Issue of Merchants and sub-guilds with related skills

[Incognito]

I've put in some thought on this subject, and am gonna try to put the idea into as clear words as possible.

After studying the sub-guilds - which have basically been introduced to "round up" or "round off" a PC - I have found that TOO many of the sub-guilds are breaching into the territory of the Merchant Guild.

To clarify further - if you study each sub-guild, and compare them to the basic guilds, you will find that none of the sub-guilds have the "main skills" of their respective parent guilds.

For example, there's no sub-guild which has backstab or there's no subguild which has pick, or peek etc etc. Magicker classes dont even figure into this issue!

So what does that leave us with? A whole bunch of sub-guilds which are basically "raping" (pardon me for using such harsh language) the Merchant Guild, and it's IC importance.

First, the collection of the "crafter-type sub-guilds" namely - Armormaker, General Crafter, Jeweler, Stonecrafter, Tailor, Tinker and Weaponcrafter.

And then, to make matters worse, the "nomad-type sub-guilds" namely - Caravan Guide, House Servant and Nomad.

Between all of these sub-guilds, almost all of the skills which are supposed to be unique to the Merchant Guild, can be made available to PCs of other Guilds.

It really nags me that the Merchant Guild - which is already a niche role in itself is being diluted and it's importance is really at stake, by spreading out almost all of the "main skills" of this guild to other sub-guilds.

Most folks probably think "Why should I play a merchant, when I can play any other Guild, and choose one of the sub-guilds which have the merchant skills?"

I haven't even mentioned about the other Guilds and Races who get the Merchant Guild skills as "innate" skills.

I love playing merchants. Even though it's a hard Guild to play, as compared to others, I enjoy it, due to its uniqueness. I am saddened that the sub-guilds have leeched into that special uniqueness.

I would strongly suggest removal of haggle and piloting from all sub-guilds to begin with. Also, it would not be out of proportion, to decrease the crafting skill levels, of the crafting-type sub-guilds.

I would go a little further, and request the Merchant Guild to be beefed up in some other manner, to compensate its diminishing importance in the OOC sense.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Crafting things, in a world such as this, is a more basic skill than fighting is. Therefore, the current manner of sub-guilds containing crafting skills is realistic.

[Tamarin]

Yes, but the merchant guild gets -all- of these skills.  It's pretty difficult to make a living when you can only craft one or two types of things.  You make lots of your wares, but the stores don't buy them all because they've got too much.  A true merchant, on the other hand, can make a little of everything.

[Incognito]

If that is the case, then why can't Merchants become decent fighters too?

[Larrath]

I am against this.

Merchants don't only get crafting skills.  Merchants start with a lot of extra money, they get their own freaking language, get haggle and are practically the only ones with a good Value skill (which is useful for more than just telling costs, by the way), and they get to eventually have just about every crafting skill, and they get to be the best at all of them.

A stonecrafter or jeweler might get stuck with just a handful of crafting items that they can really make a profit of, and have to compete with everyone else for the handful of, say, obsidian chunks left in the shops.  A merchant, on the other hand, would be able to just pick up whatever and turn it into a valuable item.


Finally, Merchant is a difficult guild because it requires cunning and the ability to make friends and contacts.  When it is played correctly, however, and its abilities are brought into good use, they can leave everyone waiting in the dust.
Someone is giving your merchant too much competition?  Bribe a templar and have them thrown into the Arena, or hire an Assassin artist and have them killed!

Merchants already get the tremendous advantage of being able to make custom items.  They don't need more help, and I don't think crafting subguilds are all that overpowered either.

[Larrath]

I don't see why merchants need any fighting skills, either.  They can just hire someone to do their fighting for them.  No one guild should be able to do everything.

Also, why is it that this poll lacks an option that says "I don't think Merchants are underpowered in the least and I do play them"?

[Maybe42or54]

Yes. Though you can rip off a merchant of it's subguilds.

You don't even touch on the massive amounts of money they can make.

