TOPIC: The Skull of Cavadar: Part Deux

Fiddy wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: What about a recipie that includes a semi lich skull, but also adds +7HP?

Are you suggesting two versions of the final product, one with added HP, one without?

Ideally not, just the lone recipie with the skull.

If needed, I suppose there could be one with and one without, though that seems fraught with possible exploitation. And makes things more fun for Trent, so.....

The arguments around the skull seem to boil down to to two things.

7 hp are more valuable than the Eldritch benefits. I disagree.

"We didn't know" that the skull would not be useful after the transmute.. Well some of us did. And now we have to buy another PYP to make the transmute? Not a fan. I'm ok with giving some kind of consideration to owners of the skull, but not at the expense of others.

We didnt know is a BS argument. Things were actually pretty clearly stated.

They may have been clearly stated. But not everyone participates in the token design threads, and some people actively avoid them. Was it ever stated outside those threads?

The Semi-Lich Skull is just one example anyways (though likely the most egregious). People that have actually been using the imbuers along the way now find themselves with tokens that have lost some of their value if they do the transmute.

This is why I like Henry's suggestion of having the transmuted Skull convert the "Imbues Psychic ability" of other tokens to be an extra use. It doesn't change the recipe for anyone. It gives value to people that have the older URs (or even rares). And while it doesn't give the Semi-Lich Skull users 7 HP, it does potentially give them the ability to use a heal that may be worth more.

+1

Fiddy wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: What about a recipie that includes a semi lich skull, but also adds +7HP?

Are you suggesting two versions of the final product, one with added HP, one without?

Ideally not, just the lone recipie with the skull.

If needed, I suppose there could be one with and one without, though that seems fraught with possible exploitation. And makes things more fun for Trent, so.....

The arguments around the skull seem to boil down to to two things.

7 hp are more valuable than the Eldritch benefits. I disagree.

"We didn't know" that the skull would not be useful after the transmute.. Well some of us did. And now we have to buy another PYP to make the transmute? Not a fan. I'm ok with giving some kind of consideration to owners of the skull, but not at the expense of others.

We didnt know is a BS argument. Things were actually pretty clearly stated.

They may have been clearly stated. But not everyone participates in the token design threads, and some people actively avoid them. Was it ever stated outside those threads?

The Semi-Lich Skull is just one example anyways (though likely the most egregious). People that have actually been using the imbuers along the way now find themselves with tokens that have lost some of their value if they do the transmute.

This is why I like Henry's suggestion of having the transmuted Skull convert the "Imbues Psychic ability" of other tokens to be an extra use. It doesn't change the recipe for anyone. It gives value to people that have the older URs (or even rares). And while it doesn't give the Semi-Lich Skull users 7 HP, it does potentially give them the ability to use a heal that may be worth more.

Not doing your research is a reality we have to deal with but not an excuse. What about the people who followed along with the years of statements that the final skull would "very likely imbue psychic powers" and chose to skip UR enablers that would not be useful for their 7 year build plans. What if they would have made different buying choices knowing the early enablers would suddenly "get some love" at the 11th hour.

To be clear, I don't have a horse in the Semi-Lich Skull aspect. I was simply pointing out that there was no large announcement about it. Buried in a thread that 90% of the players don't read is not the way to announce something. The TokenDB reference is a better source I admit.

My concern is more with the UR imbuers as a whole.

As to the "years of statements that the final skull would "very likely imbue psychic powers", what years of statements are you referring to? As recently as last year's token development, Jeff said he was only 99.9% sure the transmute would imbue psychic, indicating the possibility that it might not. I wasn't able to find earlier statements from Jeff either way (maybe someone better at searching can).

Honestly it would take some digging to find earlier less concrete examples in previous years dev threads (which would be even easier to discount as not being generally seen so I'm probably not going to go looking).

But if your looking at a statement like "99.9% sure the transmute would imbue psychic" made in the same year as the skull was printed as indicating any real possibility that it might not, I kind of feel like you've conceded the point.

Regardless though, everything is always subject to change so lets try to figure out if its a good idea in the here and now.

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Harlax wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: What about a recipie that includes a semi lich skull, but also adds +7HP?

Are you suggesting two versions of the final product, one with added HP, one without?

Ideally not, just the lone recipie with the skull.

