Scribes [Discussion - Gameplay/Lore/Story]
This feedback/discussion/idea whatever you want to call it will be about making the scribe more interesting as an Artisan class (AC), as I always felt that this AC was lacking in some ways.
I, for example, do not know if designing freeholds (layouts?) or making enhancements is something the name describes well or fits with the AC, at least at the moment those are my thoughts and feelings about it.
Now enough talk ahead let's get started here, and my first point is that the scribe should have special interactions with your other ACs. These special interactions in my opinion are for example being able to copy crafting recipes that can be sold/traded with other people. This might not be very important for common recipes but I think it could be very interesting for rare or even unique recipes.
It might be abusable in that case, if the cost of creating is high or if there was a limit to how many copies you can make it might help. That is only important for crafters but it could be applied to other professions with being able to make books for those professions that give you more resources from gathering or something like that.
I think you should be able to discover more obscure things about certain things that you can write down, for example how certain species evolved and such could be something for animal husbandry or taming.
I think such interactions with other mechanics would make it more interesting for some to pick as their AC. But something more obscure I came up with was if you were doing Arcane Engineering or your main class was the mage, why shouldn't you have the ability to make scrolls with magic spells on them? These would be one-time-use items that then cast a spell. That would add to castle sieges, and raids to make preparations more meaningful for scribes.
Just some of my thoughts on some additions that might help the class while still staying true to what it is, I want to continue with something that focuses more on the story or lore aspect.
From my understanding, it is unknown if scribes will still be responsible for recording history I think it is the best thing about the AC although it feels incomplete. So I thought about the game's ideology, risk vs reward, and came up with some things that might help make it feel complete.
To begin with, I am curious if we will have a system that allows for sketches of murals, magic circles, or even Runes. That would elevate the scribe's potential to find a way to decode and uncover hidden lore.
Next would be what came to mind when thinking about risk vs reward.
What if you write about forbidden knowledge or higher beings and, the void? Should you just be able to do so without any risk to it? Why shouldn't your book suddenly burst into flames, or leak blood? I think it would add to the immersion if you were to write about them and at the mention of keywords or events things might go wrong. The danger can range from harmless to deadly situations, like triggering a horde event or something.
Of course, if you are knowledgeable enough about runes maybe there is a way to reduce the threat level of an event. There is also the idea of madness stacks, which may make you hallucinate auditory or visual, leading to unlocking a dungeon/raid of a void creature in a server. They can also add to intrigue and immersion into the world.
Now that we have talked about risks, rewards should follow. The rewards would scale with the danger of the events. New lore titbits for less threatening events and for more dangerous ones artifacts that lack in stats but have unique effects might be good rewards.
Thank you for reading it all, I would also appreciate your opinions. I also wish all of you a happy new year.