[Marauder Moe]

Aren't subguild crafting skills capped much lower than merchant crafting skills?  That means that there are things that a merchant can craft that the matching subguild can't.

Also, believe it or not, there's good reason for a merchant to take a crafting subguild.  It lets them start out in a certain profession without having to waste a lot of time and money trying to branch the right skills.

[Incognito]

I don't see why merchants need any fighting skills, either.  They can just hire someone to do their fighting for them.  No one guild should be able to do everything.

The issue is not about any guild being able to do everything........

Its more an OOC concept with regards to the game, and the Merchant Guild......

Haggle, Value, Pilot and the crafting skills, are all that the Merchant Guild gets......

One way or another all of these skills are aquirable via various appropriate sub-guilds......

On the other hand, this is not the case with the "main skills" of most other Guilds......

Crafting things, in a world such as this, is a more basic skill than fighting is. Therefore, the current manner of sub-guilds containing crafting skills is realistic.

Its a cruel world and a violent lifestyle on Zalanthas, unless you're in one of the city-states, and then too, some parts of those cities are also violent.

So why is crafting more basic than fighting on Zalanthas?

[Elgiva]

I believe there are some crafting skills which are unable to get with a subguild but which are possible to get during playing a merchant.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Its a cruel world and a violent lifestyle on Zalanthas, unless you're in one of the city-states, and then too, some parts of those cities are also violent.

So why is crafting more basic than fighting on Zalanthas?

Crafting things begins at an elementary level. Fighting off jakals without a stick is a very hard thing to do. Making that stick pointy improves your chances even more. In that brief thought, you have used the spearcrafting skill, to make a stick into a spear. Improving on the spear of course is a natural next step.

Or, what about that water? Gotta have it, and you obviously can't camp next to the pool and expect to survive, can you? So, make a skin, or something like a bowl to hold water in.

What about housing, or tents, or any of those things you have to have to survive not only the outdoors, but the weather?

This is why I see crafting as a much more important skill than fighting. Crafting gives you the tools to do whatever it is that you do. That's why Merchants are more important than fighters, in the grand scheme of things. They make the things that make the world go around.

As to why crafting in the limited sub-guild aspect is a skill you can expect many to have, see my above examples.

And I should have said advanced fighting skills, not just fighting.

[Maybe42or54]

Skills a merchant gets and a subguild doesn't.
From helpfiles.

Instrument making.
Tent making.
Wagon making.


Those sound good to you?

[Sanvean]

Aren't subguild crafting skills capped much lower than merchant crafting skills? That means that there are things that a merchant can craft that the matching subguild can't.

Yep.  There is no case where a subguild skill ends up being higher than a merchant one, and usually it's a pretty big gap.  There are also a number of crafting skills available only to merchants.

[Angela Christine]

Slant your polls much?    Every answer assumes that merchants are not powerful, but merchants ARE powerful.  A merchant can scoff at all the crafting subguilds, because none of them will ever master their single crafts.  A stonecrafter can never become a Master stonecrafter unless he is also a merchant.  That means that there will be things the dabbler will never become skilled enough to make.  Master craftsmen, ie merchants, are also the only ones allowed to design new unique items now and only once per month.  There are also crafts that are not available to any subguild, like tent making and wagon making, that you can only get with a merchant.  From what I've seen the bartering ability of subguilds doesn't come anywhere near that of a true merchant, those guys can get HUGE discounts.  After a few skill branches a merhcant can use almost anything that they find foraging, very little material is wasted, so they can spend less time foraging.

Merchants are rare, but there are some good reasons for that.

1.  Nobody likes being weak.  You don't plan to get into fights, but the idea that some newbie pickpocket could kick your ass is discouraging.  And you basically will never get better.  You could join the Byn and 10 years down the road your merchant will still be getting his ass kicked around the sparring ring by newbie warriors.  This is mostly a problem of perception and habit, most of us have played CRPGs, online RPGs or P&P games where combat skill was a very important part of every character -- even the wimpy magic-users would try to optimise their equipment and skills for combat.

