Merchants

You can discuss how Merchant’s Guild should work in this forum thread.

To get the raw materials you need for crafting, you have to go to one of the ports along the dragon coast such as Pros or Teziir. As any trip on the overworld map, there is a small chance your caravan will get waylaid by monsters or bandits. Although the probability is small, it only has to happen once to have a really bad day (and potentially loose a lot of money among other things). This is a risk you must take on the way there and back so it is important to take proper precautions.

Once you reach the port you don’t actually see the entire city like you see the city of Proskur and you cannot explore the city. Rather, you’ll see the interior of the Port Authority in the city you are in. At the Port Authority you can purchase the raw materials you want that are available. You can also purchase various miscelaneous items that also happened to get shipped in this week. Prices and quantities will vary depending on what is going on around the world and the outcome of quests from the previous week. Also, the prices and quantities may not be the same from city to city so it may be helpful to shop around (but also risky if you aren’t well protected).

Once you get the raw materials, you can craft with those materials. However, you can also sell these raw materials to other PC merchants and craftsmen in Proskur. Unless the merchant’s guild enforces a set price (which they can do), you are free to sell the raw materials at whatever price you wish.

To craft a mundane or masterwork item, you need the proper amount of raw materials to produce the item and a workbench. The amount of raw materials you need depends on the item you are crafting. The basic formula for the amount of raw materials you need is (crafted item base cost)/(raw material base cost x 3) rounded up. So, if you’re building a longsword that costs 15 gp at the base price and a load of iron costs 1 gp at the base price, you’ll need 15/(3×1) or 5 loads of iron. Keep in mind that this is the base cost and not the actual cost in game.

In reality, however, you’ll need more than 5 loads of iron to build that longsword unless you are an excellent craftsman. To build that mundane item, you have to succeed at your craft skill check. If you don’t you loose half of your raw materials (rounded up) and you have to try again to build the item you wish to craft. The DC for building a longsword is 15 so you need your craft skill to have at least 14 ranks after bonuses to be guaranteed not to loose money. If you can achieve that level of craftsmanship, however, you are more or less guaranteed 66% profit on the items you craft minus any other costs you incur such as building rent, guild fees, etc.

To build a masterwork item, you have to pay for the masterwork component of the item you are crafting. The best way to think of it is as if you’re building a seperate item at 300 gp (or 150 gp for a shield or armor) that you need at least 10 ranks in the appropriate craft skill. The same rules apply about crafting the masterwork component of an item as above. Crafting the masterwork component of an item is just like crafting a seperate item except that you cannot actually build a masterwork component without also simultaneously building that item and you cannot add the masterwork component of the item after it’s been built.

When crafting magical items, we will use the existing NWN2 crafting system. It is important to note, however, that the kinds of essences available will be strictly controlled so that we can maintain a certain magic level on the server. Basically, faint level essences will be rare and higher level essences will be non-existant. By rare, I mean the only place you can likely find the materials needed to craft a faint level essence is on the boss creature of a one-shot quest. Even then, the odds of finding it are in the range of 10%-25%. With enough faint level essences and skill, an alchemist can create higher level essences. However, the faint level essences will be so rare that it would probably be unrealistic to expect to find essences above the weak level. Although it is conceviable to build ultrapowerful items from glowing or radiant essences, it will likely that will be the only magical item build in an entire year of play.