Loot power

[Letsplayforfun]

I wish it was more common.

I also wish to point out that the loot power in this setting is 3 times more powerful than what it had been in the underdark.

I tend to agree with this, but a little feedback on this topic would be interesting.

What's the general feeling about it? Do you agree? If so do you like it or not? And for DMs: is it intended?

[Egon the Monkey]

There's a lot of 1/day stuff going round, more so than before, when all that was really common was the Vomit Rat summon pipes.

However, there seems to be less unconditional stealth gear going round than before, or maybe I'm noticing less.

[Yalta]

Not sure i do agree. I have seen plenty of 1/day items but most of the enchantments are weak/useless and are often found in the trash.
 
I have seen plenty of charged items but often they are attached to heavy items, meaning its only practical for most PC's to carry one around.
 
Also whilst charged items are more frequent, coin is a lot less frequent. Most new EFU-A characters have a lot less than they did as new PC's in EFU, from what i have seen.
 
With the only trader giving 12gp per item i can see this staying that way. In EFU if you did a 4-5 quests around Sanctuary with a small group and got a fair share you would have plenty of coin (1000+) in a couple of resets of the server. Here you may have next to no coin after a week+ of playing.
 
I would urge a bit of wait and see from the DM's. Give it a couple of weeks. If things are getting loot crazy then turn down the rewards, if not it can be left as is.

[Oskar Maxon]

I think it's good that the coin is low, as it reflects the setting better. Many items are "better", thought, but the are also a lot of more flavourful items. I've noticed a lot of items giving more skill point bonuses than before, and thought this is powerful, I think it's a good thing. I remember when I started playing Riddle on efu, focusing on the conversation skills and likewise, and getting a +1 Persuade/Intimidate/Bluff item was a good thing if it did not have any penalties. Now I find items with +2, +3, +4 between the three skills quite often. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but generally, the more flavour of the items makes me tend to it being a good change.

What's really good is that when you arrive that +1 dmg club/sword/axe whatever is actually usable, and you'll likely be keeping it for awhile, not having an enchanted one two days later.

[lovethesuit]

Loot? Absolutely, EfU would never have stood for this. Maybe there's a reason there's so much good stuff and so little gold, however. I know of at least three relatively common items that have 10+ charges of Grace/Strength/Endurance, and I know a very easy place to get an item with around 8 charges of Ghostly Visage. Bonuses to intimidate are very common on almost every item I see, almost as if Ymph were saying "Well I'm not the Underdark, but I can be scary too! Look, skulls on my amulets!" Not to say it -isn't- scary, but I find anthropomorphizing my surroundings to be very enjoyable.

It's been said before by player and DM alike, but the consumable "bloat" from EfU is gone. People struggle and fight over these items, rather than simply pooling 3000 coins and spending them on an assortment of potions. It makes a lot more sense to the setting, and makes even a paltry 10 coins very valuable. What I like the most about the powerful loot is that everybody has access to it, and nobody is higher up than anyone else; really, we're all scrounging in the dirt.

Why contain it? It's cool.

[petey512]

I do like the improved loot.... but purchasing healing is a pain in the butt. Every time my character gets poisoned I have to give up an entire weeks worth of gold. The vermin infested tower was a good place to get healing gear.... until recently.... perhaps someone complained that healing rods were much too common. I think it would be cooler if the magical items became more of a currency than the actual gold.

[Howlando]

EFU ambient loot was almost exclusively for the trash.

EFUA ambient loot tends to be more useful.

But I would definitely say that the loot in EFU was much higher than in EFUA, at least for those characters that did the harder quests. In EFU there were plenty of characters with maxed out AC and saves in the mid-teens and up with easily twenty thousand GP worth of consumeables. Not so much in EFUA.

Over time loot/gold/XP will inflate, which I think it should, but hopefully it will be a slow, contained, careful inflation.

We'll be keeping a close eye on things.

[Sr.N]

You can heal poison/disease for 10 gp? Unless I am mistaken.

[9lives]

I believe they mean poison/disease ability damage.

[Vlaid]

I'm enjoying the ambient loot, granted I've only seen the VERY low end of the loot tables, but it's still feeling like the loot you find, you will actually use. It's a big improvement over EFU where unless it was in an extremely dangerous quest, or was a DM quest, you weren't likely to find something that useful other than a very small bonus to a skill you may or may not make much use of.

The lower amount of coins in the economy is doing a great job of keeping everyone from toting a belt full of wands, which I'm betting will make pvp less of a consumable arms race.

[djspectre]

While yes potions were always loved by all in the underdark, this will too again happen. Mainly because people will buy potions from brewers and never use them. Also as characters die in pvp, they will be looted and thus the victor's stash will be increased. This goes on and on as characters die.

I have a feeling that what we see now on the island is similar to what was seen in Sanctuary during the first few months of the servers existence.

I also would like to point out that there are still a number of things that are underdark specifc: Zhurkwood themed items, rothe stew, etc. None of which existed on these tropical islands.

ambient loot from the underdark was often useless. There is no difference between the 300 Washed Up chain and Rusted Greataxes we are finding now than there were with the Sinews, ragweed and other junk because they are so prevalant, they have become a waste and are left behind. The junk pile by the teleporter on the zig often has 3-7 pages of rusted armor and weapons.

I don't know, I like finding items with cool charges of stuff on them, but....I dunno, something doesn't sit right with me about it.

[LackofCertainty]

ambient loot from the underdark was often useless. There is no difference between the 300 Washed Up chain and Rusted Greataxes we are finding now than there were with the Sinews, ragweed and other junk because they are so prevalant, they have become a waste and are left behind. The junk pile by the teleporter on the zig often has 3-7 pages of rusted armor and weapons.

Bolded the important part.


I personally hate this.  When I made Marin, I bought what I could, then immediatly had to start grouping up to get better stuff.  It hasn't been long at all, but in the time I started playing till now, the "cast off junk" piles have turned into loot magnets.

In the Cast off junk piles, I've found:
Scimitar with +1d4 massive crits and +1 intimidate
Leather with +1 to something like 4 different skills
Studded leather with various skill bonuses
Chain shirts
An old large shield with +2 saves vs fear
All sorts of washed up equipment
various other weapons with massive crits


It's ridiculous in my mind and it ruins the experience for lower level characters.  It makes it so that most of the equipment that people find in dungeons is completely useless.  Why should I hold any washed up equipment I find, when people get the stuff for free out of the trash.  Why should a new player save up to buy this sort of stuff from other people when they can just check the trash and get it for free?


My suggestion would be make a new vendor that buys stolen items-- (aka all the weapons/armor/trinkets that the current vendor won't buy)  --for 1g each.  Make it so that he doesn't resell anything (if that's possible) or resell things for ridiculous prices (like 4 or 5 times what it'd cost from the normal vendors)  It would encourage people to dump their excess special loot for a minor compensation instead of just piling all sorts of equipment into those "cast off junk" piles.


(sorry it this came off as a bit of a rant)

[petey512]

I disagree, the crappy stuff in the trash is for newcomers with 80 gold.

[Vlaid]

The trash piles is sort of like the stashes in ranger grottos.

You take what you want, and try to leave something behind for the next people. It's really kind of a cool thing, I wish it would save across resets to make it even cooler, if it was even possible(is it?).

It helps newcomers a lot, and I get the feeling that's why people leave the stuff in the trash. If it's not useful to them, take what you can carry or sell, and ditch the rest. It's not so unbelievable.

[DenGrasse]

...

I agree. If stolen stuff can be sold out (for little payment), even as raw material to smiting/etc., shall be better for all.