The setting is as follows:
You're exploring a newly discovered (insert location here). After navigating through a few different passages, and fighting a mere handful of pests (rats, goblins, undead), you finally happen upon a worthy adversary. A battle ensues. Blow after blow is exchanged, and then CLANG!!!! Your weapon is damaged and rendered useless. Your right thumb makes a dash for the B button (I'm a console user, PC players, don't hate) and in a matter of seconds a repair hammer is equipped. Three dings and your sword is as sharp as the day it was forged. You engage in combat once again until only one warrior remains standing.
Can you say "Immersion Breaker"? For some reason, I can't imagine your opponent delaying your epic deathmatch just so you can stop and repair the tool you are going to use to bring him to his end.
Also, one would imagine that mindlessly banging your weapon with a hammer, without a proper forge at least, would only damage your weapon even further.

Weapon repairations should only be able to be done when not in combat, with a whetstone instead of a hammer.
Armor should only be able to be repaired at a forge or an armament shop (Best Defense, Stonewall Shields), unless it is leather or fur, which can be repaired with a Repair.....Needle? (i know it sounds silly but if you think about it, large needle and leather strips could actually work.)

What do you guys and girls think?

DISCLAIMER: you cannot in fact repair equipment while in combat or with enemies nearby, the story was to act as an attention grabber. Please only leave comments pertaining to the main point of the topic, not calling me out on a mistake.

Didn't know you could repair in combat anyway oO

I think Shekula is right...

I'm not sure whether or not you actually can, but you get the idea. The main point is implementing different ways to repair equipment instead of just giving it a few smacks with a repair hammer.

I see what you are getting at, your in a dark dungeon and you whip out a hammer, give the sword a few hits here and there and in some cases depending on Armorer level it will be better than new, unrealistic yes but it saves a lot of hassle.

Maybe if the repairs only worked so well without a forge, anvil etc, and as you stated; would work to its full potential when a forge, whetstone and/or ...needle? is within reach.

I'm sure many people will have opinions on this.

That is a good way to keep more people happy. It would retain its convienience whilst avoiding being completely un-immersive.

No, you can't repair during combat. I just checked.

As for the act of repairing weapons and armor by merely equipping a hammer, I think it should be more involved than that. An anvil and forge should be required also. These could be found anywhere people live so could be reasonably easy to find. perhaps the forge might require some wood, charcoal, or a placed fire spell to allow the forge to be used.

I don't really expect any overly involved requirements to repair goods, but it certainly would add a little flavor to the game and make using these skills more satisfying. We will be able to smith cut wood and cook stuff, so it could be something we'd need to do.

Yeah, it would be a bit tedious having to run back and fore to the city or wherever to repair your items so that they retain a decent damage output.
Still, a lot of people would enjoy this method where it would make the game more realistic, but others would find it annoying, so you have to take it from Bethesda's point of view ^^

OP. You are right, but... I tend to go adventuring for ages. Only to return to town with a ton of loot. I like it the way it is for the same reason that bathroom breaks aren′t vital.

Perhaps a "Repair" spell? I always play as a combat-oriented character so I'm not certain if there was one in any of the other TES games.
This would eliminate the need to find a forge. Especially without major skills, it wouldnt be as much of a hassle to be able to cast the spell once you aquire it.

Said all this before, but what the hell : In fallout you would come across crafting benches in enemy lairs, so why not here? Makes sense for a group of marauders or bandits to have a forge or workbench, just as it makes sense for conjurers or necromancers to have alchemy labs.
One idea I posted before was, if there is a survival/hardcoe mode, use two requirements for repair : a supply of hammers , and the Fallout need for a similar weapon or piece of armour. Can't repair your favourite armour, tough, wear what you can scavenge, welcome to hardcoe mode.

Thats the idea im aiming for, but why only in hardcoe mode? You've neglected your primary weapon to the point that it breaks? You sure as hell better hope that you have a back up. Thats the price you pay for not repairing it ast time you were in town, or at a workbench/forge.

Because you wouldn't be able to repair unique items at all. My memory is failing, I think you had to cheat to repair artefacts in Daggerfall, but I can't see your average player being too happy about Umbra being permanently broken.

