Arelith

Crafting is meant to be one of the primary money drivers for the post-leveling state of a arelith character. Most of the crafts are accessible for nearly any character type. While smiths prosper a bit better as classes with strength carry weights there's nothing overly inhibiting the profit you make or the quantity you can produce. Likewise, a carpenter 30 fighter can produce a wealth of goods for everyone.

Problem

Herbalism is different. If you have Brew Potion, which is a feat only derived from having a spellcasting class, your yields for all your potions go up by 50%. Some people cannot take brew potion because their builds don't allow it, and as such are just always half as efficient as others who have got it.

In my current playthrough with my character, I'm finding I'm completeing crafts till 1-5 points left and handing them off for someone to tap finish because I cannot produce the yields they can because 1 feat makes them 50% better at a crafting skill.

Feedback

I'm of two minds. Either the class and spellcaster requirements for brew potion should go, so that anyone can access this feat. Or alternatively, a singular feat should not be increasing the yield 50% higher in a singular craft over others - because it effects everything from your profitability to your yields and your viability with this one feat.

What are your thoughts community?

There’s no reason for herbalism to be standalone in needing a feat tax, and it’s absolutely an awful feeling either not having that 50% increase or burning a feat for a craft.

Herbalism production should just automatically have this 50% increase and the Brew Potion interaction should be removed.

Kushion wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2024 11:54 pm

There’s no reason for herbalism to be standalone in needing a feat tax, and it’s absolutely an awful feeling either not having that 50% increase or burning a feat for a craft.

Herbalism production should just automatically have this 50% increase and the Brew Potion interaction should be removed.

Yeah I didn't want to be seen as begging for a buff, but I don't disagree with this.

I was just debating choosing Herbalism on my new character, but chose not to because I don't want to grab Brew Potion.

For anyone out there who does get a lot of use out of herbalism without the Brew Potion feat, there's something to consider here; For most of the other crafting disciplines, there's no real way for your character to muck it up as long as you invest enough points, but when it comes to herbalism, you can be a suboptimal herbalist simply by not playing the right class from the start with no feasible way to rectify this.

I guess it's easy to roll your eyes at suboptimal, but having played a herbalist with brew potion and without, it really is like night and day with how much material you feel like you need to gather. Those higher yields help you not waste so much time.

An annoying alternative might be to allow another crafting feat with some other benefit sub in for Brew Potion so that classes that don't have access to the Brew Potion feat can at least take something, but I feel like this is a pretty terrible option, mostly because most mundane builds are so feat-tight anyways that asking them to fit a crafting feat is cruel.

I'm of the mind, personally, that the brew potion boon to herbalism should be nixed entirely. If people complain about how difficult it is to make herbalism potions after that, perhaps the crafts required to make herbalism potions should be adjusted. Some of them, I think, should be.

It's also worth a quick mention that Brew Potion doesn't just effect things in herbalism; it's any production of potions.

So, as someone who plays an alchemist - it's an extra Attunement Potion for each batch made (as an example)

Sorcerer dip to beat fomo

I honestly didn't know this was a thing.
I take herbalism on alot of characters, in fact I tend to encourage anyone that is burning through potions to drop a few skill points into it just so they can make there own healing/buffs.
Pretty sure I would still take craft wand over it regardless.

chris a gogo wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2024 10:54 am

I honestly didn't know this was a thing.
I take herbalism on alot of characters, in fact I tend to encourage anyone that is burning through potions to drop a few skill points into it just so they can make there own healing/buffs.
Pretty sure I would still take craft wand over it regardless.

It hits different when you know about it and experience it. When you use the same amount of materials to end up with a 100 potions, with the Brew Potion feat those 100 potions become 150 potions. Now imagine that as you continue you play your character, making over a thousand potions, it really adds up.

In my opinion Herbalism is by faaaaaar the best trade in the game. I would be very pleased if the brew potion interaction was just removed.

I think it's probably fine that it increases the amount after all player made potions made via brew potion are much lower demand now after the lore change, so it's a nice bonus to the feat.

I would say herbalism can straight up replace the need for heal as a skill choice, you can make all the restoratives and healing you would ever need even without the brew potion bonus.

WOW. WISH I HAD SEEN THIS THREAD BEFORE.

AS AN HERBALIST...JUST AN HERBALIST....I DON"T MAKE HALF THE AMOUNT OTHER CRAFTERS MAKE. I HAVE TO SPEND HOURS GATHERING SAND AND COAL TO MAKE BOTTLES AND VIALS AND HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF HERBAL COMPONENTS JUST TO MAKE SOMETHING TO SELL WHILE MY BAMK ACCOUNT REMAINS NEARLY STAGNANT AS I HAVE TO SPEND ALL MY PROFITS ON EXTRA MATERIALS AND WANDS AND SCROLLS.

THANKS.

YES. I BLEW A FEAT POINT ON BREW POTION WITHOUT KNOWING THE BENEFIT OF THE EXTRA POTIONS IT MADE. I JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE TO MMAKE POTIONS BY CASTING SPELLS.

