A Recipe For More Work

Today, I was hoping to bring news of finishing the "costing" exercise I have been trying to sort out for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, while on the home straight (reworking the costs of creating Wondrous Items using the new SoZ recipes), I came across another "problem": It seems that the minimum caster level stated in the Wondrous Item recipe description actually has no bearing when using the recipe at all!

On checking the 2da file and accompanying crafting scripts, I could not see any check for caster level and, in practice, I was able to create a Cloak of Resistance (+5) with my 1st level cleric (after I gave him all the ingredients), which according to the description requires a 15th level caster. I made a post on the forums asking people about it. For now, I have put this final section on hold awaiting any further information on this, as I do not want to edit all the descriptions only to find it "fixed" in the next patch. I don't mind there being no minimum caster level, but if this is the case, it does affect the costs involved to create the item in the recipe.

Spell Alterations

In the meanwhile, one of my players has been helping me go through spells in the game to work out which ones will require extra code to allow variable level casting and any alterations we want to include. E.g. A Summon Monster lasts 1 hour per level (max 20) or until killed now. We have done the first couple of levels and will hopefully get through the rest in time.

The Greater Essences

After closer study of the greater essences and what properties they instill to items, I have decided to alter the level at which PCs need to be to work with them. I compared the level of giving a basic property to an item between the OC crafting system and the MotB system (like giving armour +2 AC) and then adjusted the level slightly for any "cost differences". By my calculations, the level to work with the greater essences dropped by 4 in every case. So now, the caster level to work with greater essences are as follows:

• Brilliant Essence (x1) : 8th level.
• Brilliant Essence (x2) : 11th level.
• Brilliant Essence (x3) : 14th level.
• Brilliant Essence (x4) : 17th level.
• Pristine Essence (x1) : 20th level.
• Pristine Essence (x2) : 23rd level.
• Pristine Essence (x3) : 26th level.

This allows the players to start using the greater essences much sooner than normal, which is something I want to encourage. The properties that can be enchanted with these essences are now closer in value to their creature distilled lesser essence types.

The only downside to all this of course, is that I will now need to edit the essences descriptions to reflect this. However, as there will be a single tome explaining all the greater essence recipes, I will simply remove much of the crafting descriptive text and leave something a little more generic. This does, however, prompt me to have to finish the Greater Crafting tome that I started some while back.

Free Game

Lastly, has anybody tried playing this free game from Aeria Games? I have not looked at it yet, but wondered if anybody else had any experience with it?