Runic Hammers and benefits for PvM

So we were chatting about BoDs in guild channel and discussing options for runic hammers. The thought came up that it might be nice on low end runic hammers (dull copper, shadow, copper) to have a small percent chance of crafting a random type of slayer attribute onto the weapon.
For those of us sitting on dozens or more dull copper hammers, this might get them actually used or sold to someone who wants a chance at a bonus when crafting GM weapons for players.

GM weapons aren't very commonly crafted or used so this might be a nice gimme to non-factioning blacksmiths out there.

Perhaps a sliding scale of chance, such as %10 chance for random slayer on dull copper, %5 on Shadow, %1 on Copper, %0.5 bronze and %0.1 on gold or above?

Anyway, that's the idea ball for the day.

*kicks ball into court*

As I said to Gideon Jura back when I was but a wee babe in this BOD game... if you are adding value on one side of the balance, you need to subtract value from somewhere else. Otherwise, you're implicitly saying that this needs to be more profitable overall, which I think is hard to justify.

For reference, there are 814 Dull Copper runic hammers out there, collecting dust. The change you propose would turn them into 2,000 slayers of might.

I'm not sure where the fulcrum would be in balancing this, because I do have concerns as Dalavar states as to how this could influence the profitibility with no real counterweight to it, but I like the idea.

What if you managed to create a slayer, regardless of runic hammer type, it only created a base class slayer, no modifiers? Or perhaps, this only works when crafting w/ a runic in 'crafting regions' or something along these lines, and has a significantly low chance (to encourage more people in these regions, or at least that they are there for longer).

Also, if it were to be implemented, IMO, it should only be lesser slayers -- no super slayers being crafted. This would at least help keep more scarcity in that regards.

Really not sure how to balance that possibility out in the rubric -- but I like the idea of the function.

Yeah, perhaps when crafted in certain dungeon/overworld forge/anvil locations, it has a chance to make one with no GM (+4) bonus, or otherwise, and just the Slayer base level. Crafting areas in high end spawns to promote activity and field smithing.
I dunno, just would like to see something decent come of these things that isn't just dust collecting.

Neat idea, but I would personally be against this change, even if we're just talking Might slayers at best. Slayers are one of the few incentives to diversify hunting locations.

Please donate all your dusty runic hammers to us. We will take them for free, craft the runic weapons and sell them to NPC's for gold.
That way the hammers are going for a good cause - lessening the DB burden, and you people have free space to store more valuable stuff.

Would that even net more profit than just selling the ingots? For what it's worth, I've given away dozens of DC hammers.

Without kicking off the whole low end BoD reward discussion...

I agree there must be balance, there also must be value in doing those low end bods. The reward should justify the effort involved.. Right now the only "value" in low end BoDs (that are not impossible to fill, iron plate) is the reset. They are a gold sink. They promote the mining industry. And keep otherwise unruly smiths off the street. So the question comes to "Are DC/Shadow runics balanced today?"

From a purely reward vs effort, I would answer no. There are some secondary benefits mentioned above, but weapons made from DC Runic Hammers, just plain don't sell. Shadow Runic crafted weapons atleast have the cool factor of being shadow colored, but I have given away more of those than I have sold.

Remember Ancient Smith Hammers that would add to your smithing skill but had a rediculous amount of charges? Give DC +15 to your smithing skill when crarfting armor, Shadow +10, Copper +5 or some such sliding scale. Leave the charges on each hammer at 25. That way those DC hammers will get used up and actually be worth vendoring to the player base. It would also alleviate some of the stress of filling those Exceptional plate bods.

You do low end bods, to get the tool that helps you do high end bods, you will need multiples of those low end rewards in order to do the larger more valuable BoDs...

Thoughts?

Blaise, I tried the make-25-exceptional-weapons-and-sell-to-NPCs but I found it not worthwhile. If it took 10 minutes, it netted me 5k gold, whereas 10 minutes of killing bad guys would have netted 10k. Something like that.

That is enough value to keep many people making that effort. Your idea is clever (though, such a sliding scale should probably go the other way), but it is further increasing the rewards of something that a bunch of people do already because they find it sufficiently rewarding. I don't think it is fair at all to the players who have chosen other pursuits in this game to just start ratcheting up the rewards for this particular niche.

