Crafting is probably UP in DG.

To be honest I thought it was weird that smithing didn't grant fire resist, if only for flavor.

+3 burl per level sounds way too good, I feel really happy finding even +1 on an item, let alone +2. You don't want to turn smithing into a must-have skill for every warrior ever. I think adding 1 stubbornness per level would be a more appropriate buff, since it makes sense to add some defense on top of the extra hp from burliness and helps the smith make better use of crafted shields and armor without necessarily taking shield bearer or master of arms.
Here's an idea, let's let the smith enchant items on his own! Give him a skill that allows him to plant buffs on a non enchanted item. (This item shines with the satisfaction of a job well done.) That way the smith can make use of late game drops and has that slight advantage over Krong (ab)users.

 

RE Stubbornness instead of Burl: Noted, but again, I'll point out: the extra 10 Burl is an extra 3 Melee Power and 5 HP. Early, great. Lategame, primarily a nonfactor. Stubbornness's two affected stats are Armor Absorb and Magic Resist - if Smithing is given +10 Mag Resist per level, the extra Stubbornness would be a drop in an ocean, and if not it would be a twig before a flood. The Armor Absorb is quite competently covered by the leather armor you get by starting with a warrior-primary skill setup - seriously, you need a grand total of 2 AA to negate all nonexotic damage on floor 1, and you start with 1 on your chest. And once again, later on, Armor Absorb from Stubbornness is invisible. In the end, the Burl makes sense to me for an early buff that doesn't tip over later - mag Resist does little early on, but becomes lifeblood later. Thus making Smithing a strong skill all the way through, that rewards you for mastering it, unlike Demonology which punishes you for mastering it, or Unarmed which is sub-par all the way through.

And I had thought about proposing an active skill for Smithing as well....the problem remains the same. If it is a pure positive, it will be pitifully weak in comparison to Evil Chest drops, if it has a negative chance it'll be Krong all over again and thus ignored. If it's repeatable, it's abusable. If it's one-time-per, then it's underpowered. If the crafting system allowed the use of materials to buff gear, that would be a different story - items are finite(aside lockpicks, Butcher-made meat, and spores), and this puts in a self-limiting cap. And I'd MUCH rather spend hours polishing, refining, cleaning, and honing my trusty dual Katanas to make them sharper than an eagle's claw, swifter than a whispered rumor, and lighter than death...instead of picking some random stick out of a dirty chest of Evil. It allows the player to become attached to ALL of the character - and thus makes them work harder to keep the character and the trusty boots they've been wearing since DL2 safe. It would also make EVERY piece of gear viable in some way or other - I could easily see having used Stiletto Boots the whole way through if they could be upgraded, but they can't be without risking making them detriments via Krong.

 

Maybe the ability to remove some corruption at the cost of a bunch of reagents?

 

I can see Blacksmiths getting better stat bonuses, and . But doesn't make any sense at all from a flavor perspective (and a humor perspective- that part is important too.) One of the beautiful things about DoD is how perfectly everything fits mechanically and flavorfully. Giving smithing a bonus that makes no sense flavor-wise is not a good solution. Do warriors need something to go against corruption? Yes. But I like Insanius idea better, if that ability has to be a part of blacksmithing.

Here's something I've always wondered. Why can't blacksmiths break items down and reclaim the ingredients in them?

Unlike most of the crafting skills in the game, blacksmiths work with very durable materials. I'd like to be able to melt down a suit of iron armor I'm not using and get ore for steel or crossbow bolts, or just to sell. After all, even the most dedicated melee fighter uses his bow from time to time. Even without Tinkering, he might want to lay in a large stock of ammo. If nothing else, this would help with that.

 

I agree with Snktch.. except for the +50, why not just have an ability to remove corruption to the smithing tree, or add a passive that only resists corruption. Another idea would be to add corruption resistance to (in a way that scaled better, since warriors seem to get more anyways, and need it the most.), and add a point or two per level for Smithing. I am not sure about the free buffs/ enchants though.. but if you could only add a few enchantment types, and only enchant each piece of gear a few times.. it would partially solve the problem with most gear being far better than almost anything craftable, since you could at least improve that gear some.

