Please make starstone available to be located by "locate object" like mineral veins.
Since they are similar in purpose it would be fair.
starstone and mineral veins
Apples are similar to oranges.
Yes very similar. Apples and oranges are both fruit, they come from trees, they are edible, they have skin and can be peeled.
One is commonly fermented into a drink and often used as the basis of a pie, the other isn't. Cats and humans have eyes and a nose and gives birth to live young and nurses them with milk. That does't mean that a cat will sit down and write prose. We can be here all day, nor will it make one the other.
While we're at it, shall we go ahead and make obelisks locatable? And if we're taking the nolocate flag off of starstone, why not let them repop like veins and trees do too?
Starstone's primary use is for quest related stuff. Either way, the number of people who can use them are limited. Bards on the other hand, have no such restrictions; anyone can make one on a whim.
Crusaders for example, have been contending with finding starstone the old fashioned way since the get-go. Not that they had access to Locate Object, but that's a moot point. They're meant to be hard to find and few in number as that takes the power curve of the class and lengthens it. If you want help in collecting them, recruit the pbase.
Of course, it the nolocate flag were to be removed and/or starstone repopulated like veins and trees, the quantity needed for the qclasses qstuff can always be increased. Like vellum.
I don't know much about obelisks but they aren't consumed by use or randomly spawned? I don't think it's a very good comparison like starstones and veins.
Is there a problem with letting starstones repop like trees and veins or increasing the frequency in which you can find them?
Yup! It would then become a near worthless commodity like gold for the acquisition of qclass stuff. Might as well just remove the starstone requirements entirely for qclass stuff and rely on a heavier mana cost.
With veins and trees in as they are, the potential to expand crafting through quests or into other classes has a foundation. Imagine thieves and ninjas potentially mixing [mineral] and/or [wood] to make a stronger poison. Or a monk having beads made from [mineral] or [wood] that adds a property to their attacks.
Now I'm not saying that these things will happen, or that they've even been considered before now, but the potential is there. Let the Qclasses have their material components and the regular classes theirs.
The problem is starstones are used for more than just qclass. It has many different uses, some are forbidden to talk about freely. I don't think allowing starstones to be located is going to make it a worthless commodity.
You mention room for expanding trees and veins, if done that would just make it more in line with starstones because all the different things you can do with them.
The problem I have is the inconsistency with certain classes that share the same resource. To make my point would get me in trouble because I would be discussing qclass information.
Edited
I'm sorry, but I'm saying no to this one. Starstone are meant to be as rare as they are, and locating them or being able to just won't happen.
how to find starstone:
run through the chasm
run through elium
run to the volcano
run to winter (lower plains)
if you do these, you'll usually end up with 3 - 6 starstone
You can add the labyrinth to that list as well. I remember always finding some on my failed crusader.
Ask people for star stone. Straight up hold that mother f'ing hand out. I've laid down bags of 30-60 star stone on people before as a good aligned.
Try to sell it as an evil and well, you'll end up sitting on a bag of nearly 200 star stone nobody wants, so you delete with it. HA! That's right, one time I deleted with 200 star stones on me! Because I'm gangsta like that, yo!
They see Valek rollin', they hatin'...