Paintings

[Marsi]

I feel that paintings are absurdly complicated to make.

Paintings are made by art crafters. In order to make a painting, you require a carpenter to make a palette. In order for that carpenter to make a palette, they require a herbalist to make them dyes. The dyes themselves need various non-trivial resources like sapphire dust.

The DC for each of these sub-recipes is not that high, but the "nuisance" factor certainly is - even if the one PC were to invest in each of these tradeskills. Keep in mind something like a statue or shrine (which are far more capable as eyesores and immersion ruiners) require a single art crafter and a couple pieces of marble.

This is all to make a purely roleplay prop. It is not gear - there is not the same efficacy of supply/demand. There is no archeage style supply chain that is going to form out of the ether to prop up the roleplay fluff industry. What is more likely to happen is that would-be painters just yoink existing paintings and redescribe them.

I never felt as if paintings were all that common back when they were easy to make, so I've always been confused as to why they were made such a project to create.

[Flower Power]

The dyes are the real annoyance - the palettes at least just require base dyes, but I was once asked to make dyes for a few dozen cushions when Guldorand opened up because of all the new areas in need of decoration, and I ended up having to make the better part of a hundred different pots of dye just because of the nested crafting recipe style. God help me if I rolled a 1 on one of the final dye pots, or on the final product: a single pot of brown dye, for example, requires you to make 6 other pots of dye per single pot of brown dye.

This sort of "artificial scarcity through nested crafting recipes making things tedious and frustrating to produce rather than genuinely difficult to make or requiring rare materials" really isn't especially good design, and it's unfortunate how often we seem to waffle back and forth on it.

[AstralUniverse]

I made an artist noble in Skal and RPed him obsessed about "painting again after so many years, once I get my hands on some paint one day" and I made it a side-plot that helps driving the character... and it's been about level 20, in Sibayad when I finally got some painter's palettes done by a carpenter, after dyes were made by a herbalist, so I can eventually make a painting as an artist. Very tedious. I made lemonade out of the lemons for my character's story but over all I just cannot agree more with the OP. It's absurdly complicated to paint.

[Tabby]

Im probably on the other side of the bench in this topic, at least with some of it.

A Painting, breaking it apart, is a frame made of wood, cloth and dyes.

Crosssing different groups of crafting i approve of. It for one thing opens up RP with others, it opens up some of the materials will be sold in shops, so its less full of Rune materials and other stuff.

What i can tell on the wiki, an artcrafter only need wood, cloth (tailor 1 sp) and the the Palette.
That seems, quite easy to come by?
The Palette looks like the most complicated one to make, perhaps there is a market to sell these then?

I always in spend atleast 1 SP on almost all crafts, to make the simple of things, even a DC 10 is possible with only 1 SP. Making a simple chair is dc 11, giving you a 50% chance of succeding
.. with 1 SP..

The palette is DC 11
Dyes is 3
It seems doable for a single character to create the painting, if you invest a single point in all crafts. (Being a Art Crafter that is)

All things dont need to be an easy doing

A statue is made of Stone... not addtionally wood, dyes.. etc.. so makes sense its with less demands?

[Marsi]

Im probably on the other side of the bench in this topic, at least with some of it.

A Painting, breaking it apart, is a frame made of wood, cloth and dyes.

Crosssing different groups of crafting i approve of. It for one thing opens up RP with others, it opens up some of the materials will be sold in shops, so its less full of Rune materials and other stuff.

What i can tell on the wiki, an artcrafter only need wood, cloth (tailor 1 sp) and the the Palette.
That seems, quite easy to come by?
The Palette looks like the most complicated one to make, perhaps there is a market to sell these then?

Nothing you're saying is wrong, but I feel like you're missing the forest for the trees.

Roleplay props such as a painting exist to enrich the story. They have no hard ROI besides being satisfying for the maker. The value is in the quality of the description.

Arelith generally abstracts away the minutiae of simulation in favour of getting the story going. This kind of literalist interpretation of crafting works against that design philosophy. We don't, after all, require dye consumables to change clothing colour, because we recognise that that is annoying and that people just want their characters to look the way they want.

