Goblin Squad Member
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I'm using Nightdrifter's excellent training calculator to play with some builds, and I'm having a very hard time raising Con without investing in a trade skill.
I need Fort Bonus 3 to hit Cleric 6, needing 12 Con. I can just barely get there if I raise hits to 12, power to 18 (!), and buy Great Fort, Toughness and Recovery Bonus.
Two levels later I need 14 Con for Heavy Armor Prof 2 which is a requirement for Crusader 6, and there's just no way to get there without a tradeskill.
Shield attacks boost Con, but that's not going to help much since you need Strength you don't have for Heavy Melee in order to raise those attacks. And there are no side skills based on Con- there's no Endurance or anything similar, just as in PF TT.
So based on what I'm seeing so far, a con-based tradeskill is actually a hard requirement to level to Tier 2 as a cleric. Am I overlooking anything?
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Goblin Squad Member
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It was said recently (I don't recall by whom, but it may have been Tork) that there are 'other ways' to improve, we just have to find those things.
If I were to guess 'other ways' might entail harvesting or PvE combat, or maybe PvP combat, or exploration achievements. There might be a tie in to factions, possibly specialized faction training.
But there is so very much we still do not know that none of these may be the 'other ways'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope they make a wiki listing the ways to raise each attribute, so folks could have an easier time leveling up the attributes.
We're working on getting the spreadsheets into a database so you can query, for example, everything that raises Dexterity and sort it in complicated ways. I'd like to be able to sort it by Total XP Cost to Acquire over Total Cumulative Attribute Bonus, for example.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope they make a wiki listing the ways to raise each attribute, so folks could have an easier time leveling up the attributes.We're working on getting the spreadsheets into a database so you can query, for example, everything that raises Dexterity and sort it in complicated ways. I'd like to be able to sort it by Total XP Cost to Acquire over Total Cumulative Attribute Bonus, for example.
I love doing that kind of thing, but my only DB experience is Filemaker, so unless someone has access to a FM server, I'm not much use.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love doing that kind of thing, but my only DB experience is Filemaker, so unless someone has access to a FM server, I'm not much use.I hope they make a wiki listing the ways to raise each attribute, so folks could have an easier time leveling up the attributes.We're working on getting the spreadsheets into a database so you can query, for example, everything that raises Dexterity and sort it in complicated ways. I'd like to be able to sort it by Total XP Cost to Acquire over Total Cumulative Attribute Bonus, for example.
If you have a lot of experience designing data models, I'd love your input. We already have access to a database, and I'll be writing a Web Service to let folks access it from their own Web Applications.
Ideally, I'd like to get a reasonably automated process to update the database based on new spreadsheets from the devs, and another to produce the wiki templates for Lee's spreadsheets to upload into PFO.PathfinderWiki.com.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To get back to Guurzak's actual question, I think your analysis is correct and the only way to get the required Attribute scores to advance is to dip into some of the Crafting Feats.
Decius also recommended I look at some of the Rogue Armor Feats to work up my Dexterity on my Wizard.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd go a step farther in put it in a MySQL Database.
Though I'd likely go up to 3rd or 4th normal form in it's design.
Yeah, MySQL really kind of freaks me out. I work with Oracle all the time, and consider Constraints to be one of the most important things you can put in a database. When I realized all the hoops you have to jump through just to be able to put some constraints in a MySQL database, and how even then many of the constraints aren't actually enforced, I jumped ship completely. I really hate SQL Server, too, but at least it enforces the constraints I put in place.
Web Applications that use the Web Service won't need to worry about the database, though, so it won't matter if it's SQL Server or MySQL.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope they make a wiki listing the ways to raise each attribute, so folks could have an easier time leveling up the attributes.We're working on getting the spreadsheets into a database so you can query, for example, everything that raises Dexterity and sort it in complicated ways. I'd like to be able to sort it by Total XP Cost to Acquire over Total Cumulative Attribute Bonus, for example.
Adding something like this to the calculator at the moment. Likely will be implemented to print out a list of suggestions based on the next untrained level rather than total over all levels. As soon as I figure out why the code is being wonky...
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Goblin Squad Member
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For the issue of raising Con, it seems tradeskills are likely a necessity at the moment. But bear in mind that the csv files in the calculator are only a subset of what we'll see in game, so perhaps there are more options for Con coming.
Edit: Here's a screenshot of the calculator's Con suggestions when starting out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Similar problem cropping up for wizards. Eg. to get level 8 wizard requires Mage 6 which requires Clothing Armor Proficiency 2 which requires Dex 14. Wizard 8 requires Int 14 which can be reached primarily through the required feats plus several cantrips/expendables and a bit of dabbling in knowledge skills. Knowledge adds to loot, so it's reasonably useful to wizards and those cantrips/expendables are of obvious use. Dex 14 is much more challenging to get without getting completely unrelated feats.
