True newbies have a hard time getting fully equipped, and the healing quest in the Collegium only makes that issue come up sooner (which is a good thing) and more abruptly, often when they don't have any gold yet. Ours can't be the only guild that would love to give the young a "starter kit" that has the bare basic supplies they need: 10 of the crucial healing herbs and maybe a few vials. But there's no container that'll hold them. The nearest thing is a pocketbelt, but with only six slots, they're way too limited and costly for this purpose, since they weren't really designed for it.

How about a different kind of pocketbelt that replaced the 6 slots of 250 with, say, 20 slots of 50? Better yet, make it cost half as much to make, but last only 25 months. You wouldn't even need to make it usable as a pocketbelt (though if that was easier to code, that'd be fine): just enough to get stuff out of it and put it in the rift.

Even better, but perhaps harder to implement: a container object that acts as a sort of super-group. I can put up to 20 groups of up to 50 herbs into it, but you can't get things out individually: you can only inrift the entire object, which moves all of its contents into your rift at once, destroying the container itself. I.e., "outr 5 marjoram; put marjoram in kit; outr 5 pennyroyal; put pennyroyal in kit..." and then give it to the newbie, who does "inr kit" and bang, it's all in her rift at once (and nothing left behind).

It can only help newbies to help make their initial lessons easier and less tedious while being just as fruitful and educational.

This could be a handy way to sell various custom bundles of goods out of shops as well.

I really like the alternative pocketbelt idea. Ensure that novices start out with one with some herbs in it. I'd limit it to five of each of the cure quest herbs, myself. Just enough so they have an example of what is needed and enough to get past the cure quest.

Though I recall in the past, novices started out with a lot more money. 1000? 1500? I don't remember. But enough people started creating alts for their gold that it got to be a problem and the amount was dropped to 100. They might be leery of what amounts to undoing that reduction.

Actually, Lendren, every Spiritsinger novice who goes under me for an introduction receives chervil, yarrow, marjoram, galingale, pennyroyal (10 each).

I'd like to make it more consistent, and let the guild pay for it (we can afford it).

I think there should still be a small cost attached to such a bundle, to encourage novices to figure out how to hunt and earn a bit of gold in Newton. Besides, this way the guild won't lose as much money if the novice never shows up again.

I agree with Demetrios, it should be connected with shops. Somebody in the guild fills the bundle, puts it in the secret code section of the shop at a certain, reduced price, and a help scroll lists where the shop is and what the secret code is. Helps the novice find a place to buy future equipment and necessities also.

A good idea, but for one small problem. Items can be bought from secret code areas even if you can't see them. Same with clan-only or otherwise attributed bins. Though using special shop functions is also a good lesson to teach.

When Eldanien became Tahtetso Admin, I created an alt with the purpose of identifying true-newbie issues. You know, try to pretend I know nothing and locate all those sorts of information which is useful but not readily intuitive to look for. It's harder than it sounds, and even now I often hear questions in the Academy that I think "why didn't I think to add that?" Every once in a while, I update scrolls with them, but they never seem to run out and the scrolls start looking awful bloated.

Just imagine all the HELP, CGHELP, CHELP and GHELP files a true newbie should read. It's quite daunting.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand... I'd rather see Trader Bob sell newbie kits, only sellable to those under 21, or possibly to Chancellors and Professors (for when novices gain levels quickly and then go about Collegium quests). Set the price high enough so that they aren't abused as a source of materials. Convenience is often worth the extra few hundred gold, particularly when hunting Newton is so profitable.

I agree. I feel like a lot of true newbies are afraid to ask questions a lot of the times. Like, when they see people talking on the aethers about "nexus world weakening! Let's move!", they have no idea what that is, and upon asking, they'll just be pointed to another help file they have to read.

Trying to synthesize all the information you think a newbie might need is just as daunting, to use your word. What they end up asking about is usually stuff they're exposed to, which can vary widely.

