I think what they are complaining about is this:

Minimum training point cost to equal a level 0 Ranger assuming the individial is of high enough level to 1x survival:

	Warrior	Rogue	Wizard	Cleric	Empath	Sorcerer	Ranger	Bard	Paladin
Physical TP's	45	120	270	180	90	270	0	120	120
Mental TP's	135	120	180	120	60	180	0	120	120
Level Rquired	43	58	88	58	28	88	0	58	58

Minimum Training point cost to equal a level 3 Ranger with zero ranks survival and 603 which costs rangers 51 mental TP's:

	Warrior	Rogue	Wizard	Cleric	Empath	Sorcerer	Ranger	Bard	Paladin
Physical TP's	75	180	303*	270	180	417	0	180	180
Mental TP's	225	180	202*	180	120	278	51	180	180
Level Rquired	73	88	100	88	58	100	3	88	88

* Wizards can only single train so they stopped at 101 ranks and are unable to equal a level 3 ranger in skill.

Costs for all classes except wizards to get to their best possible skill as well as a 1x and 2x Ranger that gets to the SAME skill level:

	Warrior	Rogue	Wizard	Cleric	Empath	Sorcerer	Ranger 1x	Ranger 2x	Bard	Paladin
Physical TP's	258	546	See *	819	729	909	80	120	546	546
Mental TP's	774	546	See *	546	486	606	131	171	546	546
Level Required	100	100	See *	100	100	100	78	38	100	100

Hopefully it comes out relatively clear but what this is showing is that when you combine the low TP cost of survival for rangers with the inherant bonus to rangers and the bonus of 603 rangers can become brutally better than any other class at really low levels. I could show the extreme cost of doubling as other classes to see the costs at the lowest level possible but even 1x skills is pretty crazy. Considering the need to use foraging for alchemy for casting classes I really do personally agree that this should be re-evaluated. Glad I have haste as a wizard, i feel REALLY bad for sorcerers, no haste, same TP costs.

I do agree that Rangers should be better than everybody else, but I think it should probably be placed primarily in the low skill TP cost as well as allow rangers to 3x the skill instead of a flat bonus that is really strong. 603 probably should be changed in some way to make it be a flat skill bonus for non rangers but a skill % for rangers if the bonus is higher than the flat bonus. Something like 20 pseudo ranks for others but 20 or 20% ranks whichever is greater for rangers. Something like that.

I like the chart.

I think, though, there's a flaw -- +30 professional bonus equivalence occurs at 90 ranks in survival? Just. . . wow. I'm not sure how we derived that (if accurate, it is importunate), but what's missing from the equation is that there is more than survival that pertains (perception and level(?), affect the discussion) when foraging.

We can easily make the suggestion that we can assume all other variables are equal between the comparisons, but in fact they aren't -- rogues for example can triple perception, and have a 0/1 cost, which has to mean that somehow, rogues can more handily make up this delta. Also, training plans for archtype professions vary wildly, with rangers and rogues most likely to lead the charge in perception as a skill (swaying results?), while most other professions are great candidates for the 'get 40 ranks and stop', making comparisons somewhat challenging.

Ultimately, though, the game is and always has been about choice. Several choices pertain -- the choice of profession for the main character, the choice to pursue alchemy, the choice to insist on character (or player when we introduce MA / multi-character scenarios) self-sufficiency in a game designed for cooperation and collaboration, the choice to be an extreme hunter to the detriment of ancillary skills, and so on.

I can support re-evaluation, but I'm also not too terribly concerned about it personally if that re-evaluation leads to no change, in this specific instance.

Doug

>So you want to make sorcerers just as good as rangers a foraging?

what?! of course not! I said that explicitly in the post you're quoting me on: "Am I saying rangers shouldn't be better? of course not. but I'm saying bring the profession bonuses closer together."

if I had my way, sorcerers and wizards would be +10 also along with clerics et al.

~Moredin

>I like the chart.

me too. thanks for putting that together.

~Moredin

I got REALLY bored at work and started thinking about this WAY too much. The following were a few of hte things that I could think of that would make it better at least in my opinion. (note the my and opinion, this post is pretty much 0% fact)


1. Make it skill based instead of bonus based. Some things would need to be changed and are detailed below, but again the first thing is give you no bonus for being any profession. (The wizard issue is discussed below)

2. Rangers.
We pretty much all acknowledge that rangers should be the alpha and omega, bees knees, etc. of foraging but doing it with a flat bonus makes them so absurdly good at it that it makes little sense to use other professions when you can instead use a ranger. Instead of just making rangers better by a flat bonus, make them better than any other same leveled profession with ease. How to do this?

First allow them to 3x survival. They have to spend some training points to do it but can through training choice be better than any other class with survival skill alone.

Second change 603. Instead of making it a flat bonus only make it a flat bonus with another skill training path that could allow you to make it better for a ranger. One example:

30 ranks + (ranger circle/2) + survival ranks/6)
This would give a flat bonus of 30 pseudo ranks straight off for it and for anybody that used it off a scroll, but allows the ranger to make it a VERY stong spell if they put the dedication into it. If it's too strong reduce the values more, it has a lot of flexibility.