One other thing I would change, is a buff to anything that needs a crafting recipe since it is like finding a rare loot drop, and should be comparable to other rare loot drops (comparable to early game loot drops.. obviously late game loot drops would out class them, unless they were horribly rare), or the option to craft from memory like you could do before so that you can get guaranteed items early on.. which is one of the main reason to take crafting anyways.

Edits are blue

 

We already have one skill whose sole purpose is the removal of corruption. It's in Demonology, requires you to take a permanent -8 Righteous resist penalty, spend 6 skill points, takes 72 turns to recharge, has a massive -4 to all prime stat debuff that lasts 100 turns for using it....and removes ONE. Corruption. At. A. Time. Flames Of The Heckforge - http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/#2112

So I don't see Smithing getting something much better in terms of utility - that is the baseline, because otherwise Flames Of The Heckforge ends up looking lamer than it already does(and that's impressive). Further, the idea of adding Mag Resist is not JUST based off avoiding corruption - it's based off surviving ranged mob barrages and your own AoE throawble/bolt spam in zoo situations, plus giving Smithing SOMETHING, ANYthing that makes it remotely comprable to Tinkering and Alchemy. They BOTH have huge advantages - their durable crafts are MILES better than Smithing, Tinkering gives quite literally 13 more stat points than Smithing does plus a craftable that adds on 2 more, and in stats ALL characters want - trap sight and trap skill. Alchemy gives the gem shuffle, which Smithing often finds desperately needy. Alchemy has minimal chokepoints in its one-time craft trees - you need to find the recipe for Metal orby Staff to get to Jingly Jangly, and you need the recipe for the Fruitful Staff. Both start not only with all possible kits they may need, but some free materials as well. Tinkering gets 9 components, tinker parts, ingot press, and grinder. Alchemy gets alchemy box, still, grinder, 3 Aqua Vitae, 3 Aqua Regia, 6 reageants, and a free potion. Smithing gets....press and anvil. No grinder - gotta find one to make cheesy omlettes, and unlike the press, which Alchemy doesn't start with, there ARE NO FIXED ROOMS THAT GIVE IT. No reageants of any kind, either. EVERYTHING is stacked in favor of the other two skilltrees..heck, even Wand Lore comes out decent in comparison - it gives mana plus a rarely-resisted damage (Aetherial), plus one of the more favored ways to terminate Dredmor without risk. I wouldn't be averse to adding new recipes, mind. It's just that to compete with Evil Chest loot, you're looking at providing a recipe for an artifact with an ilevel close to 50. I'm pretty sure Gaslamp won't do that - not without making it a crapshoot to ever get, which hurts Smithing a lot more than either of the other trees. Tinkering can thrive on just basic recipes for bolts and throwables - concussion bombs alone are a zookiller, acid and poison bottle bolts are just icing. Alchemy survives on just basic recipes easily - healing and mana are both already there, plus the throwables, especially Brimstone flasks. And seriously, what alchemist is gonna waste eggs on omlettes when you can use 2 eggs and 1 plastic ingot and get three of those bad boys, especially considering three is often enough ON THEIR OWN to clear a zoo?

