just realised that it should be possible

it's their work to smith and upgrade stuff... why can't I pay them to take care of mine? ^^

It would open the option to make a non-smithing playthrough... which is be totally reasonable, isn't it? Not everyone has to be good at smithing.

it seems like the game forces one to use smithing

any known mods that adress this? ^^

That's a good question. There should be SOME smiths out there that make great weapons and armor better than the PC, but there aren't any. That might be an oversight....

Not sure if any mods address the issue though.

They don't even have to make better armor. But at least something... it's their job after all

already found the mod I was looking for though ^^

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50546/?

Because the tempering system seems like it was just put in later during development without any concerns for balance.I really hope they don't use it in TES 6.

Do not ask for balance, easiest way to generate balance is to cut features.

Anakin did bring balance to the force, the Jedi should know that this was not an good idea, pretty obvious then you think of it


Yes it would be an nice idea, or that various improved weapon and armor was in loot lists.

Would probably work a bit like enchanting in Morrowind you could buy it but it would be expensive.

Probably for the same reason they didn't let the enchanter in the College of Winterhold enchant things for us, or why alchemists can't make up custom potions: They didn't want characters who did not advance those skills to have access to those benefits.

Personally I hope they keep a crafting and improvement system more akin to Fallout 4 in the next TES game. Not a big fan of some of those things in Skyrim.

I have long lamented, in both Oblivion and Skyrim, that you could not pay a specialist/vendor to craft specialty items for you. A mage should be able to pay a smith to temper their dagger. I would even be okay with the vendor making you bring them the necessary materials. A warrior should be able to pay an enchanter to put some whizbang mojo on his axe. I'm sort of okay with access for non alchemists because you can buy a wide assortment of potions/poisons.

I have that mod tracked...for my next mage character...who won't wear armor herself, but her "tank" will. That is what bothers me, that my "pure" robe wearing mage has to smith to give her follower armor. I should be able to buy them armor, get it upgraded.

My Warrior is having troubles with Various dragons... he doesn't enchant... bummer huh? Having the ability to buy the services isn't the worst idea in the world.

I like this one http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51024/?. This one has smithing and enchanting. With the MCM you can:

Set how long it takes.

Set if smiths/enchanters have rare ingredients or if you have to supply them.

Set if enchanters know enchantments or if you have to give them an item to disenchant.

Lore based smithing (orcs are a bit better and making orcish stuff).

Smiths/enchanters skills are based on game lore (so Alvor in Riverwood might not be that great, but Eorlund Gray-Mane will be very good).

Can change the smithing/enchanting level of an NPC if you don't feel like it is set right.

Can add followers to smithing and or enchanting faction and have them do your upgrades (note: the way the mod is set up the follower has to be one that can offer training).

Ability to reclaim perk points spent in the smithing or enchanting tree. In case you add the mod later in your game and decide your character is not a smith/enchanter.

That's just a brief rundown of what I've seen or read about on the mod page. I have to note that this is a very recent addition to my mod line up, the current mod set up I'm ironing out has only about 10 game hours to it. While it seems to work with no problems or conflicts just remember I've only used it for 10 hours.

I've always thought that the alternative for non-smiths was your armour/weapon skill. I imagine it as superman vs ironman. Ironman has no real skills but put him in some crazy flying armour and he's a super hero. On the other hand superman wears no armour/equipment, it's all him.


If you put superman in ironmans armour he's gonna kick ass but that's just too much and no fun for anyone.

The converse is that Beth might simply remove the player ability to smith....or enchant. Thus only found items of better quality could be taken advantage of (Honed and supple draugr weapons).


That would clearly please some people it seems.......but not me


I love the challenge of Legendary play.....and high level, high difficulty Melee is arguably why smithing is included as a player option.


So, I do not find the smithing function to be unbalanced at all......it correctly balances the requirement for a player controlled, higher Armour Rating and more effective weapons as levels and difficulties rise.


If anyone here could perform vanilla combat against multiple, level fifty, Legendary Deathlords in unimproved armour I would love to see the video


Unless.......everyone is suggesting maybe we shouldn't have games harder than "Apprentice" .....I won't say what I think of that!


What should also be remembered is that the game as it stands also includes npc's with very high weapons and armour skills plus a selection of special perks.......its the player who starts out heavily disadvantaged.......thats why you get creamed by a basic steel wearing chief at level 20 (Legendary 'natch). Smithing gives you some redress....but makes you work to earn the priviledge (as you should!).


