Giving magic or special item to npc

[Gayel Nord]

I just have a idea.

Miner with adamatium pick.

The production will double!!!!!!

This CAN be a Way to invest money in your job. Tavern with a heroes's feast permanent .

All those thing that item who are more not combat focused and more ecnomic driven could be give the NPc. Of course the deterioration would continue but the gain will surpast the cost.

[leperkhaun]

I love the idea. Expand it so settlement guards start with say leather armor and short swords. Well if your settlement does well you can afford to give your guards +1 gear, then if your settlement leaders are invested in the correct skills you can train your guards to carry chainmail or half plate.

So during those mine gathering operations a gatherer/crafter who trains the right skills can have his miners be more effective at gathering (for example skill is, efficient layout, increases output by 2%). giving your miners better tools increases production, providing better materials for say safety increases morale of your NPCs improving output that much more.

[Uthreth Baelcoressitas]

This is a great idea. There should be some risk though, so if your miners get overrun and killed you should lose those adamantine picks. It might also provide more incentive for an enemy kingdom to invade, if all of your peasants have tools worth hundreds or thousands of gold they could kill your people and take their tools.

As an aside, I think it would be good to have individual management. By that I mean you can give one guard a longsword/shield and another a greatsword. I think you should be able to do this by either giving the item to them physically or through a settlement management system. Giving a variety of weapons and gear to your guards will ensure that they will be ready to face a bigger variety of situations. I'd love to walk through a settlement and instead of seeing every guard look exactly the same and have the exact same gear, each guard was unique. This could also be tactical; give the guards at the main entrance more intimidating looking weapons (halberds, greatsword, etc) and the guards at the side gate more functional weapons and gear. The ones patrolling the walls could have bows or crossbows that might be almost useless in the hands of a gate guard, and obviously giving halberds to a guard walking the battlements would not be as good as a bow or crossbow.

[Rafkin]

I like it

[Gayel Nord]

@ uthreth

You are right. It could be a inventive to being attack. It all to take the risk. But the aspect of taking the gear should follow the idea for looting. (Less than they actually have and threading)

For your other idea. I think that they don't have confirmed the presence of physical Npc (maybe in the starter idea) and attack a settlement is more a mass combat.

But those who will protect camp or some house. It maybe a good idea.

[Being]

I'd expect guard upgrades to come with general defense upgrades, rather like upgrading a keep on the frontier in DAoC. The walls get higher and stronger, the guards get beefier with better weapons, and hardpoints start appearing on the towers for ballistae.

[Bruunwald]

I always find it interesting that players have to come up with excuses to justify handing special items over to NPCs.

If you are traveling with an active NPC and he is a specialist with an item that will not especially help any of the PCs, handing it over is a no-brainer.

You strengthen your character when you strengthen the party, and that includes strengthening NPCs when they are present. The game is played on many levels, including a strategic level. Good strategy demands thinking of everybody around you as a resource worthy of your investment.

[Nonexistent]

I really like the upgrade the troops options for player settlements, you start with a group of peasents with clubs that follow orders when they want to and through many upgrades and training end up with a crack group of fully geared city guards with pikemen, mounted scouts trained to shoot a shortbow from horseback, a company of crossbowmen and patrols walking the streets. This would be a nice gold sink that would have a good benifit at the end.

[randomwalker]

A simple solution to implement is to have certain settlement upgrades require items to unlock.

Ie. A settlement guardhouse could have the following upgrades:
-"improved guard combat training" requires a character with the right soldier skills and rank
-"improved guard perception" requires a character with the right adventuring skills
-"improved guard weapons" requires ten enchanted (+1 equiv) melee -"improved guard armor" requires ten enchanted medium armors.
-"improved guard morale" requires some luxury or consumable items.

All settlement structures (smelters, smithies, even hideouts) could easily have similar upgrades.

If harvesting structures (farms, mines, logging camps) are semi-permanent (produce forever until torn down by spawning mobs), all good. Investing in adamantium picks for your miners becomes a question whether you can protect them when they dig too deep and release the Balrog.

If harvesting camps are temporary (ie nodes run out after short time), then there could still be the option to upgrade with items that are lost if the camp is destroyed/abandoned but returned if it is closed down properly.

I like these ideas because they add strategy and options to the economy game.