What are dragonshards good for?

[General_Jah]

Guys I'm new to the game and haven't been able to find any threads explaining the use of dragonshards ingame. Could someone please point me towards one or explain what good they are?

Thanks!

[Litz]

There are two kinds of dragonshards. One has the words Khyber, the other Syberis. There is a PnP distinction between the two. Khyber deals with things below the surface of eberron, while Syberis is from the sky. Infact there is a ring of Syberis dragonshard fragments which circles the globe and the only contenent which is close to this is Xen'drik. One of the main reasons people come to Xendrik is for the Syberis Dragonshards. Khyber Dragonshards can be found on any contenant, but finding ones of good quality is rare.. Sybeis dragonshards fall from the sky on occasion. They are used for spell components in PnP, but in DDO they remain only used for changing out feats. If your char is lvl 1-4 and wants to change a feat it takes one flawed syberis dragonshard and some money.. There is a mindflayer in house J that does it.. Level 5-8 takes a Imperfect Syberis Dragonshard, and level 9 and above requires a Syberis Dragonshard. Also as you go up it takes more money and there is a timer preventing you from coming back within 3 days. The Syberis Dragonshard Fragments are used to make Syberis Dragonshards. 100 Syberis Dragonshard Fragments = 1 Flawed Syberis Dragonshard, 10 Flawed = 1 Imperfect, 10 Imperfect = 1 Syberis..

For Khyber Dragonshards they can be used in other ways. One way is to perform a ritual of attuning, that binds a item to you and it will nolonger take permentant damage. To do this take the minimum level of the item and multiply it by itself. It takes that many Khyber dragonshard fragments to bind it to yourself.. Once the item is attuned (bound) there can be other rituals done to the item, and more recipies are supposed to be comeing.. Look in the user written stratagy guides for more info.. The other use of the Khyber Dragonshards is for the Arcane spell Trap the Soul which uses these as a spell component..

[ENGRAV0]

Will try to explain this:

There are two types, the YELLOW fragments, and the BLACK fragments.

Both can be compiled in the device in the Market Place (Beside the Bank) and in the 12 (Just to the right of the entrance to the temple.

The Yellow fragments become red after they are crunched, and called Syberis (spelling). There are 3 levels of this fragment, Flawed, imperfect and (just called) Syberis Dragonshards.

The three levels of shards are concurrent to the level of character you are on. I believe it is level 1-4 uses the flawed, 5-8 uses the imperfect, and from 9 up you will need to use the appropriate Dragonshard to exchange a feat. If you mess up, or decide along the line you don't want a certain feat, there is a Mind Flayer (Named Fred) to the left of the teleporting portal, under the platform, that will take the shard and some cash and exchange a feat for you.

---Now---

The Black Shards, this is a little more tricky.

In short, they are an ingredient for crafting, and this is only a BREIF explanation of how they work, and only applies until the next MOD when no one knows for sure what else they will do:

Part A. You will find them in fragments, it takes 1000 fragments to make 10 Tiny Khyber Shards, 100 Tiny Khyber Shards to make 10 small Khyber Shards and 100 Small Khyber Shards to make 10 Regular Khyber shards. (Disclaimer, the numbers are off I believe, but it gives you the idea how they compile down to make the next level up of shard). Fear not, I will be corrected within minute from someone who will beg to differ with me and will give the exact numbers. Thank you in advanced to whomever provides the exact numbers and formula.

The different sized Khyber shards are components for a spell also, the Spell, a Level 8 Wizard/Sorcerer spell called "Trap the Soul" has three levels of function. It goes something like:

Tiny Khyber shards- 1 Shard per spell cast- Catch the Soul of a creature with HD (Hit Dice, not to be confused with CR) of 5 or less.

Small Khyber Shards- 1 Shard per spell cast- Catch the Soul of a creature with HD (Hit Dice, not to be confused with CR) of 10 or less.

Regular Khyber shards- 1 Shard per spell cast- Catch the Soul of a creature with HD (Hit Dice, not to be confused with CR) of 15 or less.

__________________________________

Also, the fragments are used to "Bind and Attune" an item to your Character. This will permenantly "BIND" an item to that character, and you will recieve the following:

"Bound and Attuned" Items/weapons will take no permenant damage, ever. Beat the slimes all you want, it will take damage, and may even break while you are doing so, but when you leave to repair the item, it will recieve no permenant damage.

You also will never be able to transfer the item to any other character.

To do this, take the minimum level of the item you are performing the "Binding Ritual" and multiply it by itself. So, a Minimum level 2 item would be: 2 x 2 = 4, a Minimum level 4 item would be: 4 x 4 = 16, and so on and so on. Currently, there is a bug that any item with no minimum level requires 400 of these fragments to perform.

Another reason for performing the "Binding Ritual" is to open the ability to perform the "Hardening Ritual". This ritual will actualy increase the hardness and durability of the item you are performing said ritual on. To do this ritual, you need the following:

A "Bound and Attuned" item/weapon, 8 Soulstones of CR7 Earth Elemental (Must have a Sorcerer or Wizard use the Trap the Soul spell and give you or allow you to pick the product of a succesfully cast spell up off the ground) and 8 Adamantine Ore from the quest Black Anvil mines. The Ore isn't too hard to get a hold of, and in general, I do not think once you have gotten to know some people familiar with the game, that getting the Soul Stones will be too difficult either.

This seems like a lot, but I have tried to provide you with the explanation of what the Dragon Shards are used for, and how they are used. Hold onto the Black ones, they have some high reselling value when they are in decent quantities on the AH (Auction House).

[General_Jah]

thanks all for the explanations!

I do have a question that is offtopic but you brought it up.

You said hit dice is not to be confused with CR. I thought that Hitdice was the level of a creature, and CR was also the lvl?

What is the difference?

Thanks!

[penumbra]

Hit Dice

This line gives the creature’s number and type of Hit Dice (the die rolled to generate hit points), and lists any bonus hit points. A parenthetical note gives the average hit points for a creature of the indicated number of Hit Dice. A creature’s Hit Dice total is also treated as its level for determining how spells affect the creature, its rate of natural healing, and its maximum ranks in a skill.

Challenge Rating

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.

taken from:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm

[General_Jah]

Hit Dice

This line gives the creature’s number and type of Hit Dice (the die rolled to generate hit points), and lists any bonus hit points. A parenthetical note gives the average hit points for a creature of the indicated number of Hit Dice. A creature’s Hit Dice total is also treated as its level for determining how spells affect the creature, its rate of natural healing, and its maximum ranks in a skill.

Challenge Rating

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.

taken from:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm

So is there no way to determine what level a mob is?