Lephys

A) I said "overly restrict," for what it's worth (in case that was directed at me). B) Even in mutli-classing, you're still restricting their playstyles, as opposed to a single-class system. Unless you have a limitless system, by choosing half of one class's abilities and half of another's (for example), you are restricting yourself from the other half of one class's abilities (which you could've accessed if you had stuck with a single class). In other words... you have a length of string, and you can make whatever shape you want with it, but it's always going to have the same circumference. Also, the more classes you allow to be picked from at once, the more difficult it becomes to design the ability hierarchy. How do you guarantee, for example, that someone with the first 3rd of Fighter, Cipher, and Druid abilities will be as capable as someone with 100% of the Druid abilities? Both ways. If you manage to balance out the selection of abilities so that a third of each of three different classes works really well, how do you make sure that people sticking to a single class don't suffer, and how do you make sure it doesn't became detrimental to NOT multiclass? I'm not suggesting this means mutli-classing is all bad and not in the least good. There are just many things to consider. Everyone acts as though it's as simple as "Do you want people to pick more versatile builds, or not?" As if there are no consequences to consider. We can just flip a switch in options in a given game design and turn on multiclassing, and nothing in the game will be affecting except an increase in choice. It's just not that simple. So, again, SINCE P:E's being designed with single-class-only builds in mind, I think it's not a bad thing in the least, and I believe that a very good amount of build versatility (a surprising amount to some of you vying for multiclassing, I'd wager) is very achievable with the correct design. Is it inherently guaranteed by the choice of design? Not at all. But ANYTHING could be screwed up by the actual designers, no matter how good the initial design logistics are. Humans are fallible. But, I trust a team with Obsidian's experience to all but nullify that possibility, even if they don't get it PERFECT; they'll most likely do it properly. Really, though, when it comes down to it, I believe that single-class-only and classless cover the range of choice most efficiently. If you design a single-class-only system to be versatile enough, you allow for quite a bit of choice in build and role without actually breaching the class lines. You could even just have a pool of abilities that are available to all, so that instead of having to choose what other class you want, you simply choose what abilities outside your class you want. Basically, you'd have class-specific abilities, and non-class-specific abilities, and that's it. Beyond that, it would be silly not to just bridge the rest of the gap to classless, allowing for any and all combinations (within the overall limitations -- total ability points/levels, etc.) to be chosen. But that's just me. *shrug*

... So... how 'bout them armours and weaponries?

For the same reason I'm not starting to worry because I haven't seen any photos of the outside of my office building for some time now, and haven't begun to assume there's a giant world-eating void out there, or an alien invasion going on, simply because I have a lack of evidence to the contrary. We have just as much reason to NOT worry as we do to worry. The unknown is just that: unknown. Not "known to be negative because of a lack of knowledge." To worry is human, but so is to realize when there's a need to and when there isn't. Also, there's a difference between acknowledging a possibility, and worrying about a possibility.

did you even read what I said? Did you? "An attribute system that's failproof just isn't my cup of tea." Failproof means failing is not allowed. Meaning if you want to be the most accurate mofo in the land, you can just close your eyes, and allocate all your points into random attributes (because you can't fail!), and you'll STILL accomplish what you wanted! Either that, or the point allocation is just for show, and you're always the best at everything. Since neither of those are true, we must not have a failproof attribute system. Which is what many have called it ever since Josh talked about it, suggesting that your point allocation no longer matters. Hence the words to which you just responded, that emerged from my fingertips. It's not a failproof system. It's a revamped system. Could it still be terrible? Yes. But, disliking it because it's going to be failproof is just as folly as disliking P:E because it's not going to have an attribute system at all; neither is accurate in the least. I'm not demanding that everyone be excited and optimistic about the system like I am. I'm simply pointing out the complete lack of necessity in jumping to baseless conclusions and deciding to dislike things because of them. Basically, if you're going to dislike something, actually dislike IT and not some false concept of it.

That's why confined randomness is key. Randomness is like seasoning: Just a pinch can do wonders. Maybe "randomness" is technically the wrong word... but... chance-based dynamics? *Shrug* You don't need "this bandit COULD be 17-feet tall and wield the sword of Galgreethus +97, or he COULD be 3-feet tall and wield a rusted wooden stick" to reap the benefits of randomness. A small bit is much easier to manage, AND still makes a huge difference versus absolutely none. Especially when it's supposedly just some random group of (insert creature/foe name here)s you're bumping into, anyway. There's not much to gain from having the game be Groundhog Day, with all your playthroughs producing the exact same encounters with the exact same enemy builds and formations throughout (with the exception of mutually exclusive choice/consequence-based stuff). Besides... who doesn't love surprises?

