I want to propose a thesis: Crafting of armours (and belts and rings) is basically useless.

Why? Crafted armours are "better" in two aspects than found ones: First, they give a bit higher armour than usually found ones and they have a slightly better movement bonus.

But here comes the problem: They have one magical property at maximum, and even if it was two properties we'd have the same problem.
A crafted armour that has 2 or even 10 points better armour than a found one and like 0.2 or 0.1 better movement bonus has a very hard time to compete with two or three +1 or even +2 to for a character useful stats.

I'd never trade the slight advantage for armour for the list of
+1 Constitution
+1 Perception
+1 Dexterity
on the found one for the Rogue.

And therefore: Crafted armours simply (and sadly) are useless. Or do you run around in armours that make up for the lack of bonus to the stats?

Or can you enhance crafted armours somehow with another stat bonus (e.g. from magical starfishes or whatnot)?

The same goes for belts and rings, I fear. Why would I ever wear a belt that has one bonus, while found items usually come with at least two?
Crafting comes down for me to Weapons, here the additional damage makes up for the lack of boni to stats and improving found armours. Which I find a tad sad.

I suppose it depends on one's level. Crafted leather armour kept my archer going for quite a long time through the game, though now I'm at a higher level there are better armours available to find or for sale. Likewise with arms, until tenebrium was available and I wanted two additional characteristics. But apart from that, it's provided me with a handy source of income to fund my expensive shopping sprees!

So what you are basically saying is that is extremely handy early on but its usefulness fades as you progress?

kinda harsh to describe it as utterly useless then

I didn't find it useful either. At the point where you crafting ability becomes good enough you already find something better.

I general I find most crafting useless. In particular all the food related items.

The good things to craft are (IMHO): Arrows, Weapon and Armor Enchantments, Skill books, and Potions. Most of the rest seems pointless.

I do not even think it is useful in the beginning. You always find heaps of EQ and there always is something with more additional properties than the things you crafted. What I described above is valid from level 1 onwards, it just gets even more distinct as you progress in the levels.

While I think it is pretty cool to be able to craft boots I think I never have worn them.

As I said, improving EQ with resistances, nails, whetstone and anvil is pretty useful, but the stock-items you craft are basically worthless.

This is true for (in this order from least useful to "might get used") boots, robes, and body armour.

I also find most potions beyond healing not that useful. It may be different on Hard, but in the normal playthrough I always had enough other potions. As money is thrown at you in true heaps, crafting Skillbooks is also not *that* useful as you can just buy them sooner or later. Nice for the first five or six levels, but then you do not need it anymore, at all (and that is only true if you have crafting early from level 1 to maxish 8 or 10).

What is lacking is the ability to outfit items after they got crafted with more magical abililites, like you could stitch magic starfishes, teeth and what-you-have to robes, boots, helmets... that'd be something.

Non-slip boots are really useful, especially in Hiberheim.

Yeah but don't you find Snow Boots? Each of my characters had a set.

Playing a Cleric I did make a 'club with nails' a few times as it was the best bashing weapon I could find, but eventually I just gave him a blade since it was doing more damage anyway even with the cleric 'blunt weapon' trait.

I started the game with one character just carrying every ingredient she could find and spent WAY too much time trying to craft things with the stuff, and of course 95% of everything crafted was useless.

Honestly I wish what you could craft was cut down to about 25% of what we have now ... AND it be actually useful. IMO would be a much better system overall.

"Making boots non-slippery" counts for me as "enhancing existing armours".

As for crafting: Who wants +1 on "Lucky Charm" to find even more useless EQ when they can have two or three things on the boots that actually give something to the char?

What I also find odd that you cannot craft entire tiers of certain items, as helmets (yes, I know about the cooking pot and the pumkin), or bracers. Or did we just not find the proper recepie for that?

I think the amount of things you can craft is perfectly fine, I just have a few additions. You should be able to make "cloth stripes" from "Folded Shirt" + "Knife", but the issue is that what you craft as armours simply cannot compete even with mediocre magical items you find, simply due to the special features those other items come with.

I'd like to hear an argument/defense of why crafted armors and items should be better than found gear.

Because if they are not it makes crafting completely pointless. Why craft some plate armor when I can find some in a box or vendor that's better. It's not like money is ever an issue in the game.

Very simple: I invest character points into it. If you do not get any return from that, as you do from investing that character points into social, defense, weapon abilities, skills, (etc) - then they are wasted.

If you "pay" for an ability that is not used because stuff you get for free is better, than the buying that ability is pointless. In this case it'd be a feature in the game that should not have been done, as the time put into a worthless (not used) feature should have gotten invested at a better end. Which I find sad.

So: If you pay for it, it must be worth it. To be worth it, the crafted EQ must either be (slightly) better than what you find and/or you can determine exactly what the items are (in contrast to random loot).
Right now you do not even find enough dye in the game to NOT run around with a pink or bright green robe you crafted yourself! So the items do not even have cosmetic customisation - on top of being useless, as what you find anyway is better.

Again, we're only talking about making armour, boots and robes here. Crafting weapons or improving items (including armour) is perfectly fine.

Nag, you still need high crafting to enhance high level armors. That is where you get your point worth.

Come again. Why should crafted items be better?

That's the part I don't like. I need 5 points in Crafting/Blacksmithing to do decent upgrades ... but that's basically all I get for those points spent, since actually making stuff is pointless. To me that's a whole lot of points for just a little more damage or protection on weapons and armors I find.

While I will try not to stick my nose into the hornets nest about the usefulness of crafting, I will try and add something constructive.

