Minor Maintenance Suggestions

[Fayne]

So, as I said in my post about cleaning weapons, I have a few ideas for minor weapon maintenance. These things could simply be for RP, or they could provide actual mechanical benefits, such as slightly improving the durability of an item, giving it a short temporary boost to damage, or maybe having a chance to actually repair it slightly.

First, leather wrappings. Some swords and other handheld weapons, as well as bows, have leather strips wrapped around their hilts or handles in order to improve grip. My suggestion is that leather strips have two new purposes: First, they can be wrapped around the hilt, handle, or grip of any melee weapon or bow, doing nothing except perhaps adding a line when looked at or examined that says the handle is wrapped in leather, or perhaps altering the item's name to include that it has a lether-wrapped handle. Second, leather strips can be used to replace the leather already wrapped around the handle of a weapon.

Second suggestion, blade sharpening. Axes, swords, and daggers all have an edge that needs to be kept sharp if it going to be effective at all. Now, I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not suggesting that we have grindstones added to forges or anything like that. Instead, why not have handheld whetstones purchasable from general stores or blacksmiths? Sure it may be less practical to sharpen an entire sword blade by hand, but it's more accessible, and an amateur is less likely to seriously damage their weapon that way.

Third, bow maintenance. This is simply being able to re-string bows to replace the worn one and rubbing oils into the wood, as well as making sure it has no cracks or warps. Now, bow maintenance is the only exception I have to the first thing I said, in that I would like to see them required to have the string replaced every so often if nothing else in order to avoid damage to the bow.

If I come up with more ideas, I'll post them, but that's what I've got so far.