Shattered Kingdoms

Implement adventuring skill: crafting, in three ways.

First, allow resources to be combined to create consumables. Vials, Scrolls, Wands, Staves, etc. These are blanks/empties, and could have spells applied to them with the usual type restrictions (and class restrictions like resist elements etc). The quality of the materials used determines the quality of the base item. Weak vials and scrolls could be made with resources that spawn in the wilderness as REs, like birch bark chips for scrolls or amber fragments for vials etc. These would have a rot timer. High end materials would be collected as drops from specific, out of the way creatures. Items above, say 25th lvl would not have rot timers.

Second, allow items to be crafted that have a value when trib/cabal/church deposited at a bank. These items would have no effects or use beyond that, but would use the same materials used for crafting. This would help offset the costs of maintaining a faction for the 1 or 2 people who do it, possibly provide at least casual contributions if the low-tier resources they find as they are going about doing other things are not useful to their particular type of crafting system. The full available list of this type of crafting would be available regardless of type of crafting learned.

Third, allow equipment crafting. Similar to resource crafting, quality would vary depending on resources used to craft. Low tier stuff like wood and scale (made with discarded snake skins or whatever) would be cheap and easy to come by, while higher tier things like adamantite and mithril would require out of the way trips and might require you to hunt "mithril lizards" for the shards they drop. It's possible this might be best to restrict to weapons, or else exclude types that scouts can skin and include types they can't (energy, adamantite). A chance for up to 3 random innate enhancements at Mastered, with a lower chance of 1-2 before Mastered, would be ideal. It might be kind of neat to make the possible innate enhancements added sorted by type. Mages might have a chance to hit different innates than a merc. That provide a second level of impactful decision about customization.

As this would be an adventuring skill, its variations would be trainable by any character. You could have a mage that smiths swords, or a fighter that creates scrolls, but once you train one you can't train a different one.

Since you asked the process to be broken down into bite sized chunks that would be easier to implement:

The low tier mats that have a chance of spawning like herbs would be the easiest thing to start with. Most of that code could probably more or less be copied directly from herbalism into the new adventuring skill.

Next stage would be implementing the depositable resources available to all crafting types, since these would all be available to every type.

Next would be the lvl 10 role-specific consumables made from the first tier of drops. It would probably be FAIRLY easy to do a vial, scroll, wand, and stave at once which could be filled via the usual method (recharge, scribe, brew) since those already exist.

Toss up whether it would be best to do lvl 10 gear crafting now, or implement the lvl 25 mat drops from appropriately levelled NPCs across the game but probably most fair/interesting to do the gear. Mats for first stage of gear wouldn't even need special gather nodes but could use the low tier mats implemented previously. Gear crafting from skins is already extant in code in sk as well via cabal skill and tailors and could probably be carried over pretty quickly anyways.

From there it's just a matter of scaling up and assigning areas/boss NPCs for the top end mats.

Dunno if this is exactly what you meant but seems like it would be simple enough at each stage and have each roll out at least nominally functional (ie no mining ore with no way to use it.)

Thanks! This IS what I meant, but you can go even deeper. For example, let's take that "first chunk". Brainstorm a list of low tier materials and what they would each be useful toward creating. You can even provide suggested recipes.

What I'd like to see is a "cooking" ability. It would first start by going through some kind of quest, preferably in a neutral area so as to avoid people dying, and then you'd "learn" how to cook, a.k.a. cooking skill. By the definition of cooking that I am thinking, you would be able to combine certain animals parts and herbs or vials to produce an enhanced affect. Or perhaps all three. Imagine this:

This would produce a consumable item which would have an increased power of the original ingredients. Since many vials used are weak, with only a handful of strong and powerful vials, this would increase the power of the spell. I chose mistletoe and a vial of sanc since the spells are the same. This would make it easier to get a strong or powerful spell that you can quaff, versus waiting until someone uses up their powerful vial. I chose the name sacrament only because I couldn't think of something else. You'd be able to do all sorts, to be able to spell up without having a priest around. I dunno, just a thought.

If you're interested in more depth, I'll do some research and try to come up with some "recipes"

This brings up the point that you need a range of skills. Not only adventuring or cooking, but probably at least a half-a-dozen: mining, blacksmithing, tailoring, farming, cooking, lumberjacking, carpentry (that I can think up off the top of my head). Likely any character could learn two or three but not all of them.

It would definitely open a new level of trade in the game, since you'd have to choose carefully which skills you could learn and which you couldn't. I'd recommend offering a re-learn for LP(not a small amount), in case someone decides to switch from armor-making to something else. This way you couldn't have people make a bunch of decent gear then immediately switch to another profession. Depending on how far you want to go with this, I think it would definitely spice the game up a bunch.

Throw out more ideas people!

