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[Blacksmithing] Smith FAQ, updated 21 August 2008

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Welcome to the Smith FAQ.

This FAQ is meant to answer many of the common (and a few of the "why didn't I think of that?") questions about the honorable skill of Blacksmithing, in Ultima Online.

Contents of the FAQ:
Section 1. Crafting in Ultima Online, AOS and later expansions

[*]Base properties, Material properties


[*]Properties imparted by Runic Hammers


[*]Examples of the combination of Runic & Material properties


[*]Enhancing items; Elemental/Neon weapons


[*]The methodology for determining the Success Chance and Exceptional Chance for crafting of items


[*]Talismans - What they are, and how they apply to the skill


Section 2. Skill Gain Section

[*]The numbers behind how the skills work and gain.


[*]Link to the New Player's Guide


[*]Several Examples of training regimens used in the past by other players


[*]Links to Tables of numbers usable to make one's own custom skill gain method


Section 3. Bulk Order Deeds

[*]What are BODs?


[*]BOD Rewards


[*]Small BOD Rewards, and when to turn in smalls instead of a single large


[*]
BOD Trading tips

[*]
BOD Cycling


Section 4. General Smithing Questions

[*]Blacksmith Crafting Recipes from Heartwood & Sanctuary



Last edits:
21 August 2008: Added a section on suggested small BODS to turn in for rewards, both in terms of the non-combinables and ones to not fill the larges for.

10 August 2008: Recipe Section complete.

09 August 2008: Beginning the building of the section on Recipes, and the quests to get them.

08 August 2008: BOD section edited and Restored. Only thing left now is to build the new section on Recipes for Section 4.

07 August 2008: Now that I have access to this, I'm having to go back and try to fix the near destruction of the charts by the conversion between forum formats. Repairs took all day, and a few new smaller sections added. Next up, the BOD section.

12 April 2008: Beginning work on Blacksmith Skill Gain section.

09 April 2008: Added Arms Lore Skill Gain section.

08 April 2008: Added introduction to the skill gain section, and a section to link to the revised New Smith's Guide.

07 April 2008: Added the math behind the percentages to craft and make exceptional, plus the talisman section.

06 April 2008: Sorry for the delay - the event in Moonglow has got in the way of much of my free time. Added the sections on Runic Tools, updated for the changes in Publishes 44-51. Let me know if I left out something, by PM.

20 March 2008: Transferring old entries one at a time to this new thread, to allow editing of them for content. Other than changes to this part of the document, most edits so far of the sections have been to remove the dated material from where it was meant to show differences before and after Age of Shadows. The game has now used the Age of Shadows ruleset for longer than it did the rules prior, so talking in the "Age of Shadows does this" style is unneeded, and confusing to newer players.

However, I'm leaving the spelling of "armour" as is - I'm kinda partial to it, even as an American (not like this stuff was worn except by costumers, actors and reenactors/SCA here since well before 1776, anyway).

Credits for the revised version of the FAQ will be added after the revision is done, either in this section, or in a post at the end.
 

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Section 1. Crafting in Ultima Online, AOS and later expansions

This section contains some data for blacksmithing, tailoring and some carpentry and tinkering craftable items as the new system uses the same variables for the items listed. It simply seemed easier to include the information in this format for comparative purposes rather than to exclude the non-smithing data.

Unlike the previous incarnation of the FAQ, this section will be broken into smaller sections.

Source links
UO.com Item Properties page
UOHoC Open House Chat Logs of 8 Jan 2003, 6 Mar 2003 and subsequent chats.
Former MyUO Forums notably the Developers' Forum (Note: These forums are no longer available to access.)
The UO Stratics Item Catalogue
The UO Stratics Blacksmithy Skill Page
The crafting menus in-game.
Various Dev Member posts on Stratics.
 

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Base Properties

Starting with AoS in 2003, each piece of metal armour crafted was imbued with certain base properties that are the same for all non-exceptional iron armour. These standardized properties represent how that type of armour resists physical and various elemental damage types.