But, to the shop/pocketbelts point, that's true. But when I was Cantors GM, I still just stocked the guildshop with the cheap lutes we bought from Bob, but priced at a much lower price. The undersecs knew the password, and could go in and "buy" a lute for a new member. Granted though, there's a difference between a worn-out lute and a pack of herbs and maybe elixirs and whatnot. How difficult would it be to code in a special feature of shops to either restrict buying to novices only, to restrict to only allowing one person to buy one bundle, or to keep logs of what's sold from certain bins? The first two might limit abuse, while the third makes it punishable to buy these packs when you don't need them.

We used to reserve one bin for novice lutes, back before the Fates gave them one, though the 8-bin limit made me glad to get rid of that. Nowadays, we just keep some worn lutes in an instrument rack in the guildhall, free to all takers. A few hundred gold a year is no big deal, and the rack ensures they don't decay while they're waiting for someone to get them. Full members have no reason to swipe the worn lutes, especially since the guild buys them an instrument at graduation. (Spiritsingers use the same rack to keep their instruments from decaying when they're not around. No point in stealing other people's instruments since you got a free one and can't bond to someone else's anyway, so the rack's not even locked.)

It turns out I can make novices two pocketbelts that have all the herbs they need for the curing quest, and if I get cheap powerstones from Ialie and have Linwe make the belts, I can do that pretty affordably -- less than 1000 gold cost per novice in total, even less if we can get the novices to give back the pocketbelts to be reused after they get the herbs out. I'll keep them in a chest in the guildhall and give keys to the undersecs; I seriously doubt any of my undersecs are going to be pilfering the 5-of-each-herb for their own use, I'm not worried about it. (As you see above, I usually have to keep them from spending their own money too much, not the other way around! Which is great.)

The point of this proposal though is to make things easier both for me to stock them, and the novice to use them. And in doing so, encourage other guilds to do the same, and thus make things easier for novices everywhere.

Another, more general approach, would be for artisans to be able to make a new kind of furniture which was attuned at construction to a particular guild. Anyone could put stuff into it, but the only ones who could get anything out of it are the novices of that guild, and its GA. It'd be nice if things in it didn't decay, but I don't see a way to prevent people from abusing that. This approach would mean any guild could stock anything they want to donate to their novices to help them get started, without worry of it being pilfered by others.

The Spiritsingers have been giving out curing herb starter kits for a while now and it's working very well. I think things like this help us retain more novices. Getting supplied is just another difficult thing to figure out when you're already figuring too much stuff out. Sure, they need to learn how to find shops, spend money, read wares lists, read help files, etc., but it's no harm if they save some of that for later, while they're not working on learning 20 other things.

We give the novices five each of these herbs: yarrow, kafe, marjoram, reishi, coltsfoot, chervil, horehound, kombu, calamus, pennyroyal, galingale, arnica. That's everything they need for the collegium quest and everything they need to get themselves started. I encourage the administrators of all guilds to consider something like this. It's costing us about 600gp per novice, which is a pittance -- sell a few guild credits and you'll be set for years. And it really makes them feel welcomed. Here's how we do it and keep costs that low.

Pocketbelts: If you have a tailor in your guild and you get a good price on leather, you can get plain belts made for 50-100 gold each. Enchanters will usually charge 50 each to turn them into pocketbelts. If you tell people what this is for, they might give you a discount; and if you tell me what it's for, I'll be happy to use my Merchant's Ledger to get you the best price for leather. But the price of the pocketbelts is not that big a deal because you can reuse them for years and years. Just make an alias to OUTB and GIVE the herbs; it's a lot easier for the novice than handing them the pocketbelts and teaching them how to get the stuff into their rifts, especially since most of them will never use pocketbelts again. Plus you know you'll get the pocketbelts back.

Chests: I built two chests in my guildhall, one with a lock and one without. The locked one contains pocketbelts filled up with herbs, and I give keys out to undersecretaries and teachers. They take a pair of pocketbelts, give the novice the herbs out of them, and then put the empties into the other chest. Periodically I get the empties and refill them and move them back to the first chest. I have some very inexpensive chest designs which I'll make for you at cost if they're to be used for this. If you can get your hands on a tailor and an enchanter, you can probably get all of this set up for 15-20K and that'll have the guild set for years and years.