The problem: the player can smith armor and weapons to make them considerably more powerful, but npc's only have base armor and weapons
The solution: change the game setting multipliers to narrow the gap, place more emphasis on weapon skill rather than tempering, reduce the bonuses conferred by smithing
With this mod...
- NPCs and the player are now more reasonably well-matched based on their equipment
- Players benefit more moving up from iron -> steel -> etc rather than just improving smithing skill
- Difficulty mods that change damage to/from player are not needed except for extra challenge
- Armor/weapon merchants are actually viable late game
- A player no longer requires to be a smith to be a strong warrior or archer
- This design improves the BASE defense of all armors and thus reduces (but does not eliminate) the bonuses by tempering. I believe this way shifts to a more equipment-centric experience.
Vanilla: Max armor skill -> 40% boost to armor
Max weapon skill -> 50% boost to weapon damage
Bandit with fur armor -> 5% damage resist
Bandit with iron armor and shield -> 9.6% damage resist
Ebony warrior -> 35% damage resist
Max armor rating -> 667 (80%)
To reach max armor: potion/enchanting exploits
With Mod: Max armor skill -> 15% boost to armor
Max weapon skill -> 100% boost to weapon dmg
Bandit with fur armor -> 13% damage resist
Bandit with iron armor and shield -> 24% damage resist
Ebony warrior -> 77% damage resist
Max armor rating -> 300 (90%)
To reach max armor : Daedric armor (no shield) with 100 heavy armor, juggernaut, well-fitted and matching set