Smithing, again

[ripforareason]

If you can get to 15 with the spare 1000xp you can squeeze Song of Aule on to a loremaster crown as well.

Taking the ability normally is actually better since it branches into Sharpness, which can help with the powerlevel issues in the mid-game. I find I don't usually have the XP for Loremaster + another ability, though I like Loremaster + Song of Freedom or Loremaster + eye for detail (but the E4D crown is kind of tedious, I just take the ability normally to avoid false floors)

[wobbly]

If you can get to 15 with the spare 1000xp you can squeeze Song of Aule on to a loremaster crown as well.

[Pete Mack]

Ooh, I never thought of a loremaster crown. Lovely.

[ripforareason]

I don't have any concrete complaints, I just know that I tried a ton of smithing builds in 1.2.1 and never managed to make any progress. Smithing felt not just underpowered, but deeply so; I felt I needed 20k more starting experience to be as powerful as my no-brainer fighter builds. And in 1.3.0 the stuff you just find is better, and there's less exp? I will never try smithing again.

But maybe that's just me. I'm pretty terrible at this game.

You can actually start making things better than what you typically find pretty early. A round of shield of deflection [+2,1d3] is better than almost any shield you will find in the game, for instance. The key is knowing what to make, and not getting derailed by a 2-use forge, which you don't really have any control over. Nothing ruins a smither like a 2-use forge, especially when you are supposed to make your Loremaster crown at said forge...

But, even by the time you hit ~20 in smithing you have a few good options for artefacts, like a dwarf mask with rFear and Clarity, a round shield [+1,1d4] with rPois and rFear, Feanorian lamps of Brightness, rings of accuracy and evasion [+3], etc.
A Robe of Idril copy, which is pretty close to an insta-win item, is only 25 difficulty.

[petiso]

But maybe that's just me. I'm pretty terrible at this game.

that's exactly my feeling when i deviate 0.002 degrees from the archer build that regularly gets me to 550 or so.
it's also why i love the game

[Grognor]

I don't have any concrete complaints, I just know that I tried a ton of smithing builds in 1.2.1 and never managed to make any progress. Smithing felt not just underpowered, but deeply so; I felt I needed 20k more starting experience to be as powerful as my no-brainer fighter builds. And in 1.3.0 the stuff you just find is better, and there's less exp? I will never try smithing again.

But maybe that's just me. I'm pretty terrible at this game.

[Infinitum]

Good. Now iterate until you somehow fail the last step and start winning instead. Avoid meleeing red D's when out of Con due to boots of true speed. Good luck!

[ripforareason]

I tried exactly that and got exactly the result you said.

[Infinitum]

I believe the normal progression is
->Armorsmith + Enhantment
->Crown of Command + Gloves of Smithing/Armor of Protection + Shield of Deflection at first forge
->Pump Song instead of Evasion, rely on protection score initially
->Die horribly

[ripforareason]

So, how is one supposed to play a Song of Mastery smithing-type character, anyway? I feel like I have the warrior and archer archetypes down, in that I know more or less what I want to make and when I want it. But I'm not so sure about a singing smith with a lot of +grace items. On a normal warrior-ish character I make something like:

Artefact loremaster + eye for detail crown
Artefact shield with rPois and rFear
Artefact crown with resists, light, song or true sight
Artefact boots and cloak to boost my melee and evasion and free action
Artefact gloves with melee abilities
Artefact permahaste robe
Hammer of Smithing
Masterpiece longsword

I guess I would replace the permahaste robe with a robe of grace<+3>, make a crown of grace <+3> (or +2 with mastery) instead, Feanorian lamp of grace <+2>, amulet of grace <+2>, take both points of Grace in the smithing and song trees, and then make use of Mastery? Then use floor items for my boot, glove, and cloak slots? I guess I just don't know when to take Mastery or how much Song I need for non-throne room areas.

edit: It would be really nice if we could make generic Feanorian lamps of Grace and crowns of Grace higher than <+1>, if for no reason other than to cut down the inventory juggling just a little. Otherwise, I actually thinking Smithing, at least with artifice, is okay in power level. You just have to know what to make and when.

[ripforareason]

After another smithing start in which I found 2 of my 4 earlygame smithing items (Mail Corslet of Protection and Round Shield of Deflection [+2, 1d3]) on the ground early on, I'm wondering if one way to make smithing viable as a "playstyle" and not just a means of winning more on an overpowered character, would be to remove the Artistry skill and just let players add bonuses to their armor. You will still fall a little behind a regular character by about 15k experience if you have around 13 smithing and want to go for Artifice and Masterpiece, which is good for 4-5 points of mid-late game Melee/Evasion. You can recoup some of this with Artistry, but it's a lot of experience, and as of 1.3 I find that things like a Cloak of Protection [+2, 1d1], Mail Corslet of Protection (-1)[-3, 2d5], Helm of Brilliance [-1, 1d3] and the like are not all that rare. As far as I can tell, there's also less experience in 1.3 compared to older versions where the biggest smithing abuses happened, with some help from dual-wielded smithing warhammers and artefact cloaks of grace.

This might make smithers insufficiently weak mid-game for their lategame power, I'm not sure.

[bagori nd]

It's left field, but I wonder if part of the problem is that it's too easy to get a V/three sil win. Dedicated smiths trade a harder middle game for endgame power, but because good skilling decisions and non-horrible item luck are usually enough to kill Morgoth anyway, they don't have much to use all that extra power on.

It might be interesting (and perhaps more consistent with half's original intent?) if killing Morgoth basically required you to either be a dedicated smith or have incredible luck with artefacts.

[ripforareason]

i almost never feel like i missed a forge. more often i find a forge and there is nothing useful that i can make.

I sort of have a schedule for them:

- Round Shield of Deflection [+2. 1d3], gloves of the forge <+2>, boots of speed

- Crown of Grace, Rings of Accuracy and Evasion [+2]

- Loremaster Crown

- Gloves of the forge <+3>, lesser jewel of grace <+1>, amulet of grace <+1>

- war hammer of smithing <+4>

- Amulet of grace <+2>, Amulet of Con <+2>, something else

- Boots of great speed (maybe)

- Masterpiece weapon with frost, sharpness, and danger

If I have more forges I want to make rings (acc/ev [+4], str/dex<+2>, or dam<+2>), a shadow cloak [+4] (rF, rC, rFear), mithril greaves of dex <+2>, feanorian lamp of brightness, gloves with some combination of str,dex,momentum and rapid attack, amulet of con <+2>, and so on. Ideally, you can fill some slots with artefact items off the floor, and then fill your otherwise-decent slots with smithed artefacts. With this sort of character, missing one forge can put you off schedule, and due to the way forge gen works, can lead to fewer forges in the game overall (I think)?

I think a few changes I'd like to see are some subset of:

- Halve the time it takes to smith items, to 5 per difficulty.
- Allow the making of generic crowns of grace <+2> and Feanorian lamps of grace.
- I'm not completely sure how the forge generation algorithm works, but as far as I know, the game can start to force forge generation if it's been 2000 turns since a forge last generated, and I think one is guaranteed after 5000 turns? I think it might be better if the player had to actually find the forge in order to get the counter going again. This way, you won't feel bad if you failed to find a forge and don't have to explore every corner of the map. You might still see one that you cannot access due to chasms, but it doesn't happen too often.
- Let Lembas and Herbs of Restoration restore more of your stats. I actually assumed they fully restored your stats/grace until I tried smithing, because I've never gotten drained more than one point in anything until then.
- Make the "Haunted" curse apply even when not worn, and make it worth 2-3 points of difficulty reduction.
- Don't make Song of Aule take song points to use. Trying to make a high-difficulty item can take well over 1000 turns due to stopping to restore voice. This is especially annoying when there is a Kemenrauko interrupting you repeatedly and then running away in terror after 1 hit, or a Nameless Thing grinding away in the distance.
- Make Masterpiece an intrinsic ability, and potentially replace it with an ability that makes artefacts require only 2 forge uses to smith.

These suggestions are based off playing a character that was a heavily-armored warrior that smithed weapons, armor, and rings. From what I've read on old forum posts, you can also make a "graceful smith" that uses song of mastery and stacks grace. I haven't tried this yet, and I'm not sure how far in to the game it becomes powerful, but the further grace-boosting items might make this archetype overpowered.

[seraph]

i almost never feel like i missed a forge. more often i find a forge and there is nothing useful that i can make.

[krazyhades]

Every time I see a forge I get excited thinking, and then remember how unfun it is to actually try. You know there's a problem when new players excitedly ask "Hey how should I do smithing?" and the veterans correctly advise: "Don't.'