Hi guys,
I apologise in advance if this has been proposed and discussed before (I have been skim-reading the four pages), but here is my humble contribution to this thread:
A certain repair skill level would allow to repair only certain items (level 1 repair for common gear, level 2 repair for magical gear, level 3 for rare... and so on). In addition, if you have a certain repair skill the merchants should offer you a discount for repairing gear which requires a higher repair skill than you currently have ("Since you can do basic stuff yourself, let me just fix these few enchantments which are too difficult for your skill and charge you only the price for these few enchantments.") So, if you have a rare longbow and only level 2 repair, then the merchant would charge you less for repairing this bow than in the case when you do not have any points at all in repair.
Of course, repair would still require a hammer the durability of which should decrease. But the durability of items would be always restored to 100 % when repaired.
Last edited by Elwyn; 11/04/14 12:11 PM.