As for being able to pay smithys to improve your gear.....well yes great! But then you unbalance the game by simply paying for a super weapon at level ten that shouldnt be available until you are level 40! There are ways to counter that I'm sure...like tying npc smithy skill to your game level.


Its a can of worms the more you delve into it......


What I wanted to see was "slightly" degradable gear that dulls (a bit) with use.....but not like Oblivion's ridiculous extreme where your massive axe now won't crack an egg cos its a blunt.....that was pretty stupid imo. A 20 % max weapon and armour degrade would be enough to require some attention.

I can see that point, but I also think there are too many variables to come up with everyone's play style. I know for my stealth/ambushing character weapon skills seem to raise very slowly since I can kill a lot of stuff in one hit. He did fine until about 15th or 16th level when suddenly everything was a titanic struggle, so smithing and enchanting helped a lot. He's now level 49 with 100 in smithing and enchanting. To keep the game fun for me, while I will still add two enchantments to weapons I don't max out the damage and I also use lower tiered weapons. For armor I use two enchantments as well, one is usually carry weight and the other some resist type enchant. So I can one-shot a lot of stuff from ambush but still get surprised from time to time. I just think with smithing and enchanting it's about self regulating how powerful or weak your character should feel to you.

My mage on the other hand has no desire to use smithing, but if I'm going to keep Lydia alive then mods like Honed Metal are perfect for me. Since the weapons and armor are for Lydia then my PCs skill doesn't really come into play.

I still plan on doing a found weapons and armor only character one day. No smiting or enchanting, just use what you've found as is.Just haven't come up with a decent back story yet.

I agree completely (with your whole post actually, just cherry picked to save space).

"So, I do not find the smithing function to be unbalanced at all......it correctly balances the requirement for a player controlled, higher Armour Rating and more effective weapons as levels and difficulties rise."

That's my feeling on why I like "self balancing". If my RP is that my character is a bad ass then I can do that, if he's just an average fighter I can do that as well.

"If anyone here could perform vanilla combat against multiple, level fifty, Legendary Deathlords in unimproved armour I would love to see the video "

I'd love to see that as well with one stipulation ... no healing potions during combat. I've seen several youtubers fighting on legendary who pause the fight, drink 10 healing potions, 5 stamina potions, resume the fight, then pause it again for another round of potions, win the fight then pat themselves on the back. I don't drink potions in combat so being able to improve my armor and weapons help keep me alive, I'd like to think personal skill helps as well

"As for being able to pay smithys to improve your gear.....well yes great! But then you unbalance the game by simply paying for a super weapon at level ten that shouldnt be available until you are level 40! There are ways to counter that I'm sure...like tying npc smithy skill to your game level."

Yep, you could easily unbalance the game. That's why for me I decided that I wouldn't have them make anything I wasn't already seeing in leveled chests or on npc smiths. So if I'm not seeing ebony weapons for sale I'm not going to have my level 4 character purchase one, upgrade it, and have it enchanted. He probably couldn't afford it anyway.

Though I will admit I had a level 2 character find an ebony mace that absorbed 20 points of health because of another mod .... and happily used it.

Spite...thanks......Oh don't get me started on the type of youtubers that I think you mean. Yes...some do well against hard opponents then they let slip they are on like apprentice level or something. Others, as you say, drink gallons of potions to get through each battle.


Best of all while they are showing with great pride there pathetic combat prowess (and it often is lamentable) the humble viewer is subjected to a thick barrage of four letter expletives every time they take a hit. Some of these guys are so vain they include pic in pic cameos of themselves narrating their own farce. Not surprisingly, many of them also display a command of the English language which turns illiteracy into an art form.


Thankfully some video gamers are really very good and sadly get less recognition than the annoying and immature strutting peacocks.


Our own resident combat veteren....SAH...(search on 'Sah Vulon') produces some excellent work on Youtube which demonstrates genuine combat ability with nicely edited and well presented video. Her work does not require foul mouthed narration or pic in pic self adulation....it stands on its own merits head and shoulders above many of the more prolific (and profane) so called 'You tubers'.


I'd like to see a rating board for the best games ( esp Skyrim 'natch) video on Youtube......which actually picks out Great video by competent and mature (in mind) contributors. Work that entertains and educates with sincerity..............well, we can hope!

There are plenty of people that err "work" at making super smithed gear and run around in their God-like armor and go Yeah... I can beat everyone... they don't even need to buy armor, it's in the game already for them to do that. I could... I know how... I never have... never will. Not my play style.

