Policy Changes

[flurry]

Using logic, maybe if he was a merchant/thief, hmm?

There are no skills that you can get mastery of by picking a subguild.

[Intrepid]

Ok, I have to ask one more thing...

Does a merchant just get all the crafts, a random number, or does
the player get to choose which crafts are in the mix?

I'm considering making a basic craftsman for my next pc, IF my
current one ever dies.  IF.

[Bestatte]

Ayashah, the docs are clear:

Stonecrafters make their living collecting and shaping stone, including making adornments from semiprecious and precious stones. They have a sharp eye for the value of such items.

Tailors can create clothing, as well as color the cloths with which they work. Living on the fruits of their labors, they are skilled at driving shrewd bargains.

Weaponscrafters make their living making weapons of various types, including swords, spears, and knives. They are also quick to realize the worth and recognize the craftsmanship of these products.

Now I agree, that this doesn't mean that these characters MUST make their living doing these things. But it definitely does mean that they have the capacity to make their living doing these things. And if they ARE making a living doing these things, doesn't it make sense that they would become much better at these things, than someone who doesn't even start out with those skills on their skills list?

If it doesn't make sense, then the help files need to be reworded, so people coming to the game for the first time won't assume what I and Intrepid assumed: That people who choose a crafting subguild CAN at some point master that craft.

[wizturbo]

Merchants begin with a set of "basic" crafting skills.  Then as they become accomplished in those crafts, they begin branching new crafts fairly rapidly.  Merchants can also choose a subguild, to receive the crafting skills assosiated with that from the very beginning, making a merchant/crafter subguild combination pretty good.  For all you out there who say why choose the crafter subguild when you'll branch those abilities anyway... *shrugs*  Why choose the linguist subguild when you could learn all those languages on your own?

[Sanvean]

Twilight, you're right and I'd overlooked some of the others.  Those classes will have the option to create stuff if they're at a sufficiently high level.

[Sanvean]

As has been discussed several times on here, the subguilds represent what the character was doing before they entered play.  They are not intended to be a substitute character class.

[Ayashah]

Ayashah, the docs are clear:

Stonecrafters make their living collecting and shaping stone, including making adornments from semiprecious and precious stones. They have a sharp eye for the value of such items.

Tailors can create clothing, as well as color the cloths with which they work. Living on the fruits of their labors, they are skilled at driving shrewd bargains.

Weaponscrafters make their living making weapons of various types, including swords, spears, and knives. They are also quick to realize the worth and recognize the craftsmanship of these products.

Exactly, they make their living doing that. It doesnt say they make UBER DRESSES OF DOOM to make their living. Not everything is perfectly crafted but when someone wants cheap goods, they might go to a second rate, third rate or whatever to get those goods cheap.

*wink*

[Bestatte]

Twilight, you're right and I'd overlooked some of the others.  Those classes will have the option to create stuff if they're at a sufficiently high level.

Ah well that makes much more sense. I withdraw most of my concerns regarding this issue.

[Vanth]

Person A has a regular day job, and on their weekends and time off they do some whittling of wood.  They may be pretty good at it, able to carve small pieces of furniture or create realistic wooden figurines, etc.

Person B's job consists mainly in making things.  They are adept in working all kinds of material, especially wood.  They know how to make all sorts of wooden stuff, from furniture, to weapons and armor, to jewelry, to entire wagons.  They can also bring in skills, ideas, and experience in working with other materials, and creatively incorporate those cross-craft techniques in innovative ways.

Person A may make a lot of really cool wooden stuff.  Person B should eventually be able to make almost anything out of wood.

[Bestatte]

Idea then:

Person C came from a long line of Kadian clothworkers. That's all they did - make clothing. It's what they did for Kadius, how they got paid, they never had to learn to do much of anything else. Of course, being a brutal world, they also took some lessons in self-defense and combat, because often they would have to bring things to the Kadius shop and need to know how to defend themselves in case they were mugged. A shield - eh. A backstabber would laugh, and there's plenty of those. No, these Kadian clothworkers were smart and learned how to use short blades, which took up less space than shields, so they could carry more of their creations to the shop.

Person C wants to be a clothworker too. She grew up watching her parents and cousins make gorgeous things all day long, and she was blessed with the agility needed to create things herself. And clothworking is her chosen craft, because it's what she knows best, what she grew up with.

She ALSO wants to learn to defend herself, but primarily, she wants to be a clothworker. Not a basketweaver who eventually learns how to sew, not a dagger-maker who eventually learns how to pick up a needle and thread. She has no interest in those things, and no practical experience which would lead her to such tasks. She is majorly into beautiful clothing, and wants to outfit the best of the best, with the best of the best.

So - her player picks the warrior/clothworker guild, picking and choosing skills that will best flesh out her character's desires and background and goals.

