Sil: Smithing (observations)

[debo]

For flavor purposes, it might be cool to have Song of Aule play a potentially specialized / important role in the reforging process. Pretty much every epic reforging Viking scene I can think of had some sort of devilish song being sung in the background. (Probably my favorite example of this is the reforging of Tyrfing in Poul Anderson's "The Broken Sword".)

[taptap]

This discussion made me start a Feanor smith with the intention to forge a sharp shortsword... guess what happened? I found Narsil on 150 ft. Such a lovely sword.

[Scatha]

For flavor purposes, it might be cool to have Song of Aule play a potentially specialized / important role in the reforging process. Pretty much every epic reforging Viking scene I can think of had some sort of devilish song being sung in the background. (Probably my favorite example of this is the reforging of Tyrfing in Poul Anderson's "The Broken Sword".)

Interesting. I don't like special-casing interactions of abilities, so wouldn't want an explicit bonus. However if the rule was designed so that reforging was not always (or nearly always) better than making artefacts from scratch, you could consider putting Song of Aule as an alternate pre-req.

The half/double suggestion looks like it would fit this criterion.

[BlueFish]

I think this is compatible with BlueFish's proposal. He said the difficulty of the item should be unchanged by the fact it is a reforging of something else, it is just that you don't have to pay the 'costs' again. i.e. the points of Str, or the experience. I also imagine that you could do this with found items, both special and artefact. You want to make an artefact helm with brightness? Start with a helm of brilliance to save yourself that point of Grace.

I think that'd be really fun!

And fwiw I agree that smithing is slightly too weak. But it's fun, so even after getting one win with a dwarf master smith, I continue to play them.

But I find that even with a good game with some decent finds and enough forges, I die at 700 ft+, just because after having spent exp and turns on smithing, my melee and evasion aren't enough to explore those levels without dying the slow death of using healing consumables.

[BlueFish]

One thing that can be very frustrating for an artifice smith is for the second and third forges you find to be 2-use ones. They're far less useful than 3-use ones, and 4-use ones are only marginally more useful than 3-use ones. So the symmetry of the occurrence probabilities doesn't extend to the symmetry of the usefulness, if that makes sense.

One way to fix this would be to have all forced forges (the ones created because of the "last forge found" counter) be three-use ones. And 2-use ones which randomly occurred wouldn't reset the "last forge found" counter. I know this would slightly increase the number of forges, but probably not so anyone would notice. And it would prevent the game-killer that finding a bunch of 2-use forges can be, for an artifice smith.

[taptap]

One thing that can be very frustrating for an artifice smith is for the second and third forges you find to be 2-use ones. They're far less useful than 3-use ones, and 4-use ones are only marginally more useful than 3-use ones. So the symmetry of the occurrence probabilities doesn't extend to the symmetry of the usefulness, if that makes sense.

One way to fix this would be to have all forced forges (the ones created because of the "last forge found" counter) be three-use ones. And 2-use ones which randomly occurred wouldn't reset the "last forge found" counter. I know this would slightly increase the number of forges, but probably not so anyone would notice. And it would prevent the game-killer that finding a bunch of 2-use forges can be, for an artifice smith.

For me it is much more when I find the second forge and how much experience I have at that point that matters. Another thing - I usually go to artifice via jeweller so making rings at the second forge is just fine for me. But when you find an enchanted 2 use forge in late game I can feel your pain.

[BlueFish]

I think enchanted forges should be forced to have at least 3 uses. They're rare enough (often not occurring at all in any given game) that they should be a nice surprise for any smith, and especially artifice smiths.

[BlueFish]

I think it would be a nice touch if levels with forges on them had a "level feeling" associated. This could be a message such as "There is a faint smell of sulfur in the air", or something like that.

Then smithing characters could generally have the same attitude towards exploring levels that other characters do, except for levels with forges on them, which would need to be fully explored.

Smiths spend plenty of turns forging stuff. They shouldn't also have to spend so many looking for forges.

