Item Craftsmanship, Not all smiths are equally skilled. Options

[dragon_lord]

All craftsman/blacksmiths are not equally skilled in the art of forging weapons and armour. And so throughout the land varying qualities of equipment can be found:

-Normal items will have 3 levels of quality: Poor, Average and High.
Poor: THAC0 Penalty and damage penalty(in regards to average quality), a chance of breaking.
Average: Normal
High: THAC0 Bonus and speed bonus. No damage bonuses. Those are for magical
items

- High quality normal items can be upgraded through gems.
- 4 different gem types - the elements fire/poison etc
- There can only be one gem per item (stops it from getting too complicated).

Magic items of course can still have things added to them just like in bg2.

This post has been edited by dragon_lord: Nov 28 2004, 06:08 AM

[fallen demon]

cool.

[Awake]

Yes, it is cool isn't it? But what is it that you think is so cool? That is my question for you. I personally like the gems and how they are going to be able to change the damage type of the sword. That will be cool.

[igi]

Can I ask how is this being done, from a technical point of view?

[Vlasák]

igi: it is possible via converseable items. All the upgrades can be done through teh dialog. However, I'm curious whether there is any better way...

[igi]

Ok. That will mean a lot of items, good luck.

[fallen demon]

Yes, it is cool isn't it? But what is it that you think is so cool? That is my question for you. I personally like the gems and how they are going to be able to change the damage type of the sword. That will be cool.

The gems, are cool. I also like the different quality of craftmanship.

somes questions
1. Will these items still be useful compared to magic items you'll find?
2. Will pre-enchanted items be harder to find early on than in the bg series to make this feature more usefull?
3. In adition to craftmanship quality, will materials also vary? i.e. shitty iron weapons early on, steel weapons as standard, and powerful mythril(sp?) (or an equivlent for this world) latter on.
4. Will poor just reflect craftmanship quality, or also bad weapon condition? (i.e. a rusty dagger that was origionally well made)

[SimDing0]

igi: it is possible via converseable items. All the upgrades can be done through teh dialog. However, I'm curious whether there is any better way...

I think I remember pondering socketable weapons for ages with Max and Avenger, to no avail. There was some crazy way that wouldn't work in multiplayer or something, and the general upshot of it was that whatever happened wasn't going to work very well.

[igi]

Sim: Any details at all? Or is this another "we talked about it, but none of us can remeber anything at all" things?

[SimDing0]

Oh, most definitely. And it was almost certainly horrific.

[Awake]

Yes, it is cool isn't it? But what is it that you think is so cool? That is my question for you. I personally like the gems and how they are going to be able to change the damage type of the sword. That will be cool.

The gems, are cool. I also like the different quality of craftmanship.

somes questions
1. Will these items still be useful compared to magic items you'll find?
2. Will pre-enchanted items be harder to find early on than in the bg series to make this feature more usefull?
3. In adition to craftmanship quality, will materials also vary? i.e. shitty iron weapons early on, steel weapons as standard, and powerful mythril(sp?) (or an equivlent for this world) latter on.
4. Will poor just reflect craftmanship quality, or also bad weapon condition? (i.e. a rusty dagger that was origionally well made)

Thanks for some detail, FD.

1. Well, since there will be different elements of weapons(fire, ice, poison, etc.) and some magical items won't be like this, some of the creatures that you may come into contact with may be of a certain type that is weak against fire, but you don't have any magical weapons that are of fire type. So, the answer is yes.

2. We don't plan on making pre-enchanted items more enchanted. But the way things are going to happen are that Ragnar's dwarves forge the weapons and my elves enchant them. So there is a possiblity that I may make a Non-party NPC able to enchant them more. Of course there will be a price and some other restrictions so that it isn't too easy.

3. Material variations may be available, but we haven't discussed it yet. Thanks for mentioning this. I'm sure we will discuss it soon.

4. It will also reflect weapon condition. Note: I just decided this myself without discussing it with the team, but I'm sure they will agree.


Sim: I'm not sure that I understand your post. Socketable weapons?

[SimDing0]

When I say socketable weapons, I basically mean the system you're proposing here (albeit potentially allowing multiple enhancements). It's an excellent feature for the game, so I wish you luck in implementing it... but I certainly couldn't be bothered, heh.