BUT AS I"M ONLY A BARD, I CAN ONLY CAST A FEW OF THE SPELLS PEOPLE WANT IN A BOTTLE AND IT COSTS SO MUCH I CANNOT MAKE A PROFIT. THE ONLY REALL BENEFIT I GOT WAS THE EXTRA POTIONS.

THANKS.

Now that the update's hit. I appreciate that I don't have to feel pressured to take a feat to be competitive with my trade anymore. That said, it'd be nice if this had come in the form of just giving everyone the +50% yield instead of nerfing potion yields across the board.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Having the herbalism/alchemy potion crafting costs looked at and adjusted accordingly after this change would be pretty nice. I think a lot of the woes people are feeling right now would go away if some of the crafting-point costs or material ingredient costs were lowered to make the hit hurt less.

I bet there are people that took Brew Potion as a first level feat thinking they can't undo their trade point investment anyway, now they're stuck with Brew Potion and they make 50% less potions.

What hit? What hurts? Never taken the feat because I tended to be a herbalist on rangers, assassins or barbarians. Why should a feat choice impact a craft so heavily?

Imagine if we added +50% production for other types of craft. Gnomes get a bonus to finding gems. Dwarves get a bonus to finding coal.

As someone who plays a Medicine Maker and Healer, I don't like this change at all. Having the feat which I put into my build showed my characters proficiency in her trade, the ability to make ingredients stretch and make potions faster is now something that's been taken away from her via mechanics. Now I have to explain why my orders take longer and are more expensive with no reasoning behind it other than, "Oops, cant make them as quickly anymore or as efficiently." It took a week of solid crafting to fill an order I just finished, now its going to take longer and they will burn through what I made faster than I can make it now because people want to play the game, I want to play the game too but now i'm just going to be playing a crafting simulator. If I wanted to do that, I would have chosen to play a Commoner.

I, personally, am a fan of the change. At least because it will encourage more herbalism overall. I know that I originally never bothered because I almost never take brew potion.

I'll say one thing though in response to the previous post:

If you have Brew Potion, which is a feat only derived from having a spellcasting class

This isn't true, anyone can take brew potion. I've taken it on a mundane WM before, and I've known commoners who have it. If you create a fighter at level 1, you can actually take it then.

...That being said, a direct nerf does hurt quite a bit. It will take some time for markets to adjust and supply of previous potions made under the 50% gain to go down, but eventually it will stabilize.

It would be nice to have a portion of the 50% granted to everyone now, like 20% or so.

Some crafting based feats might be nice though. Especially for commoners.
Maybe one that like, opened up some racialy locked crafts. Or one did enable extra potion making. With -relevel I will admit I'm a little nervous about it, but if we think we can trust each other, it could be nice to open up some for less combat related pcs.

Yep, am Commoner who's currently in progress of releveling due to having Brew Potion be a dead feat (as obviously I have no spellbook to actually brew anything). I will agree that overall for the betterment of the server, the benefit had to go.

Far as GrumpyCat's suggestion goes, I'm not sure if even the Commoner should get anything as big as this - both because commoner already warps crafting economy with the double skill points (mastery rolls are a hell of a drug, even when merely at 67 skill at my highest profession) and because, imo, there's no such thing as "less combat related" pc. Everyone is combat related in Arelith, the only question is how much are you reliant on consumables, the commoner falling into bracket "very".

ltlukoziuz wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:35 am

Far as GrumpyCat's suggestion goes, I'm not sure if even the Commoner should get anything as big as this - both because commoner already warps crafting economy with the double skill points (mastery rolls are a hell of a drug, even when merely at 67 skill at my highest profession) and because, imo, there's no such thing as "less combat related" pc. Everyone is combat related in Arelith, the only question is how much are you reliant on consumables, the commoner falling into bracket "very".

So very much this... And while we are at it.. We might wanna think about actually restricting Brew potion to spellcasters.

Second adjusting recipes now that brew pots bonus is gone (which is good).

Potions compete with wands which are dirt cheap, often people only use potions if they can't use wands even though potions have the distinct benefit of cost only half an action a round.

Alternatively you could make the 50% bonus potion baseline (except for single crafts like golden spirits because that was silly)

I've played a heavy-duty herbalist before, so I'll draw on my experience from that in regards to this change.
Having the Brew Potion feat as an herbalist is almost mandatory because of just how many craft points this trade skill takes. It is by far the most challenging Trade Skill in my personal opinion because of the level of craft points put in versus how many potions you actually get from it. The food and such is great, the better ones at a challenging level when it comes to materials that I think is suitable for their benefit, but the POTIONS alone are groan worthy, especially those that take other potions to make (looking at you, Mojo.)

I don't think a singular Trade Skill benefiting from a feat was the way to go, so I do agree with this change on that front. However!
I think some of those craft point costs could be looked at to make it a little easier for those who really do love this skill but feel disheartened by an already-difficult trade being made more difficult.

Herbalism doesnt need any buffs for the love of god. It is already the best trade in the game. Recipes dont need adjustment because the addition of Brew Potion's production increase was a mistake in first place.

Brew potion on its own is much less attractive than craft wand or scribe scroll by comparison.
The herbalism bonus solution might not have been ideal, but the brew potion feat still needs something extra to compete with the two.