But Smithing makes one-time crafts. Its durables are hands-down the worst - Nzappa Zapps and throwing axes do 10 damage plus melee power and take 2 ingots and 2 crafting steps to make 6. Cruelly Barbed Steel Bolts do a base 8, plus up to 20 from a Clockwork Bolt-Thrower...plus any enchants on the thrower, and they CAN drop from Evil chests. And you get 13 per single steel ingot. Even if you go down to iron, you only lose 2 damage off the bolt - and STILL get bow bonuses. Considering capping out a melee specialist - using two mod-based skill trees that are quite probably far more powerful than any base skill tree - gave me 32 melee power, you'd think it would be somewhat close to even. Except I found 2 Steel Recurve and 2 Clockwork Bolt Throwers that ALL had damage buffs in the 30s, PLUS various other statbuffs. Not even POSSIBLE to come close to a base 58 damage with throwing weapons - yeah, Tinkering and Alchemy would be using the same toys in that situation, but they'd also get benefits from their craft skill, either in AoE killing tools or trap management. Smithing gets ...actually, my math was off earlier - if you go STRICTLY by the buffs given and don't count base level boosts, Smithing gives ONE melee power...and 2 HP. About what Berzerker gives, minus the procs, resistances, and active skill. And since Smithing makes one-time crafts, they get hit a LOT harder by the "recipe lotto" issue - you NEED to make stuff early to have it be worthwhile to make. Mega Crafts mod added in more levels of stuff and recipes for Doul's, the Asgaardian Stormhammer, etc. - and they're USELESS, because the first place you can encounter the +2 buff craft rooms is on DL12. By which time you're already finding Lirpas with ilevels of 25-30 from Evil Chests, as compared to a Doul's with an ilevel of 5. Not to mention the "fun" of not finding the Bolas recipe till DL13, long after I got tired of lugging around 300someodd baseballs and dumped them.

...apologies for the semi-rant. But there are layers and layers of balance at work - warrior vs. mage or rogue, smithing vs. alchemy and tinkering, and melee vs. ranged. Part of the problem is that the game weights so heavily in favor of "open range, open fire", both in terms of hazards faced and resources required. Part of the problem is that warriors are basically penalized for their "non-limited" damage source, even though mages can in reality achieve the same state - with less risk included for free. Rogues are fairly well-balanced - resource depletion is a constant risk, and they're more reliant on luck than mages for their AoE, plus having a narrower margin for error when they DO get hit due to a slightly smaller HP pool than warriors. And part of the problem is that the crafting trees, instead of helping to balance things out, HEIGHTEN the gap.

Flavor is nice. But balance ALWAYS comes first - form follows function, not vice-versa. And roguelikes CAN be level across the classes - the Diablo series is basically a graphical upgrade of Nethack with a softener added, specifically the standard mass-market "the game wants you to win" design principle. But the core is still the same - and in Diablo 2 at least, Barbarians, Paladins, wereform Druids, etc. were just as viable as Sorceresses and necromancers. All skills should have value. At the moment, Smithing does not. Yes, mag Resist isn't "flavorful" per se -though Krong could dole out a bit of help to his faithful, I'm sure. But it IS needed for warriors - and unless you want to salt it throughout ALL the warrior skill trees(a decent idea except it's not flavorful and places restrictions on how one levels if one wishes to be a melee specialist), it has to be concentrated in one place. At the moment, that place is Demonology, in a sustained skill that costs mana, and prevents you from moving. Unless you're advocating that all warriors take Demonology for the mag resist and Alchemy or Blood Mage or Vampirism or Ley Walker to keep up with the constant usage - or stockpile booze and thus cramp their inventory even more - and then force-focus on Righteous resist to overcome the negatives the later levels of Demonology give(requiring Archaeology to reroll artifacts or insane luck with Krong or modded skill trees), it needs to be in something warriors have a use for and aren't penalized for advancing - or even having, since Demonology is a rogue skill and thus hurts melee power, mag resist, and HP progression. Smithing covers both angles...if it wasn't so useless as it is.

 

Mind the double post, but I had to mention: Magic Resist is already the sole source of Corruption resist - and magic resist comes at the rate of 1 per 2 Stubbornness, thus your idea is already implemented. Just in a way that scales extremely poorly - as I noted in the anecdote about my warrior with 87 mag Resist, 40! of that came from 2 modded trees - the remainder came from berzerker's Ancestral body paint, a Time Lord's Scarf with 6, dribs and drabs of 1 and 2 on other items...and 75 Stubbornness. Sans that 40 from QiGong and Bushido, I'd have been hurting badly - as it was, for some reason every time I failed the resist roll, it was always the Rocket Boots that got hit with it.

