Originally Posted by
Scarabus
What I think might work:
NPC Bob sells a Deconstructing Component that will let you prepare an existing weapon or suit of armour for enchanting. (Non-named items only) Combining the weapon/armour and the component strips any enchantments off the item. Leaving only the base material and visuals. You will gain an ingredient similar to a shard of power as well, rated from +1 to +5 based on the most expensive enchantment stripped.
Combining a +3 Shard and another item with a +3 affix, would destroy that item but give you a Shard of 'affix'. Combining a +2 shard with an item containing multiple +2 enchantments would have to follow a priority of Prefix-Suffix-+Bonus to determine which ability is copied. It may be possible to take multiple enchantments off an item if the proper shards are provided in the deconstruction. Eg: a +5 keen holy sword can be stripped with a +5 shard, +2 shard and +1 shard. Giving a +5 bonus shard, a Holy shard, and a Keen shard. (perhaps though you could only pull 1 ability from an item if this needs balancing)
Combine the Base item and the shard(s) (also perhaps some money sink item like a power cell) and voila. You get what you've sacrificed for.
This way keeps special material items in demand. It gives you the ability to have the enchantment you want on the clothes and weapons you want for sake of your vanity. It's similar enough to greensteel crafting to feel like an extension of it. It gives the players something to work towards, and a reason to feel more excited about the loot they pull even if it is a +1 rapier of greater ooze bane. this way ends up destroying items player would otherwise sell, giving them a component to get what they really want, either an enchantment they like or fodder to create a shard. As was said above perhaps certain enchantments, like puncturing, vorpal, smiting, could require a rarer component, or could just refuse to be mixed, though in all fairness if the loot table can spit it out it should be fair game.
So to make that +1 Vorpal greater orc bane scimitar you want. You'll need to get a vorpal, a greater orc bane and a random +1 weapon for the effects. You'll also need a scimitar you like the look of for the base item. I addition you'll need to sacrifice a weapon with a +5 enchantment, a weapon with a +4 enchantment and a weapon with a +1 enchantment, buying deconstructing components for each to get the shards you need. You can sell the left over weapons to a bartender cause they won't be worth much. So you can see that you can turn a bunch of bad loot into 1 good item with an investment.