Lights

[Treiste]

1. Many cities don't have shops or merchants where you can purchase lights.
2. Merchants where you can purchase lights are almost always closed during the night, the time when you need them most.

My character has been trapped in several cities overnight because of this (it seems like OOC abuse to walk from city to city in the dark).

[Harroghty]

This makes enormous sense. We'll implement some kind of fix for this problem. Any suggestions?

[Gwain]

Waterdeep has some echoes for lamp lighters, I'd suggest creating 3-4 wandering lamplighter mobs that sell lanterns or torches and oil at night in the places where young adventurers wander.

[Timaeus]

You can set the merchant hours for various merchants to be anything you want them to be so either use existing merchants and modify them or create a few torch/lantern vendors that you can place in new character hometowns much like the wandering food vendors that have been put in most towns(which I don't think have any specific hours of operation)

While not directly on point I have a low level character who does not have a permanent light source and picked up the witch light spell at level 11 to work with in the meantime. The problem is that witch light takes a brightstone as a component which at one point could be gotten from merchants but now is a much rarer component to find and not really obtainable for a low level character. I would like to suggest changing witch lights component to something more accessible to the lower level characters that get the spell something like a flask of oil or even a torch. The balls of light aren't permanent but they do last longer than torches.

[Harroghty]

Added lamplighters near the N and S gates of Waterdeep. Will do more in the future, but that's a start.

[Raona]

Witch Light is not a canon spell (I think?) so I think we are free to change its component. I agree a brightstone is overkill for that spell. How about a flask of oil, instead? Or a lamp? Perhaps something else also denoting the floating part, like a feather?

I think that's what I will propose: a flask of oil and a feather

Sound good?

[Harroghty]

The SRD spell light (which is kind of different) only requires one component (a firefly or some moss); it's not quite the same spell, but it's just one component. I'd recommend changing the spell to a flask of oil or a brightstone.

[Hrosskell]

I'd try (if at all possible) to make sure the brightstone lasted many casts. This spell fell hard out of favor because the somewhat rare brightstone disappeared in one pop for a while.

[Raona]

I don't think I can invoke an "OR" clause for components, so I went with the flask of oil + feather combo. This is live on testport, will come in on game port eventually.

[Gwain]

Originally there was no witch light spell in the mud. Instead there was a dirt cheap version of continual light which was changed because certain players chose to make themselves into 'Christmas trees' meaning they made everything glow. Before that floating glowing lights were a rare quest reward, when the system was redesigned they became a staple. I like the change Raona has made but I'd take it a step forward; make floating lights an item that can be used purchased from light merchants or make lanterns wearable on belts

[Treiste]

Originally there was no witch light spell in the mud. Instead there was a dirt cheap version of continual light which was changed because certain players chose to make themselves into 'Christmas trees' meaning they made everything glow. Before that floating glowing lights were a rare quest reward, when the system was redesigned they became a staple. I like the change Raona has made but I'd take it a step forward; make floating lights an item that can be used purchased from light merchants or make lanterns wearable on belts

Wearing lanterns on belts seems to work well on other similar muds and goes particularly well with the theme here. Making floating lights easily available destroys the mundane charm of lanterns, maybe make them slightly harder to find?

Also, note that canonically bucklers are supposed to allow use of that hand, but in FK you have to choose: it's either a mundane light or a shield, but not both.

[Elenthis]

I dont think balls of light should be readily available at shops. I know they seem like a terribly useful item, but I have found OFTEN that newer players looking for that little upgrade, which has a fairly minimal, but still existent advantage...can often lead to those characters being introduced to older characters where they otherwise may not. I'm a wizard (Harry), and as the unofficial leader of the wizard's union, we oppose this minor change. We do, however, entirely support lanterns being strung from the belt. Just makes sense!

~Jeff

[Harroghty]

I can't do much about the bucklers, but I agree.

I did make most lanterns wearable on a belt in the meantime.

[Treiste]

Can you add some of these belt-lanterns to Zhentil Keep?

There's already a street vendor that sells oil, but no lantern.

Thanks!