 

That skill in Demonologist is also notoriously bad, and Demonologist is generally a tree people agree isn't really worth taking much further than Celestial Circle. Obviously giving one tree something would warrant giving the other something else. Besides, Blacksmithing's version of it would also come at a cost. Celestial Circle alone is better than the entire Blacksmithing tree so something needs to be done for it. The ideal is something that adds both flavor and balance, not just throwing a ridiculously fat bone for an archetype that's a little too weak.

 

*nod* Oh, I agree - but as yet, there isn't a detailed suggestion on the table that has both balance and flavor - and the world is far, far from ideal. When possible, flavor is good - but if flavor and balance are in conflict, balance wins. So, flesh out your "smith gets a corruption remover" idea, and let's hammer out a compromise

 

I really do feel that 'The Heck Forge' is vastly underpowered especially since it is an end tree skill, and comes with several huge debuffs. I would suggest that smithing gets a craftable that removes all corruption on an item (default recipe, it could have semi-rare ingredients for balance), and 'The Heck Forge' is changed to something far more useful, and deserving of the massive stat debuffs. Something that actually is worth getting every skill level in the tree maybe?

If 50 were added to smithing, then I would take it with nearly every character.. easily. Maybe just a bigger health boost, more resistances or an ability/ craftable that resists ranged damage. Perhaps a few craftable items should be added/ changed that have reasonable , instead of giving a raw boost to the tree?

 

This isn't a "first fleshed out idea, no matter how ridiculous, goes live!" kind of deal. Melee and Smithing are both weak, but there are some solutions here that don't involve giving a character hundreds of levels in free late game stats bolstered by superior early game armor.

The problems with melee are many, but not all of them necessarily need to be resolved for them to be on equal ground. I personally think a rework of the Crit mechanic and how it overrides all of the avoidance stats would go a long way towards making melee-heavy builds more practical. Better access to self-healing that scales and isn't gimped by your armor would be helpful. Corruption is an old-school mechanic that I honestly think wouldn't be so bad if melee were stronger and if the mobs that had them were less common (looking at you, Blob of Corruption).

Smithing provides a lot of easily accessible tanky stats early game. New, stronger late game recipes would go far in helping it out. It could also benefit from having better consumables for ingots once you're done making the equipment the tree provides; Tinkering and Alchemy stay relevant this way. Corruption removing items with a very heavy reagent cost could be one. I don't know if we have the tech for it, but maybe an item that lets you "enchant" an armor piece with an additional resistance stat would be helpful.

 

Blacksmithing has a function. To make you things. Not to give you or to protect you or those things once they're made. You're the one deviate from function here, not me.

I'm not arguing that balance should be sacrificed for flavor. You're putting words in my mouth. The problem is, you've zeroed in on one skill that is a very, very poor choice for finding the balance you want.

Berzerking was a good choice for and it was well implemented. I think we could make life easier for warriors by giving something similar to the Master of Arms tree (perhaps sacrificing some of the tree's which is less useful once most enemies start throwing gobs of elemental damage at you) or maybe even making a dedicated Unmagicking tree.

(Level one - bonuses, Level Two - skill that lets you place or throw an Antimagic trap/field, Level Three - A little more plus a buff that gives you resistances to the more common elements like fire and cold, Level Four- Some other cool activated skill (maybe a Corruption killer that requires a reagent?), Level Five - A bonus to and a buff for resisting the rare elements like existentialism.)

The question here is, "how do we make crafting skills better crafting skills?" not "how to we solve the problem with warriors being underpowered?" Once upon a time Blacksmithing wasn't even a warrior skill, but it was still worth taking for the bonuses it gave you. Burl is a useful stat. It sets your hit points, so more is always good. It improves your melee damage, which everyone uses at some point or another- even mages at early levels. Yes, Blacksmithing needs some more crafts to bump it up to the usefulness of the other crafting skills. Some sort of a resource reclamation skill like I mentioned before would be rather nice too. I can see being a onetime bonus too. But giving it a ton more passive bonuses will not a balanced skill make.

