Hyrule Adventures 2

OOC: Hmmyes, some things are indeed pretty expensive here. But it seems that most anyone will have the sufficient funds to buy one or two of the most expensive items that they've been eyeing in a few levels or so.

How am I supposed to buy any spells to defend myself at 1st or 2nd level if I can't afford them until 4th level?

Well, if it's any solace, have a look at what your SPL will look like at Level 4, without talents or special items. About 15, right? That would only allow you to cast "Spell" three times, "Elemental Burst" twice, and "Life" once.

Point being, even if you had all your scrolls at Level 1 or 2, your ability to cast at that point would be like... well frankly, laughable. It's once you get to Level 4, 5, 6 and beyond--with a reasonable number of TP put into Exceptional SPL and/or Zora Spirit--that you'll actually have enought SPL to cast your really powerful spells enough times to actually have the luxury of Casting Strategy (as opposed to "should I save my SPL or not? I wonder if this Moblin has any Magic Jars on his corpse?"). That's the point at which we all cower at the sound of your name, yes.

Everyone knows scholars aren't any good at fighting in melee!

Well, the plasticity of HA2 seems to allow that a scholar could be very fearsome in melee if he/she so chose to follow that path. Similarly, a Vassal might follow a more magical (and SPL heavy) road if his intention was to create, say, an "HP Black Hole" (Grunt's initially high HP + Royal Spirit + Kings Banner + "Shield" + Exceptional Health). As long as the GM would be willing to accomadate this character's knack for taunting enemies in battle, he could turn out to be a very effective party meatshield (less beefy characters could then take shots unmolested--this is a pre-Arco idea I entertained for a bit). However, this Grunt would be as lame of an attacker as any ol' Scholar or Vagabond (in the long run).

But I do acknowledge the monetary unbalance here... while some classes only need to worry about armor and weapons (as far as rupees), a competent mage needs to acknowledge large numbers of TP for individual spells, money to buy the spell scrolls, as well as a limitation of how many spells can be cast (SPL). And that's in addition to any thought of protective gear. I guess my recommendation would be just to get a Staff from Quartermaster Hithos for now, which I imagine would serve pretty well until the point where you become a veritable archmage once again.

And *giggle* who says you can't avoid spellcasting altogether? Mastering the Scribe-exclusives and a Talent or two of your own fancy (e.g. Leadership, Arcane Archery)--and maybe adding an RP-related Talent (e.g. Swim, Sprint) on top--would be a rather TP consuming endeavor in and of itself.

*Gags at the sight of post* Ack! Sorry to have rambled so long. But hopefully you can see what my point is through all the extraneous information. Hoping that this was in some way helpful, here. One idea that we as players could implement by ourselves would be something similar to the "Guild Leader Generosity" of HA1, where "richer" players could practice charity on their newer guild-mates, so as to give them an easier start to the game (I found it helpful, no doubt about that). I can see something like this happening once the three Faction Headquarters are set up--maybe this is the ticket--the starting allowance of 20-30 rupees, depending on the generosity of your senior guildmates--that we're looking for? Thoughts?

In stat boosting it says that special raced named talents are -1tp for the race it names. So my character is a zora does that mean that i already have level 1 and 2 zora spirit since they both cost 1tp each and i get a 1tp discount?

OOC:Weienw, that is most likely the longest answer to a question I have ever seen.

No Julian, it also says cost is at least 1 TP. Therefore you would get L1+2+3 of Zora Spirit for 3 TP total and every other increase for regular price(4 TP total).

(Aside) I know there are game balance issues, but it seems rather unfair to me, since I'm going to be going the spellcasting route again.

OOC: In that case, Arthur, I feel for you! I'm also sort of going after a "spellcasting" route--but as a Bard, it'll be songplaying, and I'm already feeling the stress of a Vagabond's relatively low SPL gain. I know it wouldn't help matters much to have to pay rupees for the songs to play.

Any thoughts on the "Richer players help poorer players for the good of the Faction" idea to smooth out a newer player's start?

Any thoughts on the "Richer players help poorer players for the good of the Faction" idea to smooth out a newer player's start?

I think thats a great idea. But some of the new members haven't joined a faction. And what would be a fair amount of rupees to give to new players. And one more thing, the plan won't work if there isn't enough rich people willing to give, I mean one person can't donate to every one, right?