Yeah! It would be a perfect time to use the little illustration-style scripted events interface. Have some dynamically rolled factors and such decide the specifics of the ship encounter, then allow for some decisions/skill-checks to determine whether you fight on THEIR ship, or yours (who boarded whom), and/or other advantages/disadvantages, etc.

I believe we're in agreement on "learning lots of stuff doesn't allow you to forge masterwork katanas," also. Hence my clarification. I just wanted to reassure you that, regardless of how it may have seemed, I was in no way seeking for research and knowledge gain to directly bestow physical skills and abilities and muscle memory upon your character. I WILL say that I'm a fan of the idea of modularly customizing your equipment (@ JFSOCC). However, I still very much believe that the masterwork forging and such should stay in the full-time smith's hands. Maybe you can give them alchemical metals, which they can then use their extensive knowledge to forge things from, and you can get various different styles/materials of blades and/or guards, etc., made out of from the smithies. Then, you can assemble those, etc. I realize this wouldn't work for every single piece of equipment. But something like replacing a damaged hilt is probably something your character could feasibly do, even if it took a little forgework. I think it would be cool if you could take a background in smithing (for example) at character creation, and be pretty handy with various things. But, it makes sense that it's HIGHLY unlikely you'd MASTER smithing. I mean, even if in the game, you can get 100 Smithing skill. The maximum amount of smithing skill available to you should still always be mid-range, as far as the skills of all the smiths in the world goes. At least, in the right setup, that would be the case. And there would still be plenty of crafting to be done, without having to step on master smithies' toes.

Ehh, methinks you're overlooking the fact that what's actually being "saved from censorship" is not child killing on the player's part, but child vulnerability. If a child cannot be harmed, then you cannot ever need to protect that child. You can't make difficult choices ("Do I focus fire to let that kid get out of the streets where battle is ensuing? Or do I just fireball it to go ahead and take out 5 of those orcs?"). What would be ridiculous is "I want the world to be populated with children whose vulnerability never amounts to anything in the gameplay/story besides my ability to flippantly decide to end them." But wanting kids to not be immune to danger is not the same thing as wanting to kill children.

The ideal solution is for the game to be designed such that those things aren't worthless, and you don't reach dead-ends like that. I believe this is something of importance to Obsidian, based on many a thing Josh has said.

The thing is... if you don't overly restrict things in the first place, then there's no need for something like multi-classing to come back in and stretch things out to provide some flexibility. Example: Weapon restrictions. Wasn't it in the earlier versions of DnD, instead of simply lacking a proficiency level, you actually lacked the ABILITY to wield a sword as a Mage, for example? So then, what's ONE thing that being able to take a level in Warrior provides (amongst others)? The sheer ability to wield a sword. In P:E, you can already be a Wizard who wields a sword and wears plate armor, if you really want. So, there's less of a need, from the get-go, for a Wizard to be able to pick some other class to have flexibility. Just an example using one aspect of a dual-class scenario. Now, if you want to HALF use Wizard abilities, and HALF use Cipher abilities... well, in P:E's design, that's a bit convoluted. Do you charge your grimoire with Soul Whip so that you can gain Focus, or do you NEED to wield an actual melee weapon to use it? Do you get Grimoire Slam AND the Cipher's disengagement ability, or JUST one or the other? Do you get a familiar? Do you get to use wand Blasts? Plus, if the Wizard already has a variety of spells, many of which attack the mind, then why would you need to double your mind-attacking repertoire by utilizing both the Cipher's class mechanic (on top of your Wizard one) AND its abilities, as well? In other words, at what point are the lines between classes TOO hazy, and, at that point, wouldn't it just be easier to have a classless system, with all the abilities arrayed before you, and you pick and choose as you go? Same access, but in a more sensical fashion. Basically, most multi-class systems are DESIGNED to support multiple classes. If you design your system to simply allow each class enough flexibility from the get-go, then simply chucking in multi-classing will result in a bunch of unnecessary muddying of the waters. It's not a matter of "Should games with classes in them allow for multi-class or not?" That's not really a question one can answer, since it really depends on the way in which the classes were designed. It's a bit silly to say "I know each class is already SUPER flexible, but I demand the balance-shattering ability to simply overlap these classes' abilities!" and it's ALSO a bit silly to say "The classes SHOULD'VE been designed in a more restrictive fashion, so that I could then choose multiple of them at once and ease the restrictions to my own satisfaction! 8D" At the end of the day, what point is there in being able to deal damage in 15 completely different ways? "I can use an awesome sword technique, OR lash out with a mind attack, OR summon elemental powers, OR call upon the powers of nature, directly, OR use my super awesome precision bow-sniping..." And, again, if you want that, that's literally what classless is for.

