Done: Magic Upgrade

Sounds interesting, if you can find it I'd like to take a look.

It's simple enough to check against just spell resistance. I'm interesting in seeing how you handled spell mantles.

Hmmm...just had a thought on it. It would mean recoding how spell mantles/spell absorption effects track things, but might work... Time to code and test...

Still interested in seeing how you did it. It sometimes helps to see another's approach to a problem.

Okay, so, got in game to try out the new wand crafting system, since Anna do got the imbue focus feat after all.
Went to the Magical Laboratory in Macedone after getting some bone wands from Bluebeard's Tower and following the instructions you typed up in the other thread BUT....every time the message "You do not have the desired spell available to cast" popped up.


Not sure what I am doing wrong here...tried various name variations; first how the spell was spelled on the crafting page (all small characters) and later experimenting with various spellings; but neither very successful.

The wands I tried to create was barrier of force, phantasmal killer, bull strength, transference, find and disarm traps, dark bolt and true strike.

I do had all above-mentioned spells memorized in the spell book though, so that's not the problem; it's that the script didn't noticed it which is the problem...

My procedure was this:

First I memorized various spells which I wanted to try out, then I stocked up on bone wands from Bluebeard's tower shop, and then went to the magical laboratory in Macedone and typed in the vc commands in the following order;

1. Set the caster level: ;;mi cl 30 (tried 20 too)
2. Set the caster class: ;;mi class wizard
3. Went to finish up the wand. (example: ;;mi wand phantasmal killer)
...which immediately was followed by the message: You do not have the desired spell available to cast...

---

Oh, by the way, I noticed a typo in this post in the spell list at the bottom. The Gate spell is listed as made available for wands, at least I hope it's a typo and the 9th spell wasn't made available for wands via crafting. -- Although a part of me wants an wand of gates; 50 charges. Stand on a cliff or invisible nearby and summon balors at the enemy! XD

I see that the base cost of Wands has been quadrupled for some reason, making it cheaper and more inventory efficient, as well as flexible, to just scribe 50 scrolls.

Angel of Death:

Checking on wand making today sometime.



daveyeisley:

Finished scrolls:
more inventory efficient (by 1 square): yes
cheaper (gold and xp): yes
flexible (able to end with anywhere from 1 to 50 "castings" per stack): yes
time efficient: no

I increased the cost for enchanting wands to make up for the convenience in gaming time for making 1 wand vs. 50 scrolls.

50 scrolls = 50 VC command entries along with using 50 blank scrolls along with memorizing a spell 50 times
1 wand (50 charges) = 1 VC command along with 1 bone wand along with memorizing a spell 1 time

Off hand, would have to say that dave has a point.

While it may be far easier to create a wand or other item, cost should be effective enough to warrant re-sale; not only for personal use. Quadruple costs suggest a restriction not only to prevent exploitation, but to also inhibit production.

Perhaps another look at cost / resale could be made?

If you make a quickslot for the VC command, there's very little retyping to do when making scrolls, so the 'time needed to produce them' argument I don't see as too big of a deal beyond the spells memorized/blank scrolls part, which can be circumvented with a handful of potions that instantly remove your rest timer anyhow. I see very little return to making a wand at current as opposed to scrolls EXCEPT, for the following ...

The major drawback of scrolls vs. wands in NwN in general is the activation time of wands vs. scrolls. Wands are nearly instant while scrolls have that ~.5 second 'reading' emote before triggering the scroll's effect.

Yup.

Sorry , but my personal opinion is that increasing the cost of wands is both bad and needless. Its a deviation from PnP, and the reasoning is questionable at best. The result is overwhelmingly negative.

I know my opinion probably doesn't matter... but there it is.

One of the main reasons to spend a feat on imbue focus has been ruined.

I would say spoiled. but not ruined.

Sometimes high costs are acceptable, as in the case of Pilot and Speeder costs in SWTOR; way overpriced, but it is either that or move a bit slower. But the high costs do make resale a loss, as when I chose the incorrect model.

Increased costs are a must when gaining more powerful forms of the standard items, but they still should be able to compete with such pricing as this is still the IG method to create the min powered required items , too. Pls consider a lesser fee. Thank you.

Semantics.

There was a working system in PnP, which the proposed changes were supposed to bring us closer to. This change is counter to that goal.

