Is crafting without the recipe an exploit?

@zaratustra
What gear are you crafting that makes the early game so much easier? How many skill points do you invest in smithing before moving on to leveling up spells?

If its only purpose is an early crutch, why don't you just put 1 pt in a summon skill?

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For late game smithing I'd like the ability to craft random artifact rings as well as amulets. Only Electrum and Platinum could be used. Maybe make Ruby the other gem as it seems to be the 2nd most expensive.

 

I have an idea about how to handle crafting recipes. I like the idea of discovering a recipe as a requirement to craft, but I also don't like how the chances of finding something useful to your build are fairly dismal. So I have a compromise.:
1. All recipes from level 0 to 3 are automatically known at that skill level.
2. For level 4 and 5 recipes, rank them by relatively value to the player. Once ranked, you then have a means to distribute the recipes based on a formula involving the dungeon level and the player's investment in the apporpriate crafting skill.
a) Common/easey recipes are known to everyone at the appropriate level.
b) Rare/medium power recipes -- 1 to 6 random recipes in that category ought to be found in every book shelf.
c) Top-rated recipes (the ones for the most powerful/bet items in the game) shoud show up in maybe 1 out 11 bookcases on level 1, 1 out of 10 on level 2, 1 out of 9 on level 3, and so on. For every point you currently have in that crafting skill, you get to re-roll a failure (1 point in a skill gives you one reroll, 2 points gives you 2, and so on)
3. As part of this, I'd like to see a wider variety of craftable items to represent items more appropriate to the dungeon level you find the recipe on. Top of the line level 5 recipes you find on level 2 or 3, ought to be significantly less powerful (on average) than the ones you find on level 7 or 8

 

I like the current system of finding recipes rather than finding them or looking them up and crafting them by memory. The odds that you will find something useful or something you want to make might be slim, but it's about as much chance as finding it as an artifact or in a shop. It also helps because of items and blessings that increase other crafting skills which allow you to make some mid level items. The whole "you don't learn anything of use" should be tossed out, though.

 

@J-factor

two weapons, smithing to level 2, make two steel swords (or axes), chop heads left and right.

 

That's the one saving grace of Smithing: if you get your Skill up to 3 (or more) ASAP and find a couple of those "Press and random Ingots and Ore" rooms on the 1st and/or 2nd floors, you can make some powerful weaponry that will be hard to replace until the late game.

I agree with J-factor though... it's a great early crutch but really, do you want something that's amazing on Floor 2 (Smithing)... or something that's amazing on Floor 10 (Astrology, Dual Wielding, Fungal Arts, Promethian Magic, etc.)?

 

The possibility of never finding the recipe you wanted, and being stuck with a useless crafting skill is unappealing. I'd rather just know all the recipes at the start.
Perhaps learning each tier as you level the skill up.

This part is because I felt like it:
"As a former apprentice to a master blacksmith you have seen your master make great works, your works pale in comparison."