Bandagemaking is too hard

Started by Delirium, June 21, 2017, 03:40:42 PM

OPINIONATED POST:

It really shouldn't be this difficult to cut cloth into even strips.

It definitely shouldn't be so impossible to apply salve to bandages (and the echo of dropping them on the floor is just lol, COME ON GUYS). I think that along with updates to bandaging, bandagemaking could use a look at.



(and let's not get me started on the cooking skill either)

June 21, 2017, 03:45:41 PM #1 Last Edit: June 21, 2017, 03:49:34 PM by FantasyWriter
I would disagree with you a year ago, because bandages were +25 healing spells.
With the change to bandage, I agree. At advanced or higher, you should have a 90% success rate on all but master crafts in any crafting skill. I am far from a master carpenter, but my shit is right or at least workable when it gets done.  For most crafts, I think non-critical failures should result in a lower quality product than intended being created instead of nothing. You fail bandage making? You get scraps of cloth or the simplest craftable bandage instead of "dropping them in the dust."
Quote from: Twilight on January 22, 2013, 08:17:47 PMGreb - To scavenge, forage, and if Whira is with you, loot the dead.
Grebber - One who grebs.

Quote from: FantasyWriter on June 21, 2017, 03:45:41 PM
I would disagree with you a year ago, because bandages were +25 healing spells.
With the change to bandage, I agree. At advanced or higher, you should have a 90% success rate on all but master crafts in any crafting skill. I am far from a master carpenter, but my shit is right or at least workable when it gets done.  For most crafts, I think non-critical failures should result in a lower quality product than intended being created instead of nothing. You fail bandage making? You get scraps of cloth or the simplest craftable bandage instead of "dropping them in the dust."

That single change would go a long, long way. Give you a few scraps of cloth instead of nothing at all.

I think the entire crafting system could use a little work.

I like it, don't get me wrong, but there are times when I really need something to work. "Get that meat ready, recruit. We're going to be out in the field a long time." You drop it in the dust. SHIT!

A dirty Bynner looks around to see if anyone is looking and then retrieves the meat from the dust and brushes it off.

A dirty Bynner shouts, "Two second rule!"

So I'd like a flag or condition to maybe put extra care into a crafting attempt. Maybe it takes 3 times as long but is more likely to succeed, or maybe you remove the skill-up potential from it altogether. Or whatever you think is fair and balanced.

Sorry for the derail. It's a pretty hefty job. If you notice on the mastercrafting screen, you submit as part of the mastercraft what happens on failure. Some of these items just don't make sense to lose EVERYTHING. (Really? I broke BOTH planks? What was I using to nail them together? An inix?). But the lists have probably been put together over 20 years and maybe not always with the best QC in mind.

Quote from: Delirium on June 21, 2017, 04:00:50 PM
That single change would go a long, long way. Give you a few scraps of cloth instead of nothing at all.

Or even, wonder of wonders, a lower-quality but still functional bandage object.
There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men. -George Eliot

Quote from: Tisiphone on June 21, 2017, 04:36:50 PM
Quote from: Delirium on June 21, 2017, 04:00:50 PM
That single change would go a long, long way. Give you a few scraps of cloth instead of nothing at all.

Or even, wonder of wonders, a lower-quality but still functional bandage object.

Madness, Tisiphone. Madness.

(I am, of course, in favor of lowering the difficulty of bandagemaking. And cooking. For the love of god, I don't know how any Zalanthan lived over the age of 10 with the price of food and the difficulty of cooking.)

I've always just had to shake my head at how silly it is that a bandagemaking fail leaves you with nothing useful.

The material you use for basic bandages is a section of cloth that is 10 cords by 3 cords.
A cord is something like 15 inches, which means a length of this fabric is 150 inches by 45 inches (12.5 feet by 3.75 feet).

I have a big sheet of fabric, 12 by 4 feet (estimate) and really all I'm doing is cutting it into thirds.  If I somehow fail this incredibly basic skill that I figured out when I was a child (cutting fabric) I have not a single scrap of cloth, not a shred of fabric, nothing useful at all? 

Have I gone all Edward Scissorhands on this section of cloth or something?
Why do I colossally screw up cutting fabric, to the point I have nothing useful, when 'salvage' allows me to actually rip up anything made of cloth and almost always end up with a useful piece of cloth?

I've idea'd this (how you should, at the very least, end up with a scrap of cloth when you fail making basic bandages) more times than I can remember over a period of several years, I don't bother anymore, I just make a slightly funny IC emote/comment and roll my eyes OOC and carry on shredding up more fabric.