Break the alembic!

Seriously, it can't be that hard. Broadsword.. glass..

It wouldn't make any difference, of course. Since everyone is perfectly able to fight with just bob's vials.

I really like the Rowena selling slightly more expensive refills idea. I also think Serenwilde shouldn't use its alchemy monopoly to enact alchemy bans, because we all know the monopoly really shouldn't be there.

You really expect Serens to be reasonable?


Disclaimer: the proceeding statement is in no way directed to the players of Seren characters

If an NPC alchemist is added, then I think an equivalent NPC enchanter should be added as well. They should both be in a completely neutral territory that is not tainted, not forested, not in water, not near a city, and not statuable (e.g. indoors). And their prices should be fairly high.

I dislike having Rowena provide refills because -
1 ) It's too easy to demesne off Rowena's tunnel (tainted underground) and trap enemies from reaching her.
2 ) It ties Glomdoring too closely to Magnagora (main requestors/clients), when the commune hasn't even begun to exist yet.

Edit: enemies, not Magnagorans

I disagree with the NPC enchanter, because there are two cities that can enchant already, and only one commune that can do alchemy. Once Glomdoring comes in, there would no longer be a need for the NPC alchemist.

The 'enchantment monopoly' is bogus. Two idealogically opposite orgs hold the so-called 'monopoly', which makes it unenforcable. No single entity could possibly deny enchantment access to an individual, which is the requirement for a monopoly.

If you say that they have a monopoly over enchanting, then there's also a monopoly over tailoring, forging, etc since you -could- possibly be enemied to all three cities and piss off every single tradesperson in the realms. That's completely bogus. It's only a monopoly if there is central control.

Not to mention, you do not have to be a citizen of a city to use its Pentagram for enchanting. Which means, even if you are an enemy of the city, if you have the skill, you can sneak past the guards and use the pentagram.

Also, scrubing yourself in water doesn't cure sap?

I am not claiming that there is an enchantment monopoly. But enchantment is controlled by cities, which in some sense are both ideologically opposed to a commune.

While that is not currently a problem for most people -- If an NPC alchemist is added to provide for those who cannot access alchemy due to the consequences of following their IC ideologies, then it would only be fair to add the parallel NPC enchanter.

This is not similar to common trade skills such as tailoring because those are completely independent of any organization and can even be done in private manses.

Player enchanters (and alchemists) should always be preferable price-wise.

Edit: added stuff for clarification

And to Dumihru's points I wish to add that while the game is geared away from rogues, it is NOT geared away from a member of a commune/city being enemied to the other two, and could in fact be argued to encourage it. (That's debatable, though.) So you'll always have tailoring/jewellery/cooking/forging/poisons/herbs, because every commune/city has them, and you're supposed to be part of one of them.

And Daganev, if you have time to scrub yourself in water, which requires A )Finding it and B )About ten seconds of balance, give or take, then you have enough time to go to Celest or Magnagora and buy a vial off a friend to cure whatever problems you have.

First off it is not a monopoly. That would mean that Serenwilde had exclusiveness to it. Since you can get potions from another source, albeit horribly worse, except those four which were spoken of, it cannot be considered a monopoly.

You can still raid villages and what not, it may be more costly to you having to buy all your elixers from Bob, but you can still do it. So I say Bob should just sell those four other potions.

If and only if Bob sold those other four potions, then it would not be a monopoly.

Bob does not sell those four potions. Thus, there exists a monopoly.

to go "buy that vial off a friend"

hmmm, lets see...

You said you NEED enchantments because of sap, people are arguing that you NEED alchemy.

I therefore said, "You can cure Sap by scrubbing in water" to which you replied, "yeah and all you have to do is go buy a vial"

Check and mate.

Fine, make an npc who sells enchantments as well as one who sells the other kinds of potions if that's what it would take for Serenwilde to stop abusing the monopoly they aren't supposed to have.

EDIT: I didn't mean this to insult the divine, as I do appreciate all the hard work they put into this. I once coded a mud (albeit a small one) in LPC and have been a celani so I know how it goes. And my intent wasn't to focus on spores so much as the alchemy situation. It would be so easy to triage this situation, I would pay 2k for 50 choleric sips from an NPC because I need choleric, as does every other player.

Continuing along this idea, I would pay 2k for choleric, phlegmatic and the like. If the alchemists want to make more off their trade skill, having a set rate that is very high would probably only give them cause to raise their own prices and thus make more gold.

I'm sure there are Serenwilders that might go rogue just for the purpose of making plenty of gold selling potions to the commune's enemies, but I doubt may will want to go rogues considering that there are no ways to regulate Alchemy as it is. But how do you guys that want the cities to have access to Alchemy propose it will be done? Considering that Lowmagic and Nature are the prerequisites for that, how much sense would it make RP-wise for a guild that knows Nature and Lowmagic to suddenly show up in Mag or Celest and begin selling potions?

And if you intend to give the cities two new guilds with Alchemy, it would be unfair to us then since our members can't learn Enchantment. Lusternia has only been opened for less than 6 months, and look how many balance issues we've had so far. I don't think the admins have the time to design new guilds to give all 3 factions access to Alchemy.

Don't use the reason that Bob doesn't sell the healing vials, everyone know that people use alts to go into enemied city's commshops and purchase them for cheaper prices, I'm pretty sure this same tactic can be extended towards vials and refills. Look at the last war, Mag was alchemy-banned for a long time, yet in all the fightings I've seen, they did not seem to be lacking in anything. Considering that there is no alchemy ban in effect at the moment anyway, I see no point in the continual arguing that Serenwilde has unfair advantages.

...works for me. 2k is probably pushing it, but as long as it's fairly high, if it's AVAILABLE, then I'm happy with it. I still want enchantments too though.

Albeit ridiculously expensive ones, perhaps. But as long as they're there in the spirit of balance.

Anybody who is using alts for anything is breaking the rules and should be shot. I have never used an alt for anything, ever.

Is it illegal to make an alt that gains high political favour in another city just so I can mess them up and make my main charachter's city that much stronger?

Yeah, the excuse "You can use alts to get around an alchemy ban, therefore an alchemy ban isn't bad" is about the lamest thing I've ever heard.

I think the intended comment was that, say Daganev was enemied to Serenwilde but Furloch wasn't, Daganev would get Furloch to go get elixirs and then just give 'em back. (Outdated example, but still.)

Furloch is Fallen's alt, not mine.

And do you people have no shame? asking others to get refills for you? thats worse than begging for a trip to the Elemental plane.