[half]

I think it would be a nice touch if levels with forges on them had a "level feeling" associated. This could be a message such as "There is a faint smell of sulfur in the air", or something like that.

We thought about this, but it wouldn't work. You could generate a forge instantly whenever you want one by level scumming.

They shouldn't also have to spend so many looking for forges.

Forges on demand don't create the feeling we want and would be unbalanced. We'd have to make forging worse to get the power balance back to what it is now...

[Infinitum]

Maybe it'd be easier to balance smithing by having a set number of uses each game rather than being limited by the random number of forges (and # of uses these have)?

For example, say there's guaranteed to be a forge present on each level, but without any inherent uses. Instead, the player receives one point of, say, "inspiration" each time he enters a new level (so a set number of 18 each game, discounting depth 50' and the throne room) up to a lowish cap (3 points maybe?) to prevent players from hoarding points into the lategame and suddenly filling all of their resistance-holes in one go. Each point of inspiration would directly correspond to one forge-usage otherwise.

This would both put less stress on players to find enough forges earlygame to justify all that xp spent as well as curbing revelations-fueled lategame crazyness. Also, this leaves some design space for additional traits using smithing/inspiration such as setting up wards, recharging staffs, identifying items and so on.

[Scatha]

Maybe it'd be easier to balance smithing by having a set number of uses each game rather than being limited by the random number of forges (and # of uses these have)?

For example, say there's guaranteed to be a forge present on each level, but without any inherent uses. Instead, the player receives one point of, say, "inspiration" each time he enters a new level (so a set number of 18 each game, discounting depth 50' and the throne room) up to a lowish cap (3 points maybe?) to prevent players from hoarding points into the lategame and suddenly filling all of their resistance-holes in one go. Each point of inspiration would directly correspond to one forge-usage otherwise.

This would both put less stress on players to find enough forges earlygame to justify all that xp spent as well as curbing revelations-fueled lategame crazyness. Also, this leaves some design space for additional traits using smithing/inspiration such as setting up wards, recharging staffs, identifying items and so on.

This is an interesting idea. (Thanks for your comments in the other thread, too, by the way.)

If you were going to have some cap on items produced like this it might be more natural to link it to the Smithing skill. However you've recognised and addressed the issue that players would be tempted to hoard the resource until the end of the game (players already do this with turns).

Uses coming with the forges makes some flavourful sense (though so would inspiration), but is also very naturally a mechanic where you can't stockpile. It is possible that it could be outweighed by having a mechanic which naturally comes with lower variance, but we should recognise that if we have to add a hack to stop stockpiling then that is a cost.

Inspiration coming with depth descended is also pretty abstract. But at least we do already give experience for that, so it's not a completely new time for character improvement.

At present as you've described the mechanic my guess is that it's not worth switching to, but I am intrigued.

[BlueFish]

We thought about this, but it wouldn't work. You could generate a forge instantly whenever you want one by level scumming.

Vanilla Angband "balances" this with a timer for level feelings - you have to have spent some amount of time on a level before the next one will generate a feeling. Such a time limit could be used to balance "forge feelings". Maybe 500 turns?

[BlueFish]

Agreed with Scatha, that's an interesting idea, Infinitum.

But I do still like the randomness of forges as it stands. Fixed uses throughout the game would make smithing feel less interesting to me.

[BlueFish]

I guess it all boils down to the "forge timer" the game uses to guarantee the player at least some baseline number of forges. That timer can be, and to some extent should be, gamed. It's why smiths are motivated more than other characters to fully explore levels. Is there a better way to help smiths find enough forges?

One answer would be for the forge timer to only be reset for seen forges rather than generated forges. Would there be an issue with that? (Yes, forges seen via Revelations would reset the timer.)

[bio_hazard]

What if you could create a 1 use forge by sacrificing one point of strength and a light source? Maybe make it a smithing ability if it's still too cheap.