Progressive smithing items?

[Taushar]

Just a thought. I wonder hard it would be for them to program EQ to be able to upgrade smithing armor. For example, you make a banded BP. Then you take the banded BP and mix in some items and make plate BP. The items you need are not easy or cheap to get but easier than collecting all items needed for making BP. Maybe 1-2 items like a special tool and leather padding. Then from Plate BP, you can make Acrylia BP by adding a couple of items. Maybe celestial essence, ssence of wind mixed with a gem like emeraldor opal.

This may be easier and cheaper than doing it from scratch but since the armor would not stack, it would be hard to do this in large batched. What do you think?

Taushar

[Corynth Nox]

Mostly, the reason that they don't have progressive smithing, is because smithing actually does require many of those ingredients. Consider what the armors are.

Banded: Bands of metal pieces together with strips of leather or chain jointing.

Platemail: Large sheets of metal fitted around the body with a leather backing to protect the body.

While they may seem similar in nature, they differ in that they are created with vastly different qualities and quanitities of ore. It's all about the ore. You can't take the holes out of leather, so you'd need new pelts and such.

I could definitely see upgrading a piece of armor by later adding imbued gems or magical adornments, but to change the armor itself would be impractical. You would indeed need all of the ingredients (though you might save a little money by melting down the metals in your previous armor).

Example:

Fine Plate Breastplate + Imbued Sapphire (Innoruuk) = Fine Tier'Dal Breastplate

Chances are you'd want more than just an imbued gem, but something that a jeweler would have to create (making it more complex, but giving more benefits).

[Soomesepp]

Before I found EQ, I played a nice MUD for a couple of years, and liked the gearup system there.

Basically, every character equivalent of level 65 in EQ could cast Enchant Weapon and Enchant Armor spells, and warriors could also Sharpen weapons as an ability.

One could cast Enchant Armor on any piece of equipment, with 3 possible outcomes:

1. Normal, item's AC increased by 1
2. Brilliant, item's AC increased by 2
3. Failure, item destroyed.

You could enchant a piece of equipment several times, however, with every enchantment the chance of failure and destruction of item increased significantly.

So while the basic items were available for everyone, the "ubers" walked around in triple- or quadruple-"brilled" armors which maybe took 100 regular pieces of the sort (which already had slightly varied stats by nature) to make.

Pretty much same system for weapons as well, although with an added dimension. Enchant Weapon spell added Hit and Damage Roll to the weapon (something like STR stat or Vengeance in EQ), while Sharpening it affected its minimum damage normally or its maximum damage if you were lucky.

So the ubers were not only looking for maximum enchanted, but also maximally sharpened weapons, or sets of max HR/DR or max damage, depending on the enemy.

A similar system, taking maybe regular Fine Plate or Ornate Chain as a basis, would quite rock in EQ imho

[Stilts Stonebender]

I think adding the chance for a "critical success/failure" would be pretty cool.

Depending on the piece of armor, a "crit success" would give a few extra points of AC or another random stat that the armor would normally posess. A "crit failure" would destroy all components, including your hammer/file/chisel/anvil and render the forge inoperitive for ~30minutes. (i.e. You really buggered things up.)

It would also be neat to add a "proc" or right-click effect to armor by adding a temper that needed a spell scroll (or research components used for the spell) plus some other random dropped/purchased stuff of significat (and increasing) cost or value. Powdered Blue diamonds, raw dimonds, rare dropped liquids, brewed liquids, etc. Final combines would either be a brewing or a research combine.

/shrug... Doubtful it will happen in this game, but maybe EQ2. :P