I'm summoning all my willpower (see what I did there? We're talking about attributes, *snicker snicker*) for this to be all I say on the matter, but... why do people STILL not comprehend that there's a difference between your stat allocation not mattering at all and no stat ever failing to POTENTIALLY support A good build for a given character? Also, I'll throw in the obvious "We don't actually know much at all about the system... just enough to make wild, wild speculations." (Hey... concision points for that, though, yah? )

Sort of depends. That could potentially overload someone's mind, and therefore bring about their excrutiating demise. "Cipher casts TMI. Bandit's brain explodes." A successful enough save/resist could result in the caster being stunned by Rick Astley for 10 seconds.

I do not understand your reasoning behind these things. Why would a longsword ALWAYS do the exact same amount of damage? The 2-8 range is to accommodate all different factors of hitting (where you hit them, the angle at which you hit them, etc.). I agree with most of the other stuff, though. It's not the ONLY way to do it properly, but it makes a lot of sense. If I'm not mistaken, P:E isn't using spell saves, as a separate thing from resistance. Basically, everything just targets one of the 4 defense aspects (what... Deflection, Reflexes, Psyche, and... blargle... I can't remember the last one). So, while it isn't a flat reduction value, it IS a flat hit-scale shift. So, you have 20 mental attack (or whatever dictates that), and your target has 30 Psyche? From what I gather, that will shift the miss-graze-hit-crit scale 10 points in your target's favor. You'll have a 15% chance to miss, a 45% chance to graze, and a 40% chance to hit. And, while that's all chancified and whatnot, the effects of a graze versus a hit are flat values, as well (what... half damage/duration/effectiveness on a graze?). For what it's worth, I don't see much benefit in stripping all that down to just the flat values. Seems like it'd make for an awfully boring game. Battles would be very, very static, with nothing to really react to beyond a couple initial calculations.

Maybe the supernatural event we witness at the beginning of the game is some demon emerging from a portal and bestowing upon some random guy the knowledge of the printing press.

Yeah, I don't know if you've played any of the Mass Effect games, but the idea for Renegade versus Paragon in that was a lot better (in terms of general idea behind it) than good-versus-evil in other games. If you were a Renegade, you didn't just go around looking for ways to kill people. You just never worried about ways to get things done that DIDN'T involve killing people. If someone was a problem, your thought was just "Well, I'll kill them, and it won't be a problem anymore." Or, if you needed information, it was just "well, I'll torture them to give me the info, because the info's WAY more important than people's lives or some principled effects of my actions, etc." You pretty much still wanted to do "good," but a lot of the actions you took weren't perceived at all by anyone around as "good." The problem that comes from actually being able to just be "evil" is that, why, then, would you even be in the position you're in in the narrative? I mean, sure, an RPG offers a lot of flexibility, but it's still a story. Imagine if Frodo just said "you know what everyone? Eff it... I'm using this awesome ring to just kick everyone's arse and kill everyone in the world, for funsies." Not even because of the corruption of the ring. Just because that's who his character was. If there's a conflict, and you don't care about the conflict at all, then it's a bit pointless. "The world's in trouble! But, I don't care at all! This is the story of a person who turns the conflict of the world into not-a-conflict! EXCITING!" That just sort of... grabs a loose thread from the story, and pulls and pulls 'til it unravels. I'm not saying you can't have a story about evil, or bad guys. You just can't really have both, and still have the same quality of story. The story can't flex from accommodating actual overarching EVIL characters to actual GOOD ones. Anywho, the point is, what IS within the realm of flexibility is how you handle contextual situations and factors; are you only interested in the technical accomplishment of your goal, or are you worried about preserving people's quality of life and helping those who need it most, etc., even when it makes your goal harder to accomplish? Or somewhere in between? Not "Do you even give a crap about accomplishing any particular goal, whatsoever?" So, even though it wasn't executed as superbly as it could've been, the whole Renegade idea from the Mass Effect trilogy seemed to be a much better treatment than simply letting the character be straight-up evil.

