Is this counter any higher for trees? It'd be nice, since they tend to block the mouse pointer more frequently than ore, and would make sense as the hardness on ore would undoubtedly be higher. I think I'm probably in the 7-8 range there just from that one pesky tree in the Broken Woods, heheh.
Another thing that comes to mind is an aditional use for craft weapon... repairs and routine maintainence! Perhaps a whetstone for a CNR workbench that removed some counters on a successful weaponcraft check, and possibly add a few on a failure.
I imagine it's difficulty would be comparable to the same tradeskill check for making such a weapon type from the metal its composed from, and would be scaled according to size... for example:
Weapon Repair
--------------
Copper
Small-60%
Medium-50%
Large-40%
Bronze
Small-40%
Medium-30%
Large-20
Iron
Small-20%
Medium-10%
Large-do or do not, there is no try!
It shouldn't be too exploitable since one would have to be able to make such a weapon to be able to repair it, and it would give weaponsmiths some more usefulness in keeping the party in top fighting condition. Of course it could be overly exploitable to give the smith any CNR xp for doing such tasks... else we might find them deliberately smacking trees and rocks for weaponsmithing practice, rather than mining ore and making molds.
An armor wear and tear system with armor repair would be interesting as well. Perhaps double 20 critical hits from a foe could add a counter? With armor, I would presume the number of counters before destruction would depend stongly on factors such as heaviness, metal type and durability. Tailoring of course would mimic the same to make repairs on clothing and leathers.
for all repair skills, perhaps a small amount of the processed material would be needed to make patches and boilster gear durability. 2 iron ingots to repair a fullplate, 1 for a chainmail, 1 for a dagger, 2 for medium, 3 for large... etc.