My hunch is that CUB will take care of this issue anyways. I assume, given that there's 800 DC runic hammers out there, that they'll have some nominal value to CUB, and they can be cashed in that way.

Dalavar, Thank you for your input and insight.

Yep, obviously the secondary benefit of a reset is enough to keep people filling low end rewards, but there is a near worthless item being introduced... the DC Runic Hammer. My gut feeling is that 800 items in a CUB scenario will likely be a drop in the bucket. TMAPS, SOS & even AMIBS will produce orders of magnitude greater CUB fodder

If the goal is to give value to the DC Runic Hammer & thus use it up, then the scale is going in the right direction. Shadow Runic hammers get used slightly more and their primary product has some value so it should get less of a bump, Copper Runic Hammers are starting to get into desirable stats and the primary output of them has a market so need even less of a bump than DC or Shadow. Beyond copper, their primary output... runic weapons... have a good market value

My idea is not to make valuable items MORE valuable, but to make items with little to no value have some value and purpose.

The other benefit is that it is not a straight 1 to 1 relationship. It will not introduce MORE of another item (slayers or special weapons), but rather increase the demand for the lowly DC hammer. It stimulates both low and high end bod activity AND retains all of the secondary values as well.

Supply is VERY high and there is little demand. This increases demand without overshadowing other rewards... IMHO...

Regarding CUB, I think Chris said that the value you get will be dependent on the item itself. So presumably the runic hammers would get you more than a pillow, or boot or whatever.

Scaling upwards with runic rarity allows users to get to make strategic choices. And it just makes thematic sense to me, that the better hammer would be better at doing stuff.

Realistically, you will net the same effect as what you propose. No one will ever use a Gold runic hammer charge to give themselves a higher chance of crafting a plate tunic, even if it sets that chance to 100%. So if the scale went:

+10 DC
+20 Shadow
+30 Copper
etc...

You would essentially have the most benefit coming from DC, since 100% of DC hammers would be used in this way, but not 100% of Shadow hammers would. And an even smaller portion of Copper hammers would be used like this.

At the very least, I have a bunch of DC hammers sitting in a crate, and this new ability will save me a bunch of ingots when I make plate tunics and such. You're not making Gold Runic hammers more valuable, you're making the pursuit of Blacksmithing BODs as a whole more valuable. Which I don't think is warranted or wise.

Dalavar's reversed scale would actually save the many many proverbial babies I've punched when failing to craft runic weapons to GM quality with hard to obtain hammers such as gold. If, by that scale, Gold Runic Hammers had a +60 smithing, you better believe it's never getting used for armor but at least the people who spend 6 months putting together a set of bods to GET a gold hammer, actually get 25 GOOD uses out of them.

I don't even want to think about how long of a break I'll need from UO if I fail three crafting attempts on a valorite hammer, if/when I get one.

I would definitely blast through my DC hammers in short order considering I have three complete sets of 20x DC Plate Bods ready to fill....and no patience to do it with present resource loss on crafting.

Ah, I had not considered that implication. Indeed that would be a massive change in value. I was just considering it for helping craft armor and such.

How would that be a 'massive' change in value?

Consider the scenario in which I want to create Katanas with my gold runic. I think at GM smith they have something like a 66% exceptional rate. So I'd get about 16 out of my 25 charge hammer. If the hammer implicitly added like +50 to my smithing skill, changing this to a 95% success rate, I'd get 24 katanas out of my 25 charge hammer. So literally 50% more kick-butt weapons, because of such a change.

If I'd pay 75k per gold runic katana, I'd pay 1.2M for the runic hammer as it stands. But under the proposed scenario, it would be worth 1.8M to me.

I could very easily just craft axes for the lumberjacks with a %99 success and get 25 GM Runics. However, the fencers get the shaft, again. Not only do they have a limited supply in field drops due to the range of weapon options for the class, the failure rate blows goats on crafting them.

Even at a fair rate of 50k per hit, that's 1.25m, which happens to be right in line. It really makes no sense to try and see a higher value than that considering that it's ONLY a +15 Vanq. Most folks literally have better weapons already and don't have to worry about failure in crafting. They are making piles and piles of gold while picking up weapons from corpses. Sure the chance is low to get that high end weapon but you're still making money hand over fist while waiting for those nice drops.

