Loot availability/distribution in adventures

Tony you want to do an after the BI discussion like we did last year? That might be a good venue for player feedback on a variety of issues.

For general campaign stuff I’d recommend Saturday mid-morning or doing “open office hours” a few times during the con. My concern about doing it after the BI is that it’s going to be late. People will be tired, potentially cranky. It doesn’t strike me as an ideal time to get broad based feedback.

Whatever works for the staff though.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

While I agree with Paul about the late nature of doing a discussion after the BI that’s likely the only time you will be able get a large number of people in one room at one time. I know Saturday morning I plan to sleep in, hit the dealer room and then head for the BI just before start time.

I’m pretty sure a player can replay a module as often as they like but it must be with a different character each time.

I personally like the idea of giving out 1/adventure, with special dispensations being made for things like LARPs, BI’s, or Multi-part adventures (1/adventure, or 1/4 hr time slot?).

Doing some thought, these Signature Points could be used for two things:

1) Buying items outright
2) Buying ACCESS to items (which can then be purchased with normal money

The types of things that could be purchased this way could be many of the things which are presently restricted:

A. Amalgamated, Permanent, or other Special Runes
B. Magical Items
C. Special Mounts/Creatures/Slaves (ie: Griffin for a Skyrider)
D. Special Materials for gear
E. Access/Scrolls to Exotic Spells (though not Secret Spells which should be unique to Paths)
F. “Cashing In” for other game stats, notably more Fate Points/Adventure or possibly even Gc.
G. Legendary items

For example, assuming direct purchasing (removing the need to assign prices to the items:

A. Amalgamated Runes will cost 10 Points per Tier of EACH Rune added. This means that combining two Tier I runes into an amalgamated rune would cost 20 SP’s. This means that buying a single Tier I Amalgamated Rune would take almost the entire Crusade! Arc to accomplish. Because a Permanent Rune is functionally 2 Runes, you could keep the same costing for it to. You can only purchase items of your present Tier or less.

B. Magical Items could cost something like 15 SP/Tier of item, which means that the Crusade! Arc could grant close to 2 Tier I items, or a single Tier II item (when the Heroes get to that point). You can only purchase items of your present Tier or less.

C. There are many instances of special mounts and animal Companions in Arcanis Cannon. This method could be used to gain creatures like Wolf Lizards, Giant Eagles, Griffins, Sc’math, Drakes, War Elk, etc. These would have to be on a case-by-case basis, with creatures like a Griffin (for a Skyrider) costing–for example–50 SP’s while a Wolf Lizard would cost 10 SP (due to it being more common). This can also possibly be a way of attracting a slave/hanger-on, though that could be a bit more problematic. Also, you cannot gain access to a creature/person of a Higher Tier than yourself.

D. Possibly have a different cost for the different materials, but have the investment of SP’s equal to–say–the item’s cost in Silver coins. For example, if we want to make an Exceptional Sarishan Steel Gladius, it could cost 15 Gc. Let’s assume that to the Sarishan Steel “Cost” is 1 SP/50 Sc. This means that your item would cost you some combination of 15 Gc AND 30 SP’s to purchase. Because it is even more rare, a TEMPERED Sarishan Steel blade may cost 1 SC/10 Sc of cost, meaning it would cost 15 Gc and 150 SP to buy.

E. We know there are many Exotic Spells which have showed up in the adventures or in the books (such as Steamblast). This way you could buy access to a new spell by using–say–10 SP/Spell Tier. You’d still have to take the Learn Exotic Spell (ta), but you’d have the ABILITY to learn the spell.

F. This could be an “Emergency” supply for more money and Fate. Say you could cash in 5 SP for 1 Fate Point (prohibitive, but reasonable) or 1 SP for 10 Sc of hard cash. In this case, you are LITERALLY cashing in your reputation for an immediate benefit.

G. At present, there is no means of gaining a Legendary Item. Perhaps you can cash in a large number of SP (say. . . 20) on top of the ‘usual’ cost (in Gc and SP) to allow you to gain access to Legendary items/runes. Of course, you’d then have to provide a cost for Legendary items, but it will give options.

Hi Mary,

You bring up a lot of good points. Let me share my thoughts on some of them.

1. Gee, another point total to keep track of. Joy.

My vision is to keep this system simple and easily tracked. My proposal is 1/CP (VCP, RCP) plus any for items (explicitly printed on the cert) – expenditures on cert or relic pages. If it takes more than 2 minutes to confirm the accuracy of the information in terms of current total, it’s probably taking too long.

