Jeweled Weaponry

A valuable addition to smithing would be jeweled weaponry: a smith could use jewels in the manufacture of new weapons. The smith would be making the blade sharper or otherwise more dangerous by incorporating ground-up gems in the molten metal; certain gems might even give the sword a very slight hue. The result would be something like "a diamond viking sword" which would have the same damage modifier as, say, a low-to-mid-level magical sword. Such swords would be impossible to repair, and brittle. The "enchantment" level (the +damage) would vary depending on the number of gems used in the manufacturing process. A diamond blade equivalent to weapon "of force" might require 20 diamonds, and of course it would be hard to make, potentially requiring the smith to use up 50 or 100 diamonds -- meaning the sword would have a value in the several-thousands-of-gp, at the least, just to an NPC (i.e. not even considering the damage bonus). Cheaper gems would result in less-powerful weapons but might look fancier (a slight ruby-red tint, for example).

The implementation could be handled by automatically checking for the existence of gemstones in the smith's pack during the manufacturing process; if they exist, the jeweled weapon is listed along with the normal variant in the smithing menu.

A variant of jeweled weaponry would allow inlaid jewels on items: it should also be possible (and easier than the above) to inlay gemstones into an existing weapon or piece of armor. This would have no effect on the functionality of the item, but would make it more valuable and add interesting text: "a ruby-encrusted viking sword", perhaps, or maybe "a viking sword inlaid with six rubies". This could be handled by allowing tinkering tools (or smithing tools, if that is deemed more appropriate) to be used on gemstones. It might also be worthwhile to allow inlaid gemstones on other items such as rings, necklaces, etc.

The jeweled-weaponry idea has a few beneficial side effects:

• Players have often expressed interest in an Enchantment skill or similar ability for high-level smiths to create magical weapons and armor. There are many reasons why this is desirable, although there are also reasons why it might be undesirable -- notably, that magic weapons are currently some of the most rare and interesting functional items in the game, and allowing players the ability to create them might diminish their value and importance. Jeweled weaponry could actually be used as an alternative to allowing players to magically enchant items.
• The demand for jewels and the resulting cost of the new weaponry would provide a much-needed drain on inflated bank accounts around Britannia. With the weapons being non-repairable and brittle, the drain should be somewhat constant (instead of the one-time cost of a craftable).

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