There are a myriad of implementations in the game that have little to do with PnP, as they are two different critters. And allowing an increased cost for Player Lvl power is acceptable to me, though the quadruple figure mentioned has me designing for other options.

The pricing can be changed. And feedback is always welcome. I just opened the toolset, so I can make an adjustment for the next module update.

Edit:

Going to change it to caster level x spell level x 1250 for the base value (so gp cost will be caster level x spell level x 625). Still more than PnP, but less than twice the PnP cost.

50 scrolls of identical caster level and spell level would be the same price in xp and gold. Scroll gold costs can still be drastically reduced though by scribing in a library (unlike PnP).

Edit 2: Found the script error for wands...it seems I can't count the number of letters in the word "wand". The code was chopping an extra letter off the front of each spell name, making any spell name entered invalid. I've fixed this for the next module update as well, so wand enchanting will work normally tomorrow (I just tested with Madara in Bluebeard's tower by adding an extra space before the spell name).

Thank you! My new Cleric is considering this Featr for later life.

I really wish people would stop hiding behind the excuse that NWN is not PnP.

That simply not any sort of sensical argument for not trying to make NWN closer to PnP. It is nearly universally agreed that PnP is the better of the two systems, and that NWN was based on, but poorly implemented many parts of the PnP system.

Item creation, in this case, is a perfect example of that. PnP did it better, and was trying to bring it back to PnP.

But then, all of a sudden the pricing of Wands gets arbitrarily adjusted.

One of Aenea's main points of popularity is precisely the fact that it sticks to PnP mechanics, and has even gone to great lengths to introduce them where it makes sense.

The main times Aenea *could* have done things like PnP but went a different route were because it would negatively impact players, rather than make the game better. This situation reinforces that point, as the change negatively impacts players with a needless deviation from PnP.

Not an excuse; tis a fact.

For example, in an environment where combat takes place one Player at a time, a round at a time is going to be severly different than one where all actions are pooled into the same few seconds. And hanging on to PnP Heal and Harm simply did not do us any favors.

if the costs are not prohibitive, I am all for paying more to get more out of them.

Changes to wand pricing are being made in the toolset now based on feedback. Not identical to PnP pricing, but it will be identical to the cost of 50 scrolls.

And, since I can see the direction the discussion of PnP vs. NWN is headed, let's just drop one of these...


I'm headed back into the toolset to try to finish a little low-level area that was supposed to be finished by yesterday, had I not been knocked out for several days with an upper respiratory infection ("gee, my kids love me so much they even share their illnesses with me" ).

I don't think there was anything wrong with the cost for a wand had made before...

It's true that in PNP the cost is caster level × the spell level × 750 gp, but you forget to count into the time it takes to craft a wand... which is 1 day for every 1.000 gp. Now, in Aenea, as well as NWN general for that matter, it's not really feasible to enforce such a long wait; instead the slightly increased cost could be considered as an exchange for speeding up the crafting process.
All in all, I think it's a good compromise (500gp extra to receive the wand the moment you finishes typing in the vc command versus enforcing a waiting period before receiving the crafted item).

Just my thought on it though...

--
I'm glad the wand crafting bug was fixed. Can't wait to try it out.

In this context, it is being presented as an excuse for not keeping the existing, perfectly acceptable PnP rules for wand cost. Fact or not, its usage is a poor foundation for such argument, always has been.

The cost wasn't broken, and was not in need of any adjustment or alteration. So we get a compromise for the sake of keeping some kind of change, when the relevant fact here is that no change was needed.

Crafting a wand was designed to be cheaper than making 50 scrolls for a reason. Wands are more limited than scrolls. If they both cost the same, there really is no reason to make a wand.

As for the time requirements, those are always fulfilled 'off-camera'. It is more flavor than any actual activity that players must suffer through, whether at a gaming table or in front of a monitor.

It's not a relevant consideration, simply because the same creation time rule is applied for both item types. If they had originally been different, the reason might have been relevant, but they arent.

Wizards can already make scrolls. Why burn a feat to make wands? If there was advantage to wands it might make sense. Now in Aenea the same feat works for rods and staves, so wizards might still invest (though the number of those who do so now will be significantly lower compared to those who would have before, because with wands costing the same as scrolls there is no longer a benefit to make wands). There used to be a solid benefit, and it was a good thing.

Other casters have to spend a feat to make wands or scrolls. Why limit yourself to wands containing only 4th level or lower spells when you could make scrolls for any spell you know, for the same cost per use?