This would help promote cross class RP. People would need to seek out others to get ingeridients to help make whatever they are making. Playerx needs PLayerY to gather herbs to make something, or PLayerY needs to gather skins for playerD to forge armor.

I wish I could do more towards giving you an organized system but with the way my mind works I have a hard time getting things into any kind of format other people can follow.

Crafted item - Tier 1 material - Found:

Consumables
Vial - Amber Shards - Light Forest & Dense Forest
Scroll - Birch Bark - Plains & Light Forest
Wand - Sturdy Twig - Dense Forest & Plains
Stave - Bleached Bone Fragment - Desert & Snow

Gear
Cloth Armor - Scrap Of Fur - Light Forest & Dense Forest
Heavy Armor - Quartz Chips - Snow & Desert
Light Armor - Discarded Snake Skin - Plains & Desert

Weapons
Ranged Weapons - Flexible Sticks - Light & Dense Forest
Melee Weapons - Flint Chip - Desert & Snow

Deposit-able Resources
Crate of Amber and Bone - Amber Shards and Bleached Bone Fragments
Crate of Fur and Flint - Scrap of Fur and Flint Chip
Crate of Bark and Scales - Birch Bark and Discarded Snake Skin


Tier 1 Recipes (crafting a tier 1 recipe gives a small amount of exp similar to casting 5-10 spells):

Vials -
Amber Vial - Requires 25 Amber Shards - Creates an empty vial of max level 10 - Rots after 84 hours

Scroll -
Birch Bark Paper - Requires 25 Birch Bark - Creates a blank scroll of max level 10 - Rots after 84 hours

Wand -
Sturdy Stick Wand - Requires 25 Sturdy Sticks - Creates an empty, rechargeable wand of max level 10 with 2 charges - Rots after 84 hours

Staves -
Bleached Bone Stave - Requires 25 Bleached Bone Fragments - Creates an empty, rechargeable stave of max level 10 with 2 charges - Rots after 84 hours

Armor -
Coarse Fur Coif/Shirt/Etc - Requires 25 Scraps of Fur - Creates an unenchanted piece of fur armor up to level 10 for the appropriate slot

Quartz Helm/Breastplate/Etc - Requires 25 Quartz Chips - Creates an unenchanted piece of gemstone armor up to level 10 for the appropriate slot

Thin Scale Helmet/Tunic/Etc - Requires 25 Discarded Snake Skins - Creates an unenchanted piece of scale armor up to level 10 for the appropriate slot.

Weapons -
Flimsy Shortbow/Archery Bow/Etc - Requires 50 Flexible Sticks - Creates an unenchanted wooden ranged weapon of the desired type up to level 10.

Stone Longsword/Hunting Spear/Kusari-gama/Etc - Requires 25 Flint Chips - Creates an unenchanted stone melee weapon of the desired type up to level 10.

Resources - Requires 25 each of the appropriate mats - Faction deposited at a bank for a value of 5 platinum


Personally, I think training a gear crafting type should provide you a full list of tier 1 recipes. All crafting types gain the resources list when the skill is trained for the first time, regardless of type.

Tier 2 mats would drop from non-aggressive RE NPCs of level 25-40 that spawn in (preferably) different terrain types than tier 1 mats, and would allow crafting of items up to level 25-40. Fight the NPC, get the scrap. Add 10-15 scraps required at each tier, so tier 2 recipes would require you to gather 35-40 scraps from these NPCs. Ideally, each NPC would have a chance to drop up to 3, with 1 guaranteed each kill. Tier 2 recipes either would need a trip to a trainer to unlock, or else (less ideally) would drop from NPCs and could be trained like bard songs. A crafter of appropriate skill level should be able to instruct other PCs in the crafting of tier 2 recipes using the extant mentoring system (assuming both PCs are trained in the appropriate Tier 1 crafting skill).

Tier 2 -

Consumables:
Vial - Crystal Fragment - Found by killing Crystal Oozes that spawn in Desert and Snow
Scroll - Nymph Skin - Found by killing Nymph Tricksters that spawn in Dense Forest and Plains
Wand - Totem Fragment - Found by killing Wandering Barbarians that spawn in Light Forest and Snow
Stave - Infused Finger Bone - Found by killing Dragonettes that spawn in Light Forest and Desert

Armor:
Cloth - Coalescent Water - Found by killing Diminutive Water Elementals that spawn in Snow and Plains
Heavy - Tanso Fragments - Found by killing Tanso Steel Golems that spawn in Light and Dense Forest
Light - Brass Strips - Found by killing Clockwork Cats that spawn in Desert and Snow

Weapons:
Ranged - Piece of Vine - Found by killing Shambling Mounds in Desert and Plains
Melee - Tanso Fragments - Found by killing Tanso Steel Golems that spawn in Light and Dense Forest

