Known for their Quality.

[LoD]

I was perusing the documentation for the Great Merchant Houses, when I came across this statement:

Salarri smiths are considered the finest in Zalanthas and their blades and armors are highly sought after by nearly every organization in the Known World.

I'll spare you my thought process, but it led to pondering the pros and cons of introducing another weapon/armor factor into their creation: quality.

Quality

I'd be interested to see how creating quality types for weapon and armor objects would effect the origin of ther purchase.  Let us take four levels of quality to apply to the creation process, and current state, of weapons and armor in game; superior, good, average, and poor.  These different levels of quality could effect a variety of factors on a given weapon or piece of armor, such as Durability, Weight/Balance, Value, and Craftmanship.  

Listing all of these out would take too much time, but here are a few examples of how I see this making an impact:

Durability

What initially caught my attention when I read the quote above was the reference to Salarri weapons being, "...highliy sought after..." by nearly everyone who had a business to swing a sword, or be struck by one.  One of the factors that should make a quality weapon is its durability.

Amateur hands and cheap materials should yield poor quality weapons, and I think it would be interesting to see that more aggressively demonstrated within the game.  Here are some suggestions on how durability would be effected by the different levels of quality:

Weapons[/i]

Superior
Almost no chance of breaking under extreme blows.  (1%)
Missile weapons have high chance of surviving impact.  (50%)

Good
Low chance of breaking under extreme blows. (5%)
Missle weapons have fair chance of surviving impact.  (25%)

Average
Average chance of breaking under extreme blows. (20%)
Missile weapons have low chance of surviving impact.  (5%)

Poor
High chance of breaking under extreme blows. (50%)
Missile weapons have no chance of surviving impact. (0%)

Weight/Balance

Weight and balance are cruicial to both the swing of a weapon, and the fall of a hauberk about your body.  Having something made by an experienced craftsman will make a world of difference in the final application.  Think about putting on a 60 lb suit of chain mail that's too big for your body frame and made with a common, heavier type of metal.

Every swing takes more energy, every step adds more weight, the fall of the shirt over your body might displace weight in unhealthy locations.  It's important that a weapon or piece of armor be made from quality materials with proper training not only to be effective, but to avoid being counterproductive.  Here's an example:

Armor[/i]

Superior
Lower weight due to quality craftsmanship. (-25% base weight)

Good
Low weight and a good fit across the body. (-10% base weight)

Average
Medium weight and an average fit across the body. (base weight)

Poor
High weight due to poor design and craftsmanship. (+25% base weight)

Assessing Quality

The quality of a given item would be apparent upon inspection, and could be intergrated into the assess -v command.

Code Select Expand

>assess -v sword
a bone longsword is a slashing weapon.
a bone longsword could be worn upon the back.
a bone longsword is of good quality.
There's nothing strange about a bone longsword.

Obviously there are many other pros and cons that one could attach to the different levels of quality which would make one's investment in a quality weapon to have very real and tangible results.  

Whether this idea would require too much time and effort to implement (as it would likely effect every weapon or piece of armor) is a main point of concern, but I think any kind of implementation of this kind would make for an interesting change to how people view the items they purchase.

-LoD

[Bushranger]

In my experience, and to the best of my understanding, this is already incorporated into the game world. Some weapons last longer, are more easily able to resist breaking and, probably, swing better. It isn't listed anywhere standard, but can only really be appreciated through long process of trial.

compare (totally made up example):
A bone-hilted obisian knife
An obsidian knife with a bone hilt

The first might be better made, allowing it to break less often than the second, thus has your quality 'Good' while the second may only be of 'Poor' quality even though they look quite similar.

Only experience handling both weapons would indicate this, and this is how it should be in my opinion. I'd rather not see quality listed along with uses (You can skin with this, you can wear this on your belt, you can stab with this - all detail what you can do, not how good this is)

[Slime]

It'd be an effort to implement, but I like it.
EDIT: This post was made without noticing the ninja reply above it.

[Gimfalisette]

Bushranger, in your example, you cite two -different- weapons. What LoD is talking about is the same weapon, or piece of armor, but crafted to different levels of excellence.

I would LOVE to see this in game. I've played crafter in systems where a good crafter, who cared to make good stuff, could make a real difference in the end quality of his/her items. And it's -so- much more satisfying to be a crafter under those circumstances. Currently ARM's crafting system only allows crafters to distinguish themselves by the -variety- of items they can make (and failure rate in making those items, but failure rate doesn't matter much to the customer). And if you and I both know how to make the same bone-handled obsidian knife, it doesn't matter that you've spent 10 days of playtime crafting more than I have...we make the knife to exactly the same quality level.

Also, why shouldn't an experienced crafter be able to tell the difference in quality between items? It's not reasonable to think that only use of an item will tell whether it's better or not. People who make stuff for a living know when the kind of things they make are better-crafted. They can look and see, tell by subtle differences. Currently, if you want to roleplay a weaponsmith but you haven't handled all the weapons...or any of them...you have no clue as to which things are better, and no way to figure it out unless you want to take up combat for a long, long time. And from a "how reality works" standpoint, that's fairly unrealistic...smiths in the real world haven't needed to devote themselves to combat in order to become better smiths.

I love crafting systems where quality matters. Such systems are much more exciting and meaningful for dedicated crafters.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I'd even go farther and give high-quality weapons (marginal) bonuses to hit and damage.

Love this idea.

[Dalmeth]

Personally, I think more items should be made with the same ingredients, many of those items coming as the crafter increases their skills.

The fact is that the difference between a quality made item and a poorly made is that they are entirely different items.  The handle might be cut differently, or an entirely different method was used to make the blade.

Instead of making some grade system, add more items.  The more the merrier, I say.

[jstorrie]

I support crafters and experienced users of weapons or armor being able to determine which piece is superior to another, both in the general sense 'this piece is of superior craftsmanship' and by comparing one item to another of its type.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Personally, I think more items should be made with the same ingredients, many of those items coming as the crafter increases their skills.

The fact is that the difference between a quality made item and a poorly made is that they are entirely different items.  The handle might be cut differently, or an entirely different method was used to make the blade.

Instead of making some grade system, add more items.  The more the merrier, I say.

That would be fine... if there was any real way to tell whether or not one weapon is better or not.

[Dresan]

This along with a skill called compare to inorder to compare two different pieces of armour, weapons etc etc...would be sweet.

[Vessol]

Dresan's idea is pretty good to be blunt, could be given to warriors also because they would be able to tell if a certain sword would be better than another.

[Kelamson]

I actually started coding something like this for another MUD a few years back. The main ideas were:

1. Each item has a quality value (in my case it was a seperate attribute and rated as a percentage.

2. The durability of an item is modified by the quality (roughly Normal Durability x (Quality/250 + 0. giving a range from 80% to 120% of normal.

3. The attacks for a weapon were modified with the damage getting around half the modifier above and 'to hit' having its own table with slight modifiers.

4. Quality along with material determines item saving throws (although I don't know if Arm has these) at an about equal ratio.

If this were to come in to Arm I'd think that quality should be judged by value, since this is the most appropriate skill, athough compare should certainly give a comparison between two weapons. The latter wouldn't tell you their quality, just their relative merits, so comparing a 80% item with a 60% item give a similar result to comparing a 40% item with a 20% item.... assuming it's linear as suggested above.

And yes, the quality should be modified by how much the craft roll is made by. Items have a base quality level, so a weapon that is meant to be made only by master smiths it always high quality ... assuming you're good enough to make it at all.