And I'm sorry, but the idea of the Arelith market as this organised, coherent force capable of supplying niche decorative items is just a myth. The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker are not going to come together to make the odd painting. Even if they could, I just don't think its reasonable to expect roleplay prop makers to weather market forces just to make a cool thing. It's more likely they just won't bother, or they'll repurpose someone else's stuff.

[Tabby]

We see different on it, thats okay

I like to see more complex crafting recipees in general, perhaps this is why i dont see an issue.
Especially with the painting, its seems rather easy to craft it, really.
I love how long you had to invest other players or go shopping for the Ashwood Bow, to make a complex thing.

I understand that things that do not have a mechanical value for combat or character enchancement, can be seen as a hassle to craft.

But then again, some are for the PvP/PvE, others settlement RP, and then im sure some are for the crafting and with that comprehensive descriptions.
Again, as i see it, it really isnt that much of a hassle to make a painting.
Even so, making it too easy would just overflow the server with fixtures or make it less unique to have a painting.
Its abit luxury thing to make a painting for something or someone. Why not having the feeling of that the painting was abit of work, but it in the end, its done and it just feel soo much better?

[Void]

Im probably on the other side of the bench in this topic, at least with some of it.

A Painting, breaking it apart, is a frame made of wood, cloth and dyes.

Crosssing different groups of crafting i approve of. It for one thing opens up RP with others, it opens up some of the materials will be sold in shops, so its less full of Rune materials and other stuff.

What i can tell on the wiki, an artcrafter only need wood, cloth (tailor 1 sp) and the the Palette.
That seems, quite easy to come by?
The Palette looks like the most complicated one to make, perhaps there is a market to sell these then?

I always in spend atleast 1 SP on almost all crafts, to make the simple of things, even a DC 10 is possible with only 1 SP. Making a simple chair is dc 11, giving you a 50% chance of succeding
.. with 1 SP..

The palette is DC 11
Dyes is 3
It seems doable for a single character to create the painting, if you invest a single point in all crafts. (Being a Art Crafter that is)

All things dont need to be an easy doing

A statue is made of Stone... not addtionally wood, dyes.. etc.. so makes sense its with less demands?

While I've not made paintings myself, the recipe is very odd.

Real life painting requires palette and paint, and you do not throw the palette away once it is done, you keep it. It does not require any hard wood, any piece of wood would do. Also, one would expect dye making process to produce BARRELs of dyes and not just barely enough to make a single painting.

What's more "one softwood" and "one hardwood" is, technically, a log.
And you do not use two logs to make a picture frame. Instead you make many picture frames from a single log by sawing it into planks first. You also do not paint with cloth dyes, you use paint, and it has different properties compared to cloth dyes.

[Distant Relation]

To add to the above, while I like the quirky touch that you mix six buckets of colorful paint to make brown paint, it really should produce six barrels of brown paint, not one.

[Void]

To add to the above, while I like the quirky touch that you mix six buckets of colorful paint to make brown paint, it really should produce six barrels of brown paint, not one.

Also, you normally wouldn't do that in reality.

Paints use pigments. Brown can be crated from Umber, Sienna, and apparently at some point, it was made from mummies and corpses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sienna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

[Nitro]

Even so, making it too easy would just overflow the server with fixtures or make it less unique to have a painting.

For well over 10+ RL years paintings just cost a single piece of softwood to make, and the server was never flooded with painting fixtures. Rather, the ones that were well made with a good description or made by famous characters became sought after, and the rest eventually ended up in a trashbin because no one wanted it.

The opposite now is that the barrier to entry is high enough that if you just want to casually want to make a painting fixture its a turnoff to even bother because you're going to have to go look up one or more craftsmen of different skills and suppply them with a wide range of materials, turning what could have been a spur of the moment painting from the next Vippin into a laborous process that only those who care enough to factory produce art will bother going through.