What a plan! Every adventurer, every RPG player would be proud to have executed such a clever plan (I assume it wasn't easy to find out the cave could be collapsed and finding a suitable dwarf. A well made RPG will not make one solution trivial when the other is difficult). Do I really understand you correctly that for you it isn't anything more than the whimpy solution? <...incredulous silence...> If yes, you live in a different dimension from me. Exactly! "Clearly, there would just be a Dwarf, standing around at the entrance to the cave, and there'd be a simple Persuasion check to get him to automagically complete the entire objective for you." That's the mentality I don't get. As if it couldn't possibly be more complicated than that. Why don't people understand: You come up with an overly simplistic non-fighty solution example that doesn't seem to deserve any XP, and I could just as easily come up with an overly simplistic fighty solution that doesn't seem to deserve any XP. Does that mean all combat is stupid and shouldn't get XP? Nope. That's the other thing. There's no actual reciprocal to the argument FOR per-kill XP. You don't see anyone running about saying "the death of something should be grounds for automatic 0-XP awards, no matter what the circumstances!" *shrug*. It's just rather interesting to me.

Agreed... although, it might be rather interesting so long as it's properly constrained. You know, almost like the slight variance in a tale passed down by word of mouth. "I heard it was an axe!" "No, it was a greatsword!". If in one playthrough, Grogg the Goblin Lord's weapon was still a notorious weapon, and was still Grogg's Grinder or something, and it specialized in bleed damage, then it could still be a slightly different weapon in each playthrough. I just wouldn't want one playthrough to have him with Grogg's Grinder, and another playthrough to have him with a mere Longsword +1.

I don't follow... are you trying to respond to an alleged vie for SWORD recipes? Because, I was talking about stuff that literally has recipes (chemistry, food, etc.). Can you measure something in a beaker, then slowly pour it into something else, or can you not? Can you stir things and cook them for the right amounts of time, or not? Things that are 99.9% knowledge, because the whole "capability" aspect is pretty much part of the basic skillset of almost any human. Again, I apologize if I was somehow unclear, but I think people are missing one of the main points of what I've said thus far: I'm looking at crafting that specifically doesn't involve random people becoming master artisans despite spending ultra-extensive amounts of time artisaning, but is still interesting and varied crafting that allows for a lot of useful progress and creation to occur. Not "Hey, I think we should be able to make swords out of melted frogs, magically. That way, there's no need for artisan skill! ^_^" And I'm sorry if I'M the one mistaking other people's words, here, but it keeps looking quite like that's the idea people are somehow taking from what I've said, as I keep getting responses that seem to be addressing a problem with circumventing artisan skill, which is not something I want to do.

Cooldowns and round-based combat are not the antithesis of one another. And you can still have actions incur "time until you can actually do something else" durations, without actually having proper cooldowns, per se. In P:E, it's true that one person might be currently casting Fireball, while another person is ready to act. But, I don't think there are going to be any cooldowns. So, if a character's not immediately performing an action/maneuver or casting a spell, they're probably good to go to immediately respond to a command to perform an action/maneuver or cast a spell. Does this mean you have to pay attention to up to 6 different people? Yes. But you can still pause (so you can still synchronize abilities without much trouble), and you won't necessarily have to watch 6 different people's ability icons to see if their 20 seconds is up, so it should be a hell of a lot simpler than the DA referenced situation. Just, for what it's worth.

