"but all you can craft with pelts are Leather Armor items whose stats are worse than the gear you find during normal gameplay"
Im partial to a good crafting system, being a Monster hunter veteran. But most crafting games ive played have had a similar system of ... Make crap armour > Sell it for 1/10 of its price > Find better armour off a grunt > dont bother.
The best 'crafting' system ive experienced is in Throne of Darkness, you can give your surplus normal weapons and armour to the blacksmith who will (you are meant to imagine) use the parts or metals to create better armour and weapons which he will sell to you. If you give him plenty and keep building his armoury up, you can craft a piece of high end gear, albeit with high end stats, early on in the game if you really try. He has a quota based on what you give him, so you need to be careful. The items you buy from him are always set as normal items *but* you can customise every piece of equipment with materials you find, adding hitpoints from a wolf pelt or armour bonuses from monster bones etc.
All your magic items can be given to the monk who will reward you with skill points if you sell him enough.
I strongly recommend this game, even if its story is very basic it has some amazing customisation elements. Hope my screenshots dont spoil it for you.
Im partial to a good crafting system, being a Monster hunter veteran. But most crafting games ive played have had a similar system of ... Make crap armour > Sell it for 1/10 of its price > Find better armour off a grunt > dont bother.
The best 'crafting' system ive experienced is in Throne of Darkness, you can give your surplus normal weapons and armour to the blacksmith who will (you are meant to imagine) use the parts or metals to create better armour and weapons which he will sell to you. If you give him plenty and keep building his armoury up, you can craft a piece of high end gear, albeit with high end stats, early on in the game if you really try. He has a quota based on what you give him, so you need to be careful. The items you buy from him are always set as normal items *but* you can customise every piece of equipment with materials you find, adding hitpoints from a wolf pelt or armour bonuses from monster bones etc.
All your magic items can be given to the monk who will reward you with skill points if you sell him enough.
I strongly recommend this game, even if its story is very basic it has some amazing customisation elements. Hope my screenshots dont spoil it for you.