Not that we will follow this poll but I'm curious what responses are. In our design, we imagined only cities being able to have pentagrams for enchanters and communes having alembics for alchemists. Allowing such items in manses would obviously circumvent and confound this ideal. I know people have strong feelings about this on both sides so lets get it out in the open.

I think it should cost to put one in, and cost to keep one maintained. Alembics will need...cleaning, or something, and the enchantagrams will need charged to allow enchanting, which costs gold every so often. Can't pay? Gets shut down. That's my take.

This is really a hard thing to answer, especially with any objectivity.

As a player and a character, there is no monopoly or game balance advantage, nor trade franchise unique to my city, to protect.

As a player and a character, allowing more people, esp. rogues and such, access to such items increases competition and drives down prices.

My personal trade skill is something a person can purchase, making things easier for me, if I choose, and my competitors to do business. I doubt you'd take forges away, they're pretty universal as is.

The real issue is a meta-game balance issue that we can't really answer, because we all a)lack objectivity and b)don't know your current intents, future plans, and timelines.

Probably everyone who isn't from Serenwilde will want Alembics available. Even though the skill requires tree power, if they can conduct their trade in the privacy of their home, it would become impossible for them to police the distribution to commune enemies. As of now, they only have to defend ONE ROOM in the entire world to effectively cut off whoever they want from a ton of absolutely necessary cures. I've never thought this monopoly was fair or desirable, I don't think it compares with the cities control of enchantments. You might think so if you have plans to increase the level of antipathy between Serenwilde and BOTH cities, so instead of picking a side based on convinience (and getting away with being wishy washy betrayers because of a trade monopoly) they actually have to have a foreign policy that is counter to both cities but not so much that they can trade ban the entire rest of the world and not have one city side with them just to get potions.

I think this monopoly is the single most dissapointing thing about Lusternia at the moment, I think especially with the number of cities at present, it skews the economy in a serious way every time there is large scale conflict (which seems inevitable in a world where we're competing both for village control and direct economics).

All of this is the long way around to say:
- If this monopoly is what you want to have happening right now, then don't even consider alembics.
- If you don't want the monopoly, and another commune with a significantly disaligned view isn't on the immediate horizon, please let us have alembics.

If you're going to allow alembics OR pentagrams, I think you should do both. I'm not going to argue that the cities should have something they could theoretically hold over Serenwilde's head in the same breath I say monopolies are bad.

/edit, the problem isn't ONLY that it skews the economy either...without NECESSARY curatives, consistant players and newbies alike are seriously discouraged. Its hard enough to learn the combat system and be somewhat capable, if you're expected to fight in wars without any of that or even hunt newton with watered down Bob elixers, how sad is that? As long as there is only one faction, it even removes interesting political options where you can keep at least one commune happy while working against another...there is ONE place to get these things, and ONE group controls it...and this, to me, does not equal fun for all.

Not really any point at all to have an alembic. You need to have a spiritual tie to a Commune nexus in order to the skill of Alchemy, so if you weren't a citizen of Serenwilde, you could not use an alembic anywhere no matter where it was, and it isn't like there is a wait in order to use the one in Serenwilde. I could see some use in having your own pentagram though, since enchanting tends to take awhile, much like forging.

You can have a spiritual tie and make your curatives in a private place, selling them to people you aren't supposed to. It may not totally break up the silly monopoly, but it at least makes it nearly impossible to police.

Still no point. No one would waste 500 credits (Yes I'm aware there is a sale), so that they could fill in private.

i'm for everything that could break or loose the monopoly of serenwilde on alchemy and even the field.

No one will continue to believe that Serenwilde is some hapless lamb that needs protection after how ferociously they have defended themselve in the last war.

Even the field , i say .. they have already started to use the enemy status to serenwilde and its consequences as a public threat.

So thoses alembics would be a good start since at least , i expect them to be on neutral ground.

i voted "alembics only".

I can see Richter, a prominent rogue trademaster, buying one so he can entice alchemists to fill for him and his folks to sell, without the alchemist having a chance in Nil of being caught by Serenwilde leadership. This is not at all outside the realm of possibility.

