I'm still not happy with item creation. In future, I plan on having adventures where your character can learn different professions and some of them are able to create items. Herbalists can make 6 different potions from herbs, alchemists can make some items from ore and blacksmiths can make some items from iron bars. It is for this reason that these items are present to obtain in the books.
However, I am unhappy with this for several reasons. First of all, herbs, ore and iron bars are available to buy in all villages at low prices, making going out of your way to find them a bit pointless. Also, iron bars weigh 1 so you won't get many. Also, if you go out of your way to find these things, you will end up with a huge list of potentially useless stuff on your equipment list - this is one thing I set out to avoid, which is why you never have to track your food or copper pennies.
I also had the idea of the weaponmaster who could spend will points to reroll combat dice. I think the heart of careers is being able to spend will points for a unique effect. This is not necessarily magical (although it is in the magi case). It is more a case of your character expending effort to use their skills for an effect. So I was thinking that a herbalist/healer could spend 3 will points to restore 3 vitality (I might set all will costs at 3 for simplicity) and the alchemist could spend 3 will points to deal 3 damage to an opponent using a ranged attack that ignores armour.
The rationale behind these effects is this - the herbalist healer is able to utilise plants that they find/buy for a few copper pennies and unleash their healing potential whereas the alchemist can find some common chemicals to make substances that can damage opponents (for example, heating sulphur through water to create acid or mixing charcoal, sulphur and niter to create firepowder). A priest could spend 3 will points to do 6 damage to an undead creature or evil spirit (like holy water) etc. This way, you can still buy some healing items (but not make them) and they can weigh 0, since it is now impossible to replicate an infinite number for a tiny cost. Also, you no longer have to keep track of a load of raw materials and different alchemical and herbal items. What do you think?
Also, I'm thinking of careers. At the moment, there are six abilities that you can get by spending experience and they cover the main abilities that adventurers would need. However, in future books, your character will have the chanced to learn other careers, such as magi, priest, weaponmaster etc. They will do this by completing side quests in adventures. I'm finding the line between the original 6 abilities and the others blurring. Ideally, I might just have a complete list of abilities and you can spend xp to learn all of them. The problem is that I am not quite sure what the complete list is yet. I'm going to have to write a lot more books to see which careers stick and which won't. And then I'll change the rules retrospectively to accommodate that. Some careers may need codewords to learn (to prove that you are able to learn them).Happy gamebooking!