My entire reason to have or make a wand is its quicker spell implementation. I haven't really found a way to time the comparison of wand implementation to scroll implementation, but seems to me that an entire turn or more goes by with that reading animation of scrolls, enough time to get hit.

Ramana Jala wrote:My entire reason to have or make a wand is its quicker spell implementation. I haven't really found a way to time the comparison of wand implementation to scroll implementation, but seems to me that an entire turn or more goes by with that reading animation of scrolls, enough time to get hit.

Both are supposed to take 1 standard action to activate.

The difference in NWN is about 2 seconds, but this is simply a bad implementation in NWN. More of a bug than a justification for the current state of affairs.

Ahh. Well, if the use of a wand or scroll are both still within a 6-second one turn action space, then using a wand would still provoke that one turn of an attack of opportunity just like the scroll reading. I must admit that I haven't used wands enough to witness this, as the types of wands previous to this have been so limited in choice of spells.

So I guess I would have to agree with Dave, as way back I used to consider wands an alternative to scrolls because 50 uses cost less than 50 scrolls. Under the circumstances of equal cost, if one discounts this implementation timing bug, I'd say wands are now simply for flavor.

Perhaps if Imbue Focus were still making default powered wands, I might agree, but these items are now casting a wider range of spells at a higher lvl. Personally I would rather have a single wand to craft, store, and utilize than to do the same for 50 scrolls.

Yeah, basically. If you never minded the delay 'bug' before, then the current wand cost removes the reason to craft wands.

Though, to clarify, although scrolls are "spell completion items" and and should provoke attacks of opportunity unless 'cast' defensively, they are poorly implemented in NWN and do not provoke.

If the action of using a scroll were properly implemented, it would give UMDers incentive to invest in concentration skill to use them defensively. For casters, it would be 'same old, same old'.

Wands dont have that limitation in PnP as they are 'spell trigger' items.

If this were fixed, it would be a reason to go with wands, to be sure, but I am not confident that the action is not hardcoded and thus not able to be changed.

@Elhanan
As for default powered wands.... you do realize this whole crafting upgrade was supposed to offer the PnP flexibility for setting the caster level on a crafted item, yes? This was because the default implementation was terrible, and PnP was vastly superior.

In both systems, there was already increased cost for increased power of the item. Its right in the base cost calculation. You increase caster level, and the price goes up.

That has nothing to do with arbitrarily increasing the base cost factor for creating all wands. Seriously, nothing to do with it at all. There was no issue with the cost of wand creation prior to the upgrade, and the upgrade was not initiated for the purpose of fixing such non-existant issue.

The upgrade may not have achieve its stated goal in totality (due to the difficulties in recoding SR checks), but there was no relation, need, or cause to go adjusting creation costs for any of the items.

Furthermore, wands have not experienced any change that the other items types have not experienced as a result of the upgrade (except for the arbitrary cost increase). Therefore there is no justification to increase the cost of wands and not increase the others.

Did anybody ask for a cost increase? Did anybody say 'Gosh, these items are just too darn cheap to craft..."

Nope. Ask yourself why.

And you should realize that Scrolls may be made that are higher than 4th lvl, while Wands cannot.

So rather than argue that Wands should cost less (as they do when speaking of higher than 4th lvl spells), one is now getting to create Scrolls at the same cost as Wands for 50 charges and gaining a wider array of Spells and Spell Lvls.

And PnP is better; always will be to me. But these are very different environs, and I may correct any flaw seen in PnP with an eraser or pencil; takes a little bit more to do the same for NWN.

And you should realize that Scrolls may be made that are higher than 4th lvl, while Wands cannot.

Umm... I said this farther up in the thread when I explained that this fact is part of the reason why it makes no sense to spend a feat to craft wands at the same price as scrolls. Why would you try to remind me of something I already pointed out?

Are you even reading what I said?

So rather than argue that Wands should cost less (as they do when speaking of higher than 4th lvl spells), one is now getting to create Scrolls at the same cost as Wands for 50 charges and gaining a wider array of Spells and Spell Lvls.

I am not arguing any such thing, so you must be reading something I didn't actually write. I am arguing that wands should cost the same as they always have. Making higher caster level wands has always cost more to make, it has always been part of the cost calculation, even before the arbitrary and needless increase to the base cost factor.

