Both the tradeskills of Weaponsmithing and Armoursmithing are forms of Forging and work substantially the same, except, of course, that weapons are made in one and armour in the other.The Forging tradeskills (Weaponsmithing and Armoursmithing) allow you to create weapons or armour out of commodities such as steel, iron, obsidian, leather, and so on. In the skills of Weaponsmithing and Armoursmithing you'll gain the ability to forge different kinds of weapons and armour.
In order to let you customize the appearance of these, you can select up to two adjectives called 'descriptors' from a list you can access via FORGING LIST. Descriptors are words like sharp, radiant, magenta, gigantic, and so on. Descriptors are assigned to a Smithing Rank, from Apprentice Blacksmith up to Master Blacksmith, with more advanced descriptors costing substantially more to use. These correspond to Smithing Ranks, and you must be of at least that Smithing Rank in order to use descriptors of that rank.
Descriptors also may have category-based restrictions on them, such as only usable on edged weapons or soft armour. As you forge items with descriptors, you gain a chance of producing an item with that descriptor more cheaply than otherwise, and eventually with enough mastery over that descriptor, you gain a chance to add an additional 1-3 stat points to that item.
The skill of Armoursmithing is a trade skill and available to all adventurers.
How to Forge
- Find a forge. You can find these in many places around Achaea. Cities have them, Houses often have them, Temples often have them, and so on.
- Make sure you have the required commodities for what you'll forge.
- You'll discover this by doing FORGINGCOMMS [descriptor1] [descriptor2] <thing-to-forge, like longsword>
- Note that while the cost for a weapon or piece of armour with low-level descriptors is relatively small, the cost for high-level descriptors is very high. The fancier you want your armour or weapons to be, the costlier it will be.
- FORGING LIST will tell you what descriptors you have access to.
- FORGING SHOW <descriptor> will show you the base cost for that descriptor and other info where relevant. Note that the cost to use that descriptor on an item is multiplied by the size of the item.
- Item size for a type of item may be seen with FORGINGCOMMS <thing>.
- You'll now FORGE FOR [descriptor1] [descriptor2] <weapon/armour>. The descriptors are both optional.
- You will then go about forging the item. If you do most other actions or are interrupted too much, your forging will also be interrupted and you'll have to start over, though your comms will not have been used up.
- Your item is now done!
Mastering Descriptors
Every time you forge an item with a particular descriptor, you increase the chance that the next time you forge an item with that descriptor, it'll be cheaper and eventually, you start getting chances for your item to have extra stat points added onto it. For weapons this ranges from 1-3 and for armour this ranges from 1-2.
All the various types of items you can forge have a size, with that size helping to determine how many comms an item will cost to forge (along with the descriptors used). Whenever you forge an item with a descriptor, let's say "radiant". The first time you forge it, you have 0 points in "radiant". After forging one item of size 6 with the radiant descriptor, you'd have 6 points in "radiant".
Each time you forge an item with 'radiant' going forward you'll have a chance equal to (points/6), with a max of 50%, of having the item cost you in comms as if it was one size less. In this case, that's only a 1% chance, but as you forge further items with radiant that chance will increase, until you get to 300 points and hit the effective max.
Once you get to 300 points in a descriptor you're considered 'Expert' in it, and may begin working towards 'Master' in that descriptor, which requires an additional 300 points for a max of 600 points.
After you have some Master points in a descriptor you start having a chance to get an extra stat point on that item. If you have two descriptors that you're already Expert in and working towards Master on, you have a chance for up to three extra stat points, which are randomly assigned except for the fact that all three will never end up on the same stat. It works as such:
- Each descriptor gives you a chance of ((points-300)/6) to get an extra stat point.
- If both descriptors give your item an extra stat point AND you are a Grandmaster Blacksmith, there's a 50% chance for a third point. If you're a Legendary instead of Grandmaster Blacksmith the chance goes up to 75%.