Armour: Exceptionally crafted pieces of armour (excluding shields) receive additional resists, distributed randomly among the five resist types. The amount of additional resists is determined as follows...

a. If the item was crafted by a conventional smithing tool (Smith's Hammer, Sledgehammer, Tongs), then the minimum number of additional resists is 15.

b. If the item was crafted by a Runic Hammer (a special form of Smith's Hammer, gained from doing Bulk Order Deeds - see that section below), then the minimum number of additional resists is only 6.

c. In cases of both a. and b., an additional bonus may be imparted by the Arms Lore skill. FOR EACH TWENTY POINTS* of Arms Lore, one additional point is added to these numbers. Due to the "Jack of All Trades" bonus possessed by Human characters on accounts upgraded to Mondain's Legacy (including the 9th Anniversary Boxed set), humans are treated as having 20 points of Arms lore, if their actual Arms Lore skill is under 20.

d. For a crafter (of any type) with Grandmaster Arms Lore skill (100.0), the "normal tool" Exceptional bonus reaches its maximum of 20 random points. If crafting with a Runic Hammer, the maximum Exceptional bonus is 11 random points, with 100.0 Arms Lore. It is strongly recommended that all crafters have 100 Arms Lore, if possible.

e. Shields do not get additional resist bonuses for being exceptionally crafted (or resists from being runic crafted), but do get such bonuses for their material. Some pre-AOS shields had additional AR properties, that were converted to additional resists in the change to AOS. As a result, there are some player-crafted or looted (found as treasure) shields, over 5 years old, that have an additional +1 to +4 to all five resists (and Self Repair 1), but no other properties; these are no longer craftable, but may be enhanced with special metals. A few event shields have also had additional resists (such as the vanguard shield).

* bonus is every 12.5 points of Arms Lore on Siege Perilous, for an +8 resist bonus (23 total for normal tools, 14 total for runic-made).


Weapons:

a. Normal iron weapons always have a base of 100% physical damage, before any properties applied from a Runic Hammer.

b. Exceptional weapons usually have a base 35% damage increase bonus. This can be higher on some weapons that require an elven recipe to craft (see the new section on Recipes).

c. Arms Lore has a similar effect on Exceptional weapons, as it does on armor, in that the bonus for being Exceptionally Crafted is increased. FOR EACH TWENTY POINTS of Arms Lore, one additional point of damage increase is added. At Grandmaster Arms Lore, this means that an exceptional weapon will have 40% Damage Increase, before any modifiers for crafting by Runic Hammers or from being made with a recipe that has an intrinsic Damage Increase bonus.

Base Properties for Standard Items

These are items that pre-dated the release of Age of Shadows, and the information was originally provided by EA here. Items in Italics are items crafted by skills other than Blacksmithy; those that are underlined are not craftable currently, appearing only as items looted from monsters or other means (treasure chests, items that "drop" as artifacts directly into the character's pack in certain regions in game, etc.)

Code:
[B][FONT=Courier New]ARMOUR TYPE        Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total[/FONT][/B]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Leather[/I]                2      4    3     3      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Studded Leather[/I]        2      4    3     3      4     16[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Bone[/I]                   3      3    4     2      4     16[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][/FONT] 
[FONT=Courier New]Ringmail               3      3    1     5      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Chainmail              4      4    4     1      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Platemail              5      3    2     3      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Dragon Scale           3      3    3     3      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][/FONT] 
[FONT=Courier New]SHIELDS[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Bronze Shield          0      0    1     0      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Buckler                0      0    0     1      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Chaos Shield           1      0    0     0      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Heater Shield          0      1    0     0      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Metal Kite Shield      0      0    0     0      1      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Metal Shield           0      1    0     0      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Order Shield           1      0    0     0      0      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Tear Kite Shield*      0      0    0     0      1      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Wooden Shield[/I]          0      0    0     0      1      1[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]
[/FONT]

