Sure this is not the first time it's been brought up, but has a GM ever commented on the large foraging discrepancy between professions?

Even with 40 ranks survival, it would still takes me a 100+ endroll in order to find most herbs. come on...that's just rediculous. make foraging more skill dependent. I just spent 10 minutes foraging for ayana leaf and found ONE. One!

If anyone knows what the official word is on this topic I'd really appreciate the reiteration.

~Moredin

I should have clarified. this occurs despite kneeling with hands open. yes it's that unbalanced. really, when a level 0 ranger with no ranks can get the same thing with a roll of 40, I honestly feel like something is uneven. am I saying nerf the ranger's ability? no; I feel like rangers are getting the appropriate bonus due their profession. but I don't think it's right to make foraging so hard for other professions even AFTER they've put a ton of training points into it.

make ranks count for something please!

~Moredin

402 doesn't do anything for foraging.

If it takes you an open roll to find something that a level 0 ranger can find on a 40, then you are doing something badly wrong.

>40 ranks of survivial.

i still think those numbers are abysmal for 40 ranks survival. it should be easier for such an investment in points.

>I also use haste which certainly speeds things up.

sure, give me haste and I'd stop complaining...

~Moredin

let's put it this way...why should clerics have a bonus to foraging but not sorcerers or wizards?

the bonuses really are somewhat arbitrary. are they basing it on how "pure" a profession is? if so it's still screwed up.

~Moredin

that's a good idea in my opinion. I think anyone TRAINING in alchemy should have a bonus though. tie it into the total alchemy ranks obtained so far or something.

much of this game puts a ton of weight on training choices. why should foraging ability be any different? a level 3 ranger with 3 ranks survival and 3 ranks perception who knows foraging (603) is better at foraging that a level 100 sorcerer with 202 ranks survival (maxed) and 202 ranks perception (maxed)? how long does it take to get to level 3 these days...a couple hours?



~Moredin

>or the system is unbalanced. you're entitled to your opinion too, but I assure you I'm doing nothing 'wrong'

On the basis of the data, I estimate you are doing something that gives a penalty of 70. That's getting it badly wrong.

much of this game puts a ton of weight on training choices. why should foraging ability be any different? a level 3 ranger with 3 ranks survival and 3 ranks perception who knows foraging (603) is better at foraging that a level 100 sorcerer with 202 ranks survival (maxed) and 202 ranks perception (maxed)? how long does it take to get to level 3 these days...a couple hours?



~Moredin

---

Do you know something I don't? My numbers don't support the above assertion.

Dgry

I just saw your post in research. I was basing my assertion off the info in Krakiipedia, where 404 ranks combined perception/survival yielded 40.4 'bonus', and a ranger with 603 and 6 combined ranks perception/survival has a 'bonus' of 40.6.

so according to your data, a capped sorcerer CAN beat a level 3 ranger. but only by overtraining in expensive skills. I still don't think that's fair.

but honestly, the GMs designed the system; until I know what THEIR justification/rationale is, I'm shooting in the dark.

~Moredin

---

I was holding out opinion on the real issue until I'd confirmed the numbers. Assuming the research is conclusive, may be going out on a limb to do that, but let's go with it. I don't believe the profession bonuses should be as heavily weighted as they are.

Using your example of a sorcerer versus ranger.

A level 100 sorcerer needs to obtain ~100 ranks in survival just to reach equal footing with a level 3 ranger that has used 603 without a single TP invested. A profession bonus should not be that heavily weighted. Even the best racial bonuses (giantman strength bonus, dwarven/hobbit TD bonus, etc.) only give a max of 10-15 levels worth of bonus. This profession gives ~100 levels worth of bonus. That's really hard to justify no matter how you argue it. At best you claim it's 50 levels worth of bonus at twice the TPs, even then good luck. What other profession/class bonus in game can claim to be that skewed?

I don't mind rangers and empaths being way better than other professions at foraging, but they should be better only when they've trained in the appropriate skills. A 20% professional bonus to foraging would be much more reasonable than the over weighted flat rate that currently exists.

Dgry

> I don't mind rangers and empaths being way better than other professions at foraging, but they should be better only when they've trained in the appropriate skills. A 20% professional bonus to foraging would be much more reasonable than the over weighted flat rate that currently exists.

This wouldn't make them way better. That 30 bonus needs to be available at level 0 as well as level 100 to make them way better. If you want to pin it to training, then a way to do it would be to make the bonus dependent on ranks per level. e.g. ranger bonus = 15 * survival ranks / (level + 1). A ranger would still have a bonus of 30 available to them at any level, but they would have to 2x survival to get it.

Its supposed to make the professions already significantly different at level 0, in much the same way as is done with hiding, rather than like skinning or lockpicking where there is no difference at level 0. (or like loresinging which you can't do at all unless you are the right profession, which is another way to differentiate at level 0).

>Its supposed to make the professions already significantly different at level 0, in much the same way as is done with hiding, rather than like skinning or lockpicking where there is no difference at level 0. (or like loresinging which you can't do at all unless you are the right profession, which is another way to differentiate at level 0).

But with Alchemy, all professions are getting exposure to foraging. the amount of foraging I've done, I should be a freakin expert by now. realistically, there shouldnt be that much discrepancy. Foraging is a skill available to all professions and it is the KIND of skill that shouldn't be weighted that heavily to a few professions. Realistically, it doesn't make sense. As a KIND of skill, it is more like skinning and lockpicking than loresinging; MECHANICALLY, though, it is not treated this way. That is the core of the issue here.

~Moredin

>A capped sorcerer who is obsessive about getting every bonus they can, is at roughly the skill level required to forage the easiest plants on anything but a fumble roll. Why should it get any easier than that?

I believe we've already said why. we can agree to disagree but the numbers are disproportionate to those found in other systems.

~Moredin

>402 doesn't do anything for foraging.

Yet that won't stop me from casting it every single time in blind hope that somehow logic will prevail.

~ HH

I keep 402 stacked to 4 hours on the off chance it helps with maneuvers, both cmans from bandits and from creature maneuvers.

-Taakhooshi, and Me

For the Story of Taakhooshi:
http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Taakhooshi

>could we get a GM's perspective on this please?

As surmised, there are professional modifiers in foraging, but those modifiers are static over all levels, and training in the appropriate skills can more than make up the difference. Spell 603 does confer a significant bonus to foraging, but that is, after all, the entire purpose of the spell. As with many Gemstone systems, I perhaps would not have designed it this way myself if doing it from scratch, but nor do I see any real problem with the current implementation. What further perspective do you want?

>As with many Gemstone systems, I perhaps would not have designed it this way myself if doing it from scratch, but nor do I see any real problem with the current implementation. What further perspective do you want?

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. based on almost everything else I've seen in development since gs3, skills have been taking a more central role and priority over level and profession bonuses. this encourages unique training regimens.

the current system discourages training in survival for foraging reasons. rolling a level 3 ranger is 10x better than most people can ever get with their capped character. let's be real...99% of people are never going to have enough training points in survival to get better than a ranger is. CAN they make up for the disadvantage by training heavily in survival? yes, but when you can simply roll a ranger with minimal training to get the same effect, why would I spend hundreds of TPs to do that?

and other stupid stuff exists in the system also...eg why the heck would a cleric get a 30-rank survival advantage over a sorcerer just for being a cleric? empaths I can understand getting a bonus, but clerics? clerics are not semis anymore...they're pures just like sorcerers.

>but those modifiers are static over all levels, and training in the appropriate skills can more than make up the difference.

the problem is that realistically this will never happen. even for a level 100 sorcerer vs a level 3 ranger. it'd be stupid to train in survival as it is.

I just don't see why it's such a big deal to simply tweak those numbers. they probably haven't been looked at in 15 years. the game has changed a lot since then

~Moredin

What further perspective do you want?

---

I want candy.

Dgry


Like +1

-- Robert

Its herbs for learning alchemy that are the sore point. Alchemy foraging merely requires hours on your knees in areas unfrequented by critters or other players. It is dead easy to MA a low level ranger to script forage alchemy stuff in a little window on one side of the screen while concentrating on playing the main.

AG foraging is more about whether or not you can afford to be in RT on your knees with a herb in your hand and a critter in your face, than it is about the roll it takes to get the herb. If you don't need to worry about critters foraging you, you can finish an AG task on herbs which require open rolls before the 15 minute wait to get a new task is up.

The difference between 1 minute and 10 minutes for an AG task is not that big a deal. Its the difference between 10 hours and 100 hours to advance a bit in alchemy that causes grief (or causes people to roll up low level rangers).

>Sure, this facet I speak of is specifically regarding bounty tasks, but I feel those play a fairly major role in experience gaining activities these days.

first of all, I don't do bounties. this is an unrelated sore point for me. I can get bounties in every city in the game except River's Rest. I don't see why RR should be any different. You can give me bandit tasks or something similar to the way I get warparty tasks from Sunfist. but that's another discussion...

>So how is it a complete waste of training points to train in the skills needed to help with foraging when you certainly won't be able to bring that level 3 ranger to a capped hunting ground to find the herbs needed for your bounty?

someone else covered this. I only care about this for alchemy. I don't like how the profession bonuses were decided upon, AND how large the discrepancy is. as Dgry's numbers indicate, no other system in the game comes close to being that hard to overcome through training choices. Am I saying rangers shouldn't be better? of course not. but I'm saying bring the profession bonuses closer together. here's how they are currently:

Relative profession bonuses:
Ranger +30 (90 ranks survival equiv. with respect to Foraging. this goes up to 120 ranks if you include the bonus from spell 603).
Empath +20
Warrior +15
Cleric +10
Rogue +10
Paladin +10
Bard +10
Wizard 0
Sorcerer 0

foraging profession bonuses, as they are now, were decided upon a long time ago based purely on how it fit with people's perceptions of those professions crossed with how much they NEED to forage. Unless a GM would care to correct me on this I'm going to assume this is correct.

example: rangers are masters of the wild...they should be the best at finding things in the wild. another example: empaths are masters herbalists and because of their need of healing herbs, should also get a sizable bonus. warriors should be good at finding herbs because they get hit a lot and they forage for herbs in the field to stay alive. however, the rest of it is harder to justify. Rogues are good at finding herbs because roguish characters use them for poisons?

With the same reasoning, pure types--such as sorcerers, wizards, and clerics--should also have some skill finding things in the wild because pure professions have an eye for the magical ingredients that come into play when they make magical potions or artifacts.

That's no more of a stretch than any reasoning you could come up with for giving Paladins, rogues, and bards +10, IMO.


~Moredin