2.  The materials crunch.  You blow through your newbie money, and now you have no materials.  Do you go out alone to forage, knowing that a pissed off tregil could kill you?  Try to get a buddy to forage with you, and hope that he doesn't use his vastly superior combat ability to kill you once you are out of the gates?  Hire people to forage for you, then sit on your thumb waiting to see if they ever come back?  Join a clan, and hope that the PCs in charge of gathering materials gather enough, and that they don't die or get bored, because your clan rules likely prohibit you from going out alone.  With a clan or without one, merchants can blow through materials in no time flat.  It takes a while to be making enough profit from a craft that you can finance your own materials.

3.  Craftaphobia.  Some people don't like crafting, or don't like having to constantly worry about whether they are spam-crafting or not emoting enough.    Crafting alone in your room gets dull pretty fast, but if you craft in public you somehow aquire the duty to entertain any PCs that happen to be nearby, or else they will accuse you of spam-crafting.  Hunters don't have to worry about it, they only have to impress/placate the staff, but people who use code around other PCs have to worry constantly about their performance.  The self-appointed RP police are pretty judgmental.  

4.  Geographic limitations.  It is much, much easier to play a merchant in Tuluk than it is anywhere else, simply because half of the merchant's starting crafts are very difficult to use without access to the forest.  I'd like it if there were two merchant guilds: the current (northern) merchant guild, and a southern merchant guild that would have wood-dependant crafts like arrowmaking, lumberjacking and woodworking appear much deeper into the skill tree, and in return have a couple non-wood crafts appear earlier.  As it is, playing a southern merchant is very challenging.

To be successfull using code the merchant either has to do a lot of crafting, which can be dull (just how many ways can you emote carving a bone into a few bone needles, or a block of wood into a tembo statuette?) or they have to travel and make their money by bartering their way to profitable trade routes, which is very, very dangerous.  

The subcrafters haven't been an issue when I've played a merchant.  It is true that I am more likely to make a travelling trader be a ranger than a merchant, but that would be true even without subguilds, because a newbie ranger is much more suited to travelling between the cities than a newbie merchant.  If carts or the sort of covered wagons used by settlers and gypsies were available and affordable, then merchants would have the mobility a dune trader needs.  But by the time a merchant can make, buy or rent a small wagon he is already skilled and rich.  There is no way to get a "cheap" cart, even in the north where wood is relatively abundant.  I'm not talking a huge multi-room rolling monstrosity, but a wagon that would carry about as much as 2-3 kanks and would need to be pulled by 1, 2 or 4 kanks.  Part of the problem is that every wagon needs a pricy security system, because they are left "unattended" when the owner's PC logs out, even if he logs out inside the wagon.   Maybe major public wagon yards could be like public stables, and lock the wagon away keeping it safe but unaccessable until you remove it, then the carts themselves could have cheap "privacy" locks or no locks at all, making it nearly as easy for bandits in the wilderness to rob a cart as it is to rob a rider.  What a carter gains in imediate security he loses in visibility, from inside a wagon you can only look "out" so you can't see what is comming up ahead or following behind.  But there is the advantage that if there is a sudden blinding storm you can park your cart, and hunker down inside to wait it out rather than having to sit in the storm itself.  


The crafting subclasses make nice hobbies and disguises, but they are no competition for a real merchant.


Angela Christine

[Ghost]

In this sense...

Subguild "thief" buys a lot of the pickpocket guild.

Subguild "hunter" buys a lot of the ranger guild.

Subguild "Thug".. You know you can attach it to a fighting class and call it assassin.

A combination of seven subguilds buy most of the merchant guild?  So what?  No single character can have all of them.  But just taking the thief subguild you rape the pickpocket guild more than any single crafter sub rapes the merchant guild.

No need to point out, merchants have other skills besides crafting even.

[PantoufleUNLOGGED]

Subguild crafters cannot become "Master Crafters" according to the new policy regarding custom item requests.  I think that's a pretty distinct advantage.  If you want your weaopnsmith buddy to craft you a neat, custom designed bejweled dagger, you better hope he's guild_merchant and not just a subguild weapon crafter.  Why?  Because subguild crafters are not "professionals", nor will they ever be, ergo the prefix 'sub'.