However, base game... no mod... the only way for a non smithing mage to get their follower's armor rating up...is to buy and what is bought? Base armor for that lvl, which is well and nice as long as your follower is within their "level", meaning if they only lvl to 30... and your at 50... that base lvl 50 armor will have them on their knee''s constantly. Yes you can enchant and would have to enchant heavily...all their gear.

Why not the ability to buy armor...tempered well made armor...vanilla... as in a console player can buy it. Sure their are some that are going exploit that... but those are the same people that use exploits anyway.

I didn't play mages on 360 much because I didn't want to have to smith and buying armor vanilla..... bites. I played many more Spellswords and Battlemages, both of whom had some skill in both smithing and enchanting.... I put a limit on how much, because I didn't "super Dragonborn" I wanted "Regular gal turned Dragonborn"...or what ever they were.

Anyway....it's just my opinion.

And your opinion Areial.......is one of the most valued here


The difficulty with simply buying armour (or weapons) is just that the way these types of games 'work' on you....is to make progress difficult then give you a little reward to keep you trying hard, whilst always dangling the carrot of greatness just out of reach.


It would be too easy to sell a bunch of damage magicka regen poisons to make like 10 grand then just go and buy super armour.


That doesn't mean a mechanism couldn't be constructed to imposed the required frustration , but it would need a bit of thinking through.


The same arguments applies to the existing smithing skill.....why make it so hard to raise? Why not just make smithing go easily to max by crafting 100 iron daggers. It is because overcoming the difficulty is what makes the eventual achievement mean something.


They could have made high level armour purchase possible as long as it wasn't easy. How about a 100S per single Armour Point? AND make purchasable armours equippable only by followers.


I guess we will never know WHY Beth set it all up the exact way they did......but if you have PC, why worry anyway just dial it up

For me and Adella, well, we don't worry too much about that which we can't change.....in Skyrim. TES VI is where the worry starts

Fully understanding it's of no use to console players, but may be to PC players; the mod http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55677/? imposes many of your desired changes.

It is possible for one to find various (level appropriate) tempered/improved armours and weapons on the enemies one fights with tougher enemies (bandit chiefs rather than bandits) having better smithed gear such as "superior" quality weapons as opposed to the more common "fine" quality weapons.

Armour and weapons can be ordered from blacksmiths and collected at a later point (takes a while to make, after all) as well as paying enchanters to do their thing (they only know more common enchantments, bring them rarer ones to have them use that, i.e paralyse)

Blacksmiths will all start out at a level of ability appropriate for their standing with ability increasing the longer (in-game time) the dragonborn is wandering around skyrim.

Tempered weapons and armours will degrade over time/with use (faster degradation when you hit/get hit by things) to the point of shattering into pieces (i think the breaking things can be disabled) and magical armour spells protecting equipped items from breaking.

I believe this is almost all configurable too via an MCM if you have SkyUI

This seems to me to be the happy medium between current Skyrim system, Oblivion/Morrowind systems and desired features (ordering items/paying for improvements) and hopefully will have something similar implemented in TES VI as we know Beth do pay attention to the more popular mod ideas (settlements building/robot building dlc, etc in FO4)

Edit: my bad, I wasn't reading the description of loot and degradation properly and in also reading honed metal's description mashed them together in my head. lesson to be learned: get a decent night's sleep. anyway, turns out I had honed metal installed at the same time and it was through that I could order armours/weapons though there was some functionality crossover/duplication. If you want to avoid the duplicate (differently worded) topics regarding item tempering there are other mods available that provide a service of just ordering, not tempering for those wanting to also use loot and degradation

Rick....

And I totally agree, If I'm playing a warrior character they smith there own gear and I have no problems and wouldn't even try to buy "super smithed gear" not the way I play.

However If I have a mage character ( robe wearing..non-smithing type ) ... and her follower Erik The Slayer... needs better gear...he tops out at lvl 40...we are now at lvl 55... he's on his knee's constantly... So yes I could over enchant some stuff...because just the "regular" amount isn't going to work as well...why, because he stopped lvl'ing ( on console...with AFT on PC I he will lvl with the player character as high as she does.) BUT if I can give him lvl'd, tempered armor, slightly above what NPC's are wearing with then enchant it "regular" he will do just fine.

Now of course I could go another way... their's a mod ( I don't have...and can't remember the name of ) that allow's for you to "use" a craft but never level yourself in it. Meaning my mage could smith and it would not help her to level...but she could craft Erik the really good armor that he needs. Yes, she could smith herself really good armor at no lvl'ing cost also, but I don't play that way.