I love that the only comparison is ever between killing something, or merely sneaking past it. Don't you think killing something potentially accomplishes a lot more than sneaking past it necessarily does? What if someone's holding someone hostage? Killing them would prevent them from harming the person being held hostage, AND remove them as an obstacle towards getting that person back. The objective isn't "omg, overcome their super toughness and gain lots of combat XP!" They could be easily outmatched by you and your party, but they're holding a hostage, who is extremely vulnerable to attack. So, you'd either want to do things very very quickly/precisely, or very very quietly. So, in that case, sneaking about and taking them down without drawing any attention would be much more advantageous (and probably really build a lot more experience) than their mere defeat at the end of a sword. Because, again, they don't need to be a huge threat to YOU to be a problem, so they're not necessarily going to tax your combat abilities. Furthermore, maybe no one knows why this person was kidnapped, and you can sneak around and overhear things and figure out why, and/or sneakily get the hostage out of harm's way (leaving the kidnappers with no real advantage), then interrogate them to find out plenty of things you wouldn't know if you simply killed them. That's just one example. Here's the thing: Experience is already an abstract thing in these types of RPGs. That's why, if you simply lure a troll into a pit of oil, and light the oil on fire, and the troll burns to death, you STILL get a troll's worth of XP. You're being granted XP based on the obstacle you overcame (the troll), not the actual amount of combat XP you gained from the amount of fighting prowess you honed with the actions you took to dispatch the troll. If that were the case, then the greater the disadvantage you put yourself at, the greater the amount of experience you would gain. "I just killed a troll with a PENCIL! If I can do THAT, just THINK what I'm capable of doing with a SWORD now! 8D!" So, the whole "wait! Why should someone get the same amount of XP for not-killing something?!" argument is a little silly. I mean, that's exactly why games that actually try to simulate actual EXPERIENCE gain do it based on what you're DOING, not what happens to die. If you throw a giant firebomb, you gain throwing experience. You don't gain something-burning-to-death experience. And you don't gain any experience for happening to slay something. You gain Swordsmanship (or whatever skill) experience for landing blows and parrying and such. The problem with that system is that they typically don't ever diminish the returns of experience based on the fact that hitting the exact same goblin a 7,000th time after consistently striking him, then healing him, would not really net you much new experience. But, that's a different story... So, the point is, if you want your actions to be directly represented in the amount of XP you gain, then so be it. But, attributing the XP to the deaths of things doesn't accomplish that, at all. So, don't go around acting like not attributing XP to kills is somehow introducing abstraction to the system. It was already there. What P:E's doing is simply making it make a bit more sense, within the context of abstracted XP. If you're clever enough to lure foes into traps that you didn't even build/set (part of a dungeon or something), without ever so much as touching them with your weapon, and they die, then shouldn't you gain experience from your clever handling of the situation? And, if that's not going straight into a "Cleverness/Luring" skill only, then it's going to go in as general XP. Same with accomplishing something that doesn't involve anything dying.

Nyhilla, I think with the way Obsidian does things and the way they're handling P:E, the only big obstacle in the way of your necromancer example would be more whether or not you'll be allowed to be that kind of necromancer, and less whether or not you'll be able to make different choices regarding the stronghold. In other words, if the game/world lets you kill and raise people, then you could probably make that sort of decision with a stronghold's population. Necromance them, and force them to be your undead slaves. But, if the game doesn't allow that (it might just be too far outside the bounds of what is necessary for your character and party to actually move through the story), then you won't be able to do it. But, I think there'll be a lot of feasible options (within the context of the world) for what you can and cannot do with the stronghold. IF they let you be dark and broody, and kind of evil (to whatever extent -- maybe you get things done for the greater good, but you're a tyrant about it, so you want to save the world so that you can continue to live in it, but you'll use other people like tools to get that accomplished, if you need to), then they'll probably let you make dark and broody/pseudo-evil decisions regarding your stronghold. Something else to consider, though: It's a moderately realistic economic thing. Unless you can literally force people to live in your stronghold and get work done, they're not going to really get anything done for you without the necessary things (food and rest, materials to work with, etc.). If you just go "LOLZ! I'm going to tax everyone 100%, and they'll never get any food or anything, and I don't even care if crops grow! HAHAHAHAHA!", and you're that kind of irrational "evil" (I'm not saying this is what you're suggesting you want to be... just making a point here), then even if the game lets you do it, you're basically going to screw yourself over. If you literally impede your people's ability to do work, then it doesn't matter how much you require of them... they're not going to deliver, and your stronghold isn't going to prosper. And that's kind of one of the relationships I think they're trying to represent with the stronghold. So, they can only stray so far with choices. I mean, they can let you do lots of stuff, but I don't think you can just be "evil" for evil's sake. Necromancer's a bit of a different story, but there's still a lot to consider there. It's possible, I suppose, but we'll just have to see what all they're planning for the game to know if it fits in with the rest without upsetting anything. I like the idea of that kind of flexibility, though, with the stronghold. For what it's worth.