Code:
[/FONT]
[B][FONT=Courier New]HELMS              Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total[/FONT][/B]
[FONT=Courier New]Bascinet               7      2    2     2      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Closed Helm            3      3    3     3      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Helmet                 2      4    4     3      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Norse Helm             4      1    4     4      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][U]Orc Helm[/U]               3      1    3     3      5     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][/FONT] 
[FONT=Courier New]MISC HATS (all are non-smith items; some are tailor, others are non-craftable)[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Bandana/Skullcap[/I]       0      3    5     8      8     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Bear Mask[/I]              5      3    8     4      4     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Deer Mask[/I]              2      6    8     1      7     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Normal Hats[/I]            0      5    9     5      5     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Orc Mask[/I]               1      1    7     7      8     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Horned Tribal Mask[/I]     6      9    0     4      5     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Red Tribal Mask[/I]        3      0    6    10      5     24[/FONT]
*Once known as the "Wooden Kite Shield", it is craftable out of metal, not wood; as a result the name was changed around the time of Age of Shadows.

Samurai Empire Armour Types
These are Oriental armour types (mostly Japanese-inspired) that were introduced in 2004 with Samurai Empire. For the most part, they have the same resists as the western counterparts. They do have one major difference - most of these, when Exceptional, gain the "Mage Armor" attribute, allowing the wearer to meditate in them as if they were leather.

Code:
[FONT=Courier New][B]ARMOUR TYPE       Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total[/B][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Leather[/I]               2      4    3     3      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Studded Leather      [/I] 2      4    3     3      4     16**[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Platemail             5      3    2     3      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]HELMS & HATS[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Chain Hatsuburi       5      2    2     2      4     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Plate Hatsuburi       5      3    2     2      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Kabuto (all types)    6      2    2     2      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Plate Jingasa (all)   7      2    2     2      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Leather Jingasa[/I]       4      3    3     2      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Cloth Ninja Hood      [/I]0      5    9     5      5     24[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Leather Ninja Hood  [/I]  2      3    3     3      4     15[/FONT]
**The Studded Mempo (gorget) was accidentally given the same resists as leather; this error has never been corrected, so it only has 15 resists.

Mondain's Legacy Armour Types
These are types introduced with 2006's Mondain's Legacy expansion. None of the major types are metal, instead being made of either leather or wood. All these types are wearable only by Elf characters. "Leaf" armour is the equivalent of Leather, and is made of leather despite its name. "Hide" armour is the equivalent of Studded, but does not get the extra resist point that human studded gets. "Woodland" armour is made of wood, and is the Elven equivalent of Plate armor. Its biggest advantage is that the special wood types (also introduced with ML) give better resist bonuses, as well as ADDITIONAL PROPERTIES. see the Carpenter Forum FAQ for this information.
The only metal "armour" from Mondain's Legacy are the Circlet headgear types, and they are the only ML armour that can be worn by humans.
Code:
[FONT=Courier New][B]ARMOUR TYPE       Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total[/B][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Leaf[/I]                  2      3    2     4      4     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Hide                  [/I]3      3    4     3      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Woodland              [/I]5      3    2     3      2     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]HELMS[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Circlets (all)        1      5    2     2      5     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Vulture Helm[/I]          5      1    2     2      5     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Raven Helm[/I]            5      1    2     2      5     15[/FONT]
 

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Materials Bonuses

The type of resources used to craft an item may offer resistance or elemental bonuses in addition to those inherent to the armour or weapon crafted. In addition, if an item is successfully enhanced, that item is subject to receive the bonuses that the material imbues onto the object.


