I seem to notice that my repair hammers break more often when i am stealthed, is this true, or did I just get unlucky with my repairing those two or three times I was stealthed? If it is true, then what other actions make it harder to use repair hammers (like being over-encoumbered, for example). Thanks

Here's what we know about repairing and the armorer skill: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Armorer

To the best of my knowledge, there seems to be some randomness to breaking repair hammers. It doesn't seem to be related to anything other than, well, randomness. I know it can be frustrating sometimes when a repair hammer lasts for quite awhile, then it seems you break 3 of them with 5 hits. Lol.

And from what I've noticed about Randomness in this game it seems to come in blocks of the same event happening rather than each event being random !

It sounds that like myself, you have experienced picking 7 wisp stalks in a row, then been frustrated by the next ten. :foodndrink:

Because of things like this I use a mod that confers a 100% chance to pick alchemical ingredients, and I created one that makes repair hammers more durable. The latter is very handy as you can actually hotkey your hammer, since it will last a while.

Yeah well im on vanilla anyway. Also, I don't like to use cheats or mods until I beat a game (or in this case, get very familiar with the game because I know there is no end.)

I've found, that if I repair my gear slow and steady, instead of furiously spamming the repair button as I do when I am a Master Armorer, that I seem to break less. I know it's random, but this method at least seems to work out well.

I've noticed this too. As for randomness, in reality there is no such thing when it comes to software/ randomness program algorithms (it's "simulated"). Most random algorithms could be based on a clock too, so that could explain long stretches of success or failure.

Good software randomness algorithms are good enough for legal gambling. Yes it has been issues then you use lots of random data in statistic, however if you only have success/ fail as options you will get long series of 0 and 1 just as then you flip a coin lots of times and mark the result.

At the start of the game, or at other times when hammers are scarce, I tend to quicksave, repair, and then reload if I break a hammer. It's a lot easier to just buy a ton of hammers, but when that's not an option, I don't like being left without a hammer.

If your resto skill is good enough, you can boost your armorer up to 100. Doing so actually gives you the 'hammer lasts forever' perk as long as the spell is in effect. Since time freezes while you are repairing, such a spell only needs to last a couple seconds. The problem here of course, is that by the time you have the resto skill to pull this off, often times your armorer skill is getting pretty darn good. That is, it probably can't help early in the game when you would really need it. :dance: