theworldofdreams.com

If you play D&D, you know what these are. For the uninitiated, it goes basically something like this:

To craft an item, a check is required, and the more rare, and difficult or powerful the item is, the harder it is to make. Remembering that D&D works on a variable system of numbers from 1-20, it might look a little something like this:

Craft Check

DC*

10 - Build a house out of straw
15 - Build a house out of sticks
20 - Build a house out of bricks

Moving to WoD, as far as I know, the system works the same, without the variable chance of failure. That is, if it takes 70.0 skill to build a house, and you have 70.0 skill, you only have the unmodifiable 10% chance (or whatever it is) chance to fail. Now, I know it's a lot more complicated than that, or even slightly different, and you all have a desire to prove me wrong (and go ahead, if you want to) - but the main point is the difference I'm pretty sure exists between D&D and the UO system, which is the dice roll.

Suppose for example, you had 80.0 skill in tailoring, and wanted to make a robe that required a 'craft skill check' of 50.0. Rolling a percentile die (a dice with a hundred sides, woo!) you would then have a 50% - 20.0 (being not able to get more than 80.0 max on the check out of 100.0) of success.

Keeping in mind that you can't 'roll' 110.0 on a d100, so the 110.0 would allow you to make 110 skill check items by providing a 10% bonus.. if you had the skill. Advanced skills, if they apply to crafts, would be included in the same way as this.

The first thing that would happen, is that the shard would immediately generate a lower item count over time. The second thing is that all items would become more valuable, because they would be more difficult to make. Things that required 110.0 skill to make would be exceedingly rare (as they should be) and not commonplace.

The second thing is, that all skills would be affected evenly. I have always disliked about how everyone in WoD wears magical items of fantasic power, rides creatures of magical creation and carries thousands of scrolls of mighty mystical power. Frankly... it's cheesy. My conception of very powerful items is that the greater they are, the rarer they should be. A populace that can mass produce Ressurection scrolls doesn't really have much to worry about in the way of threats, as is clearly evidenced.

Now before you all cry Heretic and let loose the Flames of War, please consider this: I am not *supporting* this idea, merely *suggesting* it. It is my intention to see the likelihood of something like this taking off, but it would require some sacrifice on the player's behalf.

-M