Trying to kit out my character with top-tier gear and I've got two things I can't figure out.
First, the actual best pieces. From what I can tell the Imperial scale stuff is the top torso armor (something like 50 body / 20 arms / 20 legs), and the Mastercrafted Southern Scale over Chain Hauberk is supposed to be the single best/most expensive chest piece in the game, sitting around 100k+ denars base. On the weapon side people keep mentioning stuff like the Broad Kaskara for one-handers. But where do these actually show up? I've been checking town smithies and markets and the T5/T6 pieces almost never spawn. Is it purely:
high clan tier + high-prosperity town markets (and just pray to RNG),
battle loot off high-level Imperial troops,
tournament rewards,
or the marry-a-lord-and-steal-their-gear route?
What's the most reliable way to actually get the good stuff instead of relying on a lucky shop roll?
Second, and this is the main thing bugging me: you can smith your own weapons in the forge, so can you craft armor the same way? I've put points into smithing and I'm cranking out weapons fine, but I don't see any option for making armor pieces. Is armor crafting just not in the game, is it locked behind something I haven't unlocked, or do I need a mod for it? Feels weird that weapons are fully craftable but armor isn't.
Running an infantry build, current clan tier is mid-game if that changes what shows up in shops.