Herbs, Potions, and Scrolls. A consumable Idea.

Idk why melee are getting bashed so hard by this. Mages get access to slow, prot, flying, +size, they can also smoke for sanc mid fight and engorge in hearts....

Careful sandbox, it will upset someone

To me it's not just melee's it's all classes. The amount of consumables needs to be toned. I remember on my last pin I ended up with backpacks full of people's consumables it's abit rediculous. I don't have a magic fix all idea for it but I've seen some good starts on here. And I agree with the invisible thing what's the point everyone has permanent detect anyway.

I don't use a whole lot of consumables on my characters. I know Ghrundor has said in the past that he doesn't either and I think he's in the same position as me.. I'm just too damn lazy to go collect that shit for HOURS. If I wanna get a bunch of seaweed or something then I'm going to pay a Merchant to supply me with it, but outside of sanctuary and flight, I won't use much unless its given to my class or so easily obtainable. IE: Magenta leaves when I am buying red potions. 

Brainstorming solutions:

I have a few ideas that may or may not work and I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on them to see if they are even viable answers..

1. Nymph Hearts - The problem, which we have all agreed, is that a warrior, invoker, or any class that doesn't normally have access to healing spells/prayers/songs can stockpile such an extreme amount that they can effectively heal themselves. Possible solutions to this: 

• Make nymph hearts rot. This will stop people from getting a hundred of these and just sitting on them.
• Add a poison or sickness to it. IF you eat too many in one go then you will make yourself sick. Eat, I'm ball parking, 8-10 and you will give yourself poison. Continue to stuff your fat face and your poison will go up in level.

1. Spell Consumables - I'm not sure how big of a problem everyone sees THIS as, but I think there is a pretty quick and easy(I could be wrong) solution to solve this.

• Magic Limit. By that I mean your particular race/class combination will have a limit on how many herbs, potions, etc that they can use before their body can not handle anymore. So, if you have an ogre warrior in Nexus and they are stocking up on TONS of herbs and potions to get armor, shield, protection, flight, frenzy, stoneskin, flesh armor, etc, etc, etc.. this will limit the amount of these spells their body can handle since they are not trained in their use. You've already put protection, flight, and frenzy on via herbs. If you try to use another herb or potion then you will receive a message: " Your body cannot handle anymore magics. " This will effectively limit what each race/class combination can stack up on and also makes them CHOOSE what is more important. Do you want to use your three herbs or potions or whatever for -ac or do you want to use it for hit/dam? Hell, with this solution you can even put in herbs that give -svs and allow that as an option as well. Do you need a quick -mal? Smoke this herb and you will lose hit/dam in exchange for -mal for X hours.

• There can also be work arounds to this as well. You can choose a perk on creation that increases your magic limit allowing you to increase your body's limitations. This can also be an RP edge that can be obtained later providing you can amass 150 RP points. Player spells are not limited. You have a cleric in your cabal that can hook you up? Let'em. Player buffs are not limited in any way. Additionally, any spell forged items would not be affected by this limitation as you are exchanging a rare slot for the ability to gain that spell. And possibly items that are "used" like rod of time or mask of discord. Could even give Watcher the ability to use more herbs than the other people as they are closer to nature and understand the workings a bit better? Now I am just rambling..

This is just something I thought off basically AS I was typing it out so its pretty rough in how it may work or how effectively it would be incorporated into the game. Would it be devastating to melee classes that have become reliant on those buffs as the PK skill of our game, as well as equipment/weapons, has increased? I don't know.

Trick's idea was one that's close to my own.  First before we fix this issue I have to admit that I'm not sure if the problem is how potent these consumables are, how many can be carried, or how many can be used.  Maybe all three or maybe more of one of those factors so I'm covering ideas for all.

1. How many can be carried.  I didn't really like the idea for specific pouches, I have enough trouble as it is carrying my weapons and red potions out already so I came up with other ways:

• Simply limit how many a player can have a time stocked.  I'd sugguest it be upon login/logout, so you could stock while you're in this session but when you log out and come back you'd only have say 5-10 of each type of pill/potion/scroll/herb.
• Change preserve on herbs so it only makes it last longer and have potions/pills go out of date, scrolls become too wrinkled to read etc...
• Reduce the amount that shop owners get and lower the spawn rate to make it harder for people to collect them.

