graceful smithing (for the singing smith)

[taptap]

It occured to me this morning, that playing smithing with separate phases of "smithing kit" acquirement and applying smithing kit to get overpowered artefacts, may not be the best or at least easiest way to smith. A simple event like losing 1 or 2 forges at the end (or not finding them) may completely change the balance of such a build. However, what if a smithing kit consists mainly of grace boosting items of maybe less overall smithiness and slightly less overpowered but perfectly suited as endgame equipment on a song, perception and / or will heavy build the build will be much more robust to missing out on forges and much smoother in power development. what do you say?

[BlueFish]

I guess I'm not sure what a "smithing kit" is, beyond maybe forge gloves for smiths who start out with enchantment. I don't use any sort of kit myself beyond my substantial initial exp investment in smithing and smithing abilities.

[taptap]

Originally Posted by BlueFish

I guess I'm not sure what a "smithing kit" is, beyond maybe forge gloves for smiths who start out with enchantment. I don't use any sort of kit myself beyond my substantial initial exp investment in smithing and smithing abilities.

It used to be 2 +4 smithing hammers with an ability, forge gloves, Maeglins armour in the endgame + every scrap of grace available. See for example: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15098

[debo]

I'm pretty sure elliptic has a bunch of smithing characters who got a billion grace and a couple of base smithing artefacts -- might want to dig through his chardumps to check.

[taptap]

Originally Posted by debo

I'm pretty sure elliptic has a bunch of smithing characters who got a billion grace and a couple of base smithing artefacts -- might want to dig through his chardumps to check.

elliptic has so many winners that it is hard to spot (who had this grace skills only challenge char recently?)

[BlueFish]

Originally Posted by taptap

It used to be 2 +4 smithing hammers with an ability, forge gloves, Maeglins armour in the endgame + every scrap of grace available. See for example: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15098

Wasn't that pre-smithing nerf though? I don't know what a viable smithing kit might be these days. Closest I've ever come is to make an artifact smithing hammer with Enchant and +2 smithing on it, in a game where I was finding forges all over the place.

[debo]

+4 hammer with stuff on it is still viable, you just can't dual-wield them anymore (rip)

[BlueFish]

Originally Posted by debo

+4 hammer with stuff on it is still viable, you just can't dual-wield them anymore (rip)

Remember smithing costs were raised since then, too. A +4 hammer with Enchant on it costs 31 now. That's a difficult mark to hit.

10 smithing
5 grace
3 gloves
5 aule
3 enchanted forge

Even that's only 26... you'd need the artifact crown and/or armor (neither of which can be crafted) I think to be able to create that hammer.

Smithing is way more fun that it is powerful, to me at least. The one or two players who min/maxed it in version 1.0 (before my time) had long lasting design effects on it.

[Infinitum]

Or you could just add a curse of Danger. Voila, +4 Smithing Hammer of Enchantment at the low, low cost of 26 Smithing and imminent doom. Of course, 50' danger is more of a concern in the midlevels, by the time you want Masterpiece or whatever you should be able to handle 1000' wandering monsters just fine. I've lost plenty prospective Smiths to premature Kemenraukar/Cats though.

EDIT: As for the original proposal, not really sure how that'd work out tbh - you'd need at least 15 or so native Smithing as well as Armorer, Jeweller and Enchantment (or Artifice I suppose) in order to end up with what amounts to a +1 amulet, crown and light (+2 items would in likelihood be out of reach without a smithing kit). That's a lot of xp invested in getting ok midgame equipment.

[Scatha]

I guess this old character of mine is in roughly the mold you are suggesting?
http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=14647