Alchemy

[Valdor the Great]

Well, i'm not entirely sure if this idea was said or not but it is here. I personally love being an alchemist in perpetually any RPG and I think it would be cool to have it in Wyvern.

I mean, sure you would have to put ingredients in game and stuff but, it'd be fun. Reagents could be used. (Stone for strength, stuff like that). Like make fire shield potions, enlightenment, strength potions, etc. The different potions could have more power and length depending on skills, I think it would work.

But then again, i'm not the one to decide.

[xxMASTERFONGxx]

Yeah, but wait why not make it so that to make say a fire shield potion you would also need to have some fire trained to increase the strenth and damage of the fire, same would also work for the other elements of that nature, water and air and earth, and for a healing potion, life would be trained of course, but what would death be good for, well my only thought in that would be the adition a poison system. It could work like a blade spell and such, but instead of it doing an elemental hit it could poison the target like the spell would

[Valdor the Great]

Yeah, thats basically what I just said.

[Logwad]

The best implementation of an alchemy system in my opinion would involve a very complicated but mostly reasonable set of mathematical formulas that dictate how all the components of an item will react and combine when magic(and it would also depend on what element(s) you are trying to use as well as your skills) is introduced. This would allow limitless combination as well as the need for exploration and archiving of formula.

In addition to this dynamic system, special (but small) effects could be hardcoded for certain situations. Effects however would not be made for common use items, such a heal potions or resists, but rather amplify unused or peculiar things, such as adding a small bonus to a potion that gives 30% resist life stealing and ac+1. Such items might be given a special name or association. A potion of ac-1 and resist death -30% (with a special effect of lasting 10% longer and adding a spirit travel point) would be known as a "potion of Logwad".

Of course, wyvern is not set up to do this sort of thing. It would require adding many properties (as one sword might be 95% iron, 4% leather, 1% gold or gem, but another kind of sword would be different). Wyvern would prolly take the route of having simply a tiny, hard coded list of what you can do. Much like crafting.

And don't get me started about how I hate skillpoints. (Bah! The way wyvern is going, it should have 2 kinds of skill points, one for combat and one for crafting, cause the only way to level is to hit things till they die, and I would be shocked if xp were given for crafting anytime soon)

^ I don't know why I even bothered to add parenthesis.

[jonnybot]

The best reason that crafting doesn't grant XP is that it grants wealth. Wealth is just as important to your characters power as his level. Sure, the game is largely hack-and-slash in its implementation, but that helps keep the game balanced.

"Balance?!" you say. "How is it balanced if fighting grants XP AND wealth (via loot) when crafting only grants a moderate amount of loot?"
The answer is simple- fighting entails more risk. You can LOSE wealth and xp if you lose a fight, get your items cursed or destroyed, etc. You cannot die crafting, and the idea that the guy who hacked his way up to 25th level, dying dozens of times, should be equal in power to a crafter is laughable.

Now, a separate skill system, as you suggest, would eliminate some of this problem, but that seems to imply a class-based system. For instance, "My character is only a lvl1 adventurer (or caster, or fighter, or whatever) but he's a level 15 craftsman." Either that, or combat characters end up with a ton of crafting points they never use (thus forcing anyone who wants to be a serious player to do crafting) and crafters have untapped combat skill points.

Neither option is better than the skill points system that is in place now.

If you wanted to have more craft-based characters, the best thing to do would be to do what Valdor suggests and introduce more crafting options, like Alchemy. Instead of just being able to make weapons and armor, you should be able to make potions, scrolls, wands, rods, etc. Maybe a "Craft magic items" skill that costs something upwards of 2000gp per level? Or break it up, like the magical arts, with each level in the skill representing levels of spells you can imbue items with. This might make for some curious items (rods of strength, e.g., which I don't think you normally see). You could have prerequisites for crafting items (you must have a certain level in a skill, know a certain spell, get someone to cast a spell for you, etc.).

Granted, this is sounding like more coding all the time, so one of us probably needs to ascend to wizard and get to work.