Idea about Smithing

[Nysan]

As I sit here, smelting and smithing, an idea popped in my head. I think it might have potential, but I want some opinions that do not come from the voices in my head.

This is pretty much a reworking of weaponsmithing and armorsmithing idea. Bare with me, its fairly interesting...

Allow all weapons and armour craftable at any level: full plate at inept for example. However, limit what metals the character can actually work into various items based on their trade level. Examples: can make tin full plate at inept but cannot make lead full plate til novice or steel plate til adept or mithril full plate til grandmaster. Quality also determined by trade level.

Came across this during smelting, where you can work most metals at any level but higher levels make it easier to do. This allows folks to make heavy armour earlier, while still keeping the best/high end stuff at grand-master. Thoughts?

[Glim]

I sat here and thought about this for a bit, mainly because I really think trades are one of the areas most needing work and also because they are probably some of the greatest fun, to me.

Despite that, I cannot say I like the idea. I think it would make lower skill level smiths even less useful than they are now. Currently, a low level smith can make items from the worthwhile metals (steel, iron, mithril, etc), and even though they might be worse quality than from a more experienced smith, they would still be more desirable than if it was as you propose and they could only make lead or tin items.

Also, if it was made so that the only way you could gain skill was from using a better metal, it would limit the smithing skills by the smith's mining skill. I don't especially like seeing one skill hindering another that much.

Considering your idea, I cannot especially see the benefits of your proposal, instead it seems to have the same drawbacks as the current system, just switch to another axis.

I would, I think, like to see skill level not determine what metals your can do or what types you can make, but instead create more "levels" of quality and make those levels more easily discernible to the average adventurer. That way an apprentice smith and a grandmaster smith could still both make steel platemail, but the qualities of the two would be the main deciding factor and an adventurer could discern that much more easily. Also, the failure rate for the apprentice would be much higher, affecting the quality as well.

[Nysan]

See, thats why I wanted other voices sides the ones in my head. To me, it sounded useful because I would and have used low-metal weapons/armor on my characters. In most of his lower levels, Gilain was wearing copper scale mail armor and swinging a tin pick as a weapon for example and without a doubt he would have been in tin/copper platemail if I had access to it. It was cheaper to get than merchant sold armor/weapons, not horribly expensive to repair, and got the job done (read: kept his dwarf butt alive).

Also thought this was a decent idea because I view trades as things that progress with their user, like skills/weapons/spells. I look at inept mining as what a lvl 10 character would do with it and grandmaster as what a lvl 50 would do it with. Disposable armor/weapons are useful to lvl 10s, thats what newbie temple stuff is after all. *shrug*

By the by, smithing is already limited by mining/smelting. Been hunting for a vien of a certain metal for about 2 months now myself. And who hasn't been one piece short cause a few bits are different qualities than the rest? But, its not a problem. Show me a character that levels a smithing trade faster than mining/smelting and I'll show you a character that buys metals in bulk from other players. hehe

Thanks for your input Glim.

[Selveem]

I think a large part of the difficulty (and tedium) comes from the fact that luck plays such a huge role in the success of trades, but luck cannot be increased without the use of spells. Thus, word from the underground is to go with Gods that give +luck spells in their domains instead of Moradin. I think that's kinda backwards, but meh.

With the inability to increase luck via training coupled with the fact that there isn't any gear that gives more than +1 to luck, I can understand a number of people wanting to take the easy path.

Maybe this can be adjusted somehow? I don't know. Just tossing fresh meat out there to the sharks.

[Erwyth]

I do not know if this pertains to the idea about smithing, though I will suggest it regardless.

I have been trying to think of ways to incite more trade, player interaction, etc based around the trade skills and I thought of a fairly wonderful idea?

My idea is that only dwarves can smelt and forge mithril.

Perhaps this is from another fantasy setting, though I believe dwarves cherish mithril above any other metal, period. They mastered its uses, etc, etc, etc and no one else can compare?

This would help the dwarves out and the druergar(spelling?) as well?