No worries on speedily getting to the questions, and/or answering every single one of them. We just greatly, greatly appreciate any and all time you and the rest of the team can spend (just, when you do happen to get the chance -- we understand that you're very, very busy) saying "hello," mentioning how something is going, or answering even the tiniest of questions in the fewest of numbers. So, truly, thanks for your time, as always, and please don't take all the stuff in this thread as a "you'd better start running yourself ragged answering all our little questions and updating us on things every day or we'll all form a mob and flip your van" or anything. I'm pretty sure at least 99.9% of the people here don't intend it that way. Put simply, it's just really, really splendid when you guys hand us some tidbits, and even the simplest connection of regular communication is extremely comforting.

Well, it ended a year ago yesterday, methinks. Yesterday was "the day" it ended, out of the 365 days in the year, much like your birthday is the day of your birth, but you weren't actually born this year. 8P *edit* The yesterday of which you spake is what I mean by "yesterday."

I think the OP's emphasis isn't meant to be on the exact definition of "coward". I think he was just using the term to suggest "there should be times when you HAVE to greatly avoid/'run from' a foe -- behavior very similar to cowardly behavior, as opposed to taking something head on with your awesome offensive powers and tactics." I could be wrong, of course. But, since everything seems to make large amounts of sense along the lines of that theory, save merely for the further implications of the word "coward," I'm inclined to think he merely mis-used the word, at worst, than assume actual cowardice is the main thing to take away from his suggestion, and that sort of powerless/extremely-careful behavior and tactics as required by some extremely tricky/deadly foes/encounters are somehow clearly nowhere near what he was getting at.

I care about reality and what we can constructively learn from it and apply to the fun of video games. Crafting doesn't have to match reality to be good, and it doesn't have to completely ignore all things reality just to be fun. You don't have to be able to craft masterwork weapons and armor, yourself, for the crafting to be fun. Another valid option is to have armorers/weaponsmiths/craftsmen at your stronghold (different ones with different styles/strengths/weaknesses/affinities), over which you have direct control for the purposes of crafting. What I mean by "direct control" is that, he works for you and your stronghold, so you get to decide what he works on. It could work similar to the "Send your idle companions on missions while they wait around at your stronghold and you're running about doing things" stuff, where you sort of give him orders, and secure materials for him (either via purchase, or via some kind of stronghold gathering/mining crew, etc.). Then, as he makes things and works with different materials, he progresses and learns new techniques and such. In this manner, none of your party characters would need to worry about intensive crafting skills. AND you don't have to worry about the disconnect of somehow learning to fully master metal-shaping skills WHILE 23/7 adventuring. AND "you," the player, still get to oversee a crafting system that allows the mastery of metal-shaping skills and item/equipment creation. AND it all makes sense. It's like a win-win-win-win... . But, that's just one possibility. The point being that, there is value to be had from at least trying to avoid unnecessary disconnects, since part of the game (lore, setting, story, limitations) has an objective goal of believability. Even though other parts don't, necessarily, that doesn't mean that we should just not care about minimizing encroachment on that part that does. What you've seen is an instance of it. I've seen a bridge collapse. Doesn't mean we should avoid building bridges, because they're all destined to collapse. I'd say it'd be more constructive to take a lesson from exactly how and why NWN2's approach was bland as hell, and design something better, rather than foregoing an attempt whatsoever just because one variant failed. That's pretty much how technology has EVER advanced in history. "I think I could probably make tools out of metal. Oh no, there were lots of impurities, and the tools were brittle and broke. Oh, hey, maybe I can figure out a way to screen out those impurities, and then it will work better!" Just imagine if the first people to work iron decided "Working metal is stupid and doesn't work... we should all just give up on metal, obviously." Also, I'm not vying for the "you-can-construct-anything" approach, so I don't know that that's largely applicable to any of the thumbs-upped suggestions for aspects of crafting in this thread. I'm literally saying you should only be able to make certain things. But, I think if you're gonna have fantasy magic crafting, AND you actually allow the permanent crafter people in the world to handle all the crafting masteries (of physical, precision-crafting of materials into quality goods and items), then some type of magical/alchemical crafting for your party members makes a whole lot of sense. Your crafting skill would rely much more upon knowledge and study than it would upon hours and hours and hours and hours of experience, perfecting hammering techniques and gaining the muscle required to work a forge expertly, etc.