If needed, I suppose there could be one with and one without, though that seems fraught with possible exploitation. And makes things more fun for Trent, so.....

The arguments around the skull seem to boil down to to two things.

7 hp are more valuable than the Eldritch benefits. I disagree.

"We didn't know" that the skull would not be useful after the transmute.. Well some of us did. And now we have to buy another PYP to make the transmute? Not a fan. I'm ok with giving some kind of consideration to owners of the skull, but not at the expense of others.

We didnt know is a BS argument. Things were actually pretty clearly stated.

They may have been clearly stated. But not everyone participates in the token design threads, and some people actively avoid them. Was it ever stated outside those threads?

The Semi-Lich Skull is just one example anyways (though likely the most egregious). People that have actually been using the imbuers along the way now find themselves with tokens that have lost some of their value if they do the transmute.

This is why I like Henry's suggestion of having the transmuted Skull convert the "Imbues Psychic ability" of other tokens to be an extra use. It doesn't change the recipe for anyone. It gives value to people that have the older URs (or even rares). And while it doesn't give the Semi-Lich Skull users 7 HP, it does potentially give them the ability to use a heal that may be worth more.

Not doing your research is a reality we have to deal with but not an excuse. What about the people who followed along with the years of statements that the final skull would "very likely imbue psychic powers" and chose to skip UR enablers that would not be useful for their 7 year build plans. What if they would have made different buying choices knowing the early enablers would suddenly "get some love" at the 11th hour.

To be clear, I don't have a horse in the Semi-Lich Skull aspect. I was simply pointing out that there was no large announcement about it. Buried in a thread that 90% of the players don't read is not the way to announce something. The TokenDB reference is a better source I admit.

My concern is more with the UR imbuers as a whole.

As to the "years of statements that the final skull would "very likely imbue psychic powers", what years of statements are you referring to? As recently as last year's token development, Jeff said he was only 99.9% sure the transmute would imbue psychic, indicating the possibility that it might not. I wasn't able to find earlier statements from Jeff either way (maybe someone better at searching can).

Honestly it would take some digging to find earlier less concrete examples in previous years dev threads (which would be even easier to discount as not being generally seen so I'm probably not going to go looking).

But if your looking at a statement like "99.9% sure the transmute would imbue psychic" made in the same year as the skull was printed as indicating any real possibility that it might not, I kind of feel like you've conceded the point.

Regardless though, everything is always subject to change so lets try to figure out if its a good idea in the here and now.

Fair. Everything is subject to change, and we're at where we're at.

So, why do it? It maintains value for people that invested in URs over the past 6 years, instead of asking them to choose between keeping an item that has lost a good portion of its use or hope that someone will give you a reasonable value for it and not just $50. Semi-Lich Skull is still available as a PYP, so someone that hasn't invested in the URs in the past can still get in on the slotless option.

I cannot find anything from Jeff before last year about the transmuted "Cavadar" likely having "Imbues Psychic ability". I think Picc might be remembering incorrectly. I searched both Psychic and Cavadar separately for posts from Jeff over a year old. I could not find anything suggesting anything about the transmute.

The whole “everyone knew and if you didn’t it’s your own fault and you should feel bad” line of discussion here is not constructive to having a community of players. Take it easy a bit on your fellow players who don’t read design threads.

The rather opaque and oracular statement in TDb doesn’t entail the Semi Lich would be useless to Cavadar owners. as it doesn’t indicate the Skull couldn’t be equipped alongside the competed Cavadar item.

So one could have resonanly picked up 3 cheap teeth to go with their existing set of 7 and a Semi Lich and figured:

“best case scenario, the completed Cavadar item won’t imbue psychic and I’ll use the semi Lich for that, worst case it’s a slotless 3 HP.”

If someone can show where it was explicitly stated, even in a design thread, that equipping semi Lich and standalone teeth wound not be permitted / generate no effect whatsoever when the completed Cavadar item was equipped I’d be interested to see it.

I don’t care much which way this shakes out rules wise - but the attitude of “people who didn’t see this coming have no one to blame but themselves” is bumming me out.

jedibcg wrote: I cannot find anything from Jeff before last year about the transmuted "Cavadar" likely having "Imbues Psychic ability". I think Picc might be remembering incorrectly. I searched both Psychic and Cavadar separately for posts from Jeff over a year old. I could not find anything suggesting anything about the transmute.

