Improving item quality: Dyes and Gems

[Fever]

Consider the use of dyes and gemstones in real life: they are used almost exclusively to improve an item or to add variety. This could easily be incorporated into H&H, offering a post-production method of raising overall quality of an article of clothing (or weapon?).

Dyes would be obtained by grinding plants at a quern--for instance, Poppy Flowers for red dye, etc. Alternatively, flowers could be introduced that would produce a dye. Water, dye, and the item to by dyed would be added to a cauldron, the cauldron then heated, and viola. Dye could not only improve the quality of an item (more on that in a second) but could change its color on your character sprite for all to see.

Item quality is the sum of many parts. Consider a simple pair of linen pants--the quality of the hemp and flax seeds effects the quality of the fibers, which (as well as the quality of the loom) affect the quality of the linen cloth. Dye would have a quality as well, based on the quality of the plant used to produce it. However, whereas the quality of the aforementioned Linen Pants are a sum of several different parts, the quality of the dye would be added to each of these individual parts and averaged out as if there were another ingredient.

Where Leather Armor requires three units of Leather and its quality is the average of these three, dyed Leather Armor would be the average of the quality of the three units of Leather /as well as/ the single unit of dye. Therefore, dye could lower the quality of an item, potentially.


Gemstones would work differently, and would be found by mining. Able to be studied as curiosities, they could be affixed to armor/tools (perhaps using a unit of metal to form a socket?) and would always increase the quality of the item, perhaps by a percentage rather than a fixed amount.


The benefits these two would offer include increasing competition between parties for higher quality goods, as well as a bit of outward customization. A market would appear for gems and high quality dyes, stimulating trades. And it's not entirely out of question for the time period.

The potential drawbacks mainly include proper implementation, and potential for abuse. But then again, H&H is all /about/ abusing statistics to make ridiculous quality items.

What are your thoughts?

[Onionfighter]

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