Concept: Crafting revisited (improving General/woodworking)

[FaerellG]

It was noted by Andrew Rowe that General crafting appeared very underwhelming when compared to other craft skills. Of the three main resources to generate permanent items (Wood, Leather, Metal), we have:

Blacksmithing generates weapons, armor, and potentially shields.
Leatherworking generates armor primarily (light armor specifically and Brig), while small in selection, there are many people who use leather.
General generates shields, bows, and arrows.

Comparatively:
*Blacksmithing is always useful. Blacksmiths can arm and equip themselves for every form of melee combat.
*Leather is kind of weak, but the single type of item it generates is very prevalent making it useful on a lesser scale.
*General very weak. It only generates niche items. Shields only represent a small minority, and there have only ever been 2 actual archers...in that vein 'special' arrows are not very worthwhile to make. Not only are they expensive, but they are a logistical nightmare as well.

The first thing I feel should be done is to have General become "Carpentry" or "Woodworking". That better identifies what the skill actually covers.
In addition to wooden shields and archery accessories, the plan to improve Woodworking is to add more things they can craft. I've discussed this with Rewe and Alex a bit and we've come up with the following:
-Siege equipment and walls.
-Splints (1 shot items)
-Buildings/Strucures (Land enrichment for nobles)
-Quick structure

Sieges:
This craft can also be used to quickly create Walls and Siege engines for said situations. The benefit of this is immense on many levels. First, we can stop using park benches and tables as "wall" which are dangerous for people to jump/climb over. Second, this gives us the opportunity to fully define how sieges work.
With regards to the second point, previously, we just have NPCs whacking at tarp walls to break them down...largely, the number of whacks seems to be arbitrarily assigned. An actual siege system would grant PCs a good measure of control over the situation.
Walls can be quickly built out of wood (metal, and stone take way too long to construct during the middle of a fight, but wood can work). The quality of the Wood determines the strength of the wall. The quantity determines the length of the wall. Tarp physreps are still encouraged.

The currently system that has been discussed goes as follows:

In order to break down a wall, a siege engine is mandatory. You cannot break a wall down just by hitting it with a sword.
If you have a Siege Engine, breaking down the wall requires a count. This count is determined by 2 factors:
1. Quality of the wall (plot should always be informed of what the quality of the wall is).
2. Number of people assisting (limited by the Quality of the Siege engine).

The Quality of the wall sets the count. The count is equal to 10x the Quality. So Q1 requires a 10 count to break. Q2 requires a 20 count to break....so on to Q5 requiring 50 seconds.
(Breaking wall 1, breaking wall 2...ect)

This can go faster if you have more people assisting. You always count in multiples of how many people are assisting. If you are the only one working on the wall, you count normally. If there are 2 of you, count in 2s (2, 4, 6, 8...ect)
If 3, count in 3s (3, 6, 9, 12...ect) and so on.
For multiple people using a siege engine, you should designate a single person as the siege leader...this person is in charge of performing the actual count and making sure that the count increment is adjusted as siege crew members are picked off or disabled.
The "interrupt" call does not function against this count.

Now, quality of the siege engine limits the amount of people who can use it at once. For example, a Q1 battering ram can only have 1 person on it. Q2 can have up to 2 people on it. and so on to Q5 can have up to 5 people on it.

A rule of thumb is that only 1 siege engine can attack a wall at once (this keeps things simple).

Splints
Something proposed way back. 1 shot items to be applied to a wound...sort of the "opposite" of hardened bandages.
A splint allows you to use the limb regardless of damage, but the arm is still considered injured. Thus 2 more wounds would still render the wearer unconscious. 3 damaged, but splinted limbs still means the person is bleeding out and should be counting their bleedout timer.
Torso cannot be splinted.

Buildings
Nobles get land, that's cool. Their land does stuff for them, even cooler. But land doesn't do stuff by itself! Noble want to raise an army? Where do these soldiers sleep? Barracks...duh! But we gotta find someone to build these barracks...of course...a carpenter!
Anything else you can think of within reason really.
Lumber yard to generate more wood every month.
Alchemy lab that makes you a few random potions.
Mine shaft support structures to allow your miners to go deeper and generate more metal.
houses, mansion, ect. Talk to your local plot team to see what they feel is reasonable in terms of effect and cost!

Quick structure
We need to traverse this gap! Build bridge!
Want to enter through the side of the window? Build a ladder!
Whatever else you can think of.

[deneb3525]

I have to laugh at how well your post matches my thinking!

I like your ideas but I do see a few points.

Seiges:
Sounds like a blast in once sense. Have the front line push out, quickly erect a physreped wall behind em and then fall back to the cover of the wall. Or moving a ram up to a enemy gate and not be able to get through the gate untill the ram has done its work on the enemy gate. Would add a lot to sieges instead of just lineing up at the doorways and holding off crunchys.

The bad.... Im not gonna go burn valuable wood to start building walls. Metagame or no, but I KNOW that if I start putting up walls the NPCs will shortly be along with seige engines to destroy them. Leading to me losing a lot of gold, especialy if im using higher Q wood. Now if deconstruction or the skill itself allowed all spent wood to be regained at the end of a game, I could see this being a fun and usefull thing to do.

Splints:
Not so usefull in Ira's games. But I could see these being VERY usesfull in Rew's games. All depends on the cost of healing.

Buildings:
Cool idea. Could you flesh this out a bit more?

I'm currently thinking:
Q1 barracks
100 Q1 wood
Creates the effect of rank 1 military for a landed noble. Cannot be sold unless the land it is on is sold.


Quick Structures:
Much like trapfinding, this requires plot to plan events where these ideas could be used. Fun in concept, but I could see it being problamatic. Also, would you need a bridge recipy? or a Ladder recipy?

[FaerellG]

Siege
Regarding walls being expensive...yes they are! Get others to pitch in their wood and gold...otherwise just use t to create a small wall for yourself only so you can shoot arrows out from behind it
Pick up a few ranks of Disassembly as well to recover the wood if the wall is still standing at the end.
But yeah, this was intentional. Real walls are not meant for a single player to fund practically. Meaning, it's feasible, but really you should be grabbing other people and make them pitch in for something that everyone benefits from.

Splints
You're right again in both cases. In Ira's games, the prevalence of magical healing and energy recovery makes everything but magical healing practically useless. First Aid is pretty weak as well there. Rewe's game, these things would be pretty awesome.

Buildings
I was going to let the nobles and people who actually deal with land management flesh this out more. I know very little about this, and this idea was pitched by Rewe.

Quick Structures
yes you need a recipe. And there have been plenty of events where it could be useful without real plot planning. If anything, bridges and ladders would blow holes in encounters that before only teleport could do. We have had 'mansion' events where we're at a house in big bear, or we've been at UCI before where there are 2 stories. Extra ladders would effectively allow people to climb up rapidly.
Remember rewe's last game at the fort? Ladders would allow someone to climb up much faster.
Bridges have less of a natural use, but between bridges and walls...I could see for some pretty cool looking forts.

[hobbitbert]

I just would like to say I like where this is going I really think we need the siege stuff for LC.

[deneb3525]

I was thinking... Splints would work better as a 1 shot 6-second harden and a "act while wounded" would be a great painkiller under alchemy/mixology