Plus, if no one will buy them...why not make them available? No skin off your back, eh? Let Estarra make them, then let the lack of sales prove your point

I voted to allow both, however, I feel that if you have plans in the near future (next 6 months) to introduce another commune that has its own alembic, then I would say do not sell them. It makes sense to me that only communes can have alembics and only cities can have pentagrams... but it does not make sense to me that only cities can have pentagrams , but only Serenwilde has an alembic. I think we have seen enough times allready that sometimes people get hurt by a city in ways that are not the normal "I'm rebelling and I want nothing to do with you."


So basically, if the world is going to stay the way it is for a while, I say sell the alembics and pentagrams, they only help and really don't hurt all that much, but if you are going to add a commune, then having that RP difference will be very beneficial to the game I think. And as such you should not sell them.



But I'm curious... what about herb gardens for herbalists? you know... choose any six herbs and let them grow in your house.

Woot, your own personal garden of sparkleberry, horehound, merbloomd, and 3 others!

if what you have tried to say was that rebellious and dissident people tends to become candidate for unjustified martyrdom.. that's kinda moot or highly polemical.

But again if that's what you tried to say.. you would seem to assume that someone just found five hundred credits lying on the ground and thought something along the line "ooooh! , let's buy an alambic and let's be rebellious".

I don't know for you, but i would think really hard with what i really want to do with 500 credits, if it happens that i have chosen a way to spend it then be sure that i would have measured the risks.

either its too late and I'm not making sense or you ignored the word Not.

I ment, that many people have been kicked out of cities for what I would say are bad reasons. Meaning, putting all the power in -One- organization for the entire world is not really a smart thing. The power they have should be spread out whenever possible when its not detremental to the overall balance.

For example... lets say Person A gets 2000 credits. They are members of thier commune, but don't talk much. They happen to fall in love with the sister of the Marshal of serenwilde. They date, they break up... The sister tells the Marshal to kick out that player. Since nobody really knows him, they decide to just block him from the alembic and nexus but don't actually kick them out. If that person was able to buy their own alembic, that would make things more reasonable.

Can't block people from the Alembic, it is open to all. Secondly, unlike the cities, no one has been kicked out unjustly, and as for the people who have been kicked out or left, all of them have been allowed to return, if they chose too.

I hear it differently, but they might be lying.

Then it seems we agree on some things. Even if.. i doubt that such a shocking abuse of power would happen as suggested in your example, and be left unpunished.

Unless more room, for dissidence and different school of thougth, is made by or forced upon the players, then Estarra and her crew will be forced to soften her line of conduct toward the 'Rogues'.

because you can't seriously be a serenwilder saying i hate the taint , one day, then because of some major trouble you get kicked out, and the only city you could join is Magnagora, you find yourselve, claiming , i love the taint' just in a matter of days.(NikuaGate)

People getting kicked out or being ostracized (gulp!) should become a rare occurrence weither it is for a good a bad reason, no one should be kicked out. Beside , how could one be kicked out of a forest ..

I find it amusing , now, that highranked people couldn't get kicked out easily, with the powerplex you could get free power , we got manses .. i think we're heading toward an affordable life for rogues which is only natural.

2000 credits is affordable? 100 credits for the gold for the manse, 500 credits for your trade thingy, 300 credits for trans planar, 200 credits for the gem.... yeah ... affordable... got it.

affordable nonetheless..
Sure noobnoob the newcomer won't be able to... but Shadow Doomsday.org will be able

nil , you can even make an Inn and rent

You can post guards in the room with the alembic and prevent anyone you don't want to use it from using it. You can post people there and moniter the crafts of those who make elixers. It is not 'open to all' when you don't want it to be.

All of your arguments are at best reasons why no one would ever buy an alembic, not reasons to disallow them. I've still seen no reason why it would be unbalancing to allow one, if there were someone who really thought it was worth their 500 credits. Please, tell us why you think they should actively be disallowed instead of why you think they would be useless and no one would buy one?

THe only reason I see for not having them is to keep the Nature as apposed to City RP to be maintained in the code of the game. Its really a great aspect that players seem to want to ignore or just brush over.

it would be cool if there was only five or six alembics released.

Unless it's a transportable pocket alembic, you do realize , it could be one of the few artifacts that could be resold.