Craft question

[Tom H]

When I craft a Fine Pawboard trap and it tells I could have done better but for the quality of my materials (roughly speaking), is it REALLY saying my skills can craft better than Fine, if only I use better boards? I'd test it myself but I don't have any Perfect boards...heh.

[PALU]

Yes. It means that the success roll was sufficient for a better result than the material used allowed for, so in that particular case, having use a perfect board would have resulted in a top level trap.

The same logic applies to other cases as well. Tanning stages often result in that message for me, for example, and you can also get it when making javelins, as it's very hard to get hold of staves of better than normal quality (you can very occasionally buy them, but you can't craft them).

It can also be mentioned that there's a similar (but different) message when it's the quality of the tools used that holds the result back.

[Tom H]

Thanks, Palu.

I also see the message a lot when working hides in which I've achieved 100% Master skills. Still, most of my 'superior' furs wind up being bird leathers...meh. I've still got 4 Cured Superior skins in the cellar because it's so difficult to find consistency. Used to have 5 but I tried and failed, even at 100%, zero burden. Whatevah...

[PALU]

My experience indicates that a 100% skill, zero encumbrance, top quality materials, and top quality tools still only produces top quality results somewhere in the range of 1/4-1/7 of the attempts, although I think there may be modifiers that increase the chances for some actions. Some tanning stages seem to be more prone to retain the quality of the skin than others.

[Tom H]

Ummm... You've reminded me that I've never been able to find a Masterwork Broadknife for my main guy. Do you think it matters a lot that it's only a Fine quality blade? I'm wondering if arranging it so I can only access a Masterwork Knife, or MW any-other-knife would be of greater utility than my plain, old, Fine blade?

[PALU]

A broad knife is the preferred tool for hide working, and so this tool provides a greater benefit than other knives of the same quality. I'd expect the difference to be approximately one quality level, so a Masterworks knife of a different kind being about equal to a Fine broad knife.
You can experiment by having both a Masterworks "other" knife and a Fine broad knife in your inventory when skinning a carcass, observe the text to see which one the game selects, drop and pick the knives up such that they end up in the reverse order in your inventory, and then observe which one is selected for another skinning task. If the same knife is selected in both tasks that's the "better" one, and different ones are used they're equally good.

If I remember correctly, a Fine broad knife is sufficient to be able to make Superior hides, while a Fine knife of other types fails the equipment test. However, I may remember incorrectly and that's for Decent knives, but anyway, a Broad knife can be of one quality level lower than other types to allow for the same best result.

Thus, I'd expect a Masterworks broad knife to add an extra bonus to your success roll over a Fine one, which matters a fair bit when the chances are so low.

[Tom H]

Wow! The villages have been replenished with goods! And, I finally found a Masterwork Broadknife! To top it off, I also, finally, got a Foreign trader with a Masterwork Mace to offer it in trade. That is used for the final step in my hideworking, softening the hide. I guess it's time to pull those cured hides out.