This post has been edited by SimDing0: Nov 23 2004, 04:48 PM

[dragon_lord]

Craftsmanship Bonuses:

Three levels of elemental gems for item upgrading (these are rare magical gems):

Hell Fire Gem: +15 to fire resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +3 Fire damage then.

Inferno Gem: +10 to fire resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +2 Fire damage then.

Wildfire Gem: +5 to fire resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +1 Fire damage then.


Storm Gem: +15 to lightning resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +3 Lightning damage then.

Lightning Gem: +10 to lightning resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +2 Lightning damage then.

Thunder Gem: +5 to lightning resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +1 Lightning damage then.


Toxin Gem: +15 to poison resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +3 Poison damage then.

Poison Gem: +10 to poison resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +2 Poison damage then.

Venom Gem: +5 to poison resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +1 Poison damage then.


Ice Gem: +15 to cold resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +3 Cold damage then.

Hail Gem: +10 to cold resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +2 Cold damage then.

Snow Gem: +5 to cold resistance until enchanted by elves. Recieves +1 Cold damage then.

This post has been edited by dragon_lord: Nov 28 2004, 02:42 AM

[igi]

The bonus's from the gems seem overpowered, and the names are pretty sucky (is this a gem, or just a piece of rock that makes weapons better?).
Other than that, ok.

[Chevar]

The bonus's from the gems seem overpowered, and the names are pretty sucky (is this a gem, or just a piece of rock that makes weapons better?).
Other than that, ok.

Here's where I object... I don't think it'd be overpowered at all. We're not talking about further enchanting holy avengers.. but a select (fairly small) assortment of weapons which have no bonuses to begin with.

This post has been edited by Chevar: Nov 27 2004, 07:07 PM

[igi]

It doesnt matter if it's 1, 10 or 100 items, I feel that +15% to a resistance from a single item is overpowered.
If you had a character wearing 6 items giving +15%, you'd have close to 100% resistance, which you'd have to say is not desirable. Even 50% resistance to something is too much, hell, even 20%.
Why not use smaller numbers, 1%, 5% and uber-rare items of 10%? Sure, it may not sound impressive when someone comes to read the website or advertising, but it will play a lot better.

[Sir-Kill]

Thank you for your input it will be taken under advisement.

[Rabain]

When i was reading igi's post and he mentioned the sucky names of the gems I started thinking. Its true that there would be no reason why a generic readily available gem should grant magical abilites to a weapon unless the gem is magical in its own right already. In BG gems are generally used as a cost of upgrading and only rarely as magical items in and of themselves.

So I propose some alternate names which will at least give some reason to why they grant the ability:

Hell Fire Gem: Demons tongue/heart
Inferno Gem: Phoenix's Feather
Wildfire Gem: Fire Elemental's Hand/Eye

Storm Gem: Storm Falcons Feather
Lightning Gem: Lightning Rod
Thunder Gem: Thunder Drum

Toxin Gem: Vampires Nail
Poison Gem: Belladonna
Venom Gem: Adders Tongue


Ice Gem: Yeti's Pelt
Hail Gem: Ice Salamanders Crest
Snow Gem: WinterWolf Pelt


There are bams available for most of these already so it shouldn't be too much trouble! What do you think?

[Sir-Kill]

generic readily available gem should grant magical abilites to a weapon

there seem to be a common misunderstanding with these gems, these gems are very rare, as much as the some of the more rare items you have listed.

and the WTP will have all new bams, to bg that is, and some that have never been seen before. spells, items, and summoned weapons.

I like the name for the Phoenix stone

[map101ca]

I have to agree, as it was mentioned. These stones\gems, are suppose to be very rare, and it would be foolish, seeing as you can only put 1 on an item, to load up all your gear with frost protection and go face off against a red dragon.

A mix of, I'll use, gems will give a little protection against a couple of differant elements. And ask yourself, do you keep whereing the same armour through the whole game? How about the same weapon? Even though I would have to say that a weapon upgraded should only count as offence and not provide protection properties.

In closing, I would have to say I agree with the percentages as they are presented.