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

[toughluck]

One thing in BG2 always put me off: the sheer amount of +2, +3 and +4 weapons, not to mention creatures that yielded only to them. I know the party is *supposed* to be uber and all, but the numbers of powerful creatures slain in the course of BG2. I've easily counted at least 20 liches, one demi-lich, two dragons (add two more for ToB), numerous giants, golems, dozens of mind flayers and beholders, elementals, djinni, a shade lord (wasn't he supposed to be a minor power with a strong avatar?), taking on an entire Drow city, and two of the most powerful mages in the history of Faerun (Irenicus and Bodhi), not to mention the bhaalspawn in ToB, or demogorgon. This was all absurd. Whilst I understand the player wouldn't like to be submitted to dull fights, but what's with those goblins or kobolds? Wouldn't they be 'available' in greater numbers?

Enough of the rant, now to the point:

Make as few pre-enchanted weapons as possible. Make the player save his +1 arrows, bolts and bullets, and savor +2 or greater! Make the prices on +1 weaponry 1,000 times higher than normal, unenchanted, and prices on +2 and greater weapons even higher.
Of course, by all means, include uber items, but available with multiple restrictions. Like a very powerful sword would be wieldable by a lawful good paladin only, and even though possessing a very strong enchantment (say, +4), it could only be used on evil (to full extent), and chaotic neutral enemies (with only +2 enchantment), or simply enemies, but would work as unenchanted. Similar items for evil characters. It would become even more interesting if thieves did not have the ability to use items that have an alignment, or class requisite (sorry, but a neutral evil thief being able to use the Carsomyr to behead every single member of the Order of the Most Radiant Heart? Ridiculous...). If the (evil) thief wanted to use it, make it so that the weapon would cure the wounds of the enemies, and hurt the wielder. I know it's extremely difficult to code, but maybe possible. And if not possible - well, such items would best be left out of the game.

As for improving pre-enchanted weapons - make it impossible. They are supposed to be unique in every aspect. An explanation that would best follow is that it is not possible to further enchant a weapon that has had a finalise process completed (heh, akin to what burning CDs is like - finalisation of a multisession disc makes it impossible to add further information to it), but with finalisation come additional effects (like add three diamonds for +1 damage and +1 THAC0 vs. undead, but if you decide to enchant the weapon completely and finally, you get 2× damage (or twice the die rolls), +2 THAC0 vs. undead, disrupt undead at -4 penalty, and always considered to have +10 enchantment determining what undead can it hit, but considered unenchanted (without bonuses) against other creatures), but you can finalise the enchantment only when doing minor enchantments (and lose more potent possibilities if you decide to do so).