Crafting and YOU
Crafting in Engines is both heavily robust and a core mechanic to the entire system. Understanding how it interacts with almost everything else in Engines is pretty important. I've been asked to write an FAQ to give insight into the intentions behind the system, and how it works.
What is different about items in Engines from NWN2?
After poking around on the server at all, you will notice that almost every item has a number after it in parenthesis, like Longsword (5). This tells you the rank of the item. Bigger numbers mean better gear, which in turn means better stats, usually.
Gear is also reliant on your own skill: gear lower than your skill is a hindrance, and gear above your skill can't be fully used. If you grab a rank 30 sword, but you only have 5 ranks in the skill, you will only be able to use it like a rank 5 sword. Likewise, if you have 30 ranks in Two-Hand skill, and are using a rank 5 spear, you can only use it like a rank 5 weapon and will get no value training with it.
As a result, it is best to be using items and equipment within 5 to 10 ranks of your appropriate skill. A poor quality item will have lower stats than you can fully benefit from, while too high and you pay exorbitant costs for no actual benefit.
What does this have to do with Crafting?
Crafting permits the creation and upgrade (or downgrade) of items and ranks, and allows for adding augments and modifications to items that can radically alter game-play. This is significant because everything in Engines is created using the same basic system: the loot from dungeons, items created by PC-crafters, and even the DM-made items are all made in the same system, with the same limitations and possibilities.
Player-Crafters are initially more limited by needing to train craft skills, spend points into abilities, and learn designs. More information can be found on the wiki, for the specifics. The take-away is that anything you find, either from a dungeon or a DM-run event, can be made by a sufficiently skilled player eventually.
Why does this make crafting important?
Most adventuring can be summed up to a simple cycle:
- Do dungeons to get loot and XP
- Sell stuff to get money,
- Use money to get better gear,
- Use better gear to do harder dungeons,
- To get better loot,
- Which sells for more money...
In most games, once a player gets that awesome item, there is very little mechanical incentive to change, so PCs can rapidly end up with loads of money, nothing to do with it, and the economy tanks in short order from inflation, making Infinity-1 swords dirt cheap to low level chars, who then never need to upgrade their gear, and makes the problem worse. Dedicated crafting characters in these situations can literally work themselves out of work, and not have any contribution to the dungeon grind.
In Engines, a significant goal has been to make a craftsman a vital and consistently useful character build. Much like other roles, the presence or absence of a particular type of tradesman can make a great difference to the community as a whole, much like how running dungeons with or without a meat-shield or medic can be easy or painful. The matter of optimizing gear to your skill level and budget provides consistent work, and the variation in dungeon styles can make different mods and augments in demand for different content: the fireproofing great for that volcano is rather pointless underwater, while buoyant armor is dead-weight in a desert. There is never any 'best item' so much as 'best for the situation', so there is always incentive to know a tradesman who can help.
Much like other roles, however, too many craftsman of a given type makes things difficult as people compete for customers and skill opportunities. Consider running a dungeon with all tanks; the outcome is similar. Before deciding that a particular craft skill is what you are going to focus on, try asking about, how high the demand is, who else is in that trade, etc. The worst outcome is investing in one or two (or all 6) crafting trees, having no work or opportunity to improve them, having no money from trying to improve these skills, and still being unable to improve your gear to any useful degree.
Is crafting expensive?Yes and no. Upgrading items from one rank to another is relatively affordable if it is within the appropriate rank window. Making new items from scratch can be somewhat more expensive. Adding new modifications, or upgrading heavily modified gear can be quite pricy, increasing the cost of the item by two or three times. Practicing crafting as a skill can be cheap (if you can provide everyone upgrades at your highest rank), or very expensive if you deconstruct all your loot to improve your skills or design progress.
I found some papers that say [Schematic: X], what do I do with them?
Schematics are a partial design for an augment or modification. When read, the schematic is lost, and the reader gets progress towards learning that design. Once you get over 100% progress in a design, you can make it. Each augment has a craft skill it is tied to, limiting maximum item rank when it is applied. However, before reading them yourself consider that having 5 people with partial completion is not helpful to anyone, so you might be better off selling it to a craftsman of the appropriate trade.
How do I find out how much progress I have in a design?
Your currently known designs and progress can be located by going to your Journal, selecting the Items tab, and clicking the Crafting option.
How do I know what skill I need to make this design?
We don't currently have any posted resources for the list of every design-to-skill map. Another big part of Engines is discovery: having a posted list of all the mods would cut that down a bit. If you still want to figure out if this is appropriate for your trade-skill, ask a known player craftsman in-game.
Can I move a augment/mod from one item to another?
No. If you really want that old mod on a new item, consider offering the item to a skilled and appropriate crafts-person, and letting them learn the design and add it to the new item.
I don't seem to be getting skill-progress from crafting/deconstruction/schematics. Why not?
Crafting XP is a function of the item value. On the whole, the more value you deconstruct or improve an item by, the more skill XP you will get. Schematics do not grant skill-XP.
Does crafting benefit from Bonus XP?
Yes. It is not uncommon to RP for a bit in the crafting areas to ensure you benefit from it for an expensive work.