Subscribe to download
Old Ways Smithing

Return to the good old days where smithing results where randomized and weapons had personality.

Mod Description:

I missed the interesting and highly customizable smithing system which had inspired me so much that every time I started fresh in Bannerlord throughout the years, I always played a sort of "Swordsaint" smithing hero who revolved entirely around this magnetizing mechanic, and ventured out to make full use of the quirky results it could generate. Weapons with randomized outcomes, -some mostly speed, some mostly damage, some more defensive-, just had so much character that they really warranted being custom named weapons. ("Siebensegen", "Austerity Series One", "Hexjadril", I had great fun making up names to reward results)
The urge for this playstyle eventually got so strong that I finally made a proper mod for this game to reintroduce the randomization back as an option for me and people who feel the same.

How it works:
The mod generates a custom modifier that is attached to any crafted quality weapon without disturbing vanilla weapon stats or modifiers in any way. Then, when it comes to usage in missions or displaying the statistics, it references the custom modifier instead of the original one.
This is important, because it means all functionality that pertains to the original item modifier is maintained. (e.g. a quest giver recognizing a weapon as "fine" quality, despite randomized stats)
It also means that the mod can be freely removed without any of the crafted weapons becoming dysfunctional or impairing the game in any way. The item will simply return to its original quality's stats.

Distribution details:
The mod takes the vanilla modifier amounts, sums them up, and then randomly redistributes them. For example, a "balanced" sword that would have gotten +3 damage on both swing and thrust, and +1 speed on the three values swingspeed, thrustspeed and handling (which is "defensespeed", functionally), would get 3+3+1+1+1 = 9 points and assign them randomly. There is some extra weighting to favor damage and favor specialization.(see below under Mod Options)
On throwing weapons it is more complicated, since those have both a ranged and melee use profile which run on two separate distribution rounds. The relation between the two causes the point total to be more or less, but that is simply because the melee profile is only partially derivative of the ranged one. (some stats get copied, others don't) The source amount of modifiers follows the vanilla points exactly still, with one change made:
I made it so Stack Size costs two points and also generates two out of the vanilla data, since stack seems a lot more impactful on usability compared to the other stats.

While working on this project, I also noticed that the original game was lacking the animation for crafted quality throwing weapons. For example, "Bent" Javelins would appear fine, but once moving to the actual inventory, you would see they had lower damage and speed than normal ones. I corrected that oversight here, so you see the result directly after crafting.

Hint: The mod goes very well with another much more simple smithing mod I made to expand the crafting scale sliders:
Mountain Blade - It's Sword of Long


Additional Note:
I myself play on a more advanced version of the mod that allows for distribution points to increase the higher the smithing skill above 275 on legendary weapons.(and increasing chances for legendary quality too until near 100%) This is already completed, and will soon be released as "Old Ways Smithing Plus", but since it requires another yet to release mod which allows for skill values up to 1000, I just need more time testing in my own game to make sure there are no bugs beyond the skill 300 range.


Mod Options:

The mod's MCMenu has a few options that influence the random stat distribution.

Last Modifier Bias: The percentage chance that instead of a random weapon stat, it will instead increases the one that was increased before. This helps to break apart the more even random distribution effect that comes with higher modifier amounts, and leads to weapons becoming more specialized, quirky, and hence I guess, "full of personality". (delivered with base 0.4 / 40%)

Bias for Damage: The chance that instead of a random (or the last) stat increase, it will instead just increase damage. If there is more than one damage attribute, it will randomly chose between them. I introduced this since all vanilla weapon modifiers weigh more in direction of damage than speed. (delivered with base 0.1 / 10%)

Bias for Missile Speed: On missile weapons this will make it so that random increases of "weapon speed", will instead be attributed to "missile speed" with the given likelihood. Since weapon speed only benefits the melee use of the weapon, it seems justified that a smith would focus on the ranged advantages. Also, the vanilla modifiers fall into the same 3:1 split between the two stats, which is remodeled with this accurately. (delivered with base 0.5 / 50%)