Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-9601450-20131225183646/@comment-29458028-20140720002623

There is a reason why historical artifacts are kept only in museums and no longer used in battle, don't you observe.

What we want are artifacts that we actually use for combat, not artifacts that go into museums. Archaeology digs up stuff that goes into museums, not into actual use.

Not a single weapon that does 60 damage? A daedric, dragonbone sword smithed to legendary with no special gear or potions does 72 physical compared to 45 for your proposed upgrade (I have delved into game mechanics, the exemplar sword I quoted is not even maxed out yet, plus it is very easy to make, doesn't need mods and cheap to make as well). The enchantment can be max leveled, which translates to 45 elemental damage. That's 117 damage for you. Also, in base Skyrim, a dual enchanted chaos lifeleech sword does 67 lifeleech alone, not counting everything else, and that's enchanting done without a potion! We are talking about enemies that have nearly 4000 health on max difficulty, which would make every battle against a bandit or basic draugr into monster hunter, which is not cool if you knew drawing your other sword would end the fight in a tenth of the time.

It doesn't matter how serious a game is. Weaponry must be useful if you want them to be used in any RPG, not underpowered (or they end up in a chest). In fact, I came up with a better idea: levelling weapon - the weapon evolves with you, making sure that it never becomes overpowered, but is never too weak either. It's not lore unfriendly and it removes the need for smithing. Unless, of course, you reach level 200, then that is when your weapon becomes OP. But that's the point you are OP naked, so it doesn't matter at all

E.g. "Levelling dawnbreaker" (you'll noticed I used the dawnbreaker for all e.g.s, that's for consistency) - gain 1 base damage every two levels you have + 6 base (so if you are level 6, its 9 base and lets say level 40 its 26 base). Deals 5 + level x 0.25 sun damage to all, undead take double. (At level 6 that's only 6 damage, at level 40 its's 15). On kill of anything, 35% chance to cause sunburst, tripled chance to sunburst against undead. Sunburst staggers all and undead take 25 + your level amount of sun damage. (So it's 31 damage at level 6 and 65 at level 40.)

This one is quite confusing and difficult to follow, but it's hard to write is simpler. I actually prefer levelling weapons than something with "high" stats you can't tamper with, simply because what starts of weak can become good with time. My point of view is from a person who is purely gameplay oriented, plus how does having a smithable daedric artifact make the game any less serious? If you want enemies that are very hard, like every troll or giant will be a huge threat, go play dark souls...