LE Hidden Item Stats Suggestion

[Deleted3351975User]

Is it possible to create a mod that hides the stats of your items until they are discovered (on an individual basis)?

 

I was thinking "how is it that Mr. Dragonborn knows how much everything in the game costs, how powerful everything is, how he knows the strength of all armor, the effects that they have, etc, without finding out or asking someone first?" So, what if there was a mod that made finding these things out its own sort of mini-objective?

 

To find out the price of most items, you'd have to take it to a merchant first (who may try to rip you off and give you the wrong price), to identify what an enchantment does (and its worth) you have to take it to a mage, and to know the power of a weapon or the strength of armor (and the respective prices of both), you take it to some a smith. All of these have the possibility of giving you the wrong price, either because they really don't know or because they're a$$holes (depending on the character... I would imagine that the Companion's smithy really knows his stuff, but may charge a price for identifying a weapon's power (unless you're a part of the companions), while the guy who works the forge in riverwood may be a bit more generous but more likely to accidentally give you misinformation (on either power or price). Once you learn the power or price of a weapon, that's what stays in your inventory until you're told otherwise (going with the information closest to the truth if you've heard several stats for the same item).

 

If this seems to be an issue with characters that should know this kind of stuff (if you're playing as a mage, you should know enchantments and how much a spell tome is really worth), then just tie it into the Perk system! Every time you invest in the associated perk, the chances of you knowing the worth of something upon finding the item increases (putting one point into the Enchanter perk gives you a 20% chance to know the effect of an enchantment and how much it adds to an item's worth. Two points increases this chance to 40%, and so forth). Preferably, this also has a compatibility patch for SkyRe's perk trees: if you invest in perks about animals, you'll be likely to know the worth of their pelts, and investing in merchant and cost perks makes you likely to know more about how much more mundane items are worth. A list of items and associated perks will be put into this post later, should interest be shown (and I find a list of SkyRe's perks... Not at my desktop, so I can't fire up SkyRe to check them myself). I would personally like this to be optimized for SkyRe's perk system, because of the incredible flexibility of their perk trees.

 

Alternately, the chance of knowing this information could be related on your skill in the field (ie, level 15 in smithing gives a 15% chance to know the worth of armor and weapons. Level 30 in one-handed gives a 30% chance to know a one-handed weapon's power).

 

Primarily, an immersion mod with this premise seems incredibly desirable, and I would like to see if I can get in contact with anyone that might be interested in developing it (all credit where it is due, of course).