[Balanor]

This is notice that new "Red Wizard magical controls" discovered by Cecil the Red Wizard (the one in Surthay) have been implemented on enchantment forges. Beginning today, whenever an item is modified at an enchantment forge, it will be magically bound to the individual doing the modification, and will be unusable by anyone else. The forge dialog now notifies you of this restriction when you use it. Additionally, magically bound items cannot be modified by anyone else at the forge.

[SharranAes]

Does this only affect PCs, or can we not enchant the gear of our mercenaries from now on as well?

-Aes

[Miscr3ant]

Oh wow...forging/Blacksmith RP just went out the window. :(

[Balanor]

SharranAes, items modified at a forge from this point forward can only be used by the PC who does the modification.

Miscreant, PC merchants can still sell any and all standard treasure gear - even providing higher-level gear to lower-level PCs that might not normally encounter them. The difference here is enchantment forges provide some benefits (like bonus feats and higher DR levels) that can't be found in treasure drops - especially at high-notoriety levels. But just as importantly, those benefits are meant to become available after a PC, and not the PC's level 20 friend, attains the required notoriety to enchant [whatever it is].


Everyone, to further explain; ILR is not foolproof to limit what we have determined as "powerful" items in Thay from being used by "non-powerful" PCs. For example, standard NWN Damage Resistance costs are ridiculously underpriced since a level 3 PC can easily equip up to 20/- DR items. Which, at that level, negates most damage a level 3 PC would likely receive for that particular damage type. Long-term NWN players probably know this and common sense should tell you that is why even 10/- DR items are rare in Thay - because if a low level PC gets items with a higher DR on them, it is unbalancing.

Ideally, I could/should make 2da edits to certain item properties to increase the cost, and ILR, of those properties that are considered powerful for the Thay PW. But making a 2da edit to increase the price of an item property like Damage Resistance effects items that everyone already has and may have equipped. We'd end up with an epidemic of PCs unable to login because of ILR restrictions on items that were previous just low-enough cost enough for them to equip, but couldn't any longer. Plus players would likely be upset that their level 5 DR gear might not be useable until level 10 (or whatever). I changed the price of the the Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery feat item properties last year, without thinking of this problem, and it took several weeks to straighten it out for the handful of PCs affected. Should Thay ever make it to a 4th edition reboot (ha), the big task of revising the item property costs to better determine ILR limits is top of my priority list.

I guess all I have left to add is that I am as disappointed, as people are probably upset, this effort was needed. Unpopular changes like this sometimes happen when long-term players decide that because they can do something, they will, without consideration for if they *should*. In this case, as a result, changes had to be made to ensure no one has to bother using common sense with future forge-modified items.

[OldBear]

First of all I wish to state I have the utmost respect for Balanor and the staff here.  I have been fortunate to play on Thay since it moved to EE and I participated in the beta testing.

Second, I freely admit I do not have all the information leading up to this decision.  Having said that, however, question the reason behind this decision.

My questions & issues are as follows:
As SharranAes posted this rule means we can no longer forge items for a mercenary.
It means that if a player rose to faction leader they could not forge special items for their members.  Nor could a High Priestess or a Red Wizard prepare gifts or aid their house member or Knight.
It means, as I had recently started working on, I cannot have a merchant and then forge items to be sold that I think are unique and might be in demand.
It does not address what happens to items that are forged and then sold, do they go poof when you attempt to sell them so you lose the gold involved in the creation.  What if a player merchant bought one?

It appears that perhaps the issue may be that a crafted item considered powerful, ended up in the hands of a player.  This appears to be a very unusual possibility since every item I have crafted has player level requirements on them.  If something did slip through, then why not change the item level for that particular item(s) that is an issue instead of banning it in this way.

This is a major change to something that has existed since beta.  I recall being involved in testing items on the forge.  I would respectfully request that this decision be reconsidered for other possible work around to whatever issue exits to have cause this rule to be made. This is a dramatic and major change without any notice to the player base of the concern or its implementation.

[Miscr3ant]

Thank you for your explanation, Balanor. I look forward to further clarification on this necessity to to fix an exploit that will affect so many.

[Miscr3ant]

What if a player who has crafted items decides to retire a PC and dumps his (forged) PC's gear at one of the merchants? Say I buy them for no small amount...am I screwed? Did I just buy
item(s) at a merchant only to lose all the gold because I unknowingly bought a PC crafted item?

[Halvtolv]

SharranAes, items modified at a forge from this point forward can only be used by the PC who does the modification.

This means that people who havent made a merc yet/not yet craftet equipment for their merc, will not be able to do it. The time is up.

Quote Balanor:
"..The difference here is enchantment forges provide some benefits (like bonus feats and higher DR levels) that can't be found in treasure drops..."

I want to congratulate the characters that were smart enough to forge stuff to their mercs before this rule. Especially stuff that cant be found in treasure drops. Now we'll have mercs with items like +2 AC, +2 CON, 10/- Slashing Resistance and upcoming mercs with +2 AC, +2 Save vs Acid, +2 Skillbonus Control Shape.

[Necromancing the Stone]

I think the number one issue that faces immediate problems: as has been pointed out, or mercenaries will be screwed. Their addition was both an rp and a mechanics tool that was necessary to aid play. The mercenaries we hire are created and added to the game so that each player can fill in some of the gaps their character needs filled in so that they can actually survive. But mercenaries become not just useless, they become a hindrance since they are two levels below us if they can’t be forged appropriate equipment. Relying on the randomness of treasure drops means I will be either reviving them, or picking their body clean in order to spend more money to hire another easily dead mercenary. It’s not just because That is a VERY hard place to live, but the mercenaries are controlled by the AI which does some seriously stupid things in combat opening them up to getting crushed. With good equipment much of that can be mitigated so you are only left dealing with Thay being a tough place, and not the AI idiosyncrasies.

The second thing is: forging items SHOULD be a good avenue of role play for characters to assume. If they dedicate the skill points and the time into playing the character, selling things they can forge to those that can’t, is an excellent form of t rp for both the buyer and the seller. As long as it is done in a manner that is fair to both parties, why does it matter? Especially as bear pointed out if you are say a legion commander and tired of Private Ticklebottom always pushing up daisies the second he leaves tyraturos.

If the second one leaves too much openness, that’s fine, I get it. But I beg of you to allow us to forge for our mercenaries.

[Necromancing the Stone]

There is another solution though I can see it’s rife with the same problems you indicated as making characters that can’t log in. If resistances are an issue, and I agree they are, years ago I played on a server where they solved a couple of problems with a small change. What they did was get rid of all damage resistances except those granted by feats, or classes. they made immunities cost the same amount to craft as resistances do: so a 10% immunity costs the same as 5 damage resistance, 20%10 resistance, and etc. it does a few things: 1) it prevents over powering of low level characters by giving them 5 or 10 resistance making almost nothing able to hurt them 2) it helps out low damage based builds so that at least some damage gets through on every strike. Having a low damage build and having to overcome damage resistance can be a daunting task, especially at low levels. And 3) it gives a real boost to classes like barbarian, dwarven defender, and even shifter that are little used. Barbarian and defender damage reduction, and the resistances granted in a few shifter forms would suddenly become very powerful and worth the investment, despite them coming so late in the character development process.