While looting around for treasure was a fun thing to do, they, like the static boxes, became more about money than finding unusual, or historically sensitive, objects. What this meant is Adventurers had a HUGE advantage when it came to making money than any other class, though this was closely followed by any locksmithing class who wandered around for the static boxes. My nightblade in Cogg, for example, was a multi-millionaire just off those static boxes in less than a year - I'd almost be concerned seeing the bank accounts of dedicated Treasure Hunters. It was further exacerbated by the lack of any real difficulty, even for a moderately trained (read: level) character. Sure, there were scavenge spots in some high level areas which posed some difficulty for the characters but with a high stealth, you could largely mitigate that risk by level 40. For comparison, combat classes with no lockpicking ability had to go out and grind for loot, be it riln or lockbox, take damage to equipment and self requiring repairs and healing, and had to grind several abilities just to do so efficiently. Or they had to pick up a secondary crafting skill just to be able to afford Cool New Things, or even just maintain their upkeep. Treasure Hunters, by comparison, had to train two skills and take two abilities (at minimum), and were largely safe for their scavenging pursuits if they took things slowly.
But, like I mentioned above, the ability is a fun one (and might be fitting for Wyrvardn?) so I'd not want to see it go. However, I don’t believe the clear discrepancy between them and every other class should be ignored. With all that being said, I'd like to pose the following for consideration:
Scavenge:
Treat this like a literal Scavenger Hunt. A character goes into a scavenge-able area, hidden, and SCAVENGEs. The ability then triggers a HUNTing-esque mini-game where, instead of just generating a lockbox or not, it takes energy and time to loot an area and eventually points out areas of interest for a character to investigate. I feel this should generate a small amount (+2 per step?) while a creature is in the room.
As an example:
>scavenge
You start searching around the area for signs of lost treasure …
(Energy -2)
Repeated until you find something of note, then:
You find some signs of disturbed rocks in the area. You could scavenge them or continue looking around for other tell-tale signs.
When a character finds something that looks promising, they can, as the prompt says, immediately start searching through that spot or continue on. Perhaps each “type” of prompt could generate a bonus for specific types of items, i.e. spotting something shiny might give a bonus to looting out a pile of riln, a gem, or something metallic. “Wood” might help in generating lockboxes or wooden-hafted weapons/arrows/bolts, et cetera. Regardless, the character would then:
>Scavenge rocks
You focus on the disturbed rocks and begin scavenging through them.
(Energy -2)
Repeating. During this process, the game will periodically notify the player how far along they are: i.e. You continue scavenging through some disturbed rocks in the area and feel you're making some progress. I don't believe it should be as long as it is for hunting; you're not tracking something across leagues, after all. Perhaps dependent on pure RNG with a bonus from perception.
When a character finally finds something (or not):
You unearth a small steel-clad lockbox and stash it away.
If nothing was found, then:
Try as you might, you can’t seem to locate anything here. Must’ve been your imagination.
It doesn't have to always be “You find some disturbed rocks”, either. A list of additional prompts:
You find
- a glint of something shiny among the rubble
a piece of wood which catches your attention
a scrap of fabric which doesn't seem to belong
some disturbed foliage that doesn't appear to be natural
a pile of loose dirt and rocks
The loot generated from this shouldn't just be lockboxes or nothing, though I imagine this would be the easiest way to manage it. I feel it would be far more interesting to unearth all sorts of things from a scavenge-dedicated loot table, mob equipment loot table (ranging from crude to quality with the latter being far more rare), or the generic loot table (i.e. lockboxes and plain old riln, varying amounts). Maybe even some historical Aetgardian artifacts that are study-able could be found this way, too; old pennants and standards, unusual figurines and statuettes, jewelry. You name it.
Some ideas for a scavenge loot table could be something as simple as a wide variety of gems, a nifty pouch with coins/gems/trinkets inside it, repairable tools or weapons of unusual make, clothing items which need some repair (Hmm. An ability for each of the tailoring and/or metalworking trees for “restoration” of these lost items??), trinkets (someone’s good luck token?) Really, the ideas could be endless. Staff needs to inject something for a plotline that shouldn’t be too difficult to find - put it in the scavenge loot table with a fairly low difficulty to find. Make a note on finding said item that encourages a player to seek out more information on it (I.e. A flag that pops up when finding said item, “You feel this is something truly special and should take it to someone to look at.”)