So, full disclosure time: I have something in the region of 36 ECL30 characters, 90% of whom have multiple uberloot items, some with multiple bags of uberloot items. The change I am proposing will clearly benefit my current 3-4 characters more than it would for most people reading.

I cannot for the life of me consider a character ready to settle down and just be an RP dude until they've been tricked out reasonably well with uberloot, so I run bossloops til they are, and I'm sick of it. Obviously if I could just change that attitude then I'd not have this problem, but if it hasn't happened by Year 13 of Playing Amia, then it ain't happening this year either. I know I'm not alone in this.

Thus, I propose the muling rules be tweaked to speed the process up by allowing juicy things from retired characters to make their way to current ones. There's a few variants of how that could go.

1) The Full Meh. All the shackles are taken off, and we can just take whatever from whomever and give it to our current alts without further ado. I am not arguing for this, and I'm only typing it so it's up here to be distinguished from what I'm actually suggesting. It makes no IC sense for a retired adventurer to saunter up to a some stranger and give away items of immense power and value, not just because it'll leave a huge hole in their gear, but often because that stranger is a natural enemy of them due to alignment, religion, undead practises etc.

2) Full DM Cavity Search. Every item transfer needs a forum post justifying it, a DM quorum to approve it, and a DM to perform the transfer. Hell no. You have enough busywork as it is.

3) Don't Be a Dick. Your characters are allowed to make the same kind of trades between themselves as they would with another player's, which means that trade has to be mutually beneficial and between characters that are not by nature hostile to each other:
If you've got a current DevCritter with a DEX Ioun Stone and an retired Epic Dodger with the STR one, and both are pretty much regular adventuring people, then sure! Any two characters would totally make that trade ICly. Go rustle up the sneaky old fella, find a quiet corner of the server and drive them both there for the trade.
If you had a current DevCritter with the DEX stone and another, retired DevCritter with the STR stone, then you'd have to be a dick to think that was a justifiable trade.
If you had a Paladin of Kelemvor and an infamously murderous Necromancer, then no trade between them would be justifiable, regardless of the items mutual benefit.

I vote for 3.

Just getting it off my chest. I doubt it's going to go anywhere.

No.

Alone on the subject of Grandfathered items.
There are people out there who have Items that are beyond good and evil and have been grandfathered a long time ago.

Grandfathered items with this system would lead to newer players (Myself included) to just be fucked over. Hard.

Another point is that for example, my Pirate Character?
That bitch would've been compeltely decked the fuck out the very second she reached max level. And I barely even hunted for epics on my former main.

It'd also mean the player market for Epics would completely crash, since people would just keep all drops in case they might have use for it on a future alt, making shit even HARDER for people who can't solo 90% of Amias content. It's already a fucking joke if you can't solo. Fuck, even if you CAN Solo, the current Loot System is a fucking joke. (Been told theres a new one underway and I can't fucking wait for it manes)

So what I'm saying is: This would hurt the server even fucking more.

Hell, I'd just make an uber Boss hunter Character - Probably a Smiter Pally - and fuck every boss up in like two seconds, see what drops and distribute it to my other characters.
(And - if it was for that System that Paladins can't trade with ebil guys, I'd make a TN follower of Waukeen or smth. Idk, fucking spellblade, I'd come up with an uber-boss-killer character that can trade with everything and everyone.)

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Could you clarify which option you are responding to, here?

It certainly could be (1), I doubt it could be (2) because getting a DM quorum seems easier than herding cats, and the only way it could be (3) is if she already had a complete deck-worth of uberloot to make plausible trades with the folk in your Vault, or that you were intending to be a dick and have them give top-tier stuff away for free.

None of these seem likely, so maybe you missed a detail which I will re-iterate: I am not arguing for (1).

My perspective is I'm not for #1, #2, or #3. I do have a problem with the current Muling rules, which is that any item that's ever been owned by one of your pc's cannot be later owned by another, even if it changes hands in between, like through a merchant or another pc. I understand the reason for it, but it's inhibiting and I think there's a way round it.

#4 - Public Auctions

A registered public merchant (PC) buys goods which can then be sold to the highest bidder, who is permitted to be another PC owned by the original seller.

Rules
Merchant is registered with Amian Trade Federation publically (on Forums)
Merchant must abide by the rules of a Public Trade.
If Merchant doesn't abide by the Public Trade rules then the current Muling rules apply to all parties for that trade. (you can still trade privately but all Muling rules apply)

Public Trade Rules
All trades are denominated in gold. No bartering.
All Public Purchases from sellers are posted on forums by Merchant with name, date, and price.
Purchase price must be a minimum of the default NWN Toolset value.
All Public Auctions are posted on forums by Merchant.
- Starting price must be a minimum of Purchase Price +25%. (Merchant always profits)
- Auctions have a minimum duration of 1 RL Week.
- All bids must be public and posted on forums. (No PM's)
- Winning bids must be announced on forums with name, date, price. Highest Bidder wins.

Through transparency and relying mainly on players and forum documentation of trades, this system will not be a burden on the Staff. The only time a DM would get involved is if there's a problem with an auction. Your PC may or may not win the item but logically, whatever is exchanged would go through the highest bidder which your system doesn't enforce and it foregoes transparency so there will be a lack of trust.

