What will we be able to smith? Armor, or weapons? both?

probably both?

you'll probably be able to fletch your own arrows, too.

My guess is that we'll be able to create any weapon or armor already within the game, albeit with different stats perhaps. The devs may be nice enough to also reserve some models as exclusive for smiths. Don't know about arrows.

I would assume we should consider the smithing skill to be at the very least an extrapolation on what was done with the smith in The Shivering Isles expansion.

Hence I would expect to be able to smith all armor pieces per material class, weaponry of each kind per material class, and arrows per material class. However, with it being confirmed that with PC provided metal more smithing options are available. So perhaps all the formerly useless ore of various kinds we used to find in Oblivion mines will finally be raised to a higher purpose.

I don't think you'll be able to fletch your own arrows. I mean, what would be the point of making arrows more rare if you can just make your own?

to encourage you to make your own?

I like the idea of fletching arrows and smithing armour and weapons. That would be pretty fun :celebration:

Concerning smithing in general, anyone have any ideas on what types of materials we'll be able to craft weapons, armor, and arrows out of? Do you think we'll see any new materials in Skyrim that haven't been used before? And do you think we'll be able to make daedric items through manipulation of daedric souls?

I would like to see daedric armor being only obtainable through a quest-chain that requires high smithing...

or whatever infinity +1 armor ends up on top...

Probably: weapons and armor, not arrows

I am concerned more about the gathering of the materials part of the smithing than what I can actually smith... well maybe not. but if there will be smithing I want to mine the materials as well. to me they go hand in hand. and imo it would be lame if you got iron or whatever from inventory drops from enemies or from dungeon loot.

I'm having doubts about armor, but you guys should check good old http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBUNcRT5RZI For the least of what to expect. (i thought it was amazing at the time i played it)

I don't see how arrows won't be something we can craft. My points why are as follows:

1. We could have arrows smithed from providing a rare material we could gather on our own in SI. I see no reason why Skyrim won't simply expand on this.

2. To those arguing that since Bethesda says arrows will be rarer, they won't be craftable - It makes perfect since to require a heavy emphasis on crafting skill, including your smithing skill, to create arrows, which are otherwise still expensive and hard to find. If you put in the time and effort to craft them, you'll have to forge the arrowheads, possibly acquire the arrow shafts through woodcutting, and perhaps buy/collect feathers for use as the fletching. Not only is this great for RPing, but it puts a hugely practical application to the crafting system, and allows anyone who wants to have a steady supply of good quality arrows to put in the effort and be rewarded well.

Yeah I agree, there's no reason why arrows would not be craftable (is that a word?). Almost every game where you can craft weapons/armour, arrows are included. wouldn't make sense otherwise. Just that the materials to make will be rarer perhaps or some such if they want arrows in general to be rarer.

When you consider that bows can be made, ( i assume they will be), arrows must be as well, because technically bows should take months if not years to make, because they have to be cured, dried, coated in wax etc. But its a game afterall...

In other words, we'll be able to turn Goblins into weapons and armor? That's apparently the main "product" of most mines in OB.

It would be nice to be able to smith your own equipment, especially if it's not done to one extreme or the other:
On the one hand, being able to craft equipment that's still not available in the game world because it hasn't magically appeared when you last levelled up.
On the other hand, not being able to craft weapons and armor until 6 levels after every routine bandit in the game has already discarded theirs in favor of something better.

This has the potential to become something really interesting, or it could be like FO3's funky "schematic" system where you collect a bunch of junk, click a button, and it swaps some of that junk for something totally bizarre. I'm definitely hoping for a more "craftsman" feel to it, not an "instant magic with a hammer and anvil" approach.

They said "ore of various kinds", not "main product of mines".

Indeed. One could easily argue that there's little point in letting you make you're own arrows if they're as common as they were in Oblivion. I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to make arrows, it seems to me that letting you do so would just make sense, especially since there would be a need to continue getting more arrows. Once you have a glass longsword, you don't really have much use for another one (Dual wielding aside.) unless you want to sell it. But for arrows, you're going to need to replenish you're supply of arrows regularly, and I see no reason why making them yourself shouldn't be one way to do that. Besides, the game has wood cutting, which would be somewhat pointless if you can't do anything with wood, and the only real use for wood I expect the player to have is for making bows, and arrows if it can be done.

Since Smithing has been confirmed both by Todd Howard as a feature, as well as by one of the screenshots as a separate skill, I'd say that it's fairly likely that it'll be in.

If we were to even be able to craft arrows, I bet they would make it extremely difficult. They said they were costly and few and far between now that they can kill in 1 to 2 shots. The thing is, materials aren't hard to come by to even create the arrows, which leads me to believe the crafting is primarily sticking to weapons and maybe armor.

Yeah didn't you hear? They're including Goblin leather as a type of armor ;P

Yeah but maybe they made arrows harder to come by yet they made marksman more of a useful skill and a lot of people are probably gonna want to try it. And since they made it so you can only carry thirty or so arrows in a quiver (from what I hear) they'd probably make a cap on how many arrows you can create at one time while making the supplies hard to come by. Not the wood since you just gotta do some woodcutting, but the ore and feathers probably will only be sold by specialty NPCs, if any.

Not if the weight of the arrows are increased to half a kilo (1 lb) per arrow, which is a lot more realistic than 0.1 lbs if I'm not entirely mistaken. 20 arrows would be 20 lb, and I doubt that the arrows are that much more powerful. In Oblivion, 20 arrows were used up in a heartbeat on a strong opponent, they've probably just reduced the need for that many down to maybe 1/4 or 1/5.

One thing about crafting that I hope and for repairing weapons and armor is that you can't do it just anywhere. It should be necessary to use an actual smithy, not just some hammer in your inventory. But I think this may indeed be the way it is, considering a video i saw somewhere, so thats good.

How is half a kilo more realistic? 120 arrows would weight more than me! It's just a thin piece of wood with a tiny metal head and feathers or alternative at the other end. They're designed to be lightweight so they fly. Having heavy arrows would be useless. I've used arrows at an archery range and they're maybe 50 grams. Probably less.

yeah thats right, an english longbow arrow weighed usually between 40 and 60 grams. A quiver of arrows is probably half a kilo, about 20 or so arrows.

Thats 1.5 kilos with a full quiver...