Exceptional items

[Faldred]

What goes into making a crafting item "exceptional"?  I assume it's just a (very small) random chance upon creation success, but maybe there's more to it?

Also, which items can be "exceptional"?

[Ar7]

You get an exceptional item, if you roll a 20 during crafting.

I know that jewelry and a majority of tailored items can be exceptional, can not remember more off the top of my head.

[orth]

It works like a critical hit.

If you roll a 20, you roll again, if you succeed at the craft on the second roll you get an exceptional item, otherwise you get just the normal item.

[Faldred]

Ok... so if the item is "trivial" to make, you have a 5% chance to get an exceptional version?  I didn't expect it to be that high, but the system does at least reward the more skilled craftsman with a higher success chance.

[Filatus]

You always have a 5 % chance to make an exceptional item, whether you're skilled or not. The only thing that matters is whether your level is high enough to make it in the first place.

A while ago there has been some discussion about giving high level crafters a bigger chance of making an exceptional item. But I don't think this will be implemented.

First off, high level crafters craft a lot more than lower lvels in general. Which means giving them bigger chances on exceptional items means a much higher supply on the market, than you'd assume at first.

[SquareKnot]

orth said: "If you roll a 20, you roll again, if you succeed at the craft on the second roll you get an exceptional item, otherwise you get just the normal item."

So if it was trivial, it would go like this:
1/20 chance of getting a 20 (5%) * 100% chance of success (trivial) = 5% chance of exceptional item

However, if you only had a 50% chance of success to begin with, it would go like this:
1/20 chance of getting a 20 (5%) * 50% chance of success on second roll = 2.5% chance

So the chance isn't always 5%, and does go up as you get better in the craft, from 0.25% to 5%, never to go above 5%

Right? Or did I misunderstand orth's explanation.

[Filatus]

SquareKnot - 4/5/2006  2:28 AM

orth said: "If you roll a 20, you roll again, if you succeed at the craft on the second roll you get an exceptional item, otherwise you get just the normal item."

So if it was trivial, it would go like this:
1/20 chance of getting a 20 (5%) * 100% chance of success (trivial) = 5% chance of exceptional item

However, if you only had a 50% chance of success to begin with, it would go like this:
1/20 chance of getting a 20 (5%) * 50% chance of success on second roll = 2.5% chance

So the chance isn't always 5%, and does go up as you get better in the craft, from 0.25% to 5%, never to go above 5%

Right? Or did I misunderstand orth's explanation.

You're right. I didn't take the time to look it up before my post.

With the implementations Orth suggested, exceptional items will be harder to craft if the item isn't trivial. So if you have a 100 % chance on the item the chance will be 5 %, below that the chance will decrease.

Sorry for the wrong information.

[Harloff]

no matter how good you are the chances of creating an exceptionel item when creating an item is 5 %. Thus a low level crafter will create exceptionel items as often as a high level crafter does compared to the number of items they make, the low level fellow will however need to gather much more resources then the high level does.

[Jilseponie Wyndon]

Is there a listing somewhere of what can be made exceptional?  If a belt or gloves can be exceptional . . what about leather armors?  Or hoods?

[Dorganath]

What orth said is correct.  We changed the system several months ago such that rolling a 20 on items where an exceptional item can be made forces another d20 roll to determine whether or not an exceptional item was made.
  The old system is as Harloff described; there was a 5% chance (rolling 20 on the d20 roll) regardless of one's crafting experience.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Let me see...

I think that Tailoring and Gemcraft are the only two things you can have Exceptionals in.

I think we should incorporate some Masterworks into the weapons... An additional +1 to attack for an Exceptional (though called Masterwork in this case) weapon. And armor... Reduce check penalty by 1, raise Max Dex by 1...

Yummy.

[Harloff]

Dorganath - 4/9/2006  11:58 PM    The old system is as Harloff described; there was a 5% chance (rolling 20 on the d20 roll) regardless of one's crafting experience.

