Fine weapons

[Miloch]

I was wondering if you'd mind splitting the component "Replace many magic weapons with fine ones" into 2 parts:

> Replace +1 weapons with fine ones

> Let iron plague affect fine weapons

 

I like the first idea (making +1 weapons cheaper to sell) but would prefer not to have them breakable, because there aren't all *that* many of them about in the early stages of the game. Someone pointed out on another board the fact that full plate, even though nonmagical, should be unbreakable because it's made from good stuff - i.e., iron obtained before the crisis. The same should be true for fine weapons - why would a master smith waste his skill on crappy material he knew would break anyway?

 

Of course, you should still have the option to install the breakable fine weapons if you want to.

[Salk]

I find pretty consistent that the iron crisis would affect fine weapons and armours as well under a pure logic point of view. It's another matter if this would undermind the game's gameplay but I would hardly think so.

 

Fine weapons and armours would be made by non magical iron like other lower quality ones. It's the work of the smith that is particularly excellent in this case and not the material itself. When instead we combine a specially good material with a specially good craft, then we'd have a magic item produced. At least, in my opinion...So the iron used would probably come from the mines of Nashkell which seem to be the main source for iron production in the whole area.

[Miloch]

Fine weapons and armours would be made by non magical iron like other lower quality ones. It's the work of the smith that is particularly excellent in this case and not the material itself. When instead we combine a specially good material with a specially good craft, then we'd have a magic item produced.

No. When we have good material + good craft + magic we have a magic item.

 

At least, in my opinion...So the iron used would probably come from the mines of Nashkell which seem to be the main source for iron production in the whole area.

Not necessarily at all. There were a lot of trade routes to the sword coast so it could've come from anywhere. Compare how knights in medieval Europe would go out of their way to get steel from Damascus or Toledo. Plus, not everyone who adventures and dies in some cave, leaving their precious bastard sword +1 behind, is going to be from the Sword Coast originally.

 

I find pretty consistent that the iron crisis would affect fine weapons and armours as well under a pure logic point of view. It's another matter if this would undermind the game's gameplay but I would hardly think so.

As I said originally, "Of course, you should still have the option to install the breakable fine weapons if you want to." To each his own.

[DavidW]

Actually, I think the logic of fine weapons being breakable is pretty sound. As townspeople up and down the Sword Coast tell you,

 

I paid 35 gold for a sword from Beregost and it "rotted" in my hands! What can disease metal so? Has your gear done the same? Even if you got your blades out of some dank old dungeon, just bringing them near tainted metal makes them weak. Seems like only magic weapons don't degrade, but who has those? No one I know.

 

So, if "fine" weapons are still non-magical, they should break.

 

Having said that, it shouldn't be a problem to code up an option for them not to break, so I'll add one. People are welcome to play the game however they like. (There should be a new SCS edition out in two or three days, with a bit of luck, or a fortnight, with less luck.)

[underdog]

How about fine weapons are the ones left over from before the 'iron crisis', not all iron from nashkell was bad from the beginning, not all full plate was made recently, what about a year old plate or swords , it wouldn't have the 'bad' iron in it, that may be a way of differentiating the older iron and newer iron products, and there was iron coming from the cloakwod mines, although the Iron Throne was ostensibly hoarding it for later release.

[DavidW]

How about fine weapons are the ones left over from before the 'iron crisis', not all iron from nashkell was bad from the beginning, not all full plate was made recently, what about a year old plate or swords , it wouldn't have the 'bad' iron in it, that may be a way of differentiating the older iron and newer iron products, and there was iron coming from the cloakwod mines, although the Iron Throne was ostensibly hoarding it for later release.

 

It doesn't really matter: as the quotation I give shows, the iron blight spreads from tainted iron to non-tainted iron, no matter how long ago the latter was forged. (Fairly clearly this is a game device: the game writers are trying to explain why some sword you find in a centuries-old crypt still breaks from time to time.)

[SimDing0]

Truth be told I think it's a pretty lame game device, but who's going to go through and fill all the dungeons with non-breakable versions of weapons?