The following information was provided by EA here. It does not include the woods introduced by Mondain's Legacy, but those are beyond the scope of this FAQ. (The only reason the leathers are left, is because the original version of these tables included it)
Code:
[FONT=Courier New][B]ARMOUR TYPE  Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/B][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Spined Leather[/I]   5      0    0     0      0     5   40 Luck[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Horned Leather[/I]   2      3    2     2      2    11[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][I]Barbed Leather[/I]   2      1    2     3      4    12[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Dull Copper      6      0    0     0      0     6   +50% Durability & 20% Lower Requirement[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Shadow-Iron      2      1    0     0      5     8   +100% Durability[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Copper           1      1    0     5      2     9[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Bronze           3      0    5     1      1    10[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Golden           1      1    2     0      2     6   40 Luck & 30% Lower Requirement[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Agapite          2      3    2     2      2    11[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Verite           3      3    2     3      1    12[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Valorite         4      0    3     3      3    13   50% Durability Increase[/FONT]
Dragonscale Armour may not be crafted or enhanced using ingots, at the current time. When it was first introduced, before Age of Shadows, this was not the case. Once some of the best armor in the game, it is now one of the poorest types, though there are efforts to get the game designers to revisit the properties. On the other hand, a suit of the armor does look cool... Each is listed by the creature it usually comes off of (but any of the colors can come from an Ancient Wyrm, and large piles of all colors come off the Champion Spawn boss Rikktor). Single scales also come from Chaos Dragoons.

DRAGON SCALE Resist Modifiers Other Bonuses
Black (Shadow Wyrm): +10 Plysical, -3 Energy
Blue (sea serpent): +10 Energy, -3 Poison
Green (Swamp Dragons): +10 Poison, -3 Fire
Red (Red dragons, drakes, Greater Dragons): +10 Fire, -3 Cold
White (White Wyrms): +10 Cold, -3 Physical
Yellow (Brown dragons, drakes, Greater dragons): -3 Physical, +20 Luck


Weapon Materials Bonuses:

Unlike armors, the material bonuses for weapon take part of the physical damage percentage of the weapon, and convert it to another type, for 6 of the 8 metals. However, runic smith crafting properties can overrule this change (example: it is possible to craft a 100% fire damage weapon with a Runic hammer, regardless of ingot type used). These elemental changes also apply to weapons made out of these materials with the Tinkering skill, or enhanced by a Tinker. These elemental damages are applied in a specific order, which will become apparent in the sections on enhancing and runic crafting.


Metal Type Used / Elemental Changes* / Other Bonuses
Dull Copper / None / 100% Durability Increase & 50 Lower Requirement (Strength)
Shadow Iron / 20% Cold / 50% Durability Increase
Copper / 20% Energy, 10% Poison / None
Bronze / 40% Fire / None
Golden / None / 40 Luck & 50% Lower Requirement (Strength)
Agapite / 30% Cold, 20% Energy / None
Verite / 20% Energy, 40% Poison / None
Valorite / 20% Cold, 20% Energy, 10% Fire, 10% poison / None

* Physical damage percentage is the remaining % after all other elemental bonuses have been applied.
 

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Some Examples of items crafted with normal tools, using the Special metals
These Examples will be repeated after the section on Runic Hammers, modified for the effects of crafting them with such tools, for comparison.

Valorite Closed Helm

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS   Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Closed Helm   3      3    3     3      3     15[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Valorite      4      0    3     3      3     13  50 Durability[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]--------------------------------------------------------------[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Combined      7      3    6     6      6     28  50 Durability[/FONT]
This is the normally crafted state of the item.
If crafted Exceptionally, there would be another 15 to 20 additional resists (based on Arms Lore skill bonus, or lack thereof), divided randomly between the five resists.

The following three lines are examples of possible spreads of the additional resist points, if crafted exceptional with 100 Arms Lore, but are by no means the only ones (there are thousands of possible distributions). While, for normal-tool-crafted items, a few points will usually end up in each resist, there is no guarantee that the distribution would be somewhat even (similar to the first line), or that one or more of the resists will even get bonus points (resulting in high bonuses to the others).

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS        Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Resists[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Example Helm #1   10      8   10    10     10     48[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Example Helm #2   15      5    8    11      9     48[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Example Helm #3    9     15    7     6     11     48[/FONT]
Of course, they would all three have the extra 50% durability of Valorite, as well.