As for the difficulty with finding a recipe, why not just give a person a random recipe from the craftables list every time they level up, so they will at least get some cool stuff. Maybe you could get two or three recipes when you master the tree.

 

What about...

• New ability for Level 5 Smithing: Beat out the Corruption
  • Removes 1 corrupted stat
  • 99 turn cooldown
• Changed ability for Level 7 Demonologist: Flames of the Heckforge
  • Removes 1 krong cursed stat
  • 99 turn cooldown + debuff
• New equipment improvement recipes for Smithing:
  • 1 x Equipment + 3 x Improvement Material = 1 x Improved Equipment
  • Can only improve equipment once, any subsequent improvements replace your old ones
  • Improvement Materials and the added stats you get per improved equipment:
    • Copper: 2
    • Iron: 4
    • Silver: 4
    • Electrum: 4
    • Bronze: 3
    • Brass: 2
    • Gold: 2
    • Aluminium: 3
    • Emerald: 2
    • Aquamarine: 2
    • Ruby: 2
    • Sapphire: 2
    • Diamond: 2
    • Citrine: 2
    • etc.

 

Not sure the game tracks the difference between corruption and Krong curses. But I love the idea of enhancing a piece of equipment once. As an added incentive to max the skill, maybe you would have to have a Smithing skill rank equal to half the item's * rating?

 

Pretty sure a Dev mentioned that the game tracked negative Krongs, positive Krongs, and negative Corruption (de-)buffs separately (though I may be wrong). Anyways, I really love alot of the ideas mentioned, and hope the devs take some significant inspiration from this thread ^^

 

I really like J-factors suggestion, a lot.

edit: Also, game does track pos/neg Krongs, it has to in order for it to track the achievements for Krongs on Steam. or at least, using the logic that an achievement knows if you've been blessed and cursed by Krongs, the game must track it as well.

 

While I like the distinction in J-factor's post, I'd prefer to see the two swapped in terms of Smithing vs. Demonology. If Smithing could remove Krong curses, it would fit with Smithing relating to the Anvil of Krong, while Demonology gains a tool to combat its opponents by removing their curses.

 

It's a case of theme vs balance.

Thematically, sure, it goes better with Smithing. Balance-wise, removing Krong curses is a much more powerful effect than removing Corruption. I put it at the end of Demonology to justify the massive hit you take.

 

1: change Beat Out to "removes ALL corruption from an artifact" and deal. Waiting 1200 turns per item per corruption-critter-containing level is not my idea of fun.
2: Make it "remove 1 full negative Krong" and make it once-per-item, and it's groovy - this would actually give people reasons to Krong actual gear instead of trash gear at least a few times, with a "one-time" fix for when the streak breaks.
3: A fair idea - my preference would be to make it repeatable and halve the buffs granted, to be in line with Alchemy's "every iron ingot is always useful forever" precedent, and there would have to be a new UI to support it. That way, you don't have to save a billion ingots for the last dungeon level and THEN buff the best gear - you can build your own and make an equal to Evil Chest gear over time. Also would give a use to the currently useless gems.

Also a good idea. RE your preference for resource reclamation and more high-level smithing crafts, I can also understand that. But unless those high-level crafts are the equal of Evil Chest gear, they are useless. As would be reclamation without recipes worthy of re-using the materials on - at the moment, the sole reason to take Smithing with a reclamation ability would be to feed Alchemy and Tinkering from found non-enchanted junk. Given that the best weapon craftable right now is ilevel 7, requires rare reageants, and requires winning the recipe lottery, do you really see them giving us access to ilevel 30 or more recipes without at least that much difficulty?

 

There's a significant problem with the improvement recipes - the current crafting system makes it difficult if not impossible to implement properly. And I for one don't want to scroll through 100-odd duplicate recipes just to find the one that applies to my item.
That's the main reason I didn't suggest anything like that, actually. Under the previous Horadric Cube-ish system it would have been fine.