Advanced Item Manufacturing

Highlights:

1. More interesting, less monotonous for the player. This is the overriding theory behind these changes: many of these skills are considered "mule" or "macro" skills because they aren't fun. It is possible to macro a dungeon crawl, but no one does this -- it's too much fun. Crafting should be the same way (at the same time, a craft should not be significantly more profitable than dungeoning or other crafts on a per-unit-time basis).
2. Highly macro-resistant, which goes hand-in-hand with the above.
3. Could allow a player to earn fame from crafting (result of #2).
4. More flexible and intuitive approach to the tools and items.
5. Could allow some skills to advance more quickly (result of #2).
6. Lends itself well to weapons that are enchanted and/or inlaid with gemstones during manufacture.

[Note on fame: fame from crafting seems a bit questionable to me. The reason it's needed is for house ownership; crafters should be allowed a separate path towards owning various *shops*, instead of the normal houses. From here on in this document, when I say "fame," I mean some parallel quantity that is tracked for crafters -- not the same quantity as is tracked for warriors.]

Improved Smithing:

1. Stand by the forge with your ingots and use your smith's hammer.
2. Receive a message like "you begin to smith a sword" and have a really lousy sword (text "a partly-forged sword") appear in your pack (and the ingots go away). Probably the partly-forged sword should be some different color. It would be good if the game would notice if the heated iron (partly-smithed item) were taken away from the forge, and in that case, the item would revert to a few iron ingots.
3. The game repeats step 2 several times. From the 2nd time until some time (around 20 tries, depends on the exact item, your skill, and a randomizer) later, as the message says "you continue to forge the sword" and eventually "the sword looks nearly perfect," at which point the text on the sword becomes the normal text ("a viking sword").
   [Each of these iterations would take a few seconds. Smithing an armor chestpiece might take *many* iterations, a knife, only a few -- the player would have to be carefully watching their character work for best results.]
4. You should stop forging when the sword reaches the normal color. If you keep going, you start to make it more brittle, and eventually you break it. On a randomly-selected occurrence of the "nearly perfect" sword, you actually get a truly superior weapon. You can easily tell if you're doing this in person by watching the color and/or checking arms lore, but it would be a hard thing to try to do with a macro, even a really complex one. In addition, jeweled weaponry could be created by using gemstones at the appropriate moment during the crafting process. To stop the process and complete the sword, use water or oil on the blade.
   [Fame could be granted to smiths who get really good at making very hard-to-make items: superior plate legs and chests, for example. The "superior" nature of the item would involve the item being more durable, accurate, or powerful than a normal item, similar to the magic items, and could involve trade-offs of, say, durability for accuracy or power. Fame granting would occur when the item is completed.]
5. You can't sell an item that was stopped in the process of being smithed, only complete items. All smithed items, complete or incomplete, should be able to be melted down back into a few ingots if so desired.

Other skills could work similiarly...
Improved Bowcraft:

1. Use the knife on the wood (*) and it creates "a partly-carved bow" or something to that effect. This takes a few seconds and consumes the wood. Failing a skill check here causes the needed amount of wood to be lost completely (as currently happens).
2. Using a knife again begins careful carving and eventually results in "a rough bow." This could take a fair amount of time, depending on bow type and bowyer skill.
3. Switching to another tool (froe? scorp? I have no idea what those are for...or maybe just a smoothing plane) and using it on the newly-created rough bow will create a normal bow -- this is the equivalent of "finishing" a smithed item by application of oil, above.
   [Tuning the bow's durability, accuracy, and power (equivalent to low levels of the corresponding enchantments) could be done in this final round of tooling, and would involve trade-offs between the three attributes. Knowing when to stop carving the rough bow and start tuning it would be part of it, learned by practice. Fame would be similar to smithy.]
4. As for smithing, only a normal bow (in any state of "tuning") can be sold -- not a "rough bow."