Also, wands do not cost less when speaking of higher than 4th level spells. Such wands cannot be compared, because they do not exist. If you're going to make comparisons, please try to keep them fundamentally valid.

The cost calculation for scrolls has stayed the same. The variety of spells available to scribe as scrolls has stayed the same. The only thing that has changed is that for scrolls or wands you can choose from a range of caster levels. Both items had the exact same change.

But now, wands are more costly per cast. No matter what spell, or what caster level is chosen. There was no need for this.

As for added variety, in PnP there was never a limitation on what spells could be put into a wand other than the 4th level or lower restriction. The only reason we don't have the same in Aenea is because of the work it would take, but make no mistake, that is the eventual goal - For all 4th level and lower spells to be craftable as wands... because that is how it works in PnP.

The system in PnP had the same cost calculation for crafting that Aenea has always used, even before the recent upgrade. The upgrade has not added any extra value to crafting Wands, the flexibility of selectable caster levels was not 'free' in any sense. The original cost calculation already accounted for it. The increase to base cost factor has now reduced the value of Wands over scrolls. Considering that wands are more limited to begin with, this makes no sense.

One question was why would a Wizard burn a feat to make wands. If I were to have the option as opposed to making 50 for the same price, I will choose it. And my non-Wizards might as well, as opposed to creating stacks of 50 scrolls.

Elhanan wrote:One question was why would a Wizard burn a feat to make wands. If I were to have the option as opposed to making 50 for the same price, I will choose it. And my non-Wizards might as well, as opposed to creating stacks of 50 scrolls.

Excellent. And now, please be so kind as to explain why you would choose this?

Your explanation may help me illustrate my point more clearly.

My non-Wizards will need to burn a Feat, so the Ranger (and Paladin) only get 4th lvl spells anyway, so get 50 per with Wands seems easier than Scrolls. Any Druids, Cleric (and supposedly Sorcerers) would compare which spells were possible, and make the dertimanation of ease from there.

Wizards would already have Scribe Scroll, and adding Wands would remove the need for many lower lvl stacks from inventory; focusing the scrolls for higher lvl needs.

Also note that scrolls have no weight whereas wands weight 1 lb each.

Elhanan wrote:My non-Wizards will need to burn a Feat, so the Ranger (and Paladin) only get 4th lvl spells anyway, so get 50 per with Wands seems easier than Scrolls. Any Druids, Cleric (and supposedly Sorcerers) would compare which spells were possible, and make the dertimanation of ease from there.

Wizards would already have Scribe Scroll, and adding Wands would remove the need for many lower lvl stacks from inventory; focusing the scrolls for higher lvl needs.

Thank you. I apologize for late reply - I have been getting my butt kicked the last 2 days.

So your remarks illustrate my point quite well. In the top example, the the character has no need of scrolls of spells higher than 4th level, so given equal cost per cast, wands offer only one advantage - convenience of typing the command once. That's it.

In the second example, again, wands offer only convenience. Nothing more.

Scrolls take up less space. Scrolls can be crafted in lots smaller than 50. Scrolls can be made for spells of any level. Scrolls don't add weight.

Wands are just a little quicker to make. When deciding which feat to invest in, I have to say I think most folks would agree only the first example makes sense to choose wands over scrolls. Due to the following, even that is debatable:

You want to make a stack of 50 scrolls.

Memorize/prepare as many castings of the spell as you can, including using metamagic for extra castings.

You buy a scribes book, then quickslot it for easy blank scroll creation.

Buy a stack of 10 slumber potions.

You quickslot the VC command to craft the desired scroll with a text macro, so instead of typing it 50 times, you type it in only once.

Now you make sure you have 50 inventory squares open (should be easy for most folks).

Queue up creation of 50 scrolls by pressing the function key assigned to the scribe's book quickslot.

Press alt+enter on your keyboard to put NWN in windowed mode so you can browse the forums or web surf while the blank scroll commands execute.

Double-click the title bar of the NWN window after 5 minutes to go back to full screen mode.

Now press the function key for the scroll crafting text macro quickslot to use up all your available castings of the spell.

Drink a slumber potion and rest.

Again use the text macro to make as many scrolls as you can then use a slumber potion and rest.

For the price of roughly 5 minutes, you can make 50 scrolls. Once you have done this process a couple times and are comfortable with it, craft wand is no longer worth a feat when you can have the advantages of scribe scroll instead.

