Consider Command vs. Skill

[Inertia]

Presently, the Consider skill seems to be of limited utility. It helps players with crafter characters determine how much of a material they have left and possibly the base cost of an item (I'm not sure if that's all been updated for the new crafting systems?). It also only shows useful information if you're in the Merchants Guild.

Are there plans to expand its use? If not, I'd like to suggest that it become a command instead of a skill. I'd prefer to see it opened up to anyone (I don't know much about fabrics IRL but I can measure a yard, after all) but my main point is that it doesn't seem robust enough to require investing XP.

[Dice]

This is kind of a good point. I don't know that appraise's ever going to provide enough info to be worthwhile as the single use of the skill, especially with ore counts going away.

If it HAS to be tied to skill, it could be tied to rank in Trade overall or something.

[Rabek]

It also shows the damage value of weapons and weapon type and what material things are made of (useful in player shops if the player didn't include the material/renamed the weapon type). That may or may not make it more useful.

I don't know about you, but it's handy to know that a player-made 'katar' is a dagger, for example. Never know if one player interprets it differently than another.

[Argider]

That something is short and pointy is a dagger probably shouldn't require a whole lot of skill to figure out... but weapon quality is another story, yeah.

I'd be on board with making consider a technique and tying its output to the weapons category, particular weapon skill, or to the blacksmithing skill (or to some combo, and outputting the results based on whichever is higher, maybe).

I agree that right now, dumping XP into consider really doesn't feel worthwhile. It's also a spammable command, and those in general tend to make me cringe as skills.

Also, removing it as a skill means I won't have to deal with the inconsistency between the skill name and its command. ;)

[Brent]

I'm all for converting consider / appraise over to just commands not based upon a skill. It seems like a waste of xp when in chargen or when raising it, just to reduce the fail rate. The xp tied up in consider could help flesh out a character in other areas.

Just my $0.02

[Beronica]

Another alternative would be to limit the amount of information one gains on a successful appraisal.

Basic information like the kind of item, its weight and composition is available from the start. With things like value, condition, damage and units left available as the person gets higher skill.

Along this line, can it be made that the number of units or uses an item has left be available to everyone instead of just those who are in the Merchants?