Forging is pointless?

[31Gridmore03]

There have been times when I wanted to dedicate a character to forging/smithing entirely. The problem I have been facing, is that the world gives you better armor and weapons than you can make yourself. "Oh, you just made an entire set of steel armor? Here, have som orcish armor" is what I'm talking about. Smithing is not fun, because it's much more valuable to explore. You'll find gear better than what you make.

I believe there should be some kind of "reward" you would get from forging your gear than finding them, or else nobody is going to use the forge. Ever.

[Ser Armory]

It may help you levelling your char I guess.

[alexander_dougherty]

um, smithing is necessary to temper your armour and sharpen your weapons. If you don't temper your armour, then you are getting about a quarter of it's defense value, especially at higher levels. Ok you will hit the armour cap before long (where any extra is agnore after you hit a certain value)

I get what you are saying, but if you are also enchanting your armour then the armour you are wearing will be better than the stuff you pick up, most of the time. And when you hit the Armour cap, you just craft for the look, which is where Ebony and Dragonbone/dragonscale armours come into their own.

[R.A.T. Army *MST3K*]

Smithing is best used upgrading your gear, as apposed to making it.

[Aethuviel]

You can easily improve it with smithing. I now have a *flawless* steel greatsword that is better than pretty much anything they can throw my way. Just waiting until I get the top levels of smithing, then I can improve ebony, glass, daedric (and so on) weapons and armor to get it to "exquisite" and "flawless" as well.

[Trehek]

Originally posted by Ihmp:

Smithing is not fun, because it's much more valuable to explore. You'll find gear better than what you make.

Found armor and weapons don't even come close to competing with items tempered with a high smithing skill. You may find many base items earlier than you can craft them, which is good because looting doesn't become completely useless, but smithing with the appropriate perks is the way to get truly strong gear.

[BushiNeko]

If you want to expand your crafting, and be able to have varients, circlets, jewelry, alternate xp system.
I would suggest this:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49791/?
Keeps some diversity and reasons for spending time building.
But as stated above.. once you have some skill in smithing, enchanting ( if your allowing yourself a character able to do both.. ) you can craft far better custom items than you will ever find.

Other things to look at.. I DONT WANT TO BE A BLACKSMITH allows you to have a non crafting type character for RP to ask / pay smiths to craft..
CAMPFIRE adds much more you can craft for use and fun in the wilds.
TENTAPALOOZA also adds items.
JEWEL CRAFT obvious.
HUNTERBORN aside from adding hunting, adds scrimshaw crafts and more variety for crafing items..

[Slava Ukraini]

Smithing is also very useful in combination with mining. Make your ore into armor and weapon and sell it. This is interesting and rewarding.

[31Gridmore03]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

[The Rock God]

You can make dragonbone/dragonscale gear at level 20. You will not get it as loot at 20. You can make Daedric and Ebony gear at even lower levels. You will also not be getting them as loot.

[Carl!!!!]

I usually use a modded weapon, or have a set weapon I try and get for my playthrough as early as possible, so slowly upgrading smithing, lets me keep upgrading my weapons as I go (and armor ofc, if I use it). Plus I'm using Ordinator, which turns smithing into a potential combat skill as well, with dwarven turrets. XD

[Mr. Monday]

Originally posted by Ihmp:

There have been times when I wanted to dedicate a character to forging/smithing entirely. The problem I have been facing, is that the world gives you better armor and weapons than you can make yourself. "Oh, you just made an entire set of steel armor? Here, have som orcish armor" is what I'm talking about. Smithing is not fun, because it's much more valuable to explore. You'll find gear better than what you make.

I believe there should be some kind of "reward" you would get from forging your gear than finding them, or else nobody is going to use the forge. Ever.

The reward is getting the armor you want when you want it vs having to wait for it to be included in loot or dropped by an opponent.

[Squiffy]

Or you could show restraint and only use things you craft yourself.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Boozy Misanthropy:

Or you could show restraint and only use things you craft yourself.

Which puts me in mind of some mod or other for FO3, which rigs things so that you can't equip random bits of power armour you find out in the field until you "fit" it at a work bench.

[Clever Monkey]

there are a couple things I do for smithing.
CCOR as mentioned is a must as well as immersive armors and immersive weapons but these are other things to consider

this makes the skill and perks better by splitting the crafting and tempering into different branches. forget about crafting your items and simply worry about tempering them
Smithing Perks Overhaul - Remade and Updated by kryptopyr
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33959/?

or

Don't waste your character levels on smithing/enchanting and allow others to do it. no reason to use the mod above if you use this.
Honed Metal -NPC Crafting and Enchanting services- by SkylineR390
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51024/?
this mod also allows tempering services as well

Use these together if wanted but they do offset each others usefullness.


I never used the smithing mod mentioned by Neko but the mod I link is for enchanting as well. just another option.

[Clever Monkey]

it should also be mentioned to install
bandoliers
cloaks
winter is coming cloaks
jswords

all are controllable by CCOR and through the mcm you can distribute the items to levelled lists if you want or keep them just for your crafting. this applies to all ccor items as well.

immersive armors mcm does the same thing.

you can also use this mod so you do not have to wait for a merchant to have the items or so you don not have to go mine them yourself.
Order My Items by alexbull_uk
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51733/?

which brings me to another thread in the discussions about going overboard on mods. I may do this