crafty

[Brokenbone]

ALFA has had a funky past with this workshop business, some far past servers (starting with NWN1 North Underdark) using "2e-like" expensive workshop rules. Like, 5000gp shop or whatever.

Currently BG's "Crafting and You" thread (http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 42&t=43921 the sort of "everything you needed to know about mundane and magic"), started by Danielmn years back, retains a condition of:

"You must have a crafting table to do your work, ergo a place where you can do your work. Crafting tables range in prices, starting at 500 gold. "

Condition could always be removed though by any local team. I think some PCs have paid for workshops, altars, whatever over the past, which might just mean "hey, I've got a fancy place to do this!", coolness of a dedicated space is all right RP fodder. Old school crafters have probably profited oodles and oodles beyond a 500 or even 5000gp table by this stage though so it may be a "who cares"?

...

Whenever Amn goes live, there's presumably ways to make own vibe of "arcane magic distrust" evident, or catching wizards with their pants down, etc., whether scripted, asking folks to alert DMs if there's any more than staying in a spot for 2 days plus for crafting, etc. I would not worry about "immediate system redesign" at present.

[t-ice]

Well, anyways, at this point I do feel the need to point that all the work that went into building the system is appreciated and admired. My comments can come off as overtly negative when not so intended... The purpose is just to get the handles to use such systems to empower and work together with DMage as opposed to undermining each other.

Taking the chores of facilitating the mechanics of things like crafting off DM hands is of course a great thing. But automating the engine doesn't have to mean letting go of the controls as well. Quite the contrary, in the best of worlds it can greatly empower those controls.

Whether that is done via "crafting stores", or separate restricted crafting areas, etc, is another question. Back in fully-DM-manual crafting at Exodus we ended up figuring that folks with appropriate status to access to top grade magic workshops could craft significantly faster than folks sneaking away time for it in shady inn rooms or the roadside. Essentially a DM ruling "under these circumstances on average X% of your time is available for effective, uninterrupted crafting".

In a campaign the DM can freely declare limits to time (eg. so and so much time is lost due to you being interrupted by X; A wild adventure forces itself on you!). In a PW it is all more complex, and that fudged time percentage was how we made a difference between ICly more dedicated and established crafters (someone invested in a whole workshop), and adventurers who seemed to craft on the roadside while they rested (someone who just picked the feats). Maybe moving the 0/1 of cannot/can craft into a float between [0,1] is something to consider for this system, and linking it with DMage, in the future. (Most PCs do some kind of adventuring anyway, so one could argue even in the best of workshops that float would be something like 0.5)

I mean if the FR rules would say that you can work magic just as well in an inn or by the roadside as in your own tower, then isn't it curious that FR mages tend to so overwhelmingly favor the latter, far more expensive, option? And build useless magic workshops instead of luxurious mansions.

[Ronan]

Unlike NWN1, module-side scripts override hak-placed scripts. So replacing acr_feat_craft with some server-specific rules is possible. In the next release I'll have a acf_feat_craft, a one-line script which calls the code currently in acr_feat_craft, so it will be easy to add additional logic (for SM or Amn, say) if desired.

I mean if the FR rules would say that you can work magic just as well in an inn or by the roadside as in your own tower, then isn't it curious that FR mages tend to so overwhelmingly favor the latter, far more expensive, option? And build useless magic workshops instead of luxurious mansions.

Spell research and other forms of crafting require more extensive libraries and equipment.

[Castano]

Let's stay on topic: we're talking crafting potions, scrolls and wands here, not devil summoning, building golems, studying super powerful artifacts, or even enchanting a dagger here.

[Zelknolf]

Unlike NWN1, module-side scripts override hak-placed scripts.

Possible, sure. However, failure to fully incorporate the ACR bumps a server back to alpha, according to our Server Stages Documentation. We should not recommend that anyone actively override it, as being compliant as a live ALFA server requires maintaining a separate version that updates with the ACR, which we all know can quickly become a burden-- if server-specific hooks are required for things, then we're much better off just writing the actual hook.