Any opinions on gathering resources, then using them to craft/repair items/weapons. How well does this work for FE? Any requirements that have to absolutely be met for it to work?
Maybe slightly unrelated note: what about fusing two of the same weapons to get the same one with their durabilities combined?
Anywho, thanks for visiting!
Fusing weapons 
Crafting systems… well, it depends. I like how 3H incentivises you to play well against the monsters by making them drop forging items, though it could have had more transparency in who drops what. I always try to get the most Wootz Steel in Marianne’s paralogue, for example, because I really want those Brave+ weapons. I don’t really like the fishing minigame since it just takes time - I wish we could have had individual students fish instead, which gave them some kind of bonus or skill level or raised support levels.
Crafting systems should always feed from and back to the core gameplay loop, so material gathering should come from engaging with another system e.g. exploring/minigames and then should have some tangible benefits for the player afterward. See Stardew Valley for a good example of this, which requires you to engage with all of its systems to get the full experience.
It does risk feeling grindy and becoming very time consuming so in the context of FE, you’d probably want to reward good play rather than reward time spent.
Tequila made a convoy combine feature similar to the fusion you’ve described, and Kirb has a forging system that was used in Ternon. Not quite crafting, but close.
As far as how I feel about these in gameplay, convoy combine is super convenient and I’m all about it. Repair is also a neat idea and I like FE7x’s cost-based implementation.
I think a crafting system depends a lot on its execution - how much does crafting matter to get useful stuff? Is it the only way I can get weapons? Is gold super rare and buying common weapons is not cost efficient? I think the merits of a system in a linear game like FE are limited, personally, but I think it can be a fun side objective if there are multiple opportunities to get the materials needed. It stinks to get 2/3 of what’s needed and get punished for missing 1/3 of the secret or objectives, and be locked out of a good item.
I do think this often just boils down to “reward with extra steps”, unless the materials can be used for multiple items (think Animal Crossing New Horizons which gives you multiple purposes for everything, vs. Berwick where each item is only good for a single recipe or maybe two).
I think you’d need to do a lot of work to balance it and make it work in the context of GBAFE
I’ve never really been that keen on forging weapons, though I don’t have much issue with the idea of paying gold to repair them.
That said, I do have an idea for what could be a cool crafting system. When an enemy with an iron sword is killed, their sword breaks, and the player gets an iron scrap, or something akin to that. An iron scrap can be used to repair an iron weapon (by a set amount), or if the player has several scraps, can be used to make brand new ones. Most weapons would have a certain type of scrap associated with them, and as most high-quality weapons would be rarer than low-quality ones (and would require more scraps to mend), the hierarchy of strong but rare and weak but common would be upheld.
yes yes yes
Convoy combine is the greatest mechanic in the series and should always be present
Can we just turn fire emblem into minecraft
I think repairing items is a great mechanic that is tragically a little confusing with the materials thing during your first run through of three houses, especially to players experienced with other fire emblem games
I don’t think crafting items has a place in fire emblem, that makes weapon management even more complicated than before
fusing two weapons to get a combined durability is a great concept but what if
you combine two 1 use weapons and the durability is completely restored
As Berwick has already proven, Crafting Weaponries is a very welcomed mechanic. It’s fun to gather materials and finally crafting your weapons.
Nay.
_
I don’t personally prefer the systems in the main series titles that feature more forms of micro-management outside of battle (e.g. most of the things at the monastery in 3 Houses, a lot of the free-roaming mechanics in Echoes). That said, it’s not impossible that I could like such in a thing in an FE game.
Some general thoughts on how I’d personally think about designing a system as you describe:
There’s probably more to consider, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.
Id say yes, but that’s only because FE doesn’t actually portray crafting, but rather forging and repairing weapons which isn’t the same thing.
And i think particularly in the case of tomes could be rather interesting as the idea that you can simply go into a vendor and pick up an Elfire seems a bit idk, illogical depending on the lore of how magic works?