So all told, I don't think anyone's paying 75k for a +15 vanq katana. Under the proposed scenario, they would still have the same value because I don't know anyone interested in paying more than 50k for a weapon of that caliber. Even at 50k per hit, the value only holds if you're in factions and get that 3 week blessing out of it. Otherwise, you might as well go buy up +15 vanqs for 20k or so from player vendors.

I agree with most of what you said (and, the part about fencers having limited field drops is indeed lousy... though archers get it even worse).

However...

...but if you want something other than an axe or a maul, you don't get one weapon per hit. You get one katana per 1.5 hits. One halberd per 1.25 hits. etc.

Well, if they choose to make katanas right now, they are. 50k per hit, 1.5 hits per katana.

I cannot imagine that these hammers are making purely large battle axes, mauls, and longswords. The one agapite runic weapon that has hit the trade forum here was a short spear (68% chance of success, I think, so about the same charge cost as a katana).

I'm not going to debate the rationality or lack thereof regarding what people will or will not pay. But it is a fact that the improving the rate of success with these hammers will make them *better*. And since they are better, you are thus getting more value by having them. Even if you look at it as: right now they only make 5 weapon types, but with improved success rates they make 15 weapon types. That's still more value, regardless of how much more someone would pay for it.

You are obviously playing in another world if you think that archery has it worse. I have literally 10x (or more) high end archery weapons compared to fencing. I have stopped storing Power bows and heavy xbows because the chests have 125 in them already. Archery may have fewer weapon options but they certainly drop a shit ton more than decent fencing weapons.

Considering I'm one of the only people out here actually crafting golden runic hammers, I personally suggested, and effectively set, the price per hit at 50k. The members of SL seem to be in agreement with the price and it just plain sucks ass that fencers get shafted with crap success rates. I can craft myself an axe all day long and not bat an eyelash wherein one player payed out 200k for a single long spear because I failed 3 attempts prior to his GM level one. The two previous persons got super lucky and got their spears at 50k a pop because of the luck of the draw I guess. Quite frankly I would personally drop the price per hit if I knew every hit was going to be a success.

For the record, I'm fairly certain that was an agapite spear, not a short spear. Regardless, success rate blows on both of them but agapite is whole other ball game because it's better than anything you can actually get from a mob drop.


Making them better is a good thing, not a bad thing. Farming up gold is super easy in this game. Pulling out golden runic hammers is a pain in the ass and watching charges go to waste is what makes me never want to craft another runic spear again. It's not like resource loss on crafting items, it's like getting punched in the stomach for your efforts.

All told, I don't really care about agreement on the topic or if it every really changes. I'm assuming it won't to meet some modicum of risk vs reward, even though I take the risk of spending my time doing BoDs and hoping like hell I get runics, instead of farming up millions of gold and a grip of vanqs to throw away in factions (ie: much easier).

Short spear:
http://uorforum.com/threads/a-spear-forged-by-the-mighty-hands-of-una-pachakuti.3197/

And since it was agapite, not gold, I have no idea why its price would in any way be similar to the price of a gold. Unless you mean someone paid 200k for a gold spear, in which case, please get me their contact info

I've said this before, but we all make choices based on risk and reward, and plenty of us have chosen this particular pursuit because it is rewarding - whether in gold or kickass weapons or cool deco. It may be less profitable than farming, but it's not too far off. And it's quite far, IMO, from the truly low-reward stuff, that should be buffed long before adding value to an already profitable pursuit like this.

Oh, I guess it was just snap dragon not listing the item correctly that got stuck in memory.
Its price would not in any way be similar to the price of a gold weapon because it is significantly more valuable based on its properties.


Yes, someone paid 200k for a single GOLD spear. They paid 50k PER SWING, wherein three were NOT exceptionally crafted. Math it up.

As indicated, that price per swing would DROP if I knew it wasn't going to fail. I charge 50k per swing because of the potential for it to be a complete fucking waste. It is not rewarding to see the long hard road of flipping shit bods for good bods to eventually get a gold hammer only to have charges pissed away because crafting success rates blow goats on Fencing weapons. Literally no other class sucks that bad for their 'ideal' weapon.

Wouldn't that be cool if top tier mask dye had a 'chance' to dye a mask?