I'm not going to belabor the point, maybe I'm wrong, maybe the old dev thread got archived or delete (which definitely happens). Cant be proved one way or the other. Lets all assume were arguing in good faith and move on.

P.S. I love you guys (even if I hate you all a little during dev)

Matthew Hayward wrote: The whole “everyone knew and if you didn’t it’s your own fault and you should feel bad” line of discussion here is not constructive to having a community of players. Take it easy a bit on your fellow players who don’t read design threads.

The rather opaque and oracular statement in TDb doesn’t entail the Semi Lich would be useless to Cavadar owners. as it doesn’t indicate the Skull couldn’t be equipped alongside the competed Cavadar item.

So one could have resonanly picked up 3 cheap teeth to go with their existing set of 7 and a Semi Lich and figured:

“best case scenario, the completed Cavadar item won’t imbue psychic and I’ll use the semi Lich for that, worst case it’s a slotless 3 HP.”

If someone can show where it was explicitly stated, even in a design thread, that equipping semi Lich and standalone teeth wound not be permitted / generate no effect whatsoever when the completed Cavadar item was equipped I’d be interested to see it.

I don’t care much which way this shakes out - but the attitude of “only bad people who deserve bad things didn’t see this coming” is bumming me out.

Exactly, thank you.

I am less upset by finding out the semi lich skull is useless to me, being the only enabler I had any interest in buying, than I am with everyone blaming me for not automatically knowing the design intent of the token and automatically assuming it would not be compatible with a full transmute.

I do very much dislike finding out I wasted money on an UR PYP that was not clearly marked as incompatible with the completed token but at the least Jeff isn't yelling at me and calling me dumb for not knowing that automatically even tho it's not actually stated anywhere on the token or even on the database.

I don't want to throw fuel on the fire, but as someone who hasn't collected any teeth or enablers myself (though a friend is collecting multiple sets) I don't understand why the skull can't "count-as" all seven teeth. That would prevent stacking the skull with additional teeth and would also leave some value on the PYP enablers.

Would it really be a problem to let someone who transmutes the teeth into the skull, keep the Semi-lich for the +7hp (for example)

Seems like the most elegant solution to me, from the outside.

I didn't see anyone call anyone dumb. You (and Fiddy) previously said it wasn't stated stated anywhere outside token design. I provided what I felt was an examples (the token itself and the tokendb) outside of token design. Now you can disagree with if it does or doesn't provide that info. That is not me calling you or anyone dumb. I did ask whose responsibility is it to know what a token does. I did not answer that question because I asked it genuinely. The forum is full of people asking about how tokens/abilities/power work.

I don't think you will find any discussion of the Cavadar transmute outside of token design because by its very nature it is token design. I also don't think Jeff made much of any statements on the forums (because I looked) about it prior to a year ago. Making any assumptions on what it would or wouldn't do and how it would or wouldn't interact with other tokens is an assumption.

Within the last year Jeff has made certain statements. Because someone didn't read them does not make them invalid.

I don't remember the specific thread that the sem-lich skull came out of, but I do recall there was a lot of folks asking for a way to make extra teeth useful for folks that were not going to transmute the eldritch item. I always assumed that this item was geared towards folks that were not goin to transmute the item and I think it will continue to have value in the secondary market, based on the number of extra teeth floating around.

Dergidan wrote: I don't want to throw fuel on the fire, but as someone who hasn't collected any teeth or enablers myself (though a friend is collecting multiple sets) I don't understand why the skull can't "count-as" all seven teeth. That would prevent stacking the skull with additional teeth and would also leave some value on the PYP enablers.

Would it really be a problem to let someone who transmutes the teeth into the skull, keep the Semi-lich for the +7hp (for example)

Seems like the most elegant solution to me, from the outside.

+1

Ultimately it's Jeff's call. I just find myself upset at having spent money on a token that seemed a perfect fit for my build only to find out after buying it that I will have to choose between using it for the HP or transmuting the skull for the +1 damage.

It wasn't explicitly stated anywhere and I had no reason to question if it would as it looked just like the other UR psychic enhancers we'd seen since year 1 teeth.

Something as simple as a line on tokendb saying "per Jeff will not be compatible with the transmuted final token" would have given me that info but even the tokendb entry has no mention of it.