Post
by Eters » Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:24 pm
Having been playing a mundane for close to a year I feel like I can comment on this thread. The character I play has access to lore just to point that out, I've been trying various dungeons solo in order to acquire coin in the off-time when the activity is low, or when the mind is just too tired to delve into roleplay and I require more of a mindless grind through an area.
You do not need to use potions for everything, in fact there are a few use/day items that make your dungeoning adventures a little bit less painful, for example horn of goodness/evil, it lasts for 99 minutes and gives magic circle vs alignment, Fordor's spine gives a CL 3 bull strength but you can drink a player crafted potion afterwards to reach that +5 STR without needing to use two potions. Girdles of fortitude give you a 15 CL bear's endurance, similar to that of a player crafted potion, a barbarian's helmet (if you can use it) also offers a CL 15 bull strength. Battlemedic armor gives you 2 casts of monstrous regeneration, and the improved invisibility cloaks give you two casts of improved invisibility with CL 7, Scabbards of blessing give you bless and aid at a low CL 2 and 3 and brooches of shielding give you the shield spell for a CL of 5.
Assuming you have all of the above and use it diligently in a rather tedious dance of switching items you need only to use a few potions to be set for any casual venture, but the moment you will target higher level areas in order to get a chance to earn the sweet exotic runics you will start to go through your consumables at a pretty steady rate.
That isn't an issue in itself, consumables are meant to come and go, and their scarcity depends on the market, it fluctuates and changes but in my year of playing my mundane I've never truly found myself lacking any dungeoning potion. That said if you do want to make a solid enough income to keep going then you will have to strike mid level dungeons consistently, which feels usually more like a chore than a joy, and makes you feel like a scumbag when you find that your mid level dungeoning grind just ruined the writwork of people who are actually level appropriate for the spot.
In a group, you will excel with the presence of a mage, a cleric, a bard or anyone that can buff you, and I think this is where you'll shine the most, but the venturing alone during down time will feel miserable. The same can be said about the occasional PvP where your tools are all tied to your coin-purse and your luck with finding consumables prior to said encounter, and while I pointed out earlier that I never truly suffered when it came to PvE potions, PvP potions however are not always stocked and the consumables which require herbalism seem to often be scarce and missing, Death ward and Freedom of Movement are rarities that make every encounter a mathematical equation before being a true mettle of skill. Even this isn't an issue in itself, for the price of beastly damage and high AB/AC you are a wetpaper in the face of magic, just as mages are a wetpaper for your essenced beastly crit infused weapon.
Then comes the third point which is inventory management, which is truly obscene when it comes to the class, you'll find it funny if I was to tell you that a mundane's quickslots are harder to manage than a mage's, between the scrolls, the potions, the abilities you will find three bars to hardly be fitting, and since one cannot exactly use the radial to access consumables it's often the case of mundanes to just walk around with their bags always open. The space management is hideous because outside of a whole page of scrolls, a whole page of rods, a whole page of miscellaneous items with use/day , a whole page for essences and a whole two pages of potions to be somewhat competitive, plus a page for all the other random items, bombs etc you will often find that despite the 20000 lbs carryweight that your godly 50 STR steroids infused barbarian weaponmaster horc has, you can barely pick up items.
Which in itself is not an issue, but add point one, two and three together and you get a category of classes that is absolutely tedious to play in the day to day basis, excels in groups and in PvP when it happens, if they have all the necessary items, potions, gear and consumables ready, and suffers a pretty steady growing competition from hybrids which can achieve the same things (to a lesser extent perhaps but with far more QoL).
That's the current situation, If I was to say that I know how to solve it I'd be lying, but the tediousness of the mundane classes is absolutely a real issue, and while the costs themselves are not high, the frustrations born from the various little inconveniences do pile up.
