Weapon Crafting

[Sephiroto]

What is so fundamentally different between weapons that there need to be 8 different weapon crafting skills?

It makes sense to me that if you can shape stone and bone you should be able to make pretty much any cutting edge.  The only difference then is attaching it to a handle, i.e., axe/maul/polearm or making an elongated blade (sword).  As for clubs....yeah right.  Some of the most effective clubs in the game require almost no skill at all to produce.  It's only the pretty ones that nobles carry and rich, crappy fighters carry around to make themselves look badass that actually take some skill.  And let me ask....and pardon my bluntness...but WTF does carving nice, pretty detailing and engraving...and attaching jewels have with making a functional weapon that smashes skulls open?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.

It's too late to do this on 1.Arm, but how about we consider dumbing down the weapon crafting skills in the next game and require higher levels in additional skills such as jewel making and stone carving, or whatever the skills are, as prerequisites for producing more complex weaponry and armor.

[mansa]

What's the difference between flamestrike and fireball?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/flameStrike.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm

Just different power levels, you could say....



Isn't a SAP just a BACKSTAB with a club?



However, due to the core rules of the game, we have different skills that do slightly different things, and if you don't have the skill, you can't do the deed well.  It's part of the game that we play.
I'd rather have more skills, and at minimum, a 10% chance to succeed at anything non-magickal.

[SMuz]

I'd strongly agree with the OP. Gameplay-wise, I think having 8 different skills is actually a disadvantage. If you make a lot of spears, you'd still suck at making axes. And if you made a lot of spears and axes, you'd still suck at the other 6 skills.

On the list, it looks like a lot, but really, it's no more than if jewelrymaking were split into ringmaking and earringmaking. Doesn't the armorcrafting just use a few generic skills to craft all types of armor too?

So, yeah, I hope it could be changed in 2.Arm.

[Sephiroto]

Isn't a SAP just a BACKSTAB with a club?

Not exactly and I shouldn't have to go into great detail to explain it to you Mansa.  Simply put, backstab is much more complicated unless you're some small-minded RP'er who thinks backstab actually means stabbing someone in the back and -only- that.  Furthermore I don't understand why it takes a lot of skill to be proficient at sapping.  The element of surprise (hide/sneak) plus the ability to squarely club some doofus over the head without missing (bludgeoning weapons) is about all it takes to knock someone out.  I've had a PC kill an NPC in two hits with -mercy on-.  He wanted to knock her out but he didn't have the freaking sap skill.  Yeah right.  If he can smash her skull open and leave grey matter on the pavement then he can sap her.  I tried to RP.....but no skill equals no win.

~Anyway~  /derail

[X-D]

I was thinking the same thing earlier when I read Krath's post on ask the staff.

I mean, first of all, there is armorcrafting and leatherworking, with only 2 skills you can craft pretty much every bit of the HUNDREDS of craftable armors IG.

Cloth working an you have every other bit of clothing covered.

But weapons, no, you have to have 8 different skills to cover them. Personaly I think that should be reduced to edged weapons, Blunt and bows. Really I think it should be just melee and bows, but hey, what are the odds of people agreeing?

Still. Let us assume I can manage to make a knife from bone or stone. Alright, I choose bone. Manage to get it sharp and pointy. Now, Why is it I cannot figure out how to tie it in some manner (all methods IRL to do this are pretty simple) attach it to a pole? So, I do manage to do so, Boom, spear. Alright, Now, I make a somewhat wider knife, break it in half and sharpen the flat side, attach it to a thick stick at an angle...OMG, I have crafted an ax!  Alright, now I take my knife crafting skill, work it up to larger longer blades...GASP...A SWORD!

On to blunt weapons...Look, if you can carve a hunk of bone or wood into a spear or knife, you can make a damn club. Mace? Hammer? Well, if you can attach a blade to a pole/branch to make a spear or ax then I'm pretty sure you can manage to do the same with a blunt round or square rock.

Bows, sure, totally different set of crafting skills there.

[Synthesis]

I agree with X-D.

[spawnloser]

I like what X-D suggests, though I would argue for at least four (slashing, piercing, blunt, bow) weapon-crafting skills.

My real beef with the weapon-crafting is the subguild.  The subguild weaponcrafter has a major flaw in its design and I will not play another unless I know that the (to me) major problem with this subguild is fixed.

[Thunkkin]

Wise things

From Vanth's post:

armor making: 248
leather working: 181
Total: 429

bow making: 78
fletchery: 486
Total: 562

axe making: 19
club making: 16 (mostly Salarri)
knife making: 130
spear making: 45
sword making: 48
Total: 258

cloth working: 906
dyeing: 65
Total: 971

Hmmmmmm ...