Its abit luxury thing to make a painting for something or someone. Why not having the feeling of that the painting was abit of work, but it in the end, its done and it just feel soo much better?

No one is buying a painting for millions or keeping it in their quarter because they knew it was a pain for the creator to craft if the description is bland and full of spelling errors. They're doing it because the description, the actually creative part, is well made and/or because the painting was produced by someone famous.

[Tabby]

I can absolutely agree on the Palette, should be a one time thing, that makes sense. Like the Feather used with ink. Perhaps remove the Palette, and have individually dyes per painting. But how would the Palette be used? As the Feather and Ink? And then use dye to fill the palette? Then suddenly we only need one Dye.

About one Softwood argument. Perhaps make planks out of them?
Perhaps planks could be worth more for the settlement, when you donate/sell them?
At the same time, it could be used in a painting, and other relative items.

What i have really wondered about is the Salt, it weighs what, 5.3 lbs? And 1 salt worth of 5.3 lbs is abit much making a Pie. Thats another discussion.

But i still believe things dont have to be easy to make. It should be crossing crafts.
As the argument started out as.

I know im mostly alone in this, but then again, i like complicated stuff.

[Void]

I can absolutely agree on the Palette, should be a one time thing, that makes sense. Like the Feather used with ink. Perhaps remove the Palette, and have individually dyes per painting. But how would the Palette be used? As the Feather and Ink? And then use dye to fill the palette? Then suddenly we only need one Dye.

THere are two ways this could go.

One - palette is an item, that is REQUIRED by the recipe, but is not consumed by it. I've seen this sort of mechanic in a few places, for example, IIRC at some point Sigil (nwn2) had arrow mold. You make it once, then you produce arrows with it, as many as you want. Some survival games have something simlar, like conan exiles had Bracelet Mold, glass Mold, and so on. You use them but they're not consumed.

The second approach, is to give palette charges, with one charge being consumed by the recipe. For example, 50 charges means 50 paintings.

[Edens_Fall]

I feel the dyes are the real bottle neck. While I understand the complexity of them, I think reducing the amount to the base colors to be a good fix. Remove the need to make dyes in order to make other dyes.

If a painting requires more then base colors have the recipe increase the amount of base colors need to craft. As if the painter mixes the colors on the canvas rather then having to craft the color beforehand.

If that makes sense?

[MissEvelyn]

I agree with the idea that Arelith is not a simulation. And thank goodness for that, because imagine needing dyes and materials every time you wanted to change something about your outfit.

That being said, let's say they are here to stay. Then, if portraits are THAT hard to make, there needs to be a payoff beyond it's prettiness. For example (and this is brainstorming, not a suggestion, so don't lock this thread, pretty please), a portrait could provide an atmospheric bonus to everyone within line of sight, as a way to inspire people. It could be a small +1 skill bonus, and for the more complicated ones, it could even be +1 to a saving throw, like Will.

This bonus cannot be stacked with itself and remains on the character(s) for X amount of hours.

Attach a mechanical bonus to it, even if minor, and you will quickly see the same crafters who previously couldn't be bothered come together and form an Artisan's Guild to sell the exquisite portraits.

[AstralUniverse]

Give dyes to some npc merchants here and there. Maybe not the central peddler of cordor but some semi-hidden ones and less known ones, in remote places. So there's an option not to cross-trade three times to paint something, and there's some alternative. It's not like people are selling them in shops all over the place and the market is thriving.

[perseid]

Just adding my two cents but since this is feedback I figure why not, I'd go so far as to just call the current recipe nest for paintings outright bad since I don't think anyone else has yet. It's so bad that me and a few other artists I know will just buy out shops if they're selling palettes (since even for all the tedium they still aren't that valuable). 20 palettes for sale? 20 palettes sold. The labor is that unfun to me. Dyes are definitely the bottleneck and it's a shame because I think it places a fairly obnoxious barrier to something that's purely for rp and wasn't particularly problematic anytime I can remember during my couple years on the server.

[Void]

Can't dyes sold by npcs be used in the recipe? Because there were dyes sold by npcs.