OOC: Well, I'm thinking that this idea would work best once the different Faction Headquarters are set up (like, the ones that are exclusive, have shops in them, have NPC's in them, etc). If I remember correctly, there'll be one for each faction (e.g., "Hylian Knights Barracks"). That way, it's more of a... guild bonding sort of thing ^^.

But some of the new members haven't joined a faction.

True, and that could be difficult--particularly how, for example, to join Blind's Gang you need to achieve your Main Class first, but to join the Knights, there is no requirement. And you can't even join the Exiles yet. But no one says you have to join a Faction--and hopefully this sort of "Alms for the poor, please" thing wouldn't necessarily have to be extended to every player--I'm sure some people would rather not be on the receiving end.

And what would be a fair amount of rupees to give to new players.

In HA1, for the guild I was in, it was hardly anything to give a new Soldier for Hyrule (the name of our guild) 25 or 50 rupees to start with. Of course, the scale for items is different now (expensive items ranged from 200-350 rupees). But maybe something around what Arthur thought of as a "starting allowance"? Maybe 15-20 rupees, enough to get yourself your first weapon/shield?

Of course, if someone is very active, and they need more money than other people might (for example, if they are battle mages that need weapons and scrolls), more could be allocated, if it's available.

the plan won't work if there isn't enough rich people willing to give, I mean one person can't donate to every one, right?

Well, true. In HA1 my guild leader had reached the point where he had purchased everything that he would be needing (until the next update, at least), so any extra money was, basically, the "new guildmate fund." And eventually, particularly because of the high interest rate at the Mido Bank, Korind (my character) was filthy rich. (6000~ rupees at 5% interest compounded weekly, you do the math). So it was easy to give money away. But truth be told, I personally have very little idea of what was going on in the other prominent guilds of Hyrule Adventures 1.

And if you're wondering why people would give money at all, it's mostly because many of the guilds were at odds with each other, or simply competitive (just about everyone was competitive). Thus, you would want yourself and people from your guild/faction to win the battles at the Arena (soon to come here in HA2) or bring glory to the group in Quests/Events. And what easier way to give your Faction an edge than to ensure that your guildmates--particularly the ones who will be participating in a duel sometime soon--are well equipped? In that light, it is a very practical thing to boost up your buddies, even if you aren't necessarily that independently wealthy, yourself.

And you're right... one rich person (usually) can't give to everyone. But if you think about it mathematically:

Out of a faction's active members, a certain % of those members are "relatively wealthy". Another certain % are "alright on their own." Finally, a certain % is "relatively needy".

For a larger faction--The Hylian Knights, we really only have 6 or 7 active members at the moment. 3 of these are well into the triple digits as far as Exp is concerned, and it seems fair to consider these the "wealthier type." That only leaves like... 3 other people at most to be candidates for monetary assistance. From this point of view, there's one older player for every one newer player--looks good to me.

For a smaller faction--Blind's Gang, we only have 3 or 4 active members at the moment. Out of these, 2 are well into the triple digits for Exp, only leaving 1 or 2 that aren't: same thing.

So I hope that makes some sense to everyone. Generally the larger a Faction/Guild, the more well-off people there'll be in it--usually enough to balance out the number of active new players in the guild. Of course, if your higher-leveled guildmates happen to be really stingy (either in real life or if their character is simply very avaricious or something), tough luck ^^. Fight poverty on your own (which doesn't sound very encouraging, but... eh)!

Thoughts appreciated, especially from people who were in other guilds from HA1 (DA, PE, GR, etc).

(Aside) All right, here are some ideas to solve the money issue.
One: Give each new player who joins the game henceforth an initial stipend of 10 to 20 Rupees (15 would seem reasonable). This will let everyone be able to buy an initial weapon and have some money to spare.
Two: For every new player that joins up, have a more experienced player in the same guild donate some Rupees. Give the generous player a TP for being so generous, unless they belong to Blind's Gang.
Three: Let the less experienced players get monetary rewards in addition to TP for every quest they participate in. By less experienced, I mean under 3rd level (at least for right now).
Four: Give every player who starts off a piece of armor and a weapon appropriate to their class; for example, a Staff and Tunic for the Scholar. Everyone should start with a Tunic, so nobody is over-advantaged when it comes to armor at the start.
Some ideas to solve the spellcasting issue:
One: Make items that boost SPL very common. They should take the form of helmets, headbands, goggles, or necklaces. This stipulation comes from D&D item creation rules, where items that boost intelligence are generally associated with the head in some way.
Two: Give every new Scholar two scrolls for free--one scroll of Life or Shield and one of Elemental Burst or some other offensive spell. That way, they could save money for the better spells that would show up later on.
Three: Make every spell cost half as much SPL. A spellcasting individual (such as I was and intend to be again) ought to be able to cast spells right off the bat. Part of this would be letting Hylians cast their Favor of the Goddesses spell for free once per day per level.
Question--How can you put TP into the Elemental Burst spell when the one scroll-selling place so far doesn't carry the scroll? You need the scroll to cast the spell, right?

