crafting burst weapons

In regards to Burne, when I originally brought it up I meant he should carry one on his person (ala, his inventory/backpack not his shop's inventory) for his own personal use (since he is a wizard; he has to scribe scrolls... as a rich high level wizard he would have bought such a kit from the traders), although him selling such kits (not his own personal one) also makes sense (what with running a wizard shop).
The only consequence of him carrying one in his backpack is that if he joins you:
1. he has more believable gear.
2. you don't have to manually move around said kit before scribing scrolls with each wizards since each wizard has their own kit. (but thats just a matter of convenience, you still have a kit)

In regards to lack of access being a "consequence" of killing the traders:
1. It is available in shopmap.
2. you can buy it from the traders before killing them
3. you should, theoretically (but you can't in practice), be able to loot it from the traders after killing them.
4. Why would they be the only people in the whole wide world capable of producing and selling a simple masterwork tool? especially the type that every wizard should have?

I am all for there being consequences but that one seems too artificial.

 

Hi Ted
As they would say at a poker table: I'll see your argument and raise you one. I personally feel that the only "store" in the whole adventure where you should be able to buy masterwork weapons is from Otis, and I would set it up so that Otis wouldn't sell masterwork items to just anyone. To be honest, I don't remember Brother Smyth having much inventory in the PnP module, but "realistically" a small village blacksmith wouldn't have the time to craft masterwork weapons and armor, and wouldn't have any real reason to. Look at the "back history" of the adventure. For the nine years preceding the start of the adventure, Hommlet has been a sleepy little village where nothing much happens. There are no wars being fought nearby, the last group of "bandits" were tracked down and "converted" into the town militia, and there are no nearby "adventurer magnets" (a la Castle Greyhawk) nearby. Add to that, the local Blacksmith in most towns is also the local "Veterinarian" tending to the needs of the local farm animals, which will keep him busy shoeing horses and cattle, and healing said same. Add to that, the farmers asking him to fix or repair their plows, scythes, hoes, rakes, shovels, etc.... Brother Smyth isn't going to have enough time to craft much in the way of regular weapons, let alone masterwork weapons. Secondly, why would he want to ?? I can just see him thinking one day: "Gee I don't have anything to do today. What should I do: should I do more of my Druid studies (which I realy am behind on), or should I make an exotic masterwork weapon, that nobody in town can use, in the hopes that a rich, stupid adventurer (who may or may not pass through town before I die of old age) will buy it "Just because" " To be blunt about it: Unless it is RAW in the PnP module, I don't believe Brother Smyth IS a Master Weapon/Armor smith. There IS a HUGE difference between being able to craft farm tools and horseshoes and being able to craft high quality weapons. If you look on page 105 of the 2nd Edition AD&D Dungeon Masters guide, they list "NPC PRofessions", including "Armorer", "Arrowsmith" (not to be confused with the rock band Aerosmith :ninja: ), "Bladesmith", "Blacksmith" (as in Brother Smyth) and "Fletcher" (maker of arrows). As stated earlier, he isn't going to have enough time to spend learning all the craft "secrets" and he isn't going to have much of a financial incentive to have a large inventory of masterwork weapons and armor in stock.
The situation in Nulb is even more problematic. It boils down to simple economics: Who in their right mind is going to "invest" in Nulb ?? Honestly: Otis wouldn't be there if he didn't need a "cover" for keeping an eye on the Temple, ditto for Mother Screng, and where in the nine hells is Ah Fong getting his "Wal-Mart" supply chain of Mithral Armor ?? And why would anyone set up a shop selling exotic weapons and armor in a small town that is really off the main trade routes, and has an unsavory reputation to boot ??
The Royal Canadian

 

Agreed about that part

Excellent point.

 

I forget - do you still have to pay the spell "fee" to cast it off the scroll? If yes, then it's fine for it to just lie around, since you still need a bunch of money to cast it.

My gripe is, though, do we need TWO scrolls? I've never used more than one chest at a time, I'm not even sure it's possible; the way it is, you're just giving out free money since the scroll costs a LOT.