[Nysan]

To me, the kicker about trades, at least miners/smiths, is you'll be spending the same time in the mine and at the forge at inept as you do at GM. At inept, takes you forever to process the 2-3 pieces of metal to make a shield. At GM, just as long, if not longer, to gather/work enough metal for a full plate piece. Its a zero improvement prospect with time invested where everything else in the game takes less time the higher you are; leveling a weapon makes a kill faster or leveling brew to make one potion with 3 spells rather than 3 seperate potions for example.

By the by, do stat spells really impact trades' stat checks? I know stat items do... as least they seem to, but I can't tell if they were coded to consider temp stat changes like spells. Hmm, Gilain might have a reason to buy potions yet... divine, priestie potions mind you.

[Nysan]

I do not know if this pertains to the idea about smithing, though I will suggest it regardless.

I have been trying to think of ways to incite more trade, player interaction, etc based around the trade skills and I thought of a fairly wonderful idea?

My idea is that only dwarves can smelt and forge mithril.

Perhaps this is from another fantasy setting, though I believe dwarves cherish mithril above any other metal, period. They mastered its uses, etc, etc, etc and no one else can compare?

This would help the dwarves out and the druergar(spelling?) as well?

I thought races were already coded with specific 'end-game' metals, right? Only dwarves can mine mithril, drow/dark dwarves get adamantite, elves get elven metal, humans only get titanium. Could have sworn that was discussed somewhere before...

[Glim]

Yes, they are.

dark dwarves get adamantite

Except I believe these still get mithril being codewise dwarves, though yes, they should get adamantite. I'm still waiting to play a duergar adamantine smith.

[Nysan]

Yes, they are.

dark dwarves get adamantite

Except I believe these still get mithril being codewise dwarves, though yes, they should get adamantite. I'm still waiting to play a duergar adamantine smith.

Oddly enough... me to. Definately would give up my drow characters for a dark dwarf in a heartbeat. It is my preferred underdark race and wouldn't mind trying my hand at RPing an evil dwarf. Never made a evil surface dwarf because I always felt a FR dwarf without some metal trade is fish out of water... just doesn't feel natural to me. *shrug*

[Selveem]

Does buffs affect: yes, I'm almost certain they do. It certainly helped.

Only dwarves can mine mithril

Actually, anyone can mine mithril right now so long as their skill level is high enough. I think it's because 'metal ore' is broken. From what I understood, originally, only Dwarves were supposed to be able to mine mithril, but once an area is set, any race can.

[Nysan]

I'll take your word on the stat spells. Old Gilain cannot test that really since he is a fighter, but I could see weapon enchants impacting his work. *shrug*

As for mithril, think thats still on the bug list. From what I remember, there shouldn't be a 'mithril ore', wasn't in days past... it was just added as a temp fix. There was just 'metal ore', which was turned into mithril/elven/adamanite/titanium based on the race of the smelter. Could be completely off on that, but it sounds like something I read some time back during a forum discussion on how sub-races are coded with metals.

[Glim]

Yes, they are.

dark dwarves get adamantite

Except I believe these still get mithril being codewise dwarves, though yes, they should get adamantite. I'm still waiting to play a duergar adamantine smith.

Oddly enough... me to. Definately would give up my drow characters for a dark dwarf in a heartbeat. It is my preferred underdark race and wouldn't mind trying my hand at RPing an evil dwarf. Never made a evil surface dwarf because I always felt a FR dwarf without some metal trade is fish out of water... just doesn't feel natural to me. *shrug*

I agree, hey when they come in, we can be brothers and start a clan. Mwuhahaha! Also, the idea of giving some evils some of that dedicated smithing is something I would be willing to do. So, next push is for duergar to be added and for them to be able to make adamantine.

I can't deny that a dwarf decked out in adamantine full plate hasn't appealed to me as well

[Erwyth]

I'll take your word on the stat spells. Old Gilain cannot test that really since he is a fighter, but I could see weapon enchants impacting his work. *shrug*

As for mithril, think thats still on the bug list. From what I remember, there shouldn't be a 'mithril ore', wasn't in days past... it was just added as a temp fix. There was just 'metal ore', which was turned into mithril/elven/adamanite/titanium based on the race of the smelter. Could be completely off on that, but it sounds like something I read some time back during a forum discussion on how sub-races are coded with metals.