I don't think Narrator wants everyone to be too good off the bat, as he said earlier(when I brought up the close proximity of strength between L1 Scholars and L1 Vagabonds) At the start everyone is pretty equal, but at L10(1000xp) there will be big differences.

I guess it's like school, when everyone starts Kindergarten, they're all about the same, but then at high school, you have people who are smart, good at sports, popular.


And what's this about not rewarding Blind's Gangsters for donating? They should get more! These are money focused people, yet they are donating.

Favor of the goddesses is free.

You can cast any spell of which the scroll is not yet available until the point it is.

Overall, some good suggestions, now we need to see what the Narrator thinks.

One: Give each new player who joins the game henceforth an initial stipend of 10 to 20 Rupees (15 would seem reasonable). This will let everyone be able to buy an initial weapon and have some money to spare.

I think this one is pretty reasonable... kind of like the equivalent of getting free items from the NC Quartermaster back in HA1, except that it's rupees instead.

Two: For every new player that joins up, have a more experienced player in the same guild donate some Rupees. Give the generous player a TP for being so generous, unless they belong to Blind's Gang.

Well, the point of my post previously was to show why this whole "experienced player gives new player some rupees" shouldn't be mandatory or a rule; rather, it should be more of a... gift, that strengthens the entire guild as a whole. According to Sun Tzu in The Art of War, "When weapons are blunted, and ardor dampened, strength exhausted, and resources depleted, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of these complications." Also, "When you plunder the countryside, divide the wealth among your troops." It is the guild's advantage to share the wealth--after all, who wouldn't like their guild/Faction to have the reputation of "Greatest in Hyrule"? (Still no thoughts on this?)

Having a TP reward would be... difficult. There would have to be a set amount of generosity to warrant the TP, and then people would be fighting over new players to get the elusive TP, etc, etc. A gift out of free will, with no reward, has a better aroma. And I don't get the "unless they belong to Blind's Gang" thing either.

Three: Let the less experienced players get monetary rewards in addition to TP for every quest they participate in. By less experienced, I mean under 3rd level (at least for right now).

This could work, but maybe the rule might as well apply to experienced players as well? I thought the point was to make newer players richer than they are, not make newer players richer than an experienced player could be. (Also, a malicious player could make a few phony accounts and just do the quests, then donate the rupees to a "main" account--something that can't be done with TP. Sorry to have such a pessimistic viewpoint here, but... still worth a mention).

Four: Give every player who starts off a piece of armor and a weapon appropriate to their class; for example, a Staff and Tunic for the Scholar. Everyone should start with a Tunic, so nobody is over-advantaged when it comes to armor at the start.

This is like the HA1 Quartermaster, as well, but maybe your first idea, with the 20~ rupees, would be better. The reason for this is, perhaps someone would rather have the money to buy a scroll/instrument/ranged item rather than get armor and a starting melee weapon?

One: Make items that boost SPL very common. They should take the form of helmets, headbands, goggles, or necklaces.

I feel that these items should only be in such supply as to preserve the usefulness of talents like Exceptional Spell. After all, who wants to use 6 TP to get +5 SPL when they can get +5 SPL off of some rusty ol' magical helmet? I imagine that these stat-boosting items would either be Epic or Legendary--i.e., reasonably rare.

Two: Give every new Scholar two scrolls for free--one scroll of Life or Shield and one of Elemental Burst or some other offensive spell. That way, they could save money for the better spells that would show up later on.

Maybe just one scroll free? True, they are pretty expensive, but so is the Grunt's Chainmail (and L1 at that), the ranged warrior's items (I mean, 65 rupees for a 4 DMG Boomerang, and 125 rupees for +1 DMG gloves?), and... well, I guess the musician's Hurdy-Gurdy is nothing to complain about. Better to make the scrolls cheaper than to give them out willy-nilly (after all, we don't exactly want an unnatural influx of Scholars in the land, do we?)