 I think you misunderstood me... What I was trying to say was this: 1 out of every 20 items produced will be exceptionel according to the new system. A crafter with 5 % chance of producing a certain item will on success craft an exceptionel item 1 out of 20 items. In avarage he will however have to try 400 times in order to produce these 20 items. a crafter producing it trivially will however only have to try 20 times in average in order to get that exceptionel item.  In the old system any crafter would have 5 % chance of creating an exceptionel item. This means that a crafter with 5 % chance would produce exceptionel items only. And that a high and low level crafter would have to gather equal numbers of resources in order to produced the desired exceptionel item. A side effect of this old system is that more than 5 % of all produced items would be exceptionel.

[Pen N Popper]

orth - 4/4/2006  3:04 PM

It works like a critical hit.

If you roll a 20, you roll again, if you succeed at the craft on the second roll you get an exceptional item, otherwise you get just the normal item.

Stop with the mathmagicals!  This is how it works.  Expert crafters hence have a better chance at creating them then average crafters.

[Harloff]

Stephen_Zuckerman - 4/10/2006  3:57 AM

Let me see...

I think that Tailoring and Gemcraft are the only two things you can have Exceptionals in.

I think we should incorporate some Masterworks into the weapons... An additional +1 to attack for an Exceptional (though called Masterwork in this case) weapon. And armor... Reduce check penalty by 1, raise Max Dex by 1...

Yummy.

As I started crafting i liked the idea about crafting exceptionel items, and thought it was a good idea to have exceptionel items in all trades. However, when i look at the trades that have exceptionel items I see that people are producing these items i vast ammount just to get the exceptionel item and throw all the rest away. E.i. people produce "gloves of fury" in HUGE ammounts, and throw most of the gloves in the trash, just keeping the few exceptionel ones. Furthermore, the system has the effect that you can gather things and by chance crafting something really rare and exstemely valuable.

Introducing exceptionel weapons would have the effect that all weapon crafter would start bulk producing their weapon of choice until they had the exceptionel one. And after that they would start producing their friends weapon of choice until they made the exceptionel one and so on... And that is not a scenario I think would be beificial for the communety in any way.

Based on the way this exceptionel crafting influences the way people craft i would prefer that it didn't excist at all, if better versions should exist e.g. "exceptionel gloves of fury" i would prefer to have a different recipe for these items, thus removing the "luck" factor and making the items value be reflected in the resources needed for that item. Furthermore, removing it would also stop this "overcrafting" of a very narrow range of items. Just my two cents on the subject.

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Good input Harloff.

[Dorganath]

Harloff - 4/9/2006  10:53 PM  

Dorganath - 4/9/2006  11:58 PM    The old system is as Harloff described; there was a 5% chance (rolling 20 on the d20 roll) regardless of one's crafting experience.
 

I think you misunderstood me... What I was trying to say was this: 1 out of every 20 items produced will be exceptionel according to the new system. A crafter with 5 % chance of producing a certain item will on success craft an exceptionel item 1 out of 20 items.

 I'm sorry, but this is not correct.
  How it works is this:
  If you roll a 20 when crafting, another d20 is rolled to see if the item is exceptional. The chance for an exceptional is the same as one's chance for success. So someone making a trivial item and rolling a 20 would have a 100% chance of that item being exceptional; this is your 5% chance example. By contrast someone with a 5% chance of successfully crafting an item will then have a 5% chance of getting an exceptional item if that crafter rolls a 20 when the item is crafted. In order to get the exceptional, that second d20 would also have to come out as a 20 in order to get the exceptional item. This is the 1 in 400 chance or a 0.25% chance to create an exceptional item on each attempt.
  Or in short, each crafter has the same chance (5%) for qualifying to get an exceptional item, but whether or not he/she does depends on their level of skill in that given craft.  
What you said about overall averages is correct, given a large enough sample. In truth, the 5% crafter will probably see far, far fewer than 1 exceptional in 400 tries.

[Yosemite Sam]

I agree with Harloff, but one addtional point. Depending on your stats and level, some crafts take a huge amount of items to profess.  Micheal has probably made close to 50 iron helms already, and he isnt close to being finished making them.  This is just to level.  I really dont think exceptionals should be a luck based item.  I think they should be harder, more expensive recipes.

[Harloff]

Dorganath - 4/10/2006 7:41 PM  

Harloff - 4/9/2006 10:53 PM

Dorganath - 4/9/2006 11:58 PM   The old system is as Harloff described; there was a 5% chance (rolling 20 on the d20 roll) regardless of one's crafting experience.
 

