What this mod does:

This mod lets your craft 4 upgrade items to use on swords, axes, pickaxes, and shovels. The upgrades are iron, gold, diamond, and obsidian.

To use the upgrades, combine the upgrade you want with an iron, gold, or diamond tool. (Stone and wood are too weak to handle them).

Note: You are covering the tool with the upgrade material. This means that if you cover an iron sword with a diamond upgrade, it is now a diamond sword. However, the original core is important too!

More specifically:

The vanilla dynamics of tools are are still important to the tool. It's a system seemingly to be based on weight.

Iron cores (what I call the sword before upgrading it) have low efficiency (speed of operation), moderate enchantablility (easier to enchant more and higher enchantments), moderate damage, and moderate durability (how long it lasts). They give the suffix "Reforged" to the tool made.

Gold cores have high efficiency, high enchantability, low damage, and low durability. They give the suffix "Glowing" to the tool made.

Diamond cores have moderate efficiency, low enchantability, more damage, and more durability. They give the suffix "Crystal" to the tool made.

The upgrade material (which coats the tools) effectively make a new tool with the above cores as the modifier of the tool. That's why you will see "Reforged Obsidian Sword," "Glowing Obsidian Sword," and "Crystal Obsidian Sword." They are all obsidian swords, but the core modifies the weapon.

Every upgrade will improve all stats some, but each upgrade specializes in an area, just like the cores. Iron, gold, and diamond upgrades follow the same principals of the cores. However, you can now cover a tool with obsidian to make obsidian tools (with their own core modifiers.)

Obsidian will make the tool practically last forever. The heaviness makes the damage higher than diamond. Obsidian's enchantability and efficiency are both higher than diamond, but still lower than gold.

Example tools:

gold pickaxe + gold upgrade = Glowing Golden Pickaxe (Super enchantable, but won't last long.)

gold pickaxe + obsidian upgrade = Glowing Obsidian Pickaxe (Highly enchantble, and will last longer than a diamond pickaxe.)

diamond sword + obsidian upgrade = Crystal Obsidian Sword (Better than a diamond sword in every way, practically lasts forever.)

diamond sword + gold upgrade = Crystal Golden Sword (3x durability of gold sword, 3x enchantability of diamond sword, only losing minor damage)

Please note!:

1. You can only upgrade NEW weapons. If you have used the weapon at all and see the green durability bar, then you cannot upgrade it.

2. A diamond pickaxe covered with gold can still harvest obsidian. The harvest level is the higher of the core and the upgrade.

Another example is that the only upgraded tool with harvest level 1 is the Glowing Golden *****, because it uses gold and gold. Gold and iron has harvest level of iron.

Obsidian has harvest level of 4, in case you get another mod that has material that needs higher than diamond to harvest.

3. Recipes will be shown in the pictures.

Introducing two new legendary swords!:

These swords are for a little more fun than the more make-sense approach of the previous upgrades.

After crafting better and better swords, you can learn how to make swords that go beyond the simple point-and-click.

Legendary sword: Sword of Storms

You must travel to the Nether to get materials for this sword. With some quartz, a block of redstone, blaze powder, and their conductive rods, you can forge a weapon that controls lightning itself.

Clicking the weapon in the air will summon lightning strikes all around you. You can run around like you're a force of nature. You can have a defensive ring of lightning. You can cause a ring of fire to keep all the bad guys out. And you can burn down forests with ease, so take care.

Clicking the weapon on the ground will channel the energy into what's in front of you, based on the location of the block you're looking at. Anything about 10 spaces in front of you will get zapped. Less destructive, but more precise.

Note: This can cause one to become over-powered easily. In fact, it's not even safe to craft its upgrade or weapon around anything you care about. This sword is for fun and not meant to take away from the practicality of the other upgrades.

Note: You can only use this upgrade with a NEW Crystal Obsidian Sword. No other sword can take the energy that his weapon channels.

Note: This weapon has more stats than the Crystal Obsidian Sword, and can be used as such. Using its power will drain this weapon's durability, and it will deplete much faster than swinging it.

Note: You can hold the activation button down, causing the effect to maintain while pressed... which is constant drain on its durability.

Legendary sword: Sword of Wrath

You must travel to the Nether to get materials for this sword. With some quartz, a block of redstone, blaze powder, and fire charges, you can forge a weapon that will end anything that !@#$s you off.

Clicking the weapon in the air will cause anything 10 spaces in front of you to explode... violently. In fact, the power of this weapon has been reduced twice. While testing it, the entire surface of a large land mass has been reduced to stone. It's been made more practical, but still very powerful. But when that skeleton just keeps killing you over and over again, you can now point and click and watch it explode... violently.

Clicking the weapon on the ground will channel the energy around you, causing several smaller explosions around the block you're clicking on. It's kind of cool to see what you're standing on turn into a small island.

Note: You can only use this upgrade with a NEW Crystal Obsidian Sword. No other sword can take the energy that his weapon channels.

Note: This weapon has more stats than the Crystal Obsidian Sword, and can be used as such. Using its power will drain this weapon's durability, and it will deplete much faster than swinging it.

Note: You can hold the activation button down, causing the effect to maintain while pressed... which is constant drain on its durability.

Note: If you can learn to fly, it's great to use on the Ender Dragon.

Legendary sword: Sword of Mystery

Unfortunately postponed.

You must travel to the End to get materials for this sword. This weapon was going to be stronger than the previous two, with a lot of randomness involved. Due to Java difficulties not supporting something I require for it to work, it will be postponed until I have time to find a solution. And by then it will be time for 1.9. I'm only mentioning it in case you see some traces of it left behind.

Enjoy!

Paradox Weapon/Tool Upgrades