Three: Make every spell cost half as much SPL. A spellcasting individual (such as I was and intend to be again) ought to be able to cast spells right off the bat. Part of this would be letting Hylians cast their Favor of the Goddesses spell for free once per day per level.

If spells were significantly cheaper SPL-wise, a high-level mage (lvl 8-10) would probably never have to worry about SPL... ever!--especially with Exceptional Spell, SPL-boosting items, and the odd Magic Potion in Events--kind of defeating the purpose of having it in the first place. And if a L10 Hylian could cast Favor of the Goddesses 10 times a day, then the only thing we'd need Clerics for would be Resurrection...

Anyway, sorry to debunk some of your ideas, but hopefully you can see the logic behind my reasoning. Some of the subtler new player/scholar boosts are definitely worth some thought, though! ^^

(Aside) Yeah, I know, my ideas are not always the best. Two new questions, though:
First: Why is the Malon-related quest still open? There have to have been at least twenty lanterns she's been given already!
Second: What is the relationship between Armor Class and one's DEF score? I don't think that the precise relationship is really spelled out in the rules.

OOC: No, not at all--your suggestions are very helpful, and they bring up a lot of ideas that we hadn't thought of before.

First: Why is the Malon-related quest still open? There have to have been at least twenty lanterns she's been given already!

Same reason why the Coli the Rito Boy has 15 Link Dolls, and why Din probably has just as many bracelets. ^^ So everyone can do the quest. Sure, they may not be as logical as the broken axel that keeps breaking, but... it's fair that way ^^.

Second: What is the relationship between Armor Class and one's DEF score? I don't think that the precise relationship is really spelled out in the rules.

Well, I answered this in Ruto town (go there for the details), but I think the explanation you're looking for is here:

RESISTANCES AND DEF CHECKS
For physical attacks, one adds DEF + AGI to their Armor Class (ie. the total armor rating of their clothing combined). If the value exceeds the enemy’s chance to hit, they avoid DMG completely.

That is, DEF + AGI + Armor = potential to dodge someone's physical attack.

OOC: I would have to agree about the Rupee situation for a person like myself who is, not all that talkative, (which is one way of putting it) means that my character is more true to life because he will have to rely on stealing to get the sum of Rupees needed to own the simplest of tunics. Although my (Raven's) attempts at finding or stealing (Rupees or items) haven't worked out.

I guess one way I could get my exp and Rupees is by contining with the 'training of Raven' series of events. The problem is I don't want my character to be a social one, he doesn't like big gatherings of people (which is part of the reason why he has not been found in the Ornery Cucco) he prefers to be alone to his thoughts and study people as they move and interact, part of hunting your prey, is knowing your prey.

Also I expected that the Ruto quest would be up and running by now in which I would be able to expand on Ravens phobia and make known that his working in the team was only a means to an end.

Getting on to the issues in hand:

The idea of being giving a small amount of Rupees at the start sounds good to me; as does the idea of faction members sharing their wealth but with items being as expensive as they are I don't see many giving away until they know what the next set of equipment will set them back. With the L1 armour starting at 40 Rupees it looks like we will need a small mountain of rupees to keep up to date.

The TP system seems to be working out well (and though I have yet to check) it doesn't seem like we have any overpowered characters like we did last time which is a good thing about the new leveling system it allows players to custom their characters to the way the way the see them. Although a system of TalentX + TalentY = Talent Z could be implimented. E.g. Dive + Dig = Burrow. Allows the character to dig a hole in which they can hide from damage or something along those lines.

A part of me wants the donating idea to be an event of some kind. So you get told that your particular faction has been doing so well in stealing, protecting Hyrule, reedeming themselves that a you have been given a amount of Rupees (or maybe an item) to celebrate the fact.

Just a couple of ideas. Maybe we need a new thread for all these ideas. Hint.Hint.

If I understand correctly, we need both the TP purchase and the scroll to cast a spell, but at the magic shop there is a scroll entitled fire, yet I see no fire talwnt in the rules, am I missing something?

(Aside) Not every spell is listed in the rules. The rules only cover new spells, or major revisions to old spells like Elemental Burst. It would be nice if there were a complete list of all spells somewhere.