Problem 1: It takes way, way too many design slots to have tattoos which you like the look of and which have the effects that you want.
Solution 1: Decouple the design of a tattoo from the ka effects. This change would entail:

-Changing tattoo designs to require a body part, a short description, a long description and a commodity cost in ink equal to the maximum weight of that tattoo. Designs would no longer specify an effect.
-Maximum weight would be the maximum weight that a tattoo can hold. A given tattoo can be infused with less than the maximum weight in ka, but it cannot hold more.
-Adding a seperate syntax for infusing a tattoo with ka, INFUSE WITH , that would check if the weight you specified is within the limit of the tattoo you're infusing and that the body part the tattoo is on has enough weight left for the effect you want to use on that body part.
-Infusing, not inking, would be the process that consumes power.
-Inking, not infusing, would be the process that consumes time.

Problem 2: As Enyalida pointed out, tattooists receive business precisely once per person unless that person decides to change their tattoos at a later date. This is unfortunate, because it makes the trade skill much, much less profitable.
Solution 2: Making ka infusions in tattoos wear off over time and require periodic recharging. An uncharged tattoo is strictly cosmetic and consumes no ka weight. Reinfusing a tattoo would consume power, but not time.

I'm super excited. I also agree with the comments above about divorcing some things from the designs although I can sort of see tying design to the powers (a flame tattoo for fire dmp for example), but I think the weights should be fluid at the very least.

I thought of that, but it got messy in my head. I, for one, would try to design a tattoo with the powers I wanted in mind to tie in vaguely, or mention lots of them. for the smaller designs, you probably would just keep it on one thing, you wouldn't miss the 2 weight, and therefore could make it a flame toe ring or something.

I don't really agree that having tons of tattoo designs with different weights and powers is that big of an ordeal. At best an argument could maybe be made for a reduced submission cost or increased submission slots or something, for tattoo cartels (not to speak to the viability or likelihood of such), but elsewise, I'm not really convinced.

Similarly, variable weight is strange, and anyone who suggests it really doesn't seem to have thought it through terribly well. IE suddenly you have 200 1 weight tattoos that 'take up half their back'. In the reverse it is not so great an ordeal, but under such a system no tattoo would be allowed to reference its size nor particular parts of the body. I think you'd find it to be extremely restrictive.

I think the system as it exists offers the most in terms of customization, detail and design capabilities. Nor do I really think 'fading' tattoo effects or charges or some other strange amalgam thereof is really a great way to take it (were that the case, we could've simply gone the route of other IREs). I think given the time it takes to ink, the quantity of inking doable on a person and such forth, I'm really quite skeptical it's going to be a non-productive tradeskill in terms of income.

Just my personal opinion(s), however.

(I also don't like the idea of forcing people to have only one tattoo per body part - some people want a lot of little ones, some want one or two big ones. Have at it, says I!)

I've never been a TM in Lust before, but I would say that a weight here would have to correlate to the size of the tattoo, both for RP purposes and also for mechanical purposes. Obviously, if such a design comes up, it will have to be rejected. That said, the current tattoo system uses variable weight. The designs submitted have to specify a weight number. Ie. I can literally do exactly what you have said: design a tattoo that has 1 weight but which is "half the back" in the description. This is what needs to be changed!



With FOURTEEN bodyparts and THIRTY-TWO powers, it's going to take 448 designs to allow every bodypart to have a design for every power. If people want additional different designs for the same power, that number will increase. If a cartel has a spider tattoo design with 50 weight for fire protection for the back already made, I doubt the same cartel will agree to a request to submit a design for a tree tattoo design with the same power/weight. They only have 3 public and 3 private slots, after all, and if you want fire protection on your back, there already is one! People will get forced to choose a design they may not want, just for the power. The customisation options are restricted, in this case.

I think the system is fine as it is as long as TMs can do sorting on designs.

By divorcing bodypart from the designing process, you speed up this level of customisation for less amount of design slots. Someone can design a 25 weight spider tattoo, and it can obviously go on any body part that has 25 or more max weight. This means 1 design can be used for quite a few body parts! If they want alot of small spiders on their back, have at it, as you say! If they want a bigger one, they can choose a tattoo with more weight (and a corresponding size description). The current system allows this, but doesn't allow low-weight designs to be used across bodyparts. A back design with 25 weight can only be used on the back, and not the gut or the chest or wherever else, even if those bodyparts have the space to support it. To get the same design with the same weight on a different bodypart, ANOTHER DESIGN has to be made! This is both tedious and takes away from their ability to "have at it" as you say.

You can, except that design will be rejected.

You can, however, design ten 20-weight tattoos and get all of them put onto your back - so long as the design itself is actually logical.



Your example only holds true assuming there's only a few tattoo cartels. If that particular cartel does not want to do the design, hire another to do it! I'm sure (at least once things calm down, I can't speak to the current atmosphere) there will be plenty of people content and happy to provide just that.

I'm sure any given, privately-owned cartel that does submissions on behalf of others will happily make 50 variations of the same design, assuming they are paid for all of them. If literally no one will, then, well, there's some big business to be made.

You're correct, of course. I'm just pointing out that the time and effort for a single person to get a single set of customised tattoos (for monks that are using this as armour, that's like a single set of customised splendours) is huge. I personally don't mind taking the time and effort to do it, but that doesn't mean that the system isn't tedious and awful. Thanks for the feedback (lol, finally) on my ideas, anyway, I've said my piece and got my questions answered, so I'll leave you guys to your jobs.