 

How about a lower chance of breaking for fine weapons? Even if they're affected by the crisis, it stands to reason that trying to slice something with a brittle knife is going to work better than trying to slice it with a brittle spoon. (This is, perhaps, inapplicable to crushing weapons.)

[SimDing0]

Incidentally, the bandit presence explains away the trade route problem, but we're sadly still left with contagious iron when dealing with stuff you dig out of a crypt.

[DavidW]

Truth be told I think it's a pretty lame game device

Granted.

but who's going to go through and fill all the dungeons with non-breakable versions of weapons?

Not me.

(Also to be fair to Bioware, players would very quickly have unbreakable weapons that way; I get the impression they preferred players to have the iron crisis periodically reminded to them.)

 

How about a lower chance of breaking for fine weapons? Even if they're affected by the crisis, it stands to reason that trying to slice something with a brittle knife is going to work better than trying to slice it with a brittle spoon. (This is, perhaps, inapplicable to crushing weapons.)

 

I like the idea but I don't think it's very straightforwardly implementable (I'd welcome correction). The existing Tutu fix for breakable weapons casts a spell with each hit that has a 1% chance of destroying the weapon; I don't see an easy way to lower the probability below 1%.

[Miloch]

How about a lower chance of breaking for fine weapons?

I like the idea but I don't think it's very straightforwardly implementable (I'd welcome correction).

Then how about implementing a weapons repair shop? The only problem I see with that though, is that once a weapon breaks, it becomes a generic MISC56 or whatever, retaining no memory of what it was previously. But maybe it could be assigned a non-generic text that describes what it once was. Or perhaps some sort of variable could be stored somewhere? Just for fine weapons obviously - normal weapons would become the generic rubbish.

 

Not saying this should be in (the next version of) SCS necessarily but it'd be a good way of taking more of the player's money away and perhaps adding a bit of realism.

[NiGHTMARE]

One thing I never understood is that if all iron is breaking, why don't the local blacksmiths switch to bronze instead? Okay so it's not as good for weapons and armour as iron/steel, but it's better than nothing.

[Miloch]

One thing I never understood is that if all iron is breaking, why don't the local blacksmiths switch to bronze instead?

Good point. Though I don't recall running across any copper or tin mines, but obviously there is bronze in the FR so it has to come from somewhere. Not to mention other metals such as mithril or adamant were used, but presumably only for magic weapons of higher enchantment. For that matter, even stone like flint or obsidian can be sharper and less breakable than crappy irons. Though I'm thinking mainly of axes. Stone swords would be fairly impractical, though I think the Aztecs may have used swords of razor-edged obsidian grafted into wood.

[BigRob]

One thing I never understood is that if all iron is breaking, why don't the local blacksmiths switch to bronze instead? Okay so it's not as good for weapons and armour as iron/steel, but it's better than nothing.

I can't remember exactly how long the crisis has been going on for... but there may not have been time to switch over to bronze in any large scale. Anyone with half a brain should be trying to find alternatives though.

 

 

 

 

Still, even without the iron crisis, there is a chance that a wepon will break in combat, and armour does get damaged over time. So weapon/armour breakage by itself isn't all that unusual. Especially if you're going to be smacking that non-magical sword into something with a skin that makes a good approximation of plate mail, like an Ankheg. That said, a repair facility at blacksmith's shops would be a handy thing and be nicely realsitic too, assuming one could track what kind of item the broken thing was originally.

[SimDing0]

I like the idea but I don't think it's very straightforwardly implementable (I'd welcome correction). The existing Tutu fix for breakable weapons casts a spell with each hit that has a 1% chance of destroying the weapon; I don't see an easy way to lower the probability below 1%.

You have a Use EFF File effect with a 1% chance, and then set the EFF's probability to 50%.

[Guest erik]

I like the idea but I don't think it's very straightforwardly implementable (I'd welcome correction). The existing Tutu fix for breakable weapons casts a spell with each hit that has a 1% chance of destroying the weapon; I don't see an easy way to lower the probability below 1%.

 

I'd actually like a larger chance. In my playthroughs of BG1, I can remember perhaps one instance of a weapon breaking, and that was unnoticed until after the fight. Hardly a crisis to my perspective