Subguild crafters also only have access to a handful of crafting skills, at best, whereas guild_merchant can, eventually, have access to every single one.  Thus you can imagine how large a "Maxxed" Merchant's skill list is.  

As well, merchants are quite simply a power house for acquiring money, moreso than any other guild.  They are excellent barterers.  Subguild barterers just don't compare.  This isn't IC info, it's common sense -- that's like hoping your subguild mercenary can fight as proficiently as a guild_warrior!

And that's just a few of the advantages guild_merchants have over any of their inferior subguild counterparts.  Trust me, none of the crafting subguilds come close to guild_merchant.

[Xygax]

The great irony of this thread, of course, is that only a day or two ago someone started a thread complaining about how lackluster the combat systems are, and how the whole world is populated with political types.  The merchant (even an independent one) is a brilliant political character, and, played right, can become more powerful by far than even the brawniest of pure warriors.

Unfortunately, yes, fledgling merchants start out a wee bit vulnerable.  All your starting 'sid isn't going to help you much if you immediately wander out into the wilds hunting halflings, or storm through the nearest Kadian shop buying every frilly, lacy, silver-stitched garment you can get your grubby newbie paws on.  If you want power, you'll have to plan for it.

The other thing is....  power and glory aren't everything.

A couple years ago, I felt the same way about the class as this original poster, and so I set out to prove myself right by creating a gritty, desperate, hungry merchant-type and see how far I could advance him in the world (and, admittedly, in his skills: I was and still am fascinated by Arm's crafting systems).  The day he died, he died travelling the north road with a bag of trade-goods and personal items worth thousands of coins (and had quite a bit more in the bank), and was being guarded by one of the strongest warrior PCs the game has ever seen (alas, bad luck and a bad decision will still get you killed, no matter how tough your bodyguard is...  sometimes I still load that warrior PC friend up on the testport and try him out against mekillots bare-handed -- he lives longer than you'd expect).  I had a lot of fun playing that merchant, and he wasn't necessarily widely known, nor even extremely powerful (he was resourceful and connected in his own limited way, but as an independent it is more difficult to mark out huge territory and vast power), and he was also one of my more real, believable characters, I like to think.

He remained gritty, desperate and hungry throughout his life, and I did have fun exploring his crafting skills (and exploring the world trying to feed them and profit by them), and he really wasn't much of a tavern-sitter, either.  I feel that the tavern-sitting is worth a mention, since a lot of people assume merchants are doomed to tavern-sit.

The trick to surviving on Arm is knowing when and how to run away, and that's the case for the strongest warriors and the feeblest merchants, and if you know those tricks as they suit your class, you can live a long time doing anything.

-- X

[Bestatte]

I don't know if I'll ever play a merchant *class* character, though I've had many merchant-personality characters.

I'd rather see the merchant class renamed "Master Crafter" class, because it just fits better and is more truthful.

For me, the notion of having dozens of possible craft skills on my list, is pointless.

Seeing armorsmithing on my list and knowing I can some day make custom stuff doesn't give me a thrill -at all- if I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in armorsmithing. I'd rather be a hunter type, who studies the bows I use when I go hunting, and ultimately become a master bowyer.

Unfortunately that isn't an option in Armageddon, though I really wish it was.

[Agent_137]

That was me complaining about the politickers, Xygax.

My next character will be a merchant, for the record. I'm trying to work my way through the guilds. (Counter-strike gets in the way, though. So does college, and a girlfriend, and alcohol.)

I refuse to vote in the poll. I would choose this option, if it existed:

"I've never played a merchant, but from what it looks like, they could be powerful if played right, just like every other guild. The only thing is they require more brainwork to become powerful. More role-play and politicking and less just straight practicing your skills."

On other news:

What does THIS mean???

I still load that warrior PC friend up on the testport and try him out . . .

Do you have copies of characters saved before they die? :O Was he just stored? :O omgomgomg.

