Category Abilities, Skills and Magic (24)
Topic Suggestions -- Tanning (14)
Message Information (527)
By DR-TARRAGON@PLAY.NET (GM Tarragon)
On Oct 26, 2000 at 17:58

Well, I suppose that it is unlikely that any major changes will take place at this point, so I think I can safely impart a few tantalizing tidbits of information about the tanning system.

I'll just talk about armor, since it's the most interesting part of tanning. As you already know, armor will be made with skins and hides. Luckily for those of you like to figure everything out, there are only a dozen or so different skins and hides around the realms. Hopefully this will increase as critters are added to the realms. I say luckily because it means you'll have fewer variables to deal with to do all your min/max calculations. Hopefully I've made it very confusing to do even with that small number. <evil grin>

It has also been previously mentioned that some hides will be "more protective" than other hides, e.g. a goblin skin is not as tough as a gargoyle skin. You will quickly find that there is not one hide that is "best" for everything you want to make. You can't go out and skin whatever is most difficult to skin or kill and assume that now you've got the perfect hide for everything. It might be that crocodile skin is very tough and rigid and thick after being tanned. Thus it might make an excellent helm or breastplate. If you make a suit of leathers, however, you may find that, indeed it is very protective, but you can hardly move and weighs three times what store bought leathers bought. On the other hand, goblin skin might be awfully unprotective, but may make super-light, unhindering armor. Now even those examples are simplified, since it's not as black & white as being more or less protective. Some hides might be better against slice or impact or puncture damage, but worse at another of those three. One might provide slightly better cold damage or less against fire damage.

And you'll just have to figure this out. I'm not giving any extra information about the hides, though that may very well change in the future.

Oh, don't go by the appraised suppleness/hardness of skins, because those values are wrong. I haven't decided yet if I want to fix those, because I'm sure everyone will complain that their crocodile skin used to fit in their quiver and now it doesn't.

And of course you already know that how well you skinned the skin will play a big part. And of course that your skill will, too. If you don't have the skill, it won't make any difference if you're using the most perfect skins in the world. And vice versa, if you have pathetic skins, your armor will end up being pathetic, too.

I guess that's all I will divulge for now. Should be enough to get people thinking, and get the complainers complaining about things they don't like already.

-Tarragon

"It is no disgrace to start all over. It is usually an opportunity." --George M. Adams

Category Abilities, Skills and Magic (24)
Topic Suggestions -- Tanning (14)
Message Re: Information (534)
By DR-TARRAGON@PLAY.NET (GM Tarragon)
On Oct 27, 2000 at 02:47

<<So, are we going to be able to make patchwork armor with bits and pieces of different tanned hides <g>?>> Nope. Much too difficult. You will be appropriately messaged if you try to do this.

<<Also, any chance of having some higher level tough to skin critters that give hides/pelts?>> I think that one or more of the poloh'izh fill this category. Can't remember off the top of my head. And again, I'll be encouraging people making new critters to have skins and hides, and not just eyes and claws and beaks and nostrils and whatnot.

I'm going to give another warning now, too, about the armor patterns you will find in stores and elsewhere. This also applies somewhat to non-armor patterns. You may read the catalog in the tanning supply store and see the following items:

flibbertygibbit leathers pattern

ultracool leathers pattern

uberthief leathers pattern

high-necked leathers pattern

And seeing those, you might say to yourself, "Self, I'd love to walk around in some ultracool leathers. That'd sure be nifty." But woe unto you if you think that! These adjectives are almost entirely for the purpose of distinguishing your patterns and naught else. So if you buy an ultracool leathers pattern, and actually succeed in making a suit of these leathers out of, for example, gargoyle hide, you won't end up with "some ultracool leathers", you're going to end up with "some gargoyle-hide leathers". So if you made all four of those patterns with gargoyle hide, you might end up with the following results:

"some superb gargoyle-hide leathers"

"some gargoyle-hide leathers"

"some rough gargoyle-hide leathers"

"some crude gargoyle-hide leathers"

Or they might all of them turn out as "some gargoyle-hide leathers" depending upon your skill and quality of skins used. There will be no way to tell them apart other than appraising them to see if they cover the same areas and compare the protection offered. I'll say this again, They will all simply be "leathers" without the nifty or boring adjective used on the pattern. I'm just using leathers as an example, but this goes for just about every pattern. You've been given fair warning.

-Tarragon