You do not need to invest 30 ability points into crafting/bs, if for example you take Jahan as crafter you only need to put 20 ability points into crafting/bs and with bracers/belt that will drop down to 6 ability points. (2 ranks crafting/2 ranks bs = 6 ability points.)

Alternatively you can hire a henchmen and give it crafting 5 and just throw him/her in when you need stuff crafted that is actually of importance, this way none of your characters truely lose any ability points, however grabbing that extra npc every now and then is rather bothersome imo.

what I did was grab a crafting mod which made sense, would fix the missing recipes and would also have extra benefits for having high crafting. I am not familiar if I am allowed to link to a website which is not affiliated with Larian, so I will take the safe route and not link it. If it is allowed I can post a link to the source.

While it might not have been very helpful, it is kinda "hard" to reply on just a statement.

With kind regards,

Rashar.

You only need 2 in craft and 3 in BS to have 5 in both. That is 1+2+1+2+3 = 9 points. Pretty cheap if you ask me

I think there's a place for both, but it probably depends on where you're at in the game. Once you can find some of the better armor it's probably not worth crafting it anymore.

Because gambling is fun?

I think Larian could make it useful without too much work. Add some more rare ingredients to the game, perhaps even rarer than elemental essences, that add a secondary stat.

The kicker on these would be is they could only be used on hand crafted gear, and would not do anything to magical, rare, legendary, unique items.

Don't look at crafting from just Armor perspective thanks.

Using void essences on armor adds attributes to it, for one.

Where'd you get the idea that "Do not just look at armour!" in a thread that is specifically about how crafting armours is useless would be an actual contribution?

I would be still "useless" in the eyes of these people tho. Coz we would use that to enhance existing armors.

Early on, it was really good to supplement. Like level 12 I had so many gear gaps, I crafted a bow/leather armor/2h axe/staff. I then used Joshua's Spice on the 2h axe, bowstring and spyglass on bow, dipped all in elemental forge/grindwheel, used some elemental orbs on them...

I am now level 16. The 2h axe is still stronger damage (by good amounts) then even level 15-16 legendarys. The bow lasted a level or two and got replaced, which is usually how it goes. Armors tend to get replaced even quicker, since 1 level makes the different in armor, but also going from like +1 dex to +2 dex ect ect.

So yah, its kind of supplemental gear, but I use the Crafting Overhaul which makes it a lot more viable. It just fills gaps in level appropriate armor.

I've seen plenty of games where crafting is mainly something extra for people to do who like the idea of crafting--for some people it's the idea of crafting their equipment--or even just some of it--that appeals to them. Personally, the whole "crafting" gig has never appealed to me, but I think the whole notion that "because it's crafted it should be better than discovered/store-bought" is nonsense....;) "Crafted" is, after all, just another word for "homemade"....;)

The idea that because something is "crafted" it should be "better" than anything else in the game is one that I don't think is defensible. It's there, if you want it; if not, the game won't penalize you for ignoring it. At any rate, I think the game deliberately doesn't want players expending a lot of time on the crafting option, imo.

Exactly.

Sometimes you won't find any gear upgrades and you'll be stuck using the same gear for several levels, which makes it kinda crappy for what you should be using.

This is what crafted gear is for. Filling the gaps that random loot leaves.

My endgame crafted robes gave something like +3 intelligence, which was a damn sight better than the random collection of stats on my level 14 orange robes I still had. They probably wouldn't have been better than level 21 orange robes, but I never found level 21 orange robes, so that's kind of moot.

I would completely agree with that if you could craft without spending precious skill points to do it. IMO if it is going to cost you to be able to craft the best things you can (5+ in Crafting/Blacksmithing/etc.) then by golly it better be some good stuff. Otherwise all those skill points should have been used on something else. If crafting was something you could just do ... then sure why not have it average grade stuff.

Respec.

Oddly enough I've finished the game once and never found anyone that I could use to respec. Wish I had as there were a few things I would have liked to have changed.

Hmmm...I'd also like to know where respec comes from. Perhaps a mod or the save game editor?

I've got 1 in Crafting and 1 in Blacksmithing, and I can get to 5 Crafting and 4 Blacksmithing with gear. But I'm regretting them due to the lack of materials.

I have trouble finding scraps. My henchmen are still wearing their initial boots because there simply aren't any extra scraps I can spare for them. At level 10 I have only ever found 2 pairs of boots. And any armor I craft are worthless compared to rares and legendaries that I have already pick up.

There also seem to be no recipe for bracers? Crafted rings and belts are also quite useless when drops are that plenty with easily 2-3 bonuses on rares and more on legendaries. And recipe for plate armor?

I also find more legendaries than rubies and moonstones. But boosting can be done on loot so it isn't an advantage belonging to crafted armor anyway.

The advantage in crafting armor is being able to fill in the missing pieces. That's all it's good for right now. Yet the ability to actually do that depends on looting or bartering for scraps, i.e. dependent on RNG. So it is really the same as waiting to pick up a useful magic/rare/legendary---actually it is worse because in addition to relying on RNG, you have to have the appropriate skill and yet still produce an inferior result.

I was thinking about a playthrough wearing only crafted gear, but then I realized there's no recipe for bracers and plate armor. And we can't produce scraps.

It'd be nice if the devs can reveal their plan on this. If crafting is going to just remain as is, I'll start using mods to fill in the "missing" recipes and actually have a proper crafting system in my game, but I'd still rather wait for an official word on it.

It's a demon in one of the opened rooms at the Homestead.

Ah, thanks, I haven't got that far! I guess I'm not all out of luck with my current character!

I recall talking to that guy, but don't recall the respec option coming up. Course I might have just skipped through it.