Weight isn't too much of a concern for me. I'd rather reduce the number of items you find, and then make certain items (mainly barrels) really heavy so carrying them around is hard unless you get pack mule on a high strength character or something. Do you think barrels are a little too powerful overall, or is that just my own impression? Even if I'm setting up telekinesis so you can use barrels even more than already.
Maybe I can just give Tactician NPCs +8 initiative instead of players -8 initiative? I might make it +5 universal and then reduce leadership bonuses to 3/6 from 5/10, and then tweak numbers if I still feel like players going first is automatic.
The way I see it, players already get to go first most of the time anyway since they usually get to initiate combat. Not always, but quite often (and you can pretty much just initiate a scripted fight and flee to start it on your terms.)
Will consider cheapening potions. I think I already did it for arrows, actually. As far as the economy goes, my number one goal is to make epic+ items actually expensive so even if they're an endless source of items, you won't be able to get literally every one you want. Regarding rangers as mages, I'd rather avoid taking away options (several arrows) from a class if I can. It would be neat to replace certain arrows with more uniquely ranger stuff, but not sure what to do for that.
Also, what are your thoughts on making "crafting mules?" I think it's kind of cheesy, but it also makes sense in its own way that someone might stay home to make gear for everyone else. I'm also kind of concerned about people who will use "rogue mules" to lockpick all the unbreakable locked chests I plan on adding (with editor) with lots of goodies in them. It just makes it a lot harder to balance and encourage people to invest in non-combat abilities when they can just make a character they never use do it. I'm kind of trying to deal with that by giving all abilities combat value, but it's hard for stuff like crafting. I don't want to impinge on people's freedom too much, but I wonder if there's a way I could make muling characters impossible, at least for a hardcore version of my mod.
I don't use barrels as offensive objects, it's an inv management issue for me with a gamepad more than anything.
You most likely have further along saves to test initiative. Try it out at various spots and imo unless you focused heavy in init, I think it should be a 50-50 order thing. That alone is a pretty large difficulty swing. EDIT: Testing more perhaps -5, or take out of Leadership.
I just have one character of the 4 build up craft/blacksmith (Jahan), haven't done mules. That is a true min/max option you mention. If the game were a lot harder then perhaps I could see doing something like that.
I'm going to play out mine a little more, but I'm pretty certain I'm going to give what you have been working on a spin to, imo a lot of good things in yours.