We'd really only need some forum infrastructure to get started. Folders to register merchants, record purchases, and document public auctions. I think you'd get merchants who want to be involved since there's a built in profit and a captive audience since they'd know at least one profitable bid would come their way. Nothing hidden. If you outbid the public you win.

By having a 3rd party involved and a minimum set of rules, it opens up some possibilities which aren't currently available.

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Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object
True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder

First off, giving a faction, any faction, that has anything political about it (that includes literally every faction, so it is a bit redundant, but still) the power of being the only faction that gets to dodge a rule is a really terrible idea. First off, it excludes people for OOC reasons. Because the faction leader is completely within his or her rights to exclude anyone they want, for whatever reason they want. Now, you might suggest things like "have an NPC run the faction", but that still leaves the problem sitting on a DM. Besides, it gives a certain faction a monopoly. It would be like saying "Evil characters that are not Banites are not allowed to level beyond 10"... Who do you think evil players would play, then?

The rules, while only a draft, have flaws as well. Minimun price is annoying to find out, and diesn't represent Amian economy values. 1/day items aren't all that valuable in NWN. That Tome of Mystra? By NWN standards, it's a few thousand gold. Iouns, something around 15k. On Amia, both can go over a few million. Aditionally, lots of auctions don't go noticed for a while, which means that, in some cases, muling would be even worse on your suggestion than on Uce's.

Start out with a topic named "[Kampo's] Auction".
Offer up some item at a ridiculous price.
Edit topic, and add an Ioun Stone for 20k gold.
Wait just under a week, ideally a minute before a week is up, post a bid.
Get an Ioun for free.
Use said Ioun to trade with other players.

Is it scummy? Yes. Does it stay on the technically correct side of the rules you detailed? Yeah. Is it abusing the rules? Only kind of. And you might even have better odds if you play an openly evil character. (If openly evil characters would be allowed in the ATF)
And that doesn't even account for that fact that people don't even use gold for epic items anyway, because trading epics for epics leaves you with another epic you can trade until you get something else you need.

I did think about that(maglorine's Auction idea), but any time you get an item that's sweet for Builds A-M but you are running a Build N-Z which has no use of it, then you put it up on the Auction for trade, right?

If no-one bites, then that sucks and you're back to the grindstone. If you've got an old Build A-M in the Vault with something you need, then you're in business, albeit with yourself.

A tweak to (3) so that such trades need a paper trail on the Auction board covers the transparency issue, I think.

Robbi makes some good points, open to ideas like - do you even need a minimum purchase price or should it just be negotiated? The registration was mainly to validate to staff you are willing to abide by the ruleset. Duration? You'd also have to be willing to trade to the highest bidder, no matter who they are or it doesn't work, so that's a good point.

Certainly an auction process Ruce will open up to trading with others of the same mind, not just yourself. You may not have the item you need on any of your PC's but someone else might, who's holding back for the same reason. You can trade with yourself by selling to a merchant on one PC and winning the auction on the other PC, but also it's open to others to outbid you.

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Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object
True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder

The issue is that even with 3, you would have people who try and circumvent it.

So the only way 3 would even be viable is if it all goes through a DM. character A gives item to DM. Character B gives item to DM and gets item from A. Character A gets item B from DM. And even here I'm not personally for it, because it would generate more admin work for DMs and potentially iffy situations where people decide to do it on their own anyway. Unfortunately people muling is something that comes up as one of the more frequent rulebreaks, and opening the door, even slightly, has the potential to increase that because once someone has an inch, they want a mile, legal or no.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

My reply here would be based on my former DM experience, ancient as that is, and I don't think it's a brilliant idea to have it on the open forum. I'm open to PM (here or Discord) if the team want to hear it, but it's perfectly legitimate stance to say 'No. We're not having this. Don't want to hear it.'

I find this idea intriguing. Over the seven years i have been around, i have had 3 Toons that were Merchants. The Amia Trade Federation has alway been in the back of my mind. But I'm not the type of person to hit Dm's up to further along my Toon's goals. I always figured if one of my Merchants made a good enough name for themselves the A.T.F. would come calling.

If Pc's are willing to sell off there Epics on the Toon's they no longer plan on playing, it would be a good boost to the Epic market. On Ely, she even made a post years ago trying to reach out to retired adventurers to buy their stock. Never got any traction.

I think a last weekend of the Month, three day Auction would be cool. Have a months time to buy up on stock. Try and hold Auctions at different times spread out so more Pc's would have a chance to bid on Epics.

Problem I see is who would actually want to do this? At times it's a pain in the arse being a Merchant Toon. There would have to be a lot of work and time put into this. First you would need a Toon with a lot of gold to buy stock. Second keeping forum written accounts of every transaction. Plus you would have to make sure your buying Epics at a good price, and hoping you make a profit at Auction. And you would need someone who can show up to Hold the Auction consistently.

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Imperial Knight of Ireland
E'Milliah Emberwatch follower of Helm the Vigilant One
Milly can run the Mino Maze in under 12 Parsecs

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Arieme - Condemned Blighter and anti-druid
Khristina - Bounty Hunter, Blessed of Hoar

Just to clarify, it’s not necessarily that strict. DMs are notified rather plainly if the item(s) have been muled. There’s no need to stress if you somehow genuinely accidentally come across the item you owned as one character again on another one of yours due to something out of control, this is something we can confirm ourselves

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