Sentath's page

I am now considering the possibilities of a Druid maintaining personal Bioware, or possibly having a companion nanite cloud.

Plantlike symbiote companion for low Oxygen atmospheres?

Personal eco-suit of photo- and chemo- synthesizing commensals?

Companion cybernetically enhanced lifeform?

OZEM'S VIGIL

Currently housing Full Metal Syndicate, Peace Through Vigilance, & Fidelis.

We choose the narrow path.
Come, follow the way of righteous justice with us.

Apply to settle on the mountaintop, in Ozem's Vigil

Let's hope when the new Goblinworks forums open up they'll let us have better ways to sort information as well as send PMs.

PM's are available on this platform. I'll send one. It should cause the envelope to the right of your username (in the very top line) to develop a number after it.

As always Dakcenturi, we are most gracious. =)

Hang on, reverse that. We're grateful and thankful, they're gracious.

Long-term, this is an idea that should be given attention and consideration.

Ryan Dancey wrote:

Basic rule of thumb:

If you say something is "entirely optional", then it means that most players will not do it, and the effort to make the system is mostly wasted.

If you say something gives a bonus, even a tiny marginal bonus if you do it, it means that some large number of people will feel that they must do that thing, no matter how boring and repetitive it becomes, because getting anything other than the absolute maximum value from their actions feels wrong to them. It is not "entirely optional" anymore.

If you have a game system where you get a random bonus, you will create a skinner box where a certain number of people will feel trapped - they have to do the thing to get the maximum advantage, but they can't control if they get it or not, so they have to keep doing the thing until they get the max bonus. If you give them the max bonus 5% of the time (20 on a d20), you're asking them to waste 95% of the time they spend doing that thing.

These are variants on the "wouldn't it be cool if "X" means nobody does "X"" problem. If you give a mechanical advantage to people who are willing to strap on the skinner box and waste 95% of their time, you discourage most people from ever bothering with that game system, which means that the resources you spent to make that game system are disproportionately allocated to a small player population.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9go?Crafting#27

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9go?Crafting#41

What about a minigame system that doesn't change the final product, but can produce it a little faster or more efficiently? Playing the minigames during the period of the item's construction would shave a little time off its production timer or let you recover scraps useful for some other project, but it wouldn't change the production item in any way.

Wait.. Aren't you proposing what Mr. Ryan Dancey shot down in the post you're quoting?

I should add that there is a way to both have unique items and commodities at the same time.

Instead of crafting unique items, you craft commodity items. And then you craft "decoration kits" that are purchased separately and applied by the user. Once applied, the user has a unique item. But that customization is lost when the item leaves the inventory of the person who applied the kit. So you loot a commodity sword and you buy and sell a commodity sword but you fight with a sword with a pink blade.

This is unsatisfying to crafters who want to be the ones who turn a commodity into a unique item, but it has a much wider application to many more players because it puts the agency of fashion in their control but doesn't force them to bother to pay attention to it anywhere other than their own inventory.

What if you shift the application around a little and one can take their commodity sword to a smith to be customized?

I'm not sure that this is the thread for it. But, I may have just had an idea about the UI for crafting.

I think, hopefully, that the right balance can even preserve the spirit of the Pathfinder crafting system.

Crafting in this idea has mini games that are entirely optional. If one opts not to play*, then the character 'takes 10' and produces average product and skill advances modestly. If one opts to play**, then the minigame results count similar to a d20 result modifying the character's skill and advancing skill a tiny bit faster.

I realize that this is an advanced goal. But this is the time to set them.

Someone tell me if this needs to be broken out separately, please.

* no 'ah hah' moments
** allows for'ah hah' moments

Cancer creep and cancer grow,
cells disperse new fields to sow.
Goblins burn it all to naught,
tumors from all history blot.

I may be the odd one out but for both as a player and a GM I enjoy MORE options, I don't see the bloat issue everyone complains about.

A button to turn off dueling

Please, Its one of the things I most dislike about WoW, duel spam.