Smithing and Gear Upgrades

Smithing and Gear Upgrades covers the upgrade paths in Fear Nightfall that run through a smithing table or a similar gear-upgrade station. The pack's mods add many smithing templates and recipes on top of vanilla's netherite upgrade, so the smithing table is the main route from a finished piece of equipment to a rarer or more specialised version. The paths come from Born in Chaos, Butchery, Jaden's Nether Expansion, Traveler's Backpack, Critters and Companions, Sleepy Hollows, Tide and Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks.

Most upgrades need a smithing template, which is consumed by the recipe. Templates are the scarcest ingredient in most of these paths. Several are rare loot, and some can be crafted only from a template that already exists, so the supply depends on loot as well as crafting. The sections below explain how the table works, where templates come from, which items each path upgrades, and how the pack's loot changes affect supply.

How smithing works

A smithing recipe at a smithing table takes up to three items. The base slot holds the item being upgraded, the template slot holds the template, and the addition slot holds the material. Two kinds of recipe use this layout:

• Transform recipes replace the base item with a new item. The template, the addition and the base item are all consumed. The netherite upgrades of diamond gear, the Dragon Scale armour, the Dark Metal armour and the Dragonfin Boots are transforms.
• Trim recipes keep the base item and change only its texture. The template and the trim material are consumed. See Armor Trims for the trim rules.

Smithing templates

Templates come from loot, from crafting, or from both. The pack's sources fall into four groups.

• Dark Upgrade template. Born in Chaos adds this template, which is the key item for the Dark Metal armour. Firewell lists it as a rare entry in its loot. The Fallen Chaos Knight also drops a Smithing Template as part of its loot table. The template can be crafted from 7 Seed of Chaos, an existing template and a Dark Metal Ingot, which yields 2 templates. Mining a Dark Metal Deposit in the Dark Tower gives the Dark Metal used for the ingot.
• Dragon and Warden templates. Butchery adds a Dragon Smithing Template and a Warden Smithing Template through global loot modifiers. The Dragon template goes into end city treasure chests, and the Warden template goes into ancient city chests. Vanilla loot tables are not replaced. The Dragon template can also be crafted from a Spiked Dragon Bone, an existing template, Dragon Scales and a Dragon Scale Block, which yields two templates. See Carcasses and Corpses for the chest details.
• Pump-Charge Upgrade template. Jaden's Nether Expansion adds this template. It is found in the Brazier Chests of the Chapel and Sanctum structure. It can be crafted from seven Bone Blocks, a template and a Spark of Treachery, which yields two templates.
• Armour trim templates. Vanilla trim templates appear in several structure chests, and the pack adds its own. Jaden's Nether Expansion adds the Rift, Spirit and Valor templates, and the Rift template can appear in ruined portal chests. Lost Caves Relics adds the Ancient Armor Trim template, which can be crafted from seven diamonds, an existing template and an Ancient Sandstone block. Supplementaries adds the Blast template, which is crafted only. The trim templates are described in Armor Trims and Pottery Sherds.

Several vanilla-style structures also hold smithing templates in their chests. The Better Stronghold grand library, the Combat Shrines vaults and the Moog's Nether Ruins are examples.

Upgrade paths by item

The table below gives the upgrade path for each item. Each page linked in the last column holds the full recipe.

Netherite Plating and Grates are not smithed. The plating recipe is gated by Stridite, which is covered on Netherite Plating and Grates.

Arcane Anvil upgrades

Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks uses its own upgrade system at the Arcane Anvil, not the smithing table. An upgrade orb is applied to a whitelisted piece of equipment, and each orb adds one bonus, such as a school's spell power, extra maximum mana, cooldown reduction or spell resistance. An item can hold up to 3 upgrades in total, counting every orb type together. Scrolls can also be merged with ink at the Arcane Anvil, which raises their rarity or level.

Pack changes to smithing supply

Fear Nightfall changes loot in several places that affect how many templates and upgrade items a player finds.

• Tide, Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks and Traveler's Backpack loot was extended to the replacement chests that YUNG's temples, fortresses and strongholds use. Those chests therefore hold tier upgrades and other mod loot.
• The Blazing Fishing Rod, which Tide places in nether bridge chests, is not added to those replacement chests. See Fishing Rods.
• Trim patterns were added to the same replacement chests at vanilla-like odds.
• Brazier Chests in Jaden's Nether Expansion are locked until a Spark of Treachery is used on them. They are shared containers, so Lootr cannot make them per-player. The refill timer is 3600 seconds by default.
• Born in Chaos has no loot modifiers, so its own items stay in its structures and mob drops.

Tips

• The Dragon, Pump-Charge and Dark Upgrade template recipes each yield two templates from one template, which is a net gain of one.
• Netherite upgrades need the diamond version of the item first, so the diamond step should be done before the netherite ingot is gathered.