Maybe instead of Fallout's thing where you need a copy of the same weapon, you could use a piece of material like raw ebony. Then you could repair unique items as long as you knew what it was made from.

Making repair a little more difficult is going to be key to balancing unleveled loot and challenge progression. In New Vegas, you can get your hands on the highest DPS weapon in the game, the Riot Shotgun, literally an hour into the game, but maintenance and ammo mean you horde it for only life and death scenarios until much longer in. So you have access to the weapon, and it can be an equalizer in a sure-to-lose fight (For example, the Super Mutants camped at Jack Rabbit Springs) but at the same time, it doesn't harm the overall challenge arc of the game.


So I'd like to see repairing a lot more tedious than it is in previous TES games. I know that must sound counter-intuitive to the whole "Video Game" mantra of being fun, and I'm probably in a huge minority when I don't prefer trivial challenges, but the whole Magic Hammer system just plain svcks.

One solution I would be open to, is a Perk system for repairs. A Perk tree, let's call it "Field Repairs" lets you repair your equipment in the field depending on its level. So at standard smithing skills, you can repair at a forge, and in the Field Repair perk tree, each level lets you repair higher quality materials. 1st Iron-Steel, Final Glass-Daedric. That way, something is at least sacrificed for this super-human ability. A consumable system, like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, doesn't really make sense, unless they are really going all-out with the smithing, and including all sorts of Ores/materials in the game to balance the progression. Which honestly, thinking about it, isn't terribly unlikely.

Yeah... swords don't work that way.

It worked in Fallout because guns are complicated mechanisms, you can break it into small parts. Sword, axes, and most of the weapons in Skyrim are pretty simple, made out of one or maybe two parts, you can't just scavenge parts from other weapons and reapir it that way...

There was nothing "immersion breaking" in the current system. Just call the hammers "repair kits" and it would be fine.

Except that to actually (completely) reforge a dulled or broken blade, you would need a blast furnace at around 1200c. That's totally practical to carry to the bottom of a minotaur filled labyrinth.

I suppose it would make sense if you could only repair items that are above 50%, after that, the blade actually becomes damaged, and only a proper forge and tools would be able to repair it.

This.
but apparently, if you just rename the blast furnace as "repair kit" it will be fine.

The repairing in Oblivion isn't realistic and will never be, but it made game sense at the time. Only problem was that weapons deteriorated too easily, especially if the opponent had Disintegration weapons or staffs - Disintegrate weapon 80 points PER HIT, are you freaking kidding me?!!!!

Also, hammers shouldn't be a collection game. You generally don't break your hammers when trying to repair something, which made even less sense.

I've never really been satisfied with the way that repairs are handled in TES games.

I think it should be a part of the game to be able to carry hammers (or whatever tools) and make some repairs to weapons and armor, but there should be an upper limit for what you can do with just hand tools. In order to get an item all the way to 100% (or more, if there's going to be a perk for that again) would require a full smithy.

Quite possibly, it should be on a sliding scale too - you should be able to get iron closer to 100% with hand tools than you can, say, Daedric. Sort of like the difference between fixing a VW Bug that's broken down on the side of the road vs. fixing a Mercedes CLK that's broken down on the side of the road.

There are some pretty good ideas here that would make repairing more realistic but I don't know whether they'd make it a more enjoyable experience or a better game.
Some ideas though...

I like the idea of being able to do basic repairs to your weapon but needing to go to a smith/furnace/anvil to get it fully repaired. Maybe have it so that if you are just using a repair hammer you should only be able to repair up to a certain point depending on how much it has already been damaged. - e.g. as soon as condition drops below 50 you can only repair up to that point - and that would be similar to just sharpening the weapon in real life rather than magically being able to completely repair it.
Someone mentioned the idea of having to have another the same weapon (fallout-style) and whilst I don't think this would suit the swords of the elder scrolls it might be good to have a similar system in place. If mining is one of the new confirmed activities you can do (I can't remember) maybe you need the correct metal to make proper repairs at a furnace (e.g. you need iron ore to repair a broken iron longsword) and these ores would be the collectible items instead of having to hoard repair hammers because you can't stop yourself from needlessly breaking endless numbers of the things.