3. TP cost.
The TP cost at the moment reflects the inherent bonus's for professions sort of, so some might need to be changed a little bit for the old bonus. If you decide that for example empaths are supposed to be better than other casters make it a little bit cheaper for them, maybe 2/2 instead of 3/2. etc. for other professions as needed.

4. The haste problem.
with the removal of all profession bonus's haste becomes an extremely powerful tool that makes a low level wizard a very strong forager, stronger than rangers potentially. An easy way to see this is make a very basic assumption filled chart regarding your chance of not finding an herb at certain percentages. This uses the assumption that it takes 6 seconds on average non hasted (overestimated probably) and 1 second hasted. that means you can have 6 tries to find an herb as a wizard to every 1 by a non wizard. that yields:

Wizard % chance to not find it	99	98	97	96	95	90	85	80	75
Wizard % chance to not find it after those 6 tries	94	89	83	78	73	53	37	26	18

This shows that a wizard that has invested enough TP's to get to just a 25% chance to find an herb has an equal chance to find the herb in the same amount of time as someone who has invested enough skill to have a 92% chance to find it of any other non-hasted profession. The great equalizer, haste imbeds. Because of the ability to get these there should be a penalty for wizards but not overly huge. My suggestion would be maybe just increase the TP cost of survival for wizards, possibly even to double that of other casters. 6/4 instead of 3/2 and keep the cap of 1x for wizards. The double training point costs would make it such that any wizard is likely to have half the training of any non wizard which would help to close the gap with that haste chart. If it is still insufficient it might be better to make it cost 3/2 again (I couldn't see making it even harder to train considering the other benefits of survival) and make it so that for wizards survival contributed only 1/3rd of what it does to foraging as for other professions but this would pretty much require allowing them to 2x survival. I don't favor the idea of an inherent penalty to wizards, I think an untrained wizard should be just as good/bad at foraging as any other class that never trained for it at all. Also a flat bonus of -30 pseudo ranks is MUCH easier to overcome than a rank based penalty.

5. The over skilled problem.
This is one issue with allowing rangers a significant amount of skill, at some point they can already herb anything anyway and with the basic model above they could potentially get to:
303 survival ranks + (30 + 50 + 50) pseudo ranks(from 603 assuming 100 ranger circle ranks) = 433 ranks or 144 bonus. What to do with that extra bonus? One option could be Round Time reduction. Basically what would happen is if the roll was enough higher than the roll required to get the herb you would get a reduction to the RT of the successful herbing. I know it's not much of a benefit but it's at least something... And if it was strong enough could make for a really good foraging ranger with certain builds.

Again all of the above is just opinion, your free to disagree with anything and everything. If you have gotten this far thanks for reading!

It seems to me that the issues here are less about foraging and more about alchemy. VALISKD's tables are impressive, but they contains the implicit assumption that all professions should be on equal footing, which is not the case. Foraging is a tertiary ability, and the skills that factor into it have much more important uses in other systems. Rangers really are meant to be that much better at it than anybody else, in part because it isn't a game-critical system that all characters require.

In other words, if foraging tasks are creating a large enough problem for pures doing alchemy, I think that the proper remedy is found in the alchemy system rather than in a redesign of the foraging system (which, given how many other projects are currently on the slate, is not likely to happen anytime soon).

>>the adventure guild bounty system.

At this point, I only have some experience in AdvGuild foraging in the Rift.

But I haven't found anything 'impossible' or frankly even 'hard'. But -- I don't consider needing an 85 end roll or higher to be 'hard'.

Well trained in perception, and only recently in survival, though. So that sways things a bit, I'm sure.

Just saying my one little window into that side of the world doesn't line up well with the 'near impossible' declaration.

Doug

From the perspective of this in regards to alchemy It's not really realistic for us to depend on others for the herbs needed. In just 30 ranks of general alchemy I've probably spent 50k just for vials of water. If you add the cost of purchasing herbs from others while getting all 372 ranks the cost is just going to be incredible. I'm probably going to end up foraging in the order of 5000 herbs if not more before I finish it.

I can easily see why anybody with an open character slot would just make a level 3 ranger and herb to their delight. If it isn't changed it won't hurt me too much, as I mentioned i'm a wizard and I got haste. Sorry again sorcerers, sucks to be you.

>As another player previously commented, there is a difference between ten herbs and ten sacks of them. And as always, not every bounty task is meant to be of equal difficulty for every character.

I disagree. No where did I say it should be of equal difficulty. Or easy even. I just said I thought the skill was slighted a bit too hard up in difficulty relative for most professions.

But never mind, anytime posting here it feels it is like talking to a wall. I guess that is why I hardly bother anymore after all this time.

Carry on

---

Shop my shops:
Corlith in the landing:
http://pshops.lichproject.org/shops/5958
Arcania's Arms in Vaalor: http://pshops.lichproject.org/shops/4115

Agreed.

Is there such an herb, though?

Doug

>>The RR citadel is probably the worst because the garden is set up to have a different climate in every room.

Ahah. Thanks, Rath.

Doug