Hi! I've spent a fair amount of time with the mining and smithing system and wanted to put in some input on some things that bother me.
At the moment, Tin is the deadliest resource to acquire (edit: apart from coal), since it's always guarded, but bronze is actually worse than copper in terms of quality when you actually make it. It keeps all the negatives, but loses the +1 Attack Bonus vs. Fey. Also, copper weapons and bronze weapons that are player made are completely inferior to ones you find. Though it is possible to sell bronze weapons to the Vallaki trading house, the pattern for chain mail costs 31-ish gold to a character with 0 appraise and the reward for making bronze chainmails is 30 gold. I'd like to see a little incentive for making bronze weapons and armor other than "sift through the garbage to get to steel" because right now, making bronze is worse than buying a plain weapon or suit of armor from a vendor.
Improvements I'd like to see for crafted goods:
Copper: Fine, or modified to be identical to found copper items. As an electrician who uses copper daily, I appreciate the negative saving throws vs. electricity.
Bronze: Bumped up to a "normal item" with no stats increases or penalties.
Iron: 80% weight reduction isn't terrible, but 1-2 bonus damage for weapons and like +1 AC vs. Slashing or something would be nice for the armors.
Steel: Fine
Also, the rewards at the trading house are just fine for bronze spears and horseshoes, with a decent profit margin to offset the time spent smithing, as if it were a real job, but I'd like for the reward for bronze chainmails be increased slightly to offset the price of the template.
As far as advancing and improving the template system, I'd like to see vendors with a race and dialogue check for your smithing level, that will sell templates for "Masterwork" for all other races, and "Dwarven Quality" for dwarves that would make the item have stats comparable to Masterwork and Dwarven Quality items you find with maybe a plus 15 or plus 20 to base DC to create.
On a mining note, the only reliable place to get iron is in an established mine, like the Ghalkis mine or Dvergheim. Dwarves are suspicious of other races to begin with and fiercely territorial of their mines. If a non-dwarf or even a dwarf who was not of their clan came down into the mines and started hauling out ore, there would be a great bloodletting. I imagine the Bellegarde trading company would be equally homicidal to claimjumpers. I don't know how this would be fixed, since every smith who has ever played here has probably used those two places to level up their craft, but I would like to see more untapped or abandoned mines so people don't have to go into established mines and start stealing.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, love the mod. God bless.
-Terrance