Of course, no crafter will be able to make all that (due to clan restricted items), but it doesn't seem to me that the number of weapon crafts is so high that it requires that many skills.  Nor would giving the 16 (mostly Salarri!) club crafts to weapon crafters be so unbalancing ... I mean, it's 16 crafts.  Compare that to other crafting groups ...

[Delstro]

I definately think we should go to a system that makes more sense.

List Weapon crafting skills
Bladed weapons making (would include daggers that would be used for piercing)
Bludgeoning weapons making
Piercing weapons making (Would include spears and arrows)
Bow Making
Simple weapons making (This is a skill everyone would have, it would basically allow you to sharpen sticks, make shanks, tie a string to a chitin helmet, wrap a leather cord around a branch, etc)
Exotic weapons making (This would be a catch all for the rest of the weapons that don't fit into the above catagories, such as bolos, whips, etc)

I would -love-, -love-, -love- if a stone crafter/jeweler/etc could further add detail to a finished product to make it fancier/prettier/more expensive/less useful.

[Cavaticus]

We're currently in the (long, tedious, long and tedious) process of expanding the less-useful crafting skills by giving them more recipes. That means that even though clubmaking isn't great right now and could probably be added to the weaponcrafting subguild no problem, it wouldn't necessarily be fair once the group gets expanded.

That, plus the fact that subguilds simply aren't supposed to represent extremely broad abilities, but rather small specializations or points of interest that your character has developed. If you want a broader array of crafting abilities, either play a merchant or throw in a special application.

As far as being able to make extremely crude weapons, this could maybe go into the "junk" recipes we have that lets people make crude torches and whatnot. But if you're a layman, tying a bit of leather around a branch is probably just going to get you a broken branch the first time you try using it.

[spawnloser]

Wise things

From Vanth's post:

armor making: 248
leather working: 181
Total: 429

bow making: 78
fletchery: 486
Total: 562

axe making: 19
club making: 16 (mostly Salarri)
knife making: 130
spear making: 45
sword making: 48
Total: 258

cloth working: 906
dyeing: 65
Total: 971

The problem with statistics is that they can be misleading.  Fletchery, for example, is very mix and match with a whole HOST of recipes that are really the same arrow... and then there's a big pile of recipes for another arrow that are all the same... the cosmetics are the only difference (which color fletching is used).  I think that this skews the numbers horribly.  By the same token, for clothworking, there are SO many recipes that are identical except for the color... for every color linen, there are the exact same recipes repeated on the next color and the next... and the same for silk and sandcloth... it's ridiculous how many crafting recipes look cookie cutter when you actually play someone with some of these crafting skills.  By the same token, just about everything made with leatherworking, armorcrafting and all of the weaponcrafting skills are unique... there are very few cookie-cutter craft recipes where the only difference is color among these skills.

Just remember, 99% of statistics are misleading, and 50% are made up on the spot.

[Vanth]

I think that perhaps the division of all those skills was not a great idea, but I also think there's not really a good 'fix' for it in 1.0.

For 2.0 there's a couple of different possibilities.  One would be combining skills, perhaps along the lines of Thunkkin's divisions. 

Another would be to eliminate skills like swordmaking, spearmaking, and even jewelrymaking, and just base it on the material.  So if you're good at woodworking, you can make weapons or jewelry or dishes or tools out of wood.  But you would not be good at making those things out of stone. Unfortunately there are many things made out of multiple materials, like stone-headed wood-handled axes.  So then do you have to be good at both?  I dunno.

[FantasyWriter]

  So if you're good at woodworking, you can make weapons or jewelry or dishes or tools out of wood.  But you would not be good at making those things out of stone. Unfortunately there are many things made out of multiple materials, like stone-headed wood-handled axes.  So then do you have to be good at both?  I dunno.

I like this idea A LOT!

[X-D]

Unfortunately there are many things made out of multiple materials, like stone-headed wood-handled axes.  So then do you have to be good at both?  I dunno.

The thing is, most of these items have a primary component that takes skill and the others do not.

Let us consider a knife of stone.

Chipping the blade properly without ruining the stone takes skill. Wrapping the tang in leather to make a handle does not...or little. So, no need to be good in leather working and stone working.

A spear, same thing, (which is a major problem with spearcrafting today BTW) Crafting the spearhead, sure, takes some skill, Finding a suitable length of wood and smoothing it for a shaft...not really.

Figure out what is the part that takes the most skill and there you go.

And for gods sake, do some research on these things before putting them into the game, items and skills. I find that is my biggest peeve with items and crafting and dealing with staff on items and crafting. Sadly, 95% of the time when I deal with staff on these subjects I find that the person (though nice enough to bother with me) Are completely clueless on the subject.

