Shattered Kingdoms

Pulling this over from the newbie boards for discussion (again). I completely agree with Syn. The skin skill has been completely obsoleted by the last round of enchanting/consecrating changes.

It used to be possible (if very challenging, compared to finding equipment with decent base enchants and going from there) to get armor made from skin with good enchants. It is now impossible to do so.

I suggest making skins provide random slight to moderate innate endowments, depending on the level of creature slain. Skins will remain on a lower tier than the best armor in the game, but will at least become a reasonable option for people willing to put in the the hard work to get the right ones and get them enchanted up.

We already have a framework of relevant bonuses that could be used thanks to the spirit doll mechanics. This sounds like a decent idea.

I had suggested this before, that races that can be skinned be given a chance to endow their skin with a partial of their ability. The skin could give bonuses to a stat, like str, dex, int, etc., and/or armor/magic protection, willpower, reflex, movement, health, etc.

I hadn't thought of this when I brought it up before, but instead of a flat success/fail, what if skin were made so that there are categories of skins that are cut. Mangled, obviously useless, poor, fair, above average, superior, outstanding and phenomenal (never really like god-like), much like the system of quality on items. The higher the quality, the better the innate stats. Whether you should be able to pick what you want in stats when it is being skinned is something that I am not sure of in terms of balance. If there are increased odds of getting a less than optimal skin, I don't really see why not.

For example sake, you skin a wolf, who would normally give an average level skin to begin with which would have gotten you 1-2 stats of the above list. You do such a fine job of doing it, the skin is considered to be an outstandingly cut skin, worthy of praise. This would then boost the innate stats of the skin by another random 2-3 stats.

Also, perhaps add a new skill to scouts that will allow them to clean or cure the skin, which could give another 0-2 random stats, but makes the item more resistant towards accepting magical energy into it from consecration or enchanting.

When I suggested it, no one even commented on it, so I figured that it was a dead idea or I would have revived it sooner.

Lost me when you started going 'and another couple stats and another 1-2 stats and another couple stats'.

Skins should have 2-3 innate, max.

That's why it's an idea. I was just tossing out numbers to help illustrate.

Skin skill was a great way of collecting trophies in PvP

You can't say much about skinning until they release details about the crafting that is told to come about. skinning will probably be addressed in that.

Couple of things that would be interesting would be fletching blunt arrows and flight arrows or getting coordinates without a sextant.

I remember fondly the days back when supernatural and adamantine hides could be skinned and tailored into armor. For a long time, supernatural skins were the best armors in the game.

When skins were changed to only work with tailored/blacksmithed materials, I was disappointed but also understood the value of it. They were still competitive.

Now, with the most recent changes to enchant, it really has wimped skins that much more, and I have mixed feelings about it. I think the enchant changes were a positive change. But there remains room for discussion about future tweaks for skins.

I have to say, I agree. Skinning is nice the fact that you can get free armor, but the amount of time you put into vs the rewards are not worth it. For the most part you're lucky to get exceptional stats of one kind of the skins and that's about all they will hold. Of course I can't say much for the type you can get out in the plane of earth since I haven't made that trip since a little after the changes and the quality of the skin and how many enchantments it'll hold now. I just know I've spent hours skinning things.....fail constantly only to produce mediocre armor that.