Works as intended, and it’s beautiful. Repairing clothing is no cakewalk anymore. There’s now much more pressure to keep an eye out for spare clothing, especially fit clothing, and more pressure to avoid getting hit. As a consequence the player is forced to either fight more aggressively or walk/run/stay away. You can’t just take hits anymore and poke zombies to death with a pencil without putting the integrity of your clothing to risk. And the (fits) status is not a granted thing anymore. On top of everything, the more damaged the clothing becomes, the harder it is to fix, pressuring the player to take off the piece before it gets impossible to repair with current or next skill level. The system is f*cking glorious, I tell you. Of course at Tailoring 8 or so you can mend just about anything… made out of cloth, wool or leather, that is.
And then we get to the fact that it’s not all about Tailoring. Pay attention to the clothing material. Mechanics skill decides how good you’re with a soldering iron. So if the clothing item is made of plastic, metal, or kevlar, the Mechanics skill is used in repairing them (but only if you use soldering iron). So check the clothing, and if it’s made of both cloth AND metal, for example, then try the soldering iron because the metal allows the soldering iron repairs. But you can try the sewing kit, too (because cloth).
Also, not all clothes made out of same material are equally easy to mend, refit or reinforce. I think you can pretty much reinforce a patchwork scarf or regular socks on day 1 and skill 0. But a cloth shirt or a coat is more difficult, I think. I’m not sure how it all works. Cloth is the easiest to repair, then leather, then wool. Take my knowledge with a lump of salt.
Low DEX can screw your chances to repair too. I’m not sure if INT or PER play any part.
So yeah, unskilled tailors are now forced to scavenge extra clothing, and are forced to be more careful. Adapt.
