A Land Far Away

Starting a thread for ideas to improve WD.

Scrolls - I know melee types have to afford that 1K suit. OTOH, Wizards are looking at many times that to fill out a spellbook. We get 2 per level, but the point of a Wiz is versatility. There's a few 0-1 level scrolls dropped by Orcs, but no method short of the Wizard Tax to fill out the 2+ spellbook, and even the 1st level spells are rarely the ones Alea needed.

I'd like to see some quest rewards that let a Wizard pick a scroll from the Order's library. May I suggest modifying the Fire quest to remove the Good per fire (just GP), and add a few Law points at the 10th turn in if you want to keep the align bumps. Then swap to a new reward every 10th fire - Magic I believe we have Trade Scrolls functioning, though real scrolls would obviously be more valuable. If Trade scrolls work, I would set it to be selectable up to 3rd. If real scrolls, I'd limit it to the max level a mage can cast. Higher level Clerics get paid more for casting first level spells, so should Wizards

Fionn wrote:Scrolls - I know melee types have to afford that 1K suit. OTOH, Wizards are looking at many times that to fill out a spellbook. We get 2 per level, but the point of a Wiz is versatility. There's a few 0-1 level scrolls dropped by Orcs, but no method short of the Wizard Tax to fill out the 2+ spellbook, and even the 1st level spells are rarely the ones Alea needed.

I'd like to see some quest rewards that let a Wizard pick a scroll from the Order's library. May I suggest modifying the Fire quest to remove the Good per fire (just GP), and add a few Law points at the 10th turn in if you want to keep the align bumps. Then swap to a new reward every 10th fire - Magic I believe we have Trade Scrolls functioning, though real scrolls would obviously be more valuable. If Trade scrolls work, I would set it to be selectable up to 3rd. If real scrolls, I'd limit it to the max level a mage can cast. Higher level Clerics get paid more for casting first level spells, so should Wizards

That sort of reward tiering would require some VERY fancy scripting to to even begin to get it to work OR the HDM would have to be constantly changing out the rewards

The City of Waterdeep itself is extremely large. It's hard to really think of suggestions - but, I'll see what I can spitball.

1. Some monsters/enemies feel like they could be toned down with their AB. This is mostly noticeable because a good number of players had to re-roll, so it may not be an issue later, but I feel like a bit of tinkering could be done.

2. There's a DM turn-in quest in The Rat Hills that I'm sure most are aware of (I'll not spoil for those who aren't). Since Ayergo and Rick's time is based on a lot of plots lately, perhaps change it into a one-time hand in (or an actual mission from the City Watch after you've done at least some Tail/Carcass turn-ins for a one-time static).

3. Already sent a PM to Ayergo on how some static quests handle XP.

4. I agree with Fionn that, Wizards especially, need some means of acquiring spells besides paying an arm and a leg for them. Right now, the static quests for Wizards reward very minimal XP/GP, and some of them are just hand-ins from killing monsters more likely to kill you (and even if you kill them convincing the group to hand over the components will vary). Perhaps do a tiered system on components, but not with the crazy tracking... something like...
a) You hand in <X> component. It's a fairly weak monster/enemy, so you get a voucher to trade for a Level 0 Scroll.
b) You hand in <Y> component. It's a pretty normal monster/enemy. The voucher you receive can be traded for a Level 1 Scroll.
c) You hand in <Z> component. It's a tough monster/enemy. The voucher you receive can be traded for a Level 2 Scroll.
Basically, since you're getting the components from killing something, the XP reward is minimal or unnecessary, and the Wizard would benefit more from a voucher for a spell (whether to learn or to have extras to cast) over 15gp/25gp/100gp (to me, at least). The voucher system probably works better if it's a text-based system ("Oh, I see you have a voucher. Would you like..." and then options) since I don't know how inventory management of NPCs work.

5. Is there any way to have the refund option for shops? We had a system in NWN2 where, so long as you don't leave the shop/area, you can put the item back in the bin (say it didn't look right) and be refunded the money.

Anyway... I don't know. This is mostly static content. I heard that #1 is something that gets fiddled with (and probably something that will be changed eventually). #2 is just to save the DMs time in the long run if we get an influx of new PCs/players. #3 is PM'd and #4 is just branching on Fionn's idea without doing a crazy tiered system.

edit: Ultimately, it comes down to gold/money when it comes to a lot of issues. Wizards DO have access to all the spells from The Tower of the Order; however, it's expensive if you want to keep your spellbook going. It's the same for other people who want to change their armour, switch their weapons, etc.

Arianna wrote:

Fionn wrote:Scrolls - I know melee types have to afford that 1K suit. OTOH, Wizards are looking at many times that to fill out a spellbook. We get 2 per level, but the point of a Wiz is versatility. There's a few 0-1 level scrolls dropped by Orcs, but no method short of the Wizard Tax to fill out the 2+ spellbook, and even the 1st level spells are rarely the ones Alea needed.

I'd like to see some quest rewards that let a Wizard pick a scroll from the Order's library. May I suggest modifying the Fire quest to remove the Good per fire (just GP), and add a few Law points at the 10th turn in if you want to keep the align bumps. Then swap to a new reward every 10th fire - Magic I believe we have Trade Scrolls functioning, though real scrolls would obviously be more valuable. If Trade scrolls work, I would set it to be selectable up to 3rd. If real scrolls, I'd limit it to the max level a mage can cast. Higher level Clerics get paid more for casting first level spells, so should Wizards

That sort of reward tiering would require some VERY fancy scripting to to even begin to get it to work OR the HDM would have to be constantly changing out the rewards

I disagree on *very* fancy, but then I know what a hash table and a dbcc is Ayergo has the DB working - dropping a counter is easy. Writing the script to do it takes time from everything else

The baby thing. Maybe I'm the odd man out, but can that quest change? It really breaks my immersion to believe that the goblins are carrying infants around, and then that those infants are surviving after we've just slaughtered the goblins with arrows, blades, hammer smashes, and magical fire and energy. And further that then, that we as adventurers just pick up all the kids with nary a worry, go further into the sewers to kill some more goblins not having the child be at any risk while it sits at the bottom of our backpack, and then take it to the orphanage or Thayans were they still pay full price for the kid.

((most often, we bring the kids back very soon after finding them, ...and don't uber-PG the whole sewer until every resource is gone ((and every XP is bled dry from that round of spawns..)) ))

Vendrin wrote:The baby thing. Maybe I'm the odd man out, but can that quest change? It really breaks my immersion to believe that the goblins are carrying infants around, and then that those infants are surviving after we've just slaughtered the goblins with arrows, blades, hammer smashes, and magical fire and energy. And further that then, that we as adventurers just pick up all the kids with nary a worry, go further into the sewers to kill some more goblins not having the child be at any risk while it sits at the bottom of our backpack, and then take it to the orphanage or Thayans were they still pay full price for the kid.

**Note to self: Also include "Dead Baby" as possible drop.

Didn't we actually find a dead baby at one point?

The wands of clw as sold in the xoblob shop aren't usable by bards.

I suggest they should be usable by bards!

Rumple C wrote:The wands of clw as sold in the xoblob shop aren't usable by bards.

I suggest they should be usable by bards!

Useable by all classes would be nice.

I bet it would be, but bards can actually cast clw so should be able to use the wand