Also, the arguement that many staffers have that subguilds are not supposed to be very broad is often...silly.

Specialy since most of them ARE. Armorcrafter sub comes with all but 1 skill needed to make every craftable bit of armor IG. Clothing as well. Archer comes with every skill for bowmaking but one and even gets an extra to deal with leftover feathers.

Weapons crafter on the other hand, the most straight forward sounding subclass of all, is missing some weapons crafting skills and spearmaking is broken, look I can make spear heads, but for the life of me I cannot trim down a sapling into a pole to mount it too. Although IRL I can do this in about 15 min with nothing but a slightly sharp rock to work with.

The reality is, weapons are VERY straight forward to craft. Pretty much if you can manage one type, you can manage all types (melee weapons, not ranged).

Taking Vanths example of a stone headed wood handled ax. I was watching discovery a couple years ago and it was showing a south american tribal making a lumber ax.  He had a stone, a river stone about the right shape, he ground it on another stone for an hour or so. He then used that stone to trim down a sapling and smooth it, took maybe 15 min. Then he used a smaller stone to make a hole in the end, he then pounded the head into the hole and proceeded to chop down this MASSIVE tree...huge, like2-3 feet dia and 80+ feet tall.

He then used that ax to split the tree (with wooden wedges of course) And hollow it out to make a canoe.

In one days time some naked guy, starting with nothing but a rock ended up paddling down the river and fishing for his food. If asked would he say he was a master ax maker? I doubt it, ship builder? No.

Arm crafting skills are too finely managed. To do the same type thing in arm you would need to be a master crafter, know a lumberjack, you would break 10 chunks of rock to make the ax head, 20 branches for the handle and you would need the entire kadian logging camp to provide you with enough logs for the canoe.

Hopefully in arm2 these things are considered, it simply is not hard to make simple, good, servicable items.

I do like the thoughts people have on having other skills to modify an item. A weapons crafter should have 1 skill...crafting melee weapons. With that he can make any weapon, but it will be only servicable and plain. If you want it engraved, you need the engraving skill, if you want it gemmed you need the gem setting skill. These are trades IRL that take some work to learn so should be separate.

[Riev]

. Unfortunately there are many things made out of multiple materials, like stone-headed wood-handled axes.  So then do you have to be good at both?  I dunno.

What about a system similar to what EQ2 had (shut up) wherein, yes, you are good at say, woodworking. But because you need that stone head, someone -else- has to make it for you. Perhaps the stoneworker only knows how to make axe heads, but he's making BANK off these people that need them to finish their axes. Perhaps down the line, he needs a wooden hilt for his club.

If there were a way to decide which weapons we mainly stoneworking, and which were wood or bone, that'd be great.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I DO like the idea of encouraging community crafting. It shouldn't be -required-, but encouraged? Absolutely. If more high end items required other crafted items, that would be grand. For instance ...

... the sword man makes a sword. He makes sturdy swords. They have hilts, pommels, cross guards and blades. He wants to make a copper sword with a embroidered hilt and scrimshaw pommel. He also wants an engraved crossguard of wood. He can't make any of this shit. He makes swords. That's his skill.

So he hires a metal man, a bone carver for the scrimshaw, a woodsmen for the engraved wood, and a clothier for the hilt. He takes their final products and makes the copper, ornately-designed, cloth-hilt sword.

Wait ... yeh, what Reiv said.

[Morrolan]

I would like to see two skills applied to each item (most items?).  The first is the "shape material" skill.  The second is the "end product" skill.

With the "shape material" skill one can make a "crude" just about anything of that material.

example:
> craft branch
OOC: this uses the woodworking skill.
You could make a small crude club.
You could make a crude club.
You could make a large crude club.
You could make a two-handed crude club.

>craft branch into a large crude club.
You craft the branch into a large crude club.

>craft large
OOC: this uses the weapon crafting skill.
You could make a war-club.

>get bone bag
You get a small piece of bone from you bag.
>get bone bag
You get a small piece of bone from you bag.

>craft club bone bone
You could make a bone-spiked war-club.
You could make a bone-toothed war-club.

Morrolan

[spawnloser]

I am opposed to people NEEDING others for even half of the things they are to make.  Why?  Because some people play off-peak and would be penalized by their playtime.  Normally, those that are playing in off times can play a character that is somewhat independent.

[Clearsighted]

We're currently in the (long, tedious, long and tedious) process of expanding the less-useful crafting skills by giving them more recipes. That means that even though clubmaking isn't great right now and could probably be added to the weaponcrafting subguild no problem, it wouldn't necessarily be fair once the group gets expanded.