Cons with this:  This just means hardcore players will either only pk after running around and stocking enough consumables (which I assume most do now)  but it means they won't be able to stock up for hours and be good for long periods.  They'll have to stock up more often and it'll cut into playing time more.

1. How many can be used.  This is where Trick's idea is like mine

• Overdose- It's very simple, a player in a given time period can use a limited amount of pills/herbs before he overdoses on them.  Either this could be automatic, or have a chance to happen so players can take the risk if they want.  Overdosing would have side effects like sitting down to shiver for a round (lag), eyes becoming blurry (like thunderclap), sudden vomiting, dysentery, blindness, etc... taking more after you're already overdosed after a point will have a side effect of death.  For potions and scrolls this could be a magical overdose due to not having proper training in spells before using them.  Like Trick's idea this would mean you'd have to be more careful with what herbs you decided to use, taking a detect invis pill all the time may not be such a good idea because you could need frenzy/shield/armor or whatever instead.
• Drug resistance- For those that use them a lot.  Basically the idea is that as you use consumables your body would grow more resistant to them causing them to have a weaker affect on you.  Black herb might give sanc for 8 hours, then 6, then 4, then stay at 2 after that.  The resistance would build over time and affect all consumables, so no you couldn't use one to replace another that you were resistant to.

1. Potency - This is the most simple fix, just lower it or have them become less potent over time.

• Growing old- They wouldn't rot but over time the drug/potion's affect would become weaker.  Kind of like drug resistance but in this case you couldn't go camp out somewhere safe for hours to let it go away.  As you camp out the ones you have now would slowly become weaker.
• Kickback- Basically the idea is that the stronger the consumable the longer it would take your body to absorb it in.  This could cause longer lag.  It would also make it harder to fully heal with nymph hearts between battles because there's more chance they'll catch you while you need to heal.

I've read this thread and played in game and while I do see that it targets melee characters more I can't help but think maybe it should.  If without consumables melee characters are much weaker than caster/communer then maybe the classes themselves or equipment needs to be looked at.  Farming consumables for long periods just for one fight isn't something that many adults can do and there isn't always a Merchant on to buy from.  The main reason I see it though is just being new and comparing classes on which I might like.  I usually like support classes like Healer/Bard/Cleric, the ones who aren't the biggest damage dealers but help others.  But in this game no support is really needed because everyone has bags to do what I can, not just that but there's no need to play those classes because you can take a more offensive/defensive class and with herbs have most of the benefits of that class as well.  Truthfully I think the change should hit casters just as hard...maybe.  I say maybe because I only seen one invoker in game since I started, but maybe I'm just a little butt hurt because it doesn't seem that communer support is a big deal except to save consumables.

I agree with the last two suggestions.  I feel that limiting the amount of consumable and external effects would be an interesting direction.  One of my concerns with the amount of consumable buffs that can be applied are that it removes the fun out of interacting with other people when I go out to resupply beyond the minimum (sanc and flight for example).  This goes for both RP and PK point of views.  As I run about collecting what I need to prepare for that unknown fight coming up... I wonder if I'm just choosing to do chores in a game than doing chores out of one.  Time becomes more and more a factor as I grow older and well, I cannot devote as much time doing the consumable arms race as I use to.  At some point this pretty much excludes me from the PK side of things, which would be a huge loss of fun for me.

I'd think if we applied some kind of overdose/overload mechanic that limits the number of consumable/external effects on each class.  I guess you could have them go beyond that number, but it would apply a penalty of some sort.  As an example, let's use the number 3.  This could be applied to a total of 3 consumables (potions, herbs, wands, staves, and/or scrolls).  Another method is to limit the consumables based on type (1 potion/scroll effect, 1 herb, and one wand/stave effect).  The more veteran pkers will still have an advantage in that they would select a better combination of buffs without creating such a huge gap.  This would also stop things like people almost always being immune to trip (flight).  Mind you, anything the class can provide itself, a group providing the person, and cabal skills would NOT be subjected to this limit to avoid any impact outside of pk.

Inevitably, I expect that someone may point out that if I don't have the time, I shouldn't pk.  Which is a valid retort, but I'd rather see more people have a chance than to create even more barriers of entry.