Edit: Oh, I'd like to second Xiel's suggestion about allowing designs to be sorted by powers. I mean, if there's gonna be 50 variations of the same design differing only in power, I'd certainly want to be able to cut through to the power I want to find rather than plow through the whole mess.

I really don't see the admin changing how powers are a part of the design template, if only because that means rewriting the very templates themselves. And since designs are already being made and functioning under those templates... yeah.

Something more palatable might be opening up a full body tattoo that the robe-less, armour-less monks can use. It won't fix the situation for everyone, and it'll probably be a pain detailing exactly where you are tattooed and where you aren't, but if it has the option of applying any multiple of powers with any multiple of weights, I imagine it would help.

I think having set weight on the design makes sense and should be 100% based on conceptual size of the tattoo. I think that the way each tattoo has a power set actually limits the customization (1 power per tattoo). It's nice to have unique tattoos, but kind of a hassle for some less serious people, I think. If you commission a design, and someone else also wants it, they'd have to be running a similar set up to yours or be screwed. There is a difference between allowing customization and FORCING IT.

Also, look at bookbinding, you have time (on magic scrolls), quantity of books made (infinite, as fast as you write). Or Artisan, with high cost, one creation items. I don't think anyone would say these are high paying jobs, though bookbinding got a boost from origami (notice that origami's effects are transient, and BOOST revenue).

That's a good idea. A full body tattoo only for monks that just gives the full weight and where combinations of the powers can be specified. Would certainly cut the design process down a great deal. I'm all for it.

Personally I'm not against a small, intricate design with 100 weight (I don't think Est is either, but it's really up to the Charites, once they get to settling policy on tattoo designs).

1 power per tattoo is simply a matter of reasonable design - personally, were I to design a tattoo set for my character, it'd probably go something like:

A large Tree of Life tattoo that encompasses the entirety of the back (100 weight, half the 200 back) that has 10 open spaces in various parts - then I'd go through and do 10 separate designs, all weight 10, representing each of the Sephirot and thereby play up the High Magic theme.

Maybe that's just me, though!

The thing that worries me is that I'd make a design like that, have it across my back and have that power I imbued into it depreciated, and have no recourse to changing it but removing it, redesigning the tattoo with another power, and having it made again. And it would mean that if the Hartstone came out with a design I wanted to add, it would have a set power on it that could conflict with what I already had. Or I would have to request a clone of it with a power I could use.


Edit: bluh and that's a lot of designing I'd rather not have to do to negate the 10% damage boosts etc. that other people will have. If I make a size 200 tattoo across my entire back, half of the weight would be wasted, yes?

Edit2: Half wasted at minimum, from what I can see.

Agree completely.



You don't have to limit to one per bodypart. Just limit it based on weight like it is. I also -totally- disagree with how nontedious you think this is.

Here's exactly what will happen:

- There will be sets of tattoos that are build around each other because some weights will be spread out to different parts. See the public neck design that gives 5% effectiveness for the divine essence buff.
- You won't be able to swap out tattoos because the weights won't be compatible on the same spot.
- You might like the design, but it has the completely wrong buff and/or weight.

It kills the tradeskill in my opinion. You want variance of designs, not design+type+weight. Type and weight should be separate from the design, to allow flexibility in what you choose. There is no flexibility because people will be designing the tattoos to work with one another, and thus if you want to venture away from a set, well, then, you're going to have to design a full set for yourself. Saying that this won't happen is just denying something quite obvious. When you can't put a full power into one bodypart, other bodyparts won't have full power either. There will be tons of needless, unwanted designs out there or wanted, incompatible designs.

The tradeskill is cool, granted. But the designing aspect as well as the economics of it were not well thought out.

I would rather see this put on hold for a month or two to get the mechanics worked out than have this problem fester and create a nightmare. The OOOH SHINEY! will die quickly when people realize that design A looks awesome, but design A doesn't have the type and/or weight people want. I think the PUBLIC setting for these designs is quite ironic.


Lerad's suggestions are great.

double post

I think that weight should be design centric (specified in the design), but that it just adds to a weight pool total, no need to specify what power goes where. That way you get what Eventru is saying about weight signifying size and complexity, and limiting designs that way, but you get the free-er powers that would allow real creativity with designs.

That could work too. One or both variables should be removed from the designs and be chosen at the time of inking.



Also: Please make them fade or something, or else this is a nontrade skill and just a one-term service skill. To use a bit of humor, I want regular visitors and not just one-night stands.

Having a re-ink skill would make it closer both to real life tattoos, and to the idea of aligning ka energies with ink. You need to realign your energies every 3000 miles . It would also allow for shifting of whatever variable is unchained, which I think is a pretty vital mechanism for something intended to be permanent, as was said earlier. This would probably have to be a pretty long time.

Maybe instead of tattoo fading, there could be temporary tattoo buffs you could ink on people with magic ink? (Mmm, just what we need, more demand for magic ink.) I agree that it needs a little something non-permanent to make it more of an economic tradeskill.

I also agree, as someone who loves the design system, that how specific your designs need to be at the moment is completely suffocating when it comes to creative freedom. Customizing every single bit of it is cool until you realize it's going to be a pain in the ass to actually get everything you want where you need it to go, and that pretty much no one else is going to be able to use your design. I like the ideas about not making the design stuck with a specific power always. It would open up each individual design to a much wider audience, which sits much better with me. I like making designs with the intent that lots of people can use and enjoy them, and with tattoos that's not too terribly viable at the moment, because everyone is going to want a different setup of weights/powers.