Potion economy and brewing

[Vagrant Savant]

Dissipating potions in bulk -- whether buying, creating, or finding them -- run into the issue of unexpected server crashes and emergency updates. I'm dubious about them being the answer.

It'd be part of their "discount" nature, I imagine. If one's planning on running a quest, or gearing up for a quick attack and finds their gold-to-potion ratio imbalanced, it's a disposable remedy. As dissipating potions are now, even, one doesn't hold onto them in the same bulk as one'd do with regular potions -- since they're never meant to replace the real stuff.

[TheShadow]

^ So, you don't have to farm for 4 months to gain supplies and gear for one DM event / quest / other major occurance , then redo it all, essentially?

[Pentaxius]

I tend to agree with Blue41.

Have NPCs be the "dispensers" of potion.

I'm all for Player driven economy, but not for "comoditized" goods such as potions, where the price isn't elastic at all - due to player OOC expections creeping in.

It would only be interesting, in my view, if all potions were coded as "unique power" to bypass the extreme rigidy of NWN's preset potions. Have crafters be able to create high quality, low quality, poisoned, etc - a wealth of potions where the buyer doesn't explicitly "know" what to expect.

Is it snake oil? Can I trust this merchant? What is his reputation?

We'd then have price elasticity due to product heterogeineity/risk. This would lead to a much more engaging player-driven economy where the transaction becomes a tool of storytelling.

...But realistically, I don't think it's worth the manhours, coding wise - when the energy could be invested in other aspects of the server.

[VanillaPudding]

Most of this was already covered here -
http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?98316-The-balance-of-a-proactive-world&p=409639&viewfull=1#post409639



[hide=""]The supply level - It's well understood that EFU:M had what would be considered a "supply bloat". Potions were all over the place and it was not uncommon for mechanically sound players to have large amounts of them at any point. The setting prior had somewhat less than EFU:M (EFU:A) and maintained a nice balance I believe, in general. I cannot fully comment upon the first origination of the underdark, but it appeared to be rather similar to our current situation (other factors, however, were different I think, and we'll discuss those below.


Overall, I feel as if the current setting is lacking in both amount and variety of supplies found. It relies far too much on an apparent emphasis on player trade and quite simply punishes those that desire to wander, explore, and seek as hobbies. This has caused a vastly reactive and frightened slew of characters, and while that itself is not an inappropriate thing, I feel like it -is- when created by a simple lack of something that should probably be somewhat more commonplace via npcs, treasures, etc.


My suggestions would be to -


- Simply increase -and- add variety (many types of potions almost never appear in random loot tables anymore) to "treasure" rewards all around. You will not be encroaching upon the world of bloat anytime soon, but instead will be allowing more exploration, questing, travel, wandering, and whatever else you might call things that are leaving the "haven". This itself creates more interaction, more proactive characters at earlier levels, and overall helps the world move without DM interaction. There is a huge amount of stuff out there to be discovered, and I've been fairly surprised by the amount of people telling me that they've never seen something before when I myself only recently returned.


- Alternatively, add in "random" merchants of the npc variety that sell potions, wands, scrolls, etc - Effectively custom shops with a pricing level at about double or less of the "standard" pc pricing level. NPC shops with other things in them / that buy things from players simply overcharge by a huge and stupid amount. They are never used and it is really a waste. These merchants could travel upper/lower/mur, possibly make sendings about their intention to trade at certain locations for said amount of time, etc. They could come and go just as the random areas might now, though obviously would want to be less secretive ( in general) than those. A few might  send notice to pure rogues only, or to stewards only, but the point remains the same. [/hide]

[Kinslayer988]

I love having loads'a money to push my plots. Hiring assassins, hiring spies, hiring mercenaries, and investing. All of which are huge for battles and plans. I have felt the potion crunch and I have to say that it:

1. Places more value on magic users
2. Places more value on each item
3. Creates a decision between supplies and gold manipulation.

The bad thing about is that it:
1. Leads to one person having a gigantic supply if they are a bandit.
2. Takes time to recover from a big expenditure of specific magical items/artifacts

I do like the system having coin, coin can do more than a potion. However I would like to see more magical items/artifacts to be found and used.

[Howlando]

This is a difficult issue. I may attempt to apply some bandaid solutions but am not really satisfied with any of the suggestions proposed in this thread.