I think you misunderstood me... What I was trying to say was this: 1 out of every 20 items produced will be exceptionel according to the new system. A crafter with 5 % chance of producing a certain item will on success craft an exceptionel item 1 out of 20 items.

 I'm sorry, but this is not correct.
  How it works is this:
  If you roll a 20 when crafting, another d20 is rolled to see if the item is exceptional. The chance for an exceptional is the same as one's chance for success. So someone making a trivial item and rolling a 20 would have a 100% chance of that item being exceptional; this is your 5% chance example. By contrast someone with a 5% chance of successfully crafting an item will then have a 5% chance of getting an exceptional item if that crafter rolls a 20 when the item is crafted. In order to get the exceptional, that second d20 would also have to come out as a 20 in order to get the exceptional item. This is the 1 in 400 chance or a 0.25% chance to create an exceptional item on each attempt.
  Or in short, each crafter has the same chance (5%) for qualifying to get an exceptional item, but whether or not he/she does depends on their level of skill in that given craft.
What you said about overall averages is correct, given a large enough sample. In truth, the 5% crafter will probably see far, far fewer than 1 exceptional in 400 tries.

 *grins* We agree on this one and we have all along... the difference is that you talk about attempts and I talk about actually produced items. My claim is that nomatter the crafterlevel in 1 out of 20 produce items wil be exceptionel. The only thing that varies is the number attempts needed in order to get that. math examples based on avarages...  [TABLE=head;sort=1a,2,3]Chance |Attempts |No. items produced |No. exceptionel items |
100 % |20 |20 |1 |
80 % |25 |20 |1 |
50 % |40 |20 |1 |
10 % |200 |20 |1 |
5 % |400 |20 |1 |
[/TABLE]  And yes the the 5 % crafter might see far less than 1 out of 400 attempts but he could be lucky and get 1 in first attempt as well 0.25 % chance for that happening...

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I'm all for the harder recipies... And how about adding something else that comes completely cross-class?

Most smiths are fighters or clerics, right? Well, how many of them are likely to be medium-to-high-level alchemists? Or gemcrafters?

I propose adding an additional set of ingredients for Masterwork items. There are two routes to take when considering this (among those that spring to my mind).

Alchemy.
A simple Essence would never be enough... An oil, perhaps, or a powder to add to the metal to make it stronger; unique for each metal. The powder would require an ingot of the metal, powdered carbon, a leather bag, and one other ingredient that I have no idea about yet. Added in the forging process, this material could add strength to the metal, and bam. There you have it.

Gemcraft.
Simply adhering a finely polished gemstone of a certain type for each metal, along with a much higher Craft DC, could balance out the benefit that the +1 (for a weapon) or various other bonuses (for armor) provide.

Copper - Greenstone or Malachite
Iron - Amethyst or Topaz
Adamantium - Sapphire or Fire Opal
Mithril - Diamond or Emerald

I intentionally leave out Bronze, because of several reasons. First, a bronze weapon is designed to be more heavy than swift. Secondly, a Masterwork Bronze weapon would essentially be an Iron weapon with +1 to damage - a potentially balance-upsetting thing for the low-to-mid-levels who aren't using elemental enhancements yet.

Also, nonmetal armors already have thier masterworks... They're in the various animals that can be made into them.

Thoughts?

[Harloff]

The few magical weapons that can be crafted, (sword of the dragon slayer, orcish dwarf razor, orcish elven bane) actually need gems, potions, wire etc.. so that is nothing new.

But before adding new exceptionel items I would prefer to have recipies for the alredy existing exceptionel items. Especially for the exceptionel gloves of fury, exceptionel cape of the panther, and other exceptionel items that most or at least many of the players would like to have. My thought is that the recipies could be doubled and have something else added besides that (an enchanted gem, an essence, etc.) and if it is a wish to limit the number of carfted items they could be made so hard to make that not even level 22 crafters could craft them trivially, much like the migthy bow part III (at least I don't think that any player can craft them trivially). This idea about having recipies for exceptionel items isn't something new, a recipe for the exceptionel belt of archers edge already exist.