Edit: Using the 'suggestions' for dex I was able to get wizard 8 in less than a month of xp (~22.5 days), but have tons of feats that can't be used together. Levels 9-14 are reasonably easy once you have that extra dex. So it may just be a lack of Con feats that is the issue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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While not cleric or mage related, a big thanks for delving into these kinds of things guys. I'm thinking of combining fighter and rogue skills, and was wondering how the whole Str and Dex requirements (along with Con) would pan out. Looks like you all are well on the path to mapping these kinds of things out!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Based on info we have, if you trained up every feat in game to max level your ability scores would be (each starts at 10):
Str = 62.1273
Dex = 83.6067
Con = 35.3374
Int = 81.819
Wis = 74.9188
Per = 49.6219
Note that the highest prerequisite ability score we've seen is 20 and these numbers are all likely to change as more gets added. It's basically impossible to train up everything to max anyways, but the above numbers at least show how well represented each score is in terms of what's available to train. Constitution is hardest to get up, followed by Personality. Strength (Fighter), Dexterity (Rogue), Intelligence (Wizard), and Wisdom (Cleric) all have a role that is closely associated with them, so they're all relatively simple to find stuff to train up. As more Personality based roles get added (Aristocrat, Bard, Sorcerer) Personality should get easier to raise. Constitution on the other hand ... dunno.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And con is in the critical path for leveling any role in medium or heavy armor, so we definitely need more options for raising it.
It looks like getting either fighter or cleric fully leveled requires significant investment in not one but two con-based tradeskills. That design will lead to market saturation with metal ingots, and no profitable niche for commoners.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is where I start to worry a little, Guurzak. If I train Fighter and Rogue skills now, with the aim of being a Ranger when they come out, and I use medium armor, so I need to branch into a bunch of trade based skills that I'll never use? Sure, one or two gathering skills is fine, but from your post (and Nightdrifter's last) it seems I need to plan those trade skills to be con based.
Not a huge issue, as I am sure things will be added or change over time - I just like to plan the skills my characters get in advance and a new system such as PFO is introducing is making that a little murky for me now.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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And con is in the critical path for leveling any role in medium or heavy armor, so we definitely need more options for raising it.
It looks like getting either fighter or cleric fully leveled requires significant investment in not one but two con-based tradeskills. That design will lead to market saturation with metal ingots, and no profitable niche for commoners.
Maximizing smelting can be done smelting only six items. You need a common and uncommon +3 or better of each tier.
Right now you'd probably also want to trade tanning, sawyer, and probably carpentry for additional constitution and crafting feats. I really hope that more skills get added, or constitution benefits get adjusted, so that crafting feats are not strictly required to advance in armor skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If your long term plan is medium armor ranger, I'd probably go pure fighter for now, follow a medium armor feat path, and add skills like survival as convenient. Not sure how much rogue is going to help you along this path.
And yeah, at this point, the only way to get the con you need is miner, smelter, sawyer, tanner, and carpenter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Decius, I was thinking about the xp investment more than the achievement time.
But that raises an interesting question: are there training prerequisites on learning recipes which would prevent you from simply creating a +3 ingot as your first make? It would make more sense to me to require a stepwise progression like we see in other areas of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Similar problem cropping up for wizards. Eg. to get level 8 wizard requires Mage 6 which requires Clothing Armor Proficiency 2 which requires Dex 14.
Dex for wizards and Wis for rogues is much easier to train by taking cheap levels of adventuring and trading skills. Con is harder based on the current data.
(Ironically, I expected Rogues to be the most MAD class, but it turns out they may be the least).
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I remember correctly the reason commoners where to said excel at gathering is because they have the greatest encumbrance, not because they have the best gathering skills.
It doesn't matter what commoners are good at if there's no market for their goods. If you force all adventurers to train gathering and refining skills in order to level, the markets will be flooded with cheap crafting supplies, leaving no useful purpose for commoners regardless of their advantages.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My understanding was that knowledge skills improve the volume of yield from a gathering operation, but don't change the quality. Harvesting better stuff requires more harvesting skill, not knowledge. I could be wrong on that, but it doesn't seem desirable from a play balance standpoint to force dedicated miners to max out an Intelligence-based skill in order to find the best ore.
If you're a cleric/fighter with mining already trained pretty high and you wander past some shiny rocks when you have nothing pressing to do, you're probably going to stop and pick up some free money at least some of the time. Multiply that times the entire armored population...
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's a player-made document, not an authoritative source. The developer statement that we have on the subject is that knowledge skills will help you get "better loot from creatures when you're opening creature chests." Skill impact on harvesting proper is not documented that I'm aware of.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Skill impact on harvesting proper is not documented that I'm aware of.
Working on that :)
I already have a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 2 with no Knowledge skills, and a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 6 and Nature 8 (and other similar Knowledge skills). Now, I just need to get a sample at Forester 6 with no Knowledge skills, then add in only Nature 6 or something similar.