Bronze Spear
Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Spear     100%     0%   0%    0%     0%   100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Bronze    -40%   +40%   0%    0%     0%   100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]--------------------------------------------------------------[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Combined   60%    40%   0%    0%     0%   100%[/FONT]
If Crafted Exceptionally, would have at least 35% Damage increase, plus any additional bonus for Arms Lore. This could be (after modifiers) as much as 40% Damage Increase.

Note that the total Damage Increase from the weapon itself and other modifiers (some bracelets, rings and other items), skills and magic (slayer properties, certain spells), are cumulative (subject to certain caps in the combat system), and are applied to each damage fraction.

So, if the weapon has 60% physical, and 40% fire damage, the normal damage figures are tabulated first, in combat. That number is then proportioned by the 60%/40% ratio for the weapon's elemental properties. Then, those results are then multiplied by the resist factors of the target's armor.

Example: This bronze spear, after modifiers, does 60 points damage on an attack, before applying the elemental properties, and taking into account the target's resists.
*First, the 60 points is divided into the elemental proportions. In this case, 60% of 60 is 36 points. 40% of 60 is 24 points.
*Therefore, the weapon is potentially doing 36 points physical damage, and 24 points fire damage, to the target.
*However, the target has 50 Physical resist, but only 20 Fire Resist.
*The Target's 50 Physical Resist stops half of the physical damage (36*50%=18), 36-18=18. The Fire Resist stops only 20% of the fire damage (24*20%=4.8), 24-4.8=19.2 (rounded to 19).
*The damage to the target's hits would then be 18 (physical) + 19 (fire), or 37 total damage. The user sees a pretty red "37" float up off the target, while the target (if another player) sees the same number in yellow.
*Had the weapon been made of iron (100% physical damage), it would have only done 30 points damage.
*On the other hand, had it been runic-crafted with 100% fire damage (or found already with 60% or more fire, the rest physical, and enhanced with bronze to 100%), it would have done 48 points to the target.

With the "Consecrate Weapon" spell of the Chivalry skill, the actual damage of the weapon is converted into the lowest resist type of the creature being hit (effectively treating any weapon as 100% of that elemental damage for the duration, and changing to match each opponent as needed), so such modifications purely for damage conversion are rarely done any more. Typically, the majority of non-PvP warriors will have enough Chivalry to cast the spell, and most participants in PvP will have maximum resists in all categories - even adjusting their suits to have additional resists to counteract resist-altering spells such as the Necromantic "Corpse Skin".

As a result, the most common metal, other than iron, for weapons to be made from is gold, for the luck and strength requirement reduction, followed by dull copper (for the strength reduction and durability).

The times when you are most likely to use some other metal for crafting, is when trying to make a specific weapon for a customer, that can't (or chooses not to) use Chivalry. For example, using Bronze when attempting to make an undead slayer weapon (either through use of a runic, a recipe, or both), as most undead have fire as their lowest resistance.

It is hoped that, given the recent changes to runics in the first quarter of 2008, that the Developers at EA will revisit the metal types in the near future, and have them give more properties than simple damage redistribution (since one Chivalry spell made that property all but obselete). If this occurs, the FAQ will be updated accordingly.
 

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Runic Crafting Bonuses

For an in-depth explanation of how to best use Runic tools, please see Dracko's Guide in the OLD Smith FAQ (currently near the end of that FAQ - may be edited or replaced in this version, when complete). Note that that guide is considerably out of date.

In addition to the bonuses obtained from using higher class materials, an object may be given further bonuses if crafted by a runic crafting tool, which are available as rewards for the corresponding BOD system.

When crafting an item using a runic tool (be it a hammer, sewing kit, saw, or fletching tool), the crafters endows the object with a number of magical properties the quantity and quality of which are randomly determined based on the runic tool used.