[Incognito]

Slant your polls much?   :P  

Angela Christine

Admittedly, the poll options were sarcastically worded, and meant to be more in a lighter mood than taken seriously ;)


Additionally, in response to Maybe42or54's post, there _is_ another sub-guild which is supposed to get the Instrument_making skill. I guess that just leaves Tentmaking and Wagonmaking.

And since I'm posting on this thread again, I'll take another moment to highlight my point.

I agree that realistically speaking, folks on Zalanthas would end up learning one or two crafting skills. I also agree that those folks would never be as skilled as merchants.

What I've been trying to emphasize is, that it could and should work in the reverse direction too, i.e. that merchants who work in hostile environments like the rinth, or are dune traders, would also have developed a good amount of self-defense, and combat skills, so why not give merchants a chance to choose some sort a sub-guild which will "round them off" too?

Maybe a special sub-guild which can be only chosen by the Merchant Guild, which will give them decent combat capabilities, and help them be a little more self-reliant?

Or are we trying to say here that merchants, by rule, on Zalanthas, are automatically a wimpy set of people, who will never learn to defend themselves, or even go out hunting to gather their own materials.

[Mook]

Maybe a special sub-guild which can be only chosen by the Merchant Guild, which will give them decent combat capabilities, and help them be a little more self-reliant?

Or are we trying to say here that merchants, by rule, on Zalanthas, are automatically a wimpy set of people, who will never learn to defend themselves, or even go out hunting to gather their own materials.

Subguilds hunter/archer/possibly thug.
Problem solved.

[da mitey warrior]

Merchants are a million times better at crafting than any subguilder.  They start off better, they learn faster, they max out higher.  They can craft the high-level difficulty items that no one else can.  They can design their own items.  They also barter much better than anyone else so they can buy materials cheaper and sell goods for more.  There's really no comparison.  A smart merchant with little to no risk to himself can make massive amounts of money without every leaving the city.  

They can even use all these subguilds themselves to get a headstart on everyone else.  Want to be the ultimate jeweler?  Merchant/jeweler and you can make feather rings from day one.  Or Armorcrafting and bandaging, which are both very hard to branch into as a merchant, starting with those skills is a real boon.

Merchants are the ultimate social character.  Scan, listen, barter, value, all are super duper.  They are overpowered if anything, the only thing that stops merchants from dominating is that people don't like being weak combat-wise.

[Ghost]

They are overpowered if anything, the only thing that stops merchants from dominating is that people don't like being weak combat-wise.

.... And that some people do not like the crafting idea at all.

[Bestatte]

From http://www.armageddon.org/general/guilds.html#merchant

Merchant

Merchants are the blood which binds the world together, the carriers of desperately needed goods from one land to another. Usually descendants of the old Dune Traders, merchants quickly learn the ways of the desert, the most profitable trade routes, and possess a handy charm for making friends of even the bitterest templar.

Merchants possess the ability to ride animals and pilot the argosies that cross the lands between villages and cities. They are also skilled at guessing an object's value, getting excellent prices from all but the stingiest traders, and noticing every detail around them.

While faced with a hard life, merchants are often the richest people in any given city-state. The most sure way to find work as a merchant is to travel widely, joining caravans at every opportunity. Whenever he can, a merchant ought to find a village's or a city's traders and learn the prices of things there. By compiling this knowlege (knowing true object costs can be invaluable in doing this), the merchant can devise superior trade routes and make a great deal of money.

I'm wondering if a lot of newer players aren't picking merchant for their primary guild because it doesn't mention ANYWHERE in the official description that they have -any- craft skills at all?

Maybe a mention should be included..like..

The merchant usually uses the items he has crafted himself in his trade, and when he isn't selling products, he is often found making them. Some merchants will focus on one type of crafting or another, while others might dabble in a myriad of raw materials to create a wider variety of goods to trade. So driven by profits is the merchant, that he might strive to become a Master Crafter, the elite of the elite in the world of crafting.

or something like that.

[wizturbo]

Not a bad idea Bestatte.