There’s also a convenient spot to track the running total as we no longer track fate from mod to mod.

2. I can already see that everybody is going to want not one, not two, not even three, but lots of signature items for each of their PCs.

Again, not what I had in mind. This is why I recommend we finalize principles first and work out the specifics of cost later as the former will drive the later. My gut says that 1 item per tier is probably the right number. I could maybe see 1+1/2 Hero Tier. When you’re talking about characters that could be completely replay and will never get items other than what they can buy, 1/Tier seems reasonable. I would cap at no more than 2x Hero Tier. There are already limits on how much a character can wear (3+ passive Charisma).

4. I would allow gradual improvements to the signature item, presumably as they accumulate points.

I like this idea as well. The challenge is how to do it. For the most part Arcanis is designed not to change items. Armor and Weapons improve by getting a new item that is a higher level quality or by adding runes to them. Given the lack of focus on items, I’m not sure how much time I would spend in figuring out ways to improve existing items. It could be a lot of effort.

5. If a PC doesn’t have the points to build a signature item, then they don’t get a freebie.

I’ll have to go back and check my wording and I apologize for the confusion. I absolutely don’t want people building new signature items or upgrading them by going in the hole. For that, they can wait. I do feel that if a special item is found that not everyone or most everyone has the option of taking that there’s an SP cost to it. Only if you’re pulling an item out of the rewards at the end of the mod would I see going in the hole permitted and only with the GM’s approval. I would hate to see a new player with a brand new character sit down for their first mod and it happen to be a great item for the character, but they can’t take their fair share of the treasure because they don’t have the SP for it. If someone has a different suggestion for how to balance items that don’t go against the Signature limit vs. not being able to get the rewards when they happen to occur I’d be happy to see the proposal.

6. Signature items should be expensive in whatever currency is used to buy them, and it should take a while to accumulate enough points to afford one.

Agreed. I would also suggest that by definition Signature items cannot be traded or sold.

7. There should be no special historic background to the item; this item is something you’re having made specially for you. Although I could see it somehow dovetailing in with the Heirloom talent. And I could also see the possibility of a PC getting a cool flavor item and making it his signature.

If it’s made then the special flavor options would be really limited. Perhaps something like, crafted by Elebac or the equivalent. I provided a previous post on SP being used to represent acquiring an item rather than commissioning it.

I can see this whole thing getting out of hand very, very quickly. It scares me and makes me wonder how it’ll change the campaign. So, please, be cautious in introducing something like this. Take it slowly.

My view on how this entire thing would work would be as follows:
1. General idea presented, community provides feedback
2. Staff determines if this is even something they want to allow and if so drafts a possible implementation including assumptions on points given out over time etc.
3. Staff gives the proposal to an internal group to find the most broken things they can do with it. Make revisions and repeat until they’re generally comfortable with it. It may become obvious that either the amount of work on the staff or players is too much, too complicated etc and it’s dropped here.
4. If there’s a proposal that moves forward, the draft could be presented for public review and comment
5. If implemented the maximum point totals are monitored to make sure they’re in line with assumptions or if not, adjust things such that the system doesn’t break and actively monitor for feedback to improve or scrap the system.

To be clear, I’m no one official. I’m simply an interested player offering suggestions. No matter what does or does not get implemented, I have faith that the staff will make the right decision to support their vision of the world and the campaign.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I like Hat’s ideas on the system. The one change I’d make is to grant VCP extra SP (maybe 1.5 instead of 1) as “eating” a module really sucks.

iirc, you get CP or VCP for first time and RCP for all subsequent times you play or GM. If not, only give the SP bonus the first time if the GM has never gotten a CP for the adventure.

I could see maybe even giving GMs at the premiere of an adventure double (2 instead of 1.5) unless they play a slot 0 as they never even had an opportunity to play. Based on some things I’ve read, it seems like PCI sometimes has trouble finding GMs for premieres at ArcaniCon/Origins.

I would prefer to keep it 1/(V/R)CP for simplicity, and because I would personally prefer VCP’s to be EQUAL to CP’s and not inferior or superior. You’re not going to get that level of equality, but I see no reason to add a full 50% increase! Also, if we can keep this to whole numbers, it simplifies math SIGNIFICANTLY. I work with decimals all day long, and the last thing I want to do with this is THINK