Just because I'm useless with numbers.... what is the cost of creating a stack of 50 Xth level scrolls in gp and xp (with materials taken into consideration) compared to the same spell as a wand (with both the old costs and the new costs) ??

Can someone crunch the math for me ?

And I think in the debate over the feat choice we forget that Imbue Focus also gives the ability to create Rods and staves which can be pretty powerful too....

Yes; I would use Wands, Rods, and Staves for the convenience.

I do not require a discount to choose this Feat over Scrolls, and find the objects easier to manage than multiple bags of vellum. And for my non-Wizards, having a full stash is fine. And the bags make weight a non-issue for all but my lowbies that have not gotten them yet.

RustyDios wrote:Just because I'm useless with numbers.... what is the cost of creating a stack of 50 Xth level scrolls in gp and xp (with materials taken into consideration) compared to the same spell as a wand (with both the old costs and the new costs) ??

Can someone crunch the math for me ?

Sure... =)

For a 4th level spell at caster level 30:

Scribing a scroll (inside a stocked library) costs 120xp and 750gp for 1 scroll... x50 and it will cost in total 37500gp and 6000xp.
Scribing a scroll (NOT inside a library) costs 120xp and 1500gp for 1 scroll... x50 and it will cost in total 75000gp and 6000xp.

For a wand...made in a magical laboratory...it will cost 75000gp and 6000xp.


It's only really the stocked library script which grants a reduced cost on scrolls. If you were to scribe a scroll outside a library the cost would be the same for them both.

There appears to be an error in total gold for the second Scroll line; should also be 75.000 gp; same as Wands.

Edit: If these figures are correct, this does appear to be 10 times the present cost of purchasing a Wand of Cure Serious (15th) from a Cleric of Asis. Not certain of the target price or cost desired here, but this would make a duplicate wand prohibitive for lowbies, as well as selling for profit.

You see no error. There are no errors in my post!

It was a copy-pasta line, silly me forgot to edit the gold price afterward. >.>

And yes, it's the correct numbers for a 4th level spell at caster level 30.

Angel of Death wrote:
For a 4th level spell at caster level 30:

Scribing a scroll (inside a stocked library) costs 120xp and 750gp for 1 scroll... x50 and it will cost in total 37500gp and 6000xp.
Scribing a scroll (NOT inside a library) costs 120xp and 1500gp for 1 scroll... x50 and it will cost in total 75000gp and 6000xp.

For a wand...made in a magical laboratory...it will cost 75000gp and 6000xp.

Okay .. I thought that wands were suppose to be cheaper then scrolls and that was the main advantage of them?.. IS this what the whole argument here is about, because I lost track of what the key point was ?

Yup, rusty, you got it. got bit by the "must fiddle with stuff that's currently a-ok" bug in the process of the crafting upgrade, and initially made wands base cost factor 3k instead of the tried-and-true 750. I complained, some folks agreed, and he knocked the cost factor down to be equal with 50 scrolls, 1250, instead of leaving it the way it was - thus generating my attempt to illustrate why this makes wands damn near worthless.

Elhanan wrote:Yes; I would use Wands, Rods, and Staves for the convenience.

I do not require a discount to choose this Feat over Scrolls, and find the objects easier to manage than multiple bags of vellum. And for my non-Wizards, having a full stash is fine. And the bags make weight a non-issue for all but my lowbies that have not gotten them yet.

I could try to explain why parts of this don't apply, but I am suspecting there is disagreement for the sole sake of disagreement, thus I would just be wasting time.

Spellcasters enchanting wands, scrolls, and potions are going to want to make sure they have the latest aenea.tlk file and aeneahak_updates.hak file (dated August 7).

After a crap-load of tedious work and experimentation (and a crap-ton more tedious work), I've altered the behind the scenes functionality of the the caster-level-selectable enchanted items. The changes required adding over 40,000 entries to a 2da file and 17,280 lines to the tlk file.

Newly-made such items should start functioning fully (even working right with spell resistance).

You're welcome.

OMG!



Home Run! Score one for !!!

On top of moving, painting, and childcare, that is mighty impressive! Thanks big time!

Dave found a major bug.

DO NOT MAKE WANDS UNTIL I FIX IT.

Sorry.

(scrolls and potions should still be good to go)

Bug fixed and running on server.

Wow.... all that anger from the house-break-in directed to good use

I'm not sure that I (we) have said this enough over the last four years that I've been here but rocks!!