Improved Tailoring (Cloth):

1. Using scissors on a bolt of cloth brings up a window; you select bandages, or the forms for a given item of clothing. Depending on skill level (and a randomizer), some of the cloth may be wasted; if enough is left, a cut-cloth icon is created with the appropriate text ("cloth for a fancy shirt"); the bolt remains a bolt. This itself makes this process essentially un-macroable, since there's no telling where the cut cloth will appear in the pack; if necessary, this could be broken down into several steps (the cut cloth for the fancy shirt could require several "cuts" off the bolt) to make this process more similar to smithy, above.
   [Ideally, the bolt of cloth itself would require skill to make, using the loom and spinning wheel. Also, the artwork for tailoring "forms" are in the game -- standing near one during the cutting should significantly increase one's chance of success.]
2. Using a sewing kit on the cut cloth performs a skill check. Passing with flying colors gives a high-quality (expensive, durable) item, with an option for fame (although...famous tailors...?). Lesser passing marks give less and less valuable items. Failing the check here destroys all of the cut cloth (like bowcraft currently does).
3. Dyeing the clothing might also require skill to get right, and might make the item more valuable.
4. Only the final item could be sold: "cloth for a fancy shirt" would be useless. I think.

1. Using scissors on hides creates cut leather, as above for cut cloth, with the appropriate text (if you select leather for a studded tunic, it would say "leather for a studded tunic"). See above for macroability notes; add repeated cuttings if desired.
   [As above for bolts of cloth, getting the hides off an animal should require a skill as well, either Animal Lore, Veterinary, or Tailoring.]
2. The sewing kit would be used on the cut leather to create the item, exactly as described in #2 for cloth tailoring.
3. Again, only the final item could be sold.

Improved Carpentry:

[This applies specifcally to Carpentry of normal wooden furniture items, not to "Construction" of the various house craftables, which are special cases and require enough raw material so as not to be really macroable anyway.]
1. Using a saw on wood (*, see above) would bring up the Carpentry options and would create a "rough" item of furniture, or chest, or whatever was selected.
2. Repeated use of the various other tools (planes, etc.) on the rough item would increase their resale value to NPCs, and perhaps change their text ("a beautifully-carved fancy chair") or item identification information ("this chair was obviously created by a true master") to enhance their value to PCs. Excessive carving or "beautification" would result in the destruction of the object, to prevent macroing.
   [Repeated creation of superior items could be used as a basis for fame, although this would require some way to finalize the object (perhaps the use of the smoothing plane would indicate that).]
3. For non-furniture carpentry (i.e. wooden shields, chests, boxes), attributes could be enhanced by a smart carpenter (i.e., the strength of a box could allow it to hold more weight).

Improved Tinkering (Metal):

1. Tinkered metal items would work like smithed ones: repeated application of the tool eventually results in a usable item.
2. Fame for tinkering seems questionable to me, although that could change.
3. High-quality tinkered items (tools used by other crafting skills) should increase the skill of the craftsman.

1. Tinkered wood items would work like Carpentry ones: one use of the tool to create the rough item, then another tool to "tune" it into usability. Since tinkered items are actually *used* (Carpentry items mostly just look good) quality could be enforced by the game.
2. Fame for tinkering seems questionable to me, although that could change.

Improved Alchemy:

1. Apply the same repeated-use idea to the mortar and pestle: currently, the game does this, but doesn't involve the *player*, which allows macroing. Force the player to learn when to stop (double-clicking an active mortar should stop grinding) for best performance of the final potion.
2. Repeated high-quality potions (high skill, hard potions, practice on how long to grind) would be the basis for fame.

Improved Cooking:

1. Getting the ingredients to the "cookable" stage works as it does currently.
2. Cooking the ingredients takes repeated use of the raw item on the fire, during which time its color might gradually darken and/or the text might reflect the stage of cooking.
3. A trade-off between stamina-increase and hunger-quenching value could be based on the amount of cooking and the baker's skill. A skilled cook with a player paying attention and cooking just right would result in high marks in both stamina-increase and hunger value.
4. Taste ID could be used to monitor how well-cooked it is ("this is an extremely tasty pie!" or "these ribs could use a few more minutes on the fire").
5. Fame for cooking really ought to come when the food is eaten by someone else, but that's probably too tricky. Perhaps the food could "start to cool" after a few seconds off the fire, and once cooled, it would then be finalized, and if it was well-cooked, it could be the basis for a fame grant.

Further Notes:

Some skills are already pretty good about slowing down macroing, like Inscription; altough this same philosophy could be applied.

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