Grandmaster and Legendary Ranks
These advanced ranks are not achieved in the same way as the other ranks, however. You must be a Master Blacksmith in order to attain these two ranks PLUS:
- For Grandmaster, you acquire 60 Grandmaster points. These are gotten through mastering descriptors (see below). For every descriptor mastered, you'll get the following Grandmaster points:
- Rank 1 Descriptor = 0 points
- Rank 2 Descriptor = 1 points
- Rank 3 Descriptor = 2 points
- Rank 4 Descriptor = 6 points
- Rank 5 Descriptor = 20 points
- Rank 6 Descriptor = 30 points
- For Legendary Blacksmith, you must achieve 200 Grandmaster points.
- As a Grandmaster Blacksmith, your chances of getting stat bonuses due to Mastered descriptors are 65% per descriptor instead of 50% AND when you get two additional stat points you have a 50% chance of a third.
- As a Legendary Blacksmith, your chances of getting an additional stat point when both your descriptors produce one is up to 75%. Plus, ALL descriptors are treated as Mastered for the purpose of the extra stat point calculation (but not regarding the chance of producing an item that costs as if it was one size smaller).
Abilities in Armoursmithing
| Fire | How to set forges to burning. | |
| Syntax: | FIRE FORGE | |
| Required: | 1 coal | |
| Details: | The first step in any smith's learning is how to light forges for use. | |
| Buckler | The smallest shield. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR BUCKLER FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 1 Leather and 1 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | The smallest shield. | |
| Leatherarmour | A suit of leather armour. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR LEATHERARMOUR FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 10 Leather | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | A suit of leather armour. | |
| Cavalry | A small shield, but more effective than the buckler. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR CAVALRY FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 2 Leather and 1 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | A small shield, but more effective than the buckler. | |
| Ringmail | Armour composed of overlapping rings of metal. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR RINGMAIL FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 5 Leather and 3 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | Moderate armour composed of overlapping metal rings atop leather. | |
| Banded | A shield of reasonable effectiveness. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR BANDED FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 1 Leather and 2 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | A shield of reasonable effectiveness. | |
| Clotharmour | The most basic of armours. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR CLOTHARMOUR FORGE | |
| Required: | 12 cloth | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | A suit of cloth armour. Mostly it'll just keep you warm; it won't stop any kind of blade. | |
| Scalemail | Armour made of overlapping scales of metal and leather. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR SCALEMAIL FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 5 Leather and 6 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | Armour made of overlapping scales of metal and leather. | |
| Kite | A large, protective shield. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR KITE FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 1 Leather and 3 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | A large, protective shield. | |
| Chainmail | Armour made of interlocking rings of metal. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR CHAINMAIL FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 6 Cloth and 12 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | Armour made of interlocking rings of metal. | |
| Tower | The largest and most cumbersome shield. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR TOWER FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 1 Leather and 4 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | The largest and most cumbersome shield. | |
| Splintmail | Good armour made of strips of metal and leather. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR SPLINTMAIL FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 5 Leather and 18 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | Good armour made of strips of metal and leather. | |
| Fieldplate | The most common, but still very good, form of platemail. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR FIELDPLATE FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 8 Cloth and 34 Steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | The most common, but still very good, form of platemail. | |
| Tank | The deadly weapons of war. | |
| Syntax: | FORGE FOR TANK FORGE (to continue after interruption) | |
| Required: | 25 steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | The deadly weapons of war. | |
| Fullplate | The most magnificent armour. | |
| Syntax: | ||
| Required: | 10 cloth
10 gold 10 leather 100 steel | |
| Cooldown: | 5.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | Fullplate is the most protective of all the armour it is possible to
forge, wearable only by the greatest of knights. | |
| Smelting | Smelt a piece of armour back to some useful commodities. | |
| Syntax: | SMELT <weapon/armour> | |
| Cooldown: | 3.00 seconds of balance | |
| Details: | This will smelt an armour or weapon down into around 10% of the component materials, providing it is large enough for some material to be salvaged. | |
| Embrasuring | Add an embrasure to a forged piece of armour. | |
| Syntax: | EMBRASURE <armour> | |
| Details: | Your diligence in your craft has developed so that you may add the first embrasure upon a piece of crafted armour, unlocking its potential to hold paragons. | |