Of course, a word from a dev could obviate my need to do all this...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Skill impact on harvesting proper is not documented that I'm aware of.Working on that :)
I already have a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 2 with no Knowledge skills, and a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 6 and Nature 8 (and other similar Knowledge skills). Now, I just need to get a sample at Forester 6 with no Knowledge skills, then add in only Nature 6 or something similar.
Of course, a word from a dev could obviate my need to do all this...
Hehe
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Decius, I was thinking about the xp investment more than the achievement time.
But that raises an interesting question: are there training prerequisites on learning recipes which would prevent you from simply creating a +3 ingot as your first make? It would make more sense to me to require a stepwise progression like we see in other areas of the game.
Currently you only need the recipe; you can learn ingots +3 as soon as you can make ingots +0. I don't know if that will change later, but if it does it will harm the economy by requiring more production of resources for reasons other than sale.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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My understanding was that knowledge skills improve the volume of yield from a gathering operation, but don't change the quality. Harvesting better stuff requires more harvesting skill, not knowledge. I could be wrong on that, but it doesn't seem desirable from a play balance standpoint to force dedicated miners to max out an Intelligence-based skill in order to find the best ore.
Meaningful choices. It isn't easy to be a dedicated ANYTHING.
Which means that there will be fewer cookie-cutter builds that waste the mathematical minimum with no tradeoffs.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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But that raises an interesting question: are there training prerequisites on learning recipes which would prevent you from simply creating a +3 ingot as your first make? It would make more sense to me to require a stepwise progression like we see in other areas of the game.
The intention is to prevent, as much as possible, the advancement system from distorting the economy. That is, most MMOs have a situation where items actually get less valuable at each stage of the crafting process: the sum of the raw materials for an item sells for much more than the finished item. Quite a lot of this has to do with the act of crafting producing skill points, so the value loss from raw to finished represents the advancement points that have been extracted by the crafter during the process, and that many crafters will happily sell items off at a loss because they primarily cared about the skill up, not the item itself.
We'd like crafters to make items primarily for personal use or for sale, not because they had to make them to get advancement. So we're not going to force you to make a series of higher-plus items that you may not have any practical use for but that are required to for the achievements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agreed, Edam. Players can set their characters up to either craft, bulk harvest, or build settlement structures with their crafting queue. I figure most settlements will expect every character to be set up for one of those three queues. Getting a few cross-trained skills will be expected and not unusual at all.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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The intention is to prevent, as much as possible, the advancement system from distorting the economy.Are you at all worried about folks making lots of +3 items trying to get that "lucky" +5, and that distorting the market for +3 items?
That's why there are only up to +3 achievements for refining, and they are only awarded for the recipe you made, not a bonus upgrade.
People making +3 refined components hoping for the upgrade should, therefore, be hoping for the upgrade for its use. Generally, we don't expect refiners and crafters to be the same characters, particularly at the high end. Making a +3 hoping for a +4 or +5 because you can sell it for a lot of money is the system working as intended. (Well, more accurately, factoring the chance of bonus upgrades into your expected return on investment for selling refined components you make in large batches is the system working as intended.)
I do worry that the perceived value of +3s may exceed the +60% materials cost to make them, so we may find that we need to tweak the costs of various upgrade levels until we find the right value proposition to encourage a healthy number of +0, +1, and +2 refined components to enter the economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Making a +3 hoping for a +4 or +5 because you can sell it for a lot of money is the system working as intended.
My worry is that the system will be flooded with unwanted +3 refined components which were only produced in the hopes of getting a +5. Or do you expect the surplus of +3s to be voraciously consumed by the market even if a large proportion of them are being produced not because the maker wants to use a +3, but because the maker wants the chance at a +5?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Skill impact on harvesting proper is not documented that I'm aware of.Working on that :)
I already have a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 2 with no Knowledge skills, and a 48-node sample of gathering plant nodes at Forester 6 and Nature 8 (and other similar Knowledge skills). Now, I just need to get a sample at Forester 6 with no Knowledge skills, then add in only Nature 6 or something similar.
Of course, a word from a dev could obviate my need to do all this...
FYI, Stephen just cleared up on the Alpha Forums that Knowledge skills are not intended to increase how much you acquire from Gathering. They are, however, slated to increase how much you acquire from mobs of the appropriate type. For example, Knowledge: Nature is slated to increase how much you acquire from Fey and Plant mobs.
If the Forestry nodes sprout tentacles and fight you, then the loot you get off their corpse will be improved by Knowledge: Nature. If you just gather from it without incident, the raw materials you get are improved by Forestry.
(Note for art: Shambling Mounds that look like Forestry nodes… great plan, or GREATEST plan?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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This has the interesting effect of making wizards, traditionally the least gear-dependent class in most MMOs, even wealthier relative to everyone else.
Is this a desirable consequence? Or would it make more sense to link different drop-improvement skills to different attributes so that everyone can play? I think I'm leaning towards the latter.