Couple of things with armor reinforcing...

1. There's a typo when you study the book. The sentence about having to POUR oil on the piece has an "m" where there should be a space.

2. The book doesn't list anywhere what additional materials are needed to complete the process, and that big, unmistakable message about ASSEMBLING things doesn't come up when it's time to do it. Trying to proceed makes it reasonably obvious, but it may as well look like the rest of the system.

3. I was kinda surprised that I failed at reinforcing a dome helm (ridiculously easy piece to make) that's 70% high carbon steel and 30% oravir with 420 ranks of Mech and the appropriate techniques. Is the difficulty of reinforcing set properly? The book says it's easy to do...I also failed on a 70% medium carbon steel, 30% lead great helm. Failure does a LOT of damage to the piece, too.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

<<I once talked to Kodius about enhancements. Basically if you fail to get masterful on every single step, due to mistaken action, low tool quality, whatever, the process fails.>>

Even so, I'm surprised I wouldn't be performing flawlessly at such an easy task on such an easy item with so much skill, even using store-bought tools. It feels off.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

I see. After thinking a little more about my failures, I suspect that the material purity of the base items is the culprit. I keep forgetting that no amount of skill can overcome that and let you get masterful workmanship, as it's rather strange to me. I was probably using items that were crafted from unrefined storebought metals from after their purity was reduced. I'll try again on a piece that's made of refined metal when I get a chance (namely the one I tempered back when I made it)...I'm almost sure it'll succeed.

Is there any chance you could add a way to tell the actual difficulty of enhancing a specific piece? Like maybe COMPARE it to the crafting book when it's on the enhancement page or something?

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

Now that I've gotten it to work, the results of reinforcing seem a bit underwhelming. On a morion, weight jumped from 68 stones to 81, and there was no apparent difference in any of the protection or absorption stats, even using COMPARE. A ~20% weight increase for a protection increase that's so small as to be imperceptible by any means available doesn't seem worth doing. I did have a great helm bump up to the next range in slice and electric protection, so I know it's doing something. I did find it odd that the messaging for completing the process specifically says that absorption is increased, when it was protection that I noticed improve.

The helm on which I noticed an improvement was made of straight high carbon steel, while the morion is made lighter, using 70/30 high carbon steel/oravir.

Also, the book now lists small leather backing as the other ingredient when in fact the process calls for some leather strips.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

I think you may have interpreted my emphasis differently than I intended it...I don't care so much that it costs weight, but rather that it doesn't seem to improve protection by enough to actually make a difference in the armor's performance.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

<<Just because a difference doesn't show up as a different appraise level (some of which are equal to a 40% change in defensive properties) doesn't mean the protection isn't better.>>

Yeah I get that, but the difference doesn't even show up in a comparison, which I thought gave pretty tight ranges. Aren't there several levels of protection above "great" though, anyway? Appraisal is even more messed up than I thought if it takes a huge difference in actual performance to show up and the middle of the scale corresponds to the highest allowable levels...

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor