a standing arrangement of "Bring me parts and if I make a thing with them I will give it to you". 

I understand that Tinkering is much much lower risk than Herbalism or Alchemy,  but the drop in risk /reward from Herbalism to Tinkering is nowhere near the difference between Alchemy and Herbalism. High DCs don't "make up" for lower risk, they just make you reliant on super labs. Also, wierdly, some of the weak items like ammo have higher DCs than the more powerful items.

• There's nothing I've faced from herbalism  that a prepared rogue can't kill, tank on Evasion or just run away from.  Failures are annoying, or dangerous, or stuff that might be expensive to fight. Failures on Alchemy can straight up instagib you, and you need high level buffs to survive high level alchemy.
• In both Herbalism and Tinkering, the greater risk is "random spawns on the way to the lab" or "Someone who doesn't like your PC stabs them in the back while they are crafting". I really like Herbalism because you get used to the idea of risk without the frustration of instagibs.
• The risk/reward on Herbalism is just so much better than Tinkering because you can reliably make useful stuff in bulk. If someone orders 5 grenades off me I can make them in one go in Herbalism. In tinkering I have to wait 5 days to draw up schematics. 

The one thing Tinkering really does have going for it is there are a number of weak persistent labs, so there's less chance of bumping into someone else's trouble. In general I'd love to see more persistent or spawned labs, so there's more uncertainty over where a crafter might be working. They don't have to have bonuses, just make it so you don't have to choose between "excessively safe faction base lab" or "that one accessible herbalism table where everyone expects they can gank you".

[HeWhoSeeks]

Agree 100%. Wizards already get to coast along with alchemy/herbalism, why can't another class be better at it?