There is any easy way to test that. There is a place that Fer gets ore from time to time. I could give some to an elven smith and see what happens. Fer has given the same ore to Gilain which resulted in mithril, right?

[Selveem]

I know this isn't the intent of the regular post, but I think it fits here:

I'd like to propose 'stop' command be available to trades. I don't know how feasible that is, because I think the moment you type 'smelt/mine/construct' it pre-determines success, but if success occurred after the lag, I think that'd be best anyhow.

There are too many times where, because of how long a process the mine, smelt, construct process is, I will spam smelt or mine. 99.99% of the times, no problems there. But there's always that little 0.01% that occurs and leaves me unable to RP with someone passing by.

I feel guilty when this happens and I immediately otell the person to apologize, but the chance for RP was lost.

Just a suggestion.

[Erwyth]

I know this isn't the intent of the regular post, but I think it fits here:

I'd like to propose 'stop' command be available to trades. I don't know how feasible that is, because I think the moment you type 'smelt/mine/construct' it pre-determines success, but if success occurred after the lag, I think that'd be best anyhow.

There are too many times where, because of how long a process the mine, smelt, construct process is, I will spam smelt or mine. 99.99% of the times, no problems there. But there's always that little 0.01% that occurs and leaves me unable to RP with someone passing by.

I feel guilty when this happens and I immediately otell the person to apologize, but the chance for RP was lost.

Just a suggestion.

Following the off topic, you can't RP in mining / smelting? Fletching is victorious!

[Selveem]

Attempt to mine/smelt is followed by generous lag. If I put in the smelt command 6x and someone walked in on the 2nd, they would just think I was busy/not interested in RPing right now and leave. I think the armorsmithing/weaponsmithing one doesn't have that if I'm not mistaken.

[Nysan]

I am taking a guess that the ore thing is an on-going bug because there is still 'mithril ore' in the game rather than generic "metal ore" that is determined by race smelted. Again, its just a guess that it is a bug, but I do not recall mithril ore being anywhere before this issue about races/sub-races smelting came up.

Armorsmith/weaponsmith doesn't have any RP related issues because the "you are still xxxxsmithing" does not impact talking or motes... at least any that I have used. It does impact movement, puttting/taking items from anywhere, and similar actions. Though oddly enough, you can smelt during the smithing lag...

I feel for you on the 6x smelt/mine and cannot do anything when someone comes in on 2 problem Selveem, Gilian has had that situation now and then as well. I hate to be harsh about it... but, thats our choice and not needed a code-fix. We choose to hit mine 6 times rather than one-by-one typing. Would be nice to have a dump or abort command that clears and pending command strings, but we wouldn't need the command if we simply waited and typed it out as things go along. *shrug*

[Selveem]

Oh, definitely. It was absolutely my decision to hit enter six times. Just that it pretty much requires it to get any gains.

You'd think after so many hundreds of smelting attempts you'd already be GM.

I was just saying it'd be nice to not 'look busy' when someone comes in and there's an RP opportunity.

Like 'stop' command.

smelt;smelt;smelt
Gilain enters from the west.
stop; smote stops what he is doing and addresses Gilain, "Ey der lad! Surry aboot me smeltin all me ores an ignorin ye."
You say to Gilain "Ye need anytin, kin?"

[Nysan]

Trust me, I feel for you. Gilain smelts in Waterdeep frequently when he is out and about, lots of player traffic. Staring down the business end of a bag of 400 ore, hittin smelt 15 times (or whatever your inventory limit is) is quite tempting. I try to RP it off when all is said and done. A tell (if they left) or smoting something along the being focused on your work and not realizing the other character entered the room after that command chain is over is my quick-fix to my impatience.

[Namic]

I didnt want to create a new thread and figured this would be as good as any to tag on this question, In the game there are several staffs and quarterstaffs that are made from metals So I am wondering Why I cannot make metal quarterstaffs via weaponsmithing?

I have tried several differant syntaxs but nothing seems to work, So just kind of curious about it.