Ability idea: Recycle

[Fayne]

So, the recycling heap in the woodworking area of the Chapterhouse got me to wondering how in the world they recycled the items there, and then I got an idea for a druidry ability: the ability to recycle wooden items.

We can already repair wooden items with druidry, and the way we do so makes me think it wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility to maybe recycle carved items back into staves or blocks.

Here's how it would work: say you carve something really bad or you have a staff so damaged it's unusable. Rather than throw it away for the janitor to clean, use this ability to shape the wood back into a smaller stave than the original. A staff or bow would get turned into a medium or small stave that can then be used to carve. Bad arrow shafts of the same wood type could be recycled together to make another small stave, or with enough, a medium or large stave. With blocks, if you have a few carvings of the same type of wood, you could recycle them into another block, or possibly even into staves for carving.

This of course would give diminishing returns, just like melting down metal items. Three arrow shafts could be recycled into a single small stave, a bow or staff alone would be turned into a single small stave, etc.

[Sneaky]

This seems weird to me, because if you can fuse wood together with other wood, why not just make bows, or whatever you're trying to carve by using druidry instead. This is also an issue I have with stave to staff and thorns. They're neat ideas, but like I said, it seems off to me, and I'm kind of interested to know the reason why this isn't possible.

[Fayne]

The thing about carving is it's a removal process. You're taking from what you have and making something smaller. If you used druidry, you'd need to find something the perfect size, with just the right amount of material. Which stave-to-staff and thorns, you're not adding or taking away material, you're using what is already there. Same as with repairs.

[Sneaky]

Right, but with your suggestion you're saying you should be able to combine two different pieces of wood together to get a larger piece to work with. So if this were true why not just start with a small piece of wood and add more and more wood to it until it is the right size, and then shape it into whatever it is you want to make using the technique for shaping it into thorns and staves to staffs.

[Fayne]

Well, if it is agreed that it would work lore-wise, then I could see that being a possibility, though it seems like a lot more work and energy to do that than just slap two bigger pieces together, then whittle away what you don't need.

[Fayne]

You know, come to think of it, this ability may even be a way to introduce composite bows into the game as another bow type, unique to Udemi. Take a couple types of wood, combine them together, and carve a bow from it. Or carve the layers then use the ability to meld them together.

[Rias]

Druidry can't combine things, or shape things willy-nilly as a person desires. Druidry manipulation of wood is actually very simple.

Stave to Staff has two states: "Make this piece of wood completely straight (and a little thicker/shorter)" and "make this piece of wood the shape it originally was before I made it completely straight (back to bow)". You can't take a staff that was never a bow and turn it into a bow. The original item needs to be a bow.

Druidry Repair is just the latter step: "Shape this thing back to how it was in the recent past." It doesn't restore lost material, so item quality and maximum durability suffers.

Thorns is ... weird. To be frank, I wasn't consulted about it before it was released, so I don't really have an explanation for it.

The original idea to shape some things back to a smaller stave could be kinda neat.

[Fayne]

Okay, that answers a few questions.

As for an explaination for thorns, seeing as how based on the ability description the durability of the staff is affected by it, perhaps the thorns are hollow or something? I always inagined it was just taking the material that was there and causing it to protrude in a sharp-ish manner.

[baerden]

I assumed that the thorns spell and any like it were simply calling upon extremely fast growth. Like the cultivate or tangleroot skills.

I dont have the skill so I dont really know.

[Sneaky]

He says that you can't take it and shape it into something it never was before, so at what point does a staff have thorns on it for you to recreate or straighten out. They were never there to begin with, so how did they get there. I believe the original description of it said something about it using the thorns in the area you were in, thus the requirement to be outside in the wilderness to cast it, I don't think it is that way any more, and if it were you can't combine things, so again why are they there lol. It's just odd.

[Alicia]

How I view thorns?

"Hey wood, turn into splinters. Thanks!"