Crafting overhaul mod ideas

[Emsiri]

Here are some ideas I came up with, specifically in regards to smithing. Watching any Skyrim material I could get my hands on in the leading weeks to it's release I was particularly interested in the addition to smithing. As it stands however smithing is one of the key skills that are being abused either to power level or power gear oneself. As such here are some porposed ideas to not only make smithing a much more versatile skill but to add an extra layer of depth to the game. Personally I think all players should take smithing at least at some point (excluding pure mages) and this decision should be evident throughout (kind of how repair was in Oblivion)

 

Smithing:

Each Smithing perk now has either 3/5 levels giving masteries in each armour/weapon type. Masteries in a certain armour/weapon type give passive bonuses and a 10/25/50% bonus to attuned bonuses in enchanting. So for instance a full master set of glass armour gives a passive bonus of 30% frost resistance and 10 frost damage constant effect on weapons however any enchantment such as fortify frost resist will innately be give a 50% bonus on the enchanted glass armour. Also each armour set will receive penalties imposed on enchanting at a level of -50/-25/0% based on perk level. Thus a low level steel weapon will take on far less fire damage than a master Daedric weapon in the enchanting process.

 

Smithing as a skill will require less repetition and remove significant bonuses for already created items (no more spamming iron daggers and hide bracers to bring up the skill) instead first time creations and higher mastery armour/weapon sets will give significant bonuses to skill level. Thereby keeping smithing level more in line with character leveling and less prone to abuse, also rewarding players who seek to uniquely customize their creations.. As such ingredients for smithing especially masteries will become significantly more expensive and rare and only basic ingredients will be sold by blacksmiths. This in turn makes adventuring far more desirable and rewarding with a higher risk/reward mentality.

 

Attunement: Different weapon and armour types have different properties based on type

Leather: Passive stealth and evasion bonuses

Steel: Attack speed and movement speed

Glass: Frost based bonuses

Daedric: Fire and soul based bonuses

Ebony: Lightning based bonuses

Dwemer: Armour based bonuses and damage based bonuses (mastery places this on par with Daedric)

Orcish: Critical based bonuses

Dragon: Armour fortification and armour penetration

Elven: Magicka bonuses

Plate/Scale: No idea

 

As mentioned before these passive bonuses and attunements would only be the result of placing extra perks in the weapon/armour types perk. Each item can have different attunements based on different “cores” used in the smithing process (high level smithing required) ie a Glass sword with a fire core takes on fire enchantments. As such the glass weapon/armour will lose it's frost attunement and take on a fire enchantment similar to the Daedric set (this would all be represented by an aesthetic change, red Glass armour for instance). High level bosses receive these attunements based on level presenting unique challenges to each armour/weapon set. However unless the relevant mastery is taken such bonuses will not appear to the player, indicating a lack of understanding on how the bonuses would be used?

 

Dragons: Become stronger and are used as “Guardians” of level areas. Elemental resistances become significantly more important. Dragon types will also be used as a focal point for rare smithing materials based on the type of dragon (fire, ice, blood, ancient, named, etc)

 

Enchanting: will be rebalanced in line with smithing changes so that only masteries in both will offer “immunities” and other maximum bonuses.

Clothing will offer neither bonuses nor penalties to enchanting and are therefore better for pure mages not specialising in smithing, which is more inline with the spells and perk bonuses mages receive, specifically Alteration.

 

Magic: Alterations “flesh” spells that offer armour protection will have greater protection, higher duration and a significantly reduced initial casting cost, however any physical damage taken will incur a magicka cost based on level of spell and relevant perks. This makes the spells much more akin to “mage armour” and either lends itself to different playstyles. For instance battlemages will have more protection whilst in battle but will be forced to use their weapon as their smaller magicka reserves are emptied. Whereas a pure spellcaster will have much greater magicka pools to draw on but won't be able to stay in the fray for as long because of the lack of weapon proficiencies.

 

Destruction requires an obvious tweak so that a spell that consumes an equal amount of magicka to an equal level warrior power attacks cost in stamina should do atleast the same if not more damage.

 

Illusion specifically invisibility needs to be a continued cast spell to reduce it's abuse.

 

Wards have a much greater reduced cost to cast and offer more protection, higher level spells even act more like shields causing melee foes to stagger when the ward is struck, deflecting arrows etc. Wards still have a primary focus with spells but are more viable in melee combat as well. Possible addition of ward perks such as deflecting, disarming or even reflecting?

 

Heavy and Light armour perks: Remove the no weight bonuses to each. Light armour incurs a 25% stamina penalty to actions whilst Heavy gives a 50% penalty. This makes it so the steel attunement is much more attractive for a heavy dualist and makes robed magic users that much more deadly.

 

In another effort to remove abuse off the system and to rebalance both smithing and the game as a whole; all fortify alchemy enchantment and smithing potions or enchantments, excepting certain rare artifacts will be removed (so no more 200% bonuses to smithing).

The ultimate goal of this rebalancing and adding both passive and attunement bonuses is to give players more choice. The way the game progresses, in regards to smithing at least; is that you just continue to make the next best thing in the tree. The only real consideration is given do you want the heavy/light version and which do you like more aesthetically. These proposed changes would give certain character archetypes more personality; that master thief is going to be significantly harder to hit (Leather), that mid level Thalmor mage may absorb your magic and have more magicka to throw back (Elven), that Old Orc may just be the most dangerous enemy you've yet faced (Orcish).

 

These are just some of the ideas I've formulated in my near 200 hour trek through Skyrim's (sometimes) unforgiving landscape. Any questions, criticisms and suggestions will be taken to heart so leave them below.

Edited December 10, 2011 by Emsiri