Durability bug on short spear?

This is likely going to be impossible to reproduce or verify but I had a very nice force/silver short spear +15 tactics that I had to repair 5 times over a 24hr period (not using is that much!). Today when I got the "your equipment is severely damaged", I took it to town and used a repair deed on it. Then I bought a jar of fortification powder and used it on it as well. Within 30 minutes it was broken while fighting lich lords ( i didnt die with it). I did receive it initially from someone so maybe it was beat all the hell before I got it? Not looking for it to be replaced, as nice as that would be but it may be worth a look to see if weapons that are requiring frequent repairing and then breaking is some sort of glitch?

Items have a specific number of hit points and a maximum number of hit points. When an item is repaired, it's hit points are returned to the maximum, but the maximum hit points also goes down by a tiny amount. Using the arms lore and item ID skills you can get an idea of these 2 values.

Arms lore:
http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/?page ... _t2&id=204

Item ID:
http://www.uoguide.com/Item_Identification

If item ID shows the item to have added durability, the item will be labeled durable/substantial/massive/fortified/indestructable -- this is an indication that the item has an increased maximum number of hit points. The durability label is applied when the item is created and does not change over time (even if maximum hp changes).

When the arms lore skill is used, the current hit points are compared to the maximum hit points. A freshly created item and a freshly repaired item will both show as "unused" even though they may have far different maximum hit points.

The only way to increase the maximum hit points is through the repeated use of fortification powder (a smithing BOD reward).

So in your scenario what likely happened was that the item was repeatedly repaired. Each repair reduced the maximum hit points by a tiny amount until the item was left with a very small maximum hit points. Normal wear and tear exceeded this maximum and the item was destroyed.

Thanks for the detailed explanation - I'm sure this is likely the case. Next time I get a nice weapon, Ill do an arms lore and item ID on it and watch how quickly it drops after each repair. Being I got it 2nd hand, it likely did see its fair amount of usage and I put it over the edge.

Thanks again for the explanation and all the help you provided with my tamer!

As an addition to upgrayedd's great explanation, the fortification powder can take any repairable item back to full durability as well as full max durability. However, you're looking at a number of uses to go from a well-worn weapon to fully repaired -- 15+ charges of fort powder, potentially. A single charge will boost both max durability and current durability a small (compared to the total) amount, though I don't know the exact percentages/ratios you would expect to see that at. Eventually, the max durability will top out, and you only gain in current durability when applying. Likewise; I don't think there's a specific system message to indicate that an item will no longer benefit from fort powder application; your best bet is to use arms lore on the weapon after every charge applied so as to not use too much.

Each charge consumed off a powder of fortification will yield a +10/+10 durability to the hits & max-hits of an item. The maximum durability of an item is 255/255.

If an item is in full repair & is also at the durability cap (max-hits >= 255) you will not be able to use the powder on that item & a system message will indicate that the item is already in full repair. However, items which are at the durability cap but are damaged may be repaired up to the maximum durability by use of the fortification powders. This is the only way to repair items which otherwise normally cannot be repaired. (sandals, masks, etc)

Thanks for the clarifications, Ez. The actual values are quite helpful to know; I hate giving information in the guise of "I believe this is how it works."