Crafting Feats

[miltonyorkcastle]

Right, this has likely been brought up in previous discussions of this topic, or simply among the DM's themselves, but here's an idea if we choose to limit the number of crafts a person can participate in without completely cutting off those that want to be serious merchant/crafters (have more than two or three crafts they rank in):

Make each crafting discipline (tinkering, alchemy, etc) require a feat.  Have each character start off with two crafting feats at first level; that is, they have some proficiency or practice in two fields of crafting.  Then, those that want to pursue more crafting avenues may take the feats as they level to learn more crafts.  (and no, for those that read this and think fighters would have an advantage, they wouldn't, since the crafting feats would not count for a 'fighter bonus feat', meaning they could only be taken for character feats)

Advantages:

1) More interaction as crafters must find others who make the things they can't but still need to perform their own craft.

2) More "realistic" as those that excel in multiple crafting disciplines should have had to work for many, many years to develop all the skills.  This is represented by having to wait to take the feat every three levels if you want a access to a new craft.  In PnP, magical crafting uses similar restrictions.  You have to take different feats depending on whether you want to make wands, magic armor, etc.

3) Would slow the flood of goods to a small degree, but would also help determine when a market (like the bow market) is going to get flooded, as it can be seen just which are the 'popular' crafts quickly by how many people took the feats.  This should help to balance out each craft, as demand will dictate what people will consider learning as a craft.

4)  Masters will arise (not they they don't exist now, but many are more overall crafters rather than masters of a specific trade) in specific trade areas.  Apprenticeships will make more sense as the character may not already know a craft, but can RP with a master, justifying taking the new crafting feat.

Disadvantages:

1)  Those that already have many ranks in five or more crafts either get stilted and lose their work, or gain a feat advantage over new characters.  This alone is enough to thwart this idea.

2)  Character feats are expensive.  Even spending just one on a crafting feat severely limits the directions your character can go mechanically.  This can also be listed as an advantage, however, in that it discourages characters from leveling in seven or eight different crafts, forcing them to interact with and buy from other characters, keeping the economy in constant motion.

3) I have no clue how much scripting this would involve and how hard it's implementation would be in that regard.

There may be more advantages/disadvantages than I listed here.  Feel free to voice them.  I'm sure you already planned to.  ;-)

Just an idea.

[Pibemanden]

I think it would be a great idea... If we had a complete character wipe, but if it should be implemented now it would be bad... Perhaps this could be an idea for crafting if we started all over again, like if there would be a nwn2 version sometime in the distant future...

[Variable]

Limiting crafts by feat would destroy those established crafters that have spent these astronomical amounts of time developing. The characters that are already developed and mid-high levels that are crafting characters would(might) be completely useless at crafting because they were not built with the feats that would be required.

Although this might be a possiblity at some future time when there are no established characters,as Pibemanden stated, but it would not work at this time.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Of course, Variable, as you pretty much detailed the first disadvantage I listed.

[Faldred]

Disadvantages:... 2) Character feats are expensive. Even spending just one on a crafting feat severely limits the directions your character can go mechanically. This can also be listed as an advantage, however, in that it discourages characters from leveling in seven or eight different crafts, forcing them to interact with and buy from other characters, keeping the economy in constant motion.

The workaround to that would be to grant bonus feats to characters at specified character levels that could only be used on crafting feats.  This could be used to allow characters to either learn more craft disciplines (e.g., Crafting: Baking) or to improve within a particular discipline (Crafting: Baking, Pastry Specialization).  Naturally, using feats for crafting would probably do away with the need to buy crafting certifications.

Of course, this is all moot due to the first disadvantage (existing players and their current tradeskills), but should there ever be a full reset (like for a NWN2 upgrade), maybe it would be something the dev team could consider.

[Dorganath]

We're not yet sure which direction craftingwill take in the next version, and at this time no options are being fully discarded or carved in stone. However, among the many things we have to balance when designing and maintaining systesm, one of the most important ones is the "fun factor".
  This is a game, and people play to enjoy themselves. People like to craft, and crafting is the primary way the characters in this world get items. They can come from creature drops too, but that's far too random and unreliable. Crafting is very important and we want to encourage it. I don't know if we want to make people decide between developing their characters properly according to their vision for the character (which has a lot to do with feat/skill choices) and a desire to craft. If you take things a step further and look at how most crafts are interdependent upon at least one other craft, and that in almost all cases, the ability to obtain CNR itself is heavily dependent on how suitable a character (or group of characters) is for the given task, then requiring feats for crafting ends up making crafting more of a penalty than an enhancement.
  My own main character has stats in 10 crafts. Primarily. he's an alchemist, and has quite a few levels in that. But alchemy is dependent upon food crafting (juices and oils) and gem crafting (gem dusts) so he has pursued those as well, though not to the same degree. The remaining ranks were either things that he dabbled i and abandoned or things which he is starting to advance in, but hasn't gotten very far.
  In my opinion, the crafts one chooses are also a part of character development, and should not necessarily be curtailed by too many rules or suppressed throgh game mechanics. Feats, as I mentioned, are expensive. They're also quite amazing and the product of experience, training and/or natural ability. Look at the list of feats, and then look at crafting...In my personal opinion, they're not even in the same league.
  If you look at real life for a moment, how many of us need to reach some kind of nebulous milestone in our lives in order to pick up a hobby or something along those lines? I could, if I wanted to, start doing pottery today. I may not be very good at it, and it may take me more practice than others, but I bet I could eventually make a vase. And in doing so, I wouldn't have to sacrifice my own advancement/chosen profession.
  To me...the idea of requiring feats to craft doesn't make much sense. If anything, putting points into a skill would make more sense, such as in order to progress past a certain crafting level, you'd have to have X points in a craft-related skill (something more meaningful than the default Bioware craft skills). But I'm not really a big fan of that idea either.
  That said, keep the discussion going. I'm not the only voice in this crowd, and there's plenty of room for everyone's ideas.