Here's the main thing.. ( vanilla... no mods.. on console ) . I don't want to have to lvl up smithing on a mage character, just so a follower has good gear. Yep on PC I can go a couple of ways... their is the mod that allows for crafting that doesn't raise skills . I could console command in a set of smithing gear... or just one piece and enchant the rest myself on a bought set of armor.. or even console command in a really nice set of armor and then temper it with enchanted smithing gear... But why if the game is set up so that my mage can buy a good set of armor and pay a smith to temper it.

But I live with what I have... or what I can get.

would a nvde Sah count? ......0 AR......Rick you should not put posts like this up when you know this one is around ..............BTW a nvde full length Blackreach video already exists (but is to dark & uhmmm nvde to upload.)

but talking about nvde .......what would be the next best thing

0 damage received ..........where the health bar dose not appear at all through out the combat sequence

the link to the video is such an attempt at a 0 damage free video .........out of a total of 12min of combat you will see this ones life bar for a total of 2 min max!

BTW this is level 80 & legendary ...against one of the hardest opponents to play ...the Ewok's .............pore little Ewoks ..........this one feels so bad

NEW made today 1st of march https://youtu.be/Qg53X_7ERZE

PS 1 something to take note off is the removal of the compass ............this adds extra difficulty since you don't know for one how many opponents your facing and two where there hiding

PS 2 this is a first time play-through

Just make tempering expensive. In Morrowind you could pay mages to enchant your gear, but powerful enchantments were way beyond means of low level characters, and even simple enchantments cost thousands. If tempering to legendary quality cost hundreds of thousands of Septims it would still maintain balance and add an incentive to go out and find gold.

What's the point of doing only 25% damage if you smith up your wepaons to do 6 times as much?Really I don't see the point and apart from Npcs doing more damage,which is also made less punishing since it's possible to smith armor to give maximum protection easily,essentially you are playing the same.

Sah...Thank you....for rising I couldn't be sure you'd see it of course! But a one liner gamble costs nothing. Though I will admit I was actually expecting a zero AR outfit....not nvde of course, but zero AR.


Ummm nice video BTW if somewhat unnecessarily cruel to the poor little fellas....have you been talking to a certain Contessa?


My premise was aimed at showing smithing was VITAL and necessary to cope with high level foes, Legendary DiD.


So......if you want the challenge articulated directly......"I don't think you could possibly cope with Legendary Deathlords DiD using only unimproved armour and weapons of any type"!....and that applies to shields also. Tactical combat only (shouts etc are ok, its just the equipment thats gimped), no sneaking through


Prove me WRONG to earn a GROVELLING, dirt eating, humble pie, hat and shorts, munching APOLOGY.......in open FORUM, (not PM) from yours truly If ya think ya can honey


(BTW...have you tried out the extra enchanting bonus (10%) from Ahzidals armour?)

The number of times we've been around this buoy. No, Legendary plus smithing does not equate to adept unimproved. For one thing you take three times the hit....which means even with great armour you still get hurt.....on Legendary I have still been one shot killed at AR 450 'ish. The higher damage both delt and recieved means the stakes are raised....you can't afford to get hit (much) but conversely your enemies take more of a hammering from your better weapons making a take down mean more. Your argument only holds merit in the simplest toe to toe sword and board confrontation where blows are exchanged almost equally until one of you folds due to eventual health depletion.


Also you fail to take account of the biggest problem coping with Legendary........that you only GET those better weapons after long extensive hours at the anvil over several levels of gameplay......so what are you supposed to do when your meeting a Legendary bandit Plunderer and you've still only got AR 200 with a sword of 50 huh? Maybe tell him to come back later when your high level smithing has kicked in huh!


Most of my char deaths occur precisesly while I am still trying hard to increase my ratings, but my foes

are already badass.


Edit...Zaria reminds me...smithing does nothing to defend against magic or elemental or dragon breath attacks.....but they still hurt the player three times worse than adept!!!


So no my friend Legendary plus smithing is not anywhere near like unimproved on say adept. It is far harder

Enemies does more damage, armor help but is capped at 80%, note that you can wear pretty much any armor you like in this setting something who is another bonus.

Non physical attacks like dragon breath and mages is very dangerous.

In short it make the game far more lethal,

Yes, this is an simple way to solve it, note that an expert player will get even better gear because of synergy. Do the same with enchanting, you could also pay an enchanter to enchant for you morrowind style.

Also add upgraded gear to the leveled loot tables so you could buy it in shops and enemies have it to