And here is the Forging revamp!

Both Forging itself and weapon stats have changed a lot, so this post is
going to carefully outline what has been changed. There is a lot to
cover, so this will be a very long post. Sorry!



TO-HIT
------
The first thing you will notice about weapon stats is that to-hit has
been removed, replaced by Penetration (covered later). This means that
weapon attacks will never miss EXCEPT if you have the blurry_vision or
clumsiness afflictions, which give you 30% chance to miss each. The
opponent can still dodge your attack with Avoidance dodging, however.


PENETRATION
-----------
Penetration replaces to-hit. A weapon's penetration determines how much
of the enemy's armour (NOT resists) that weapon attack will ignore.


WEAPON GROUPS
-------------
Weapons are now broken down into one of five groups: Small Blades, Small
Bludgeons, Thrown, Large Blades (includes polearms), and Large
Bludgeons.

Weapon potential is now based around what group that weapon is in,
rather than what weapon it actually is. E.g. any weapon in the small
blades group can achieve the same speed as a rapier. This effectively
means that different weapons inside a group are purely for aesthetics.


STATS
-----
This is where it might get confusing at first.

All weapons now have a stat range of 1 through to 200. However, what the
value means in terms of benefit differs based on what group the weapon
is in. That is, a 'small blade' with a speed of 100 will have a
completely different balance usage to a 'large blade' of speed 100.

The rate of benefit a weapon stat now gives you decreases as you move
further away from 100. For example, a speed of 100 means the weapon is
50% of the way to hitting its speed cap, a speed of 115 gives you 66.2%
(+16.2%), and a speed of 130 gives you 79.4% (+13.2%).

A stat of 180 is the maximum you can get through pure Forging alone. To
hit the cap of 200, you'd need a stat boosting artifact.


TEMPLATES
---------
When forging, you can specify a template that your
weapons/armour/shields will adhere to for its starting stats. These
templates are unlocked as your Forging skillrank increases more.


FORGING
-------

For weapons/armour/shields the Forging process is as follows:

First, FORGE <template> <object>

Then you can TEMPER (see below) the item up to six times for weapons and
five times for armour/shields.


For anything else, simply:

FORGE <object>


Please be aware that items you are forging will go straight to your
inventory, and be worked on from your inventory as well.


TEMPER
------
After the initial forging, you can TEMPER the item to increase its
stats.

* For Weapons *

TEMPER <weapon> FOR <DAMAGE|PENETRATION|SPEED>
TEMPER <weapon>

Weapons can be tempered up to six times. You can either focus your
tempering on a specific stat, which increases that one greatly and
decreases the other two. Or, you can just temper without targetting a
stat, which increases all the stats, but nowhere near as much as a
targetted temper would.


* For Armour and Shields *

TEMPER <armour> FOR <BLUNT|CUTTING>
TEMPER <armour>

Armour can be tempered up to five times. Both targetted and untargetted
tempering will increase both stats. A targetted temper will increase one
stat by a lot, the other stat by a little. Untargetted will increase
both stats somewhere in between that.


CUSTOMIZATION
-------------
You can now customize your forgings! Creating a design works exactly the
same as any other crafting skill. You can pick up base designs from
Thrummal's shop just outside Delos.

To customize a forging, simply CUSTOMISE <item> AS DESIGN <#>.


SHIELDS
-------
All shield types now share the same potential, meaning that what shield
type you use is purely for aesthetics. In addition, shields no longer
affect your dodging and diverting rates.


ARTIFACT SHIELDS
----------------
Will still exist. However all the artifact shields will have their stats
boosted to match the artifact tower shield, as per the change to normal
shields.


ARTIFACT WEAPONS
----------------
Artifact weapons are no longer going to exist in this new system. Full
credit refunds will be given to anyone who owns an artifact weapon
currently. Yes, this means no more non-decaying weapons.

I am not going to outright delete the weapons. They will still exist,
just no longer as an artifact. They will decay eventually.


ARTIFACT ARMOUR
---------------
Artifact armour also no longer exists in this new system. Full credit
refunds will be given to anyone who owns artifact armour currently. Yes,
this means no more non-decaying armour.

I am not going to outright delete the armour. They will still exist,
just no longer as an artifact. They will decay eventually.


AMULET OF PROTECTION
--------------------
The amulet of protection can now be worn while you are wearing armour.
However, while wearing armour, the amulet will only count as 10/10
armour. It remains unchanged for those not wearing armour.


FORGING HAMMER
--------------
The Forging Hammer no longer increases the maximum stats your Forgings
can achieve, however it will greatly reduce the effects of the RNG. This
will not stack with the Apprentice/Master skills in Forging, but it does
stack with racial ability.



IMPROVED FORGING (racial ability)
---------------------------------
This ability no longer increases the maximum stats your Forgings can
achieve, but it will reduce the effects of the RNG.


BOWS
----
Remain entirely unchanged for now. Artifact bows still exist.


DIRKS, DSTAB AND ARTI DIRKS
--------------------------
Artifact dirks are also being refunded. DSTAB now incorporates weapon
speed into how much balance it uses.


WEAPON ARTIFACT POWERS
----------------------
These are turning into runes, which you can attach to a weapon. When
that weapon decays or is destroyed, the runes will return to your
inventory. However, once attached, they cannot be removed until the
weapon is destroyed.

We will also be releasing runes to increase the stats upon your weapon
by +6/+12/+18 for 200/400/800 credits each.

Runes will be released in a few days, after we've had time to make sure
the weapon/forging system is working correctly.



EXISTING WEAPONS/ARMOUR
-----------------------
Any existing weapons and armour (including the now non-artifact artifact
ones) have had their stats set to the base amount you get from Forging.
As such, you can get a forger to temper them appropriately, without the
entire item having to be recreated.


---------------------------------------

Obviously this is a lot of changes, so for the next few days you might
notice your damage and speed changing a lot as we try to iron out any
kinks that pop up. Some classes (Carnifex) will be getting additional
changes once the dust on the system has settled.

There will be a forum thread setup to ask any questions you might have,
so go check it out!


Penned by my hand on the 7th of Ios, in the year 356 MA.