[Blacksmithing] Dumb newbie question about blacksmith / tailoring and material types

[McKinneley]

I am working on learning crafting, and so far I have only used the special material types for Blacksmith & Tailoring (Copper, Bronze, Gold, Barbed, Spined, etc.) to fill BoDs. I understand from the uo guide wiki that these special materials have additional properties that are applied to the item upon creation. I guess my dumb newbie question is, what is the use for these materials aside form filling BoDs? I can create a leather suit using Spined Leather to get additional Luck stats, but can't I just craft it with normal leather and use Reforging / Imbuing to add the specific stats that I want, such as Luck or other properties? Why use these special materials when I can get what I want with other means?

 

[Basara]

Because

1. You can enhance that imbued item with the material to get those bonuses listed ON TOP of the imbued amount. You can do this to reforged items and looted items as well, other than antique items. The LAST thing I'd EVER do, though, is start with a base item, and imbue. Imbuing is what you do AFTER you find something as loot, reforge something, or runic craft something.
2. 2. Instead of starting with a base leather/iron item, you can craft with colored materials with runic tools, and potentially make something randomly for 1 charge, that would normally take 5-6 charges reforging. This is, in fact, how things were usually done before reforging and imbuing existed.

Just to give you an example, the most you can imbue luck is 100.

Enhancing an item that is 100 luck with the appropriate material (spined for leather, gold for metal, wood type varies by item type) will break 2/3 of the time or more, but result in 140 luck.

You can also CRAFT stuff with runic tools, using the luck-bonus material, and potentially have 140 luck items from the moment of creation.

The 4th option, is to take a base item, reforge it with one of the lower-end runics that can get up to 150 luck, then enhance with the runic material - but the chance of breaking an item approaches 100% as you approach 130 luck prior to enhancement, unless you use a forged metal tool from the UO store prior to the enhancement attempt.