Suggestion : Masterwork crafted items.
There has been some pretty fierce discussion recently on needs/wants/desires/crafting/decay, etcetera.
During said discussions, I read someone's post about masterwork items. I liked the idea, so I hijacked it. I added my flavor to it and stuck it in another post. Now after a while I've had more ideas, and I would like folks to comment on a masterwork concept, revised :P
When a crafter who can make weapons, tools, jewelry, armor, or spells reaches lvl 100, he can go on a quest to gain the ability to make ONE sort of masterwork item. That's it, just one. Players need not choose a masterwork class immediately upon reaching their first lvl 100 class, they can do the quest at any time, provided that they do it when they are active as a lvl 100 crafter that can make techable items.
HZ has the services of a great quest designer, so I'll not try to steal his thunder
After completing the quest, the crafter can now create masterworks in his chosen specialty. Chain armor, hide armor, shields, piercing weapons, 2h blunt weapons, 1h slashing, strength jewelry, dexterity jewelry, blight spells, cold spells, etcetera. Fairly specific classes of items, but not extremely specific.
Creating a masterwork weapon would require a huge amount of components, and many many different types of components. A sample recipe :
Masterwork short sword :
1) perfect short sword
2) 1 soul shard
3) 10 blight cores
4) 50 bright essence
5) Adamantium rune stylus
6) Scroll of soul binding (bought from vendor)
7) materials for up to three techs
The perfect short sword would have it's own recipe
1) 500 Mithril bars
2) 100 Adamantium bars
3) 50 hide strips
4) 200 silver bars
5) 100 gold bars
6) 50 bright essence
7) 50 Ironsilk
8) blah blah
You get the idea. The actual masterwork would be created in two (or more?) steps. The first step(s) could be completed anywhere appropriate to that type item. The last step MUST be completed at a capital city forge, or perhaps some special location related to the masterwork quest itself. The scroll mentioned in the first recipe could be anything, so long as it is vendor bought, and not cheap.
Creating the item would have a 100% success rate, but would require a 5 minute timer (with comments like the test of strength, heh), and have a 24 hour cool down (or more?)
Upon completion, the masterwork has a strange appearance, but would appear (statwise) to be just a normal triple teched item with slightly better than normal damage. BUT when the intended user (MUST be lvl 100 in a class appropriate to the item) wields it (or scribes it), there is a verification box [You feel as if something is trying to bind to your soul, are you sure you wish to continue?] If yes, there is a massive ingame flash around the character (lots of fireworks) and the masterwork would modify it's stats, randomly increasing it's already superior damage, and adding a additional (different) tech based off the skillset of the character wielding it. The item would also bind to you, and could only be stored in your vault, or on your person, or some other location where it is impossible for another to damage it or delete it somehow.
Masterworks have a certain lifetime, but they only count down when equipped (and the player is in-game). When the lifetime of the masterwork runs out, a message appears telling the player something like [the soul imbued in your masterwork <x> has been fading for some time, and has become too faint to be effective any longer] there is then a 5 minute timer bar like a breath bar that appears on your screen. When that timer is gone, the masterwork becomes a very valuable hoard item.
This could also be done with spells, but one would have to create a spell scroll and then drag and drop it onto a hotkey like tools or weapons. When the masterwork spell expires, it becomes a hoardable item, instead of simply fading from memory.
There would be no recharging of masterwork items. They are designed to be status symbols, useful items, and fluff all rolled into one. With a significant charge for the vendor bought item required to make the masterwork, it could be a fair money sink too.
And there was much tweaking and changing of ideas, lol
So what do you folks think?