 

I think the scroll makes an entirely new chest.

 

I've never used either scroll, just identified the chest that already exists.

 

Oh. Well, anyhow, IMO there should be one and only EP Chest in game. A unique item of sorts, or something. and it WOULD make sense not to find it until late-game, but I guess Moathouse is a reasonable compromise between practicality and logic.

 

the item (and spells) are meant to duplicate this:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/secretChest.htm

However, this is a far from ideal method of storing items.

There are portable holes, bags of holding, and the best way of them all to store items is:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#handyHaversack

For a mere 2000gp you can store whatever you want AND you get qucikdraw while wearing it.

Seeing as to how the handy haversack costs the same as a +1 weapon enchantment I see no reason to be stingy with the chest...
finally, the chest's only purpose is to reduce the amount of clicks people need. Since there is no time limit, no roving bands that clear out items left on the ground, and no treks through locales you cannot return to (with the exception of random encounters)...

not to mention that you could just buy a cart with mules (100gp cart, 6gp per mule) and cart thousands of pounds of items per cart (the mules graze, you can provide them with food magically, and you can just load up some bale... IIRC its 6cp per day of mule rations or something)

anyways, no it does NOT make sense to get it in the late game. It is perfectly fine getting it early. Since a level 1 party should have no problem affording a cart and mules then they should have no problems getting it (and you don't get it at level 1 anyways)

 

agreed...
I would get rid of the of the scrolls of it though. There is no point to those since you get an at will item of it.

also:
1. It should be named "magical chest" prior to identification.
2. It's shift click long description should inform players that they need to activate it via radial menu...

it took me literally forever to figure those two things out:
1. I didn't realize it was magical, and then I didn't realize it needs an identify spell to use.
2. I dragged it to the "use" button in inventory and then just figured it was broken. I didn't realize its activated via radial menu.

Frankly, I would give it out in the pre module shop screen.

 

Or it could be among the loot for Welkwood Bog

Agreed with taltamir on the necessary fixes, though. I mean, if the current goal is to restore vanilla balance, two extra scrolls worth 5050gp each do just the opposite.

 

vanilla wasn't balanced, vanilla wasn't even complete ...

the problem of the game balance as I see it now is that it starts out way too hard and ends up way too easy...

my simple solution would be to:
1. start players at level 3 unless they increase difficulty.
2. increase the power of later enemies.

The idea of controlling party power via XP multiplier is not very good because XP is a river, the higher your level, the less XP you get per kill.
As for money... max out appraise and you get near market value on items you sell... craft any wonderous item, sell it, repeat, until you have as much money as you want to craft what you want...
but most people don't play that way so controlling the loot is good...

BTW, those scrolls are worse then you describe... you can sell the chest for 50k GP if memory serves me right... then use a 5k scroll to create a new chest... repeat. The scrolls should not exist, the chest should have a cheaper GP sell value, and if someone sold it and regrets it he can spawn one with the console.

Or just make the chest unsellable and make it acquired via a quest...

 

Wait, the chest has a 50k gp sell value? How does that make sense? Shouldn't it be 5050 like the scroll or the summoning cost?

Starting players at level 3 would defeat the purpose of having low-level content. There's a certain charm in low-level battles that you can't get on higher levels, and imo there's no reason to remove it. In fact, Co8 is ADDING it in 5.8.0 with the Bog. Early-game is certainly my favourite part of the whole game, and I can't say it's "too hard". Everything up to the Temple is an appropriate challenge, unless, well, unless you skipped all of Homlett FedExing.

The later enemies have already been powered up a bit compared to vanilla iirc (the AI was improved). The balance before 5.7.0 was even worse, where you could be level 10 before reaching Temple level 3. I'm hoping Reactive Temple will make it to the final 6.0.0 release, thus making the Temple put up a much better fight than before. Until then, the endgame can be made less easy artificially by "inventing" restrictions for crafting, and maybe other things, if there's a need for challenge.