That, plus the fact that subguilds simply aren't supposed to represent extremely broad abilities, but rather small specializations or points of interest that your character has developed. If you want a broader array of crafting abilities, either play a merchant or throw in a special application.

As far as being able to make extremely crude weapons, this could maybe go into the "junk" recipes we have that lets people make crude torches and whatnot. But if you're a layman, tying a bit of leather around a branch is probably just going to get you a broken branch the first time you try using it.

Well. Armorcrafting, tailoring and leatherworking is pretty broad already. There are twice as many recipes to be made by armorcrafting than all of the weapon recipes currently in existence.

Expanding the weapon recipes is a great idea, but I think in the long run, it might be better to treat weaponcrafting in a similar manner to armorcrafting.

Though I think bow making and fletchery should remain separate skills.

OTOH, I can also see all of this being too much of a pain in the ass to address before Arm 2.0, and the best short term solution being to merely expand the recipe list. I imagine there can be alot of complications with removing, adding, or merging skills.

[Krath]

X-D Said it.

Krath Endorses X-D

[Qzzrbl]

OTOH, I can also see all of this being too much of a pain in the ass to address before Arm 2.0, and the best short term solution being to merely expand the recipe list. I imagine there can be alot of complications with removing, adding, or merging skills.

Which, then again, Arm 2.0 might still be in the making two years from now....

[Synthesis]

Community crafting isn't such a big deal as long as you have shops that buy all the intermediate, non-finished goods.

If a "bone crafter" can load the shops up with "bone spikes," then the weapons crafters can buy the spikes and use them to craft "bone-spiked clubs," even if they're playing off-peak.

You just have to make sure that there are NPCs who can serve as clearing houses for these sorts of things.

[Krath]

OTOH, I can also see all of this being too much of a pain in the ass to address before Arm 2.0, and the best short term solution being to merely expand the recipe list. I imagine there can be alot of complications with removing, adding, or merging skills.

Which, then again, Arm 2.0 might still be in the making two years from now....

And This

[Halcyon]

Community crafting isn't such a big deal as long as you have shops that buy all the intermediate, non-finished goods.

If a "bone crafter" can load the shops up with "bone spikes," then the weapons crafters can buy the spikes and use them to craft "bone-spiked clubs," even if they're playing off-peak.

You just have to make sure that there are NPCs who can serve as clearing houses for these sorts of things.

This also presumes population density and consistency.  I don't see enough of either currently, at least in the merchant population of the cities I play in.  I'd be worried that designing to enforce cooperation between merchants would just mean unusable skills in practice.

[Synthesis]

Community crafting isn't such a big deal as long as you have shops that buy all the intermediate, non-finished goods.

If a "bone crafter" can load the shops up with "bone spikes," then the weapons crafters can buy the spikes and use them to craft "bone-spiked clubs," even if they're playing off-peak.

You just have to make sure that there are NPCs who can serve as clearing houses for these sorts of things.

This also presumes population density and consistency.  I don't see enough of either currently, at least in the merchant population of the cities I play in.  I'd be worried that designing to enforce cooperation between merchants would just mean unusable skills in practice.

If you made NPCs who buy certain things, people would probably pick subclasses that crafted it.  Although, honestly...I think the reason we don't see more general crafters, tinkers, or stone crafters is because the things they can craft are (mostly) pretty cheap things that you can't easily make a fortune on. 

In contrast, a ranger/armorcrafter could probably rule the fucking world with the amount of 'sid you can generate over time.  But it's not only that:  everybody wants to be best buds with the subclass physician or subclass armorcrafter or subclass weaponscrafter, because they can make shit that most PCs want.  Who gives a crap about baskets, ropes, goblets, and plates?

One issue:  if you changed crafting to be materials-based...certain crafts may never get picked.  E.g. if you had obsidian crafting, wood crafting, bone crafting, and leather-working...which ones do you think would be immensely popular?

[Sephiroto]

Another thing I was considering about crafting on Arm is that when we succeed at making a piece of armor or weaponry it is basically perfect.  Most of it never breaks under average conditions.

Would it not be interesting to see crafters of lower skill succeed at the final product, but have its quality reduced?  Zalanthan items are not made in a factory.  They're made individually and often times by many different crafters.

While I agree that items produced by the GM Houses should be of excellent quality, it's not like they have a QA department that tests everything.  I'd like to see some small change of even GMH items being of poorer make.  Independently made items should surely have varying quality and durability based on the skill of the maker plus some random quality variance.

[musashi]

That would be a great idea for 2.arm I think.