Resources:
Crate of Vines and Water - Requires Coalescent Water and Piece of Vine
Crate of Tanso and Skin - Requires Tanso Fragments and Nymph Skin
Crate of Bone and Brass - Requires Infused Finger Bone and Brass Strips

Tier 2 recipes (Crafting a tier 2 recipe gives a moderate amount of exp, similar to casting 25-35 spells):

Vials -
Crystal Philter - Level 25 empty vial - Rots after 168 hours

Scrolls -
Nymph Skin Parchment - Level 25 blank scroll - Rots after 168 hours

Wand -
Totem Stick - Level 25 empty wand with 5 charges - Rots after 168 hours

Stave -
Finger Bone Stave - Level 25 empty stave with 5 charges - Rots after 168 hours

Armor -
Watery Coif/Shirt/Etc - Creates a piece of warter armor up to level 25 for the appropriate slot with 1 innate enchantment (preferably crafter's choice but confined to the enchantments normally possible with Consecrate/Enchant Armor).

Tanso Helm/Breastplate/Etc - Creates a piece of tanso armor up to level 25 for the appropriate slot with 1 innate enchantment.

Brass Helmet/Tunic/Etc - Creates a piece of brass armor up to level 25 for the appropriate slot with 1 innate enchantment.

Weapons -
Sturdy Shortbow/Archery Bow/Etc - Creates a wooden ranged weapon of the desired type up to level 25 with 1 innate enchantment (preferably crafter's choice but confined to the enchantments normally possible with Consecrate/Enchant weapon).

Tanso Longsword/Hunting Spear/Kusari-gama/Etc - Creates a tanso melee weapon of the desired type up to level 25 with 1 innate enchantment.

Resources: Can be faction deposited at a bank for a value of 1 obsidian.

Tier 3 -

Available materials would be Motes of Energy,Chunks of Adamantite, and Nuggets of Mithril. All tier 3 recipes use the appropriate type of the same resources. All tier 3 items are crafted at level 50. Recipes can only be acquired through group-necessary adventures from Boss-tier NPCs. Tier 3 recipes give no experience and require at least Champion (maybe GM?) to craft. Tier 3 items have no rot timers.

Motes of Energy craft:
Vials (Flask of Light)
Scrolls (Sheet of Light)
Cloth armor (Iridescent X/Y/Z)

Chunks of Adamantite craft:
Staves (Wrought Adamantite Stave)
Heavy armor (Worked Adamantite X/Y/Z)
Melee Weapons (Hardened Adamantite X/Y/Z)

Nuggets of Mithral craft:
Wands (Gleaming Mithril Wand)
Light armor (Worked Mithril X/Y/Z)
Ranged weapons (Etched Mithril X/Y/Z)

All armor and weapons crafted at tier 3 come with 3 innate enchantments, even if not normally available through Enchant/Consecrate to that type of equipment. Again, preferably crafter's choice on which 3.

Wands and staves crafted at tier 3 can hold up to 7 charges.

Tier 3 Resources wouldn't be a thing.

These mats would have a chance to drop from GM-level NPCs on outer planes. 50-75% chance of 1 dropping from each kill, 5-10% chance of 3 dropping from each kill, or somewhere around that variance. 45-60 scraps necessary to craft an item.

That about what you were looking for, D?

With the system I propose above, this isn't true.

All you really need are:
Craft Vials
Craft Staves
Craft Wands
Craft Scroll
Craft Armor
Craft Weapon

If you REALLY wanted to you could break down Armor and Weapon into Cloth/Light/Heavy and Ranged/Melee but I'm not sure the player base would bear that many variations.

Probably would be worthwhile to have max 2 possible to train, so you could either have 1 consumable crafting type and either armor or weapon, or else 2 consumable types, or else armor and weapon both, but no one would have access to the full range.

EDIT: Maybe open a 3rd option after the first age tick.

EDIT 2: If you wanted to get super fancy you could add a Craft Aura, which doesn't itself actually produce items but can be used on player-made items (possibly even pre-made loot) to add or remove an aura-specific zap effect to items.

A few random thoughts on crafting.

I feel OA has come up with a really good system that may be a little to strict when it comes to tier 3. I would lean towards inclusion instead of exclusion. Allow players to gather for and craft all items within their crafting skill set. But allow difference between materials that were gathered from a group boss and materials gathered from a solo encounter. In short my Adamantite is cool but yours is better because you were able to get better materials.

I would also suggest not trying to force interactions between players by limiting gather skills. I would instead try to develop the crafting system with the mind set of keeping people logged in. By allowing crafting to be somewhat creative and done by themselves without necessarily having to depend on another, will I feel increase their time in game. With people logged in for longer periods more interactions will happen naturally.

Just my thoughts, take or leave

I'm not sure if this is also directly related to my idea, but under my system gathering is not restricted at all and depends only on environment, skill proc, or purposeful quests for specific NPCs that drop specific resources.