The player never read this forum, he's new to the game and new enough to the GDB that he doesn't know all about archiving and looking for threads which may or may not exist. The player only has the help files and documents at his ready disposal. And lo and behold..he finds that there are such people as clothworkers! Not "warriors who make clothing as a hobby" but actual people who might call themselves clothworkers!

And then he starts playing, and wakes up, and finds out it was all a dream.

Please change the help files to reflect that these subguilds are only things that people can do - and that they will NEVER be able to do them very well. The individual subguild help files is what Im talking about.

[da mitey warrior]

Guilds are also a measure of TALENT as well as training.  A warrior who cooks all the time, and even gets a job as a cook will still suck because he has no talent.   A merchant who only crafts himself a sandwhich every second ocandra will still be better than the warrior because he has the knack for it.  It's the same deal as a merchant who spends 20 years in the Byn and still gets beat up by newbie warriors.

[wizturbo]

You can do them very well.  You just can't design new things.  And i'm HIGHLY doubting the staff will say no, if your primary focus of the character revolves around their clothworking.  If you spend 90% of your time involved in clothworking related things, like fitting customers for dresses and talking to customers and making things...then i'm guessing the staff will let you design your own clothes once in a while, but NOT to the same "master" level of a merchant.  Because they are warriors, and would never have the same potential as a merchant.

[Tlaloc]

Bestatte - In your scenario, it sounds as if your person wants to be a crafter, who knows how to defend themselves alittle. In such a scenario, I would pick a Merchant, with an appropriately 'warriorish' subguild, such as mercenary, thug, guard, etc. This is because, to me, the main idea of the character is that they are a crafter, who dabbles in weapons/fighting/training/whatever.

The subguild should define the the characters minor interests, or background history, not the main guild.

Edited to add:

In response to the -last- part of the post (heh, should have read more closely):

The subguild helpfiles state this:

Subclasses                                                       (Character)

  Subclasses are intended to round out characters with regards to
their primary guild. They are not substitutes for a primary guild.
A thief class will be a better thief than a warrior with the subclass
of thief.  Below is a list of the current coded sub-classes and a
brief description of each.

To me, this is pretty cut and dry. A thief "class" (guild) will always be better than a warrior with the subclass 'thief'. THe same for warriors with the 'tailor' subclass, and merchants.

[Bestatte]

Understood, Tlaloc - I was a bit concerned because Sanvean had mentioned earlier that -only- the Merchant guild would ever acquire mastery. She clarified that in a later post.

I'm still wondering though - bards have an enormous amount of writeup and are not merely a subclass. They're also a big to-do in the north, requiring special application and/or recruitment to get into. Will a merchant class PC master instrument making, and bards never master it? Even bards who have dedicated their entire lives to music, by virtue of their bardic births and bardic bloodlines?

I don't even know if instrument making is one of the bardic skills - I remember vaguely some posts about it in the past. I only played a bard sub-class once, very early on when it first came out.

[mansa]

I'm still wondering though - bards have an enormous amount of writeup and are not merely a subclass. They're also a big to-do in the north, requiring special application and/or recruitment to get into. Will a merchant class PC master instrument making, and bards never master it? Even bards who have dedicated their entire lives to music, by virtue of their bardic births and bardic bloodlines?

Bards do not start with the instrument making skill.  However, if you are a part of the 'Bards of Poet's Circle' clan, eventually, through role-play, you might take on a skill in that shape.  If your character devotes their lives to that.  There's always exceptions to the rules, because of reason and roleplay.

Cases like these are up to the Immortals in charge of those clans.  You could make up other examples, for people with weapon skills in Salarr, and clothing skills in Kadius.

[Ayashah]

You know, I was thinking on this in the shower today. (Yea yea yea, laugh all you want. Its a great thinking place!) This change might be a really good thing. I know I have posted opposing thoughts on it but sometimes you have to step back and take a look at the big picture and not just how it affects your pc.

This might be a leading thing to actually make pc merchants a reality instead of them running to sell what they can to shopkeepers because pcs wont buy off of them. Now these pc merchants, if they get good enough, could have specialty things to sell that the merchants wouldnt have. This could definitely stimulate more rp and interaction between players.

Kadius might drool after something an independent made up and try to buy the designs. Miss Fancypants Noble might like the design so much she's willing to pay a few large a year to keep you from making it for the opposition. This could go a long way in any crafting guild for pc to pc rp.

I would definitely like to see these submissions kept as crafting items only so that they arent just slapped into shops later on without some pc physically making said item.

[Agent_137]

Kadius might drool after something an independent made up and try to buy the designs. Miss Fancypants Noble might like the design so much she's willing to pay a few large a year to keep you from making it for the opposition. This could go a long way in any crafting guild for pc to pc rp.

Or she may have you killed, enslaved, or just plain tied up. Heheheh.

But yes, I agree with your assessment.