The following information was provided by EA here, with the introduction of Publish 50 (previous numbers can be found in the previous incarnation of this FAQ):
Code:
[FONT=Courier New][B]RUNIC TOOL (Charges) Properties Bonus Intensity Range[/B][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Dull Copper  (50)           1-2          40-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Shadow Iron  (45)            2           45-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Copper       (40)           2-3          50-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Bronze       (35)            3           55-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Golden       (30)           3-4          60-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Agapite      (25)            4           65-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Verite       (20)           4-5          70-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Valorite     (15)            5           85-100%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][/FONT] 
[FONT=Courier New]Tailor Runics, for Comparison[/FONT]
[I][FONT=Courier New]Spined Kit   (45)           1-3          40-100%[/FONT][/I]
[I][FONT=Courier New]Horned Kit   (30)           3-4          45-100%[/FONT][/I]
[I][FONT=Courier New]Barbed Kit   (15)           4-5          50-100%[/FONT][/I]
Note: Prior to Publish 51 on March 26, 2008 there was an issue where some properties were being lost from the runic duplicating a property normally found on an item. This was especially common on things like Mage Armor on Leather & Leaf armor with Tailor Runics & Samurai Empire exceptional armors with Smith Runics, as well as damage increase & recipe specific bonuses. As of this edit, there has not been enough crafting to test whether this fix has worked properly, as so many combat-related events hit that most crafters put crafting on the back burner for the duration.

At the time of item creation, the magical properties shall be randomly determined. The strength of each property shall also be randomly determined based on the intensity range of the runic crafting tool. Here is a list of magical properties for smith-crafted items, with the number it displays at maximum, 100%, intensity in Parentheses (which can be different for the wood-related runics, that have some unique properties as well). The minimum intensity level of these properties is typically 1, but the actual range is based on a division of the maximum value by 100. For example, the minimum intensity of a property on a runic crafted item is the runic minimum times the maximum possible intensity:

Both Weapons & Armour:

*Physical Resist: (15) Increases a character's Physical Resist (previously referred to as Armor Rating) which absorbs a percentage of the physical damage delivered to the character by an enemy.
*Fire Resist: (15) Increases a character's Fire Resist.
*Cold Resist: (15) Increases a character's Cold Resist.
*Poison Resist: (15) Increases a character's Poison Resist.
*Energy Resist: (15) Increases a character's Energy Resist.
*(Increased) Durability: (100) A % that is applied on item creation that increases the item's base durability. Durability should not normally exceed 255, but is currently possible to do so. It is impossible to add Powder of Fortifying to an item until it falls under 255
*Lower Requirements: (100) A % that decreases the strength, dexterity and intelligence requirements for the object to be equipped. If the property (alone, or combined with a materials bonus) is 100%, then the "Strength Requirement" line will completely disappear from an item.
*Luck: (100) Increases a character's Luck statistic, allowing one to potentially find better treasure when looting a creature's corpse. More information may be found here. Luck may be bolstered higher than 100 through enhancing. The highest non-artifact Luck possible is 140 per piece, except for 1 or two recipe items that give luck bonuses in addition to this amount. Shields do not have Luck as an inherent property but may be made/enhanced with Gold to have 40 Luck.
*Night Sight: Grants the character the ability to see in darkness.

Weapons only:

*Elemental Damage: This is treated as ONE property, when it occurs. It is applied in 10% increments, regardless of the intensity of the runic. One, two, three or all four elemental damage properties can occur in this single property, at a multitude of different ratios. Any damage that does not become an elemental property remains Physical damage, unless a special metal that gives damage bonuses was used in the creation process (or the weapon is iron, but enhanced later). Note that this property can totally override one's choice of metals, to where a weapon made of Verite (normally a 40% Physical/40% Poison/20% Energy distribution) could very well end up being 100% Fire or 100% Cold, or a mix of both. It is all random.
  • Fire Damage: Converts a % of the weapon's damage to be delivered as Fire Elemental Damage.
  • Cold Damage: Converts a % of the weapon's damage to be delivered as Cold Elemental Damage.
  • Poison Damage: Converts a % of the weapon's damage to be delivered as Poison Elemental Damage.
  • Energy Damage: Converts a % of the weapon's damage to be delivered as Energy Elemental Damage.
  • Physical Damage: This is the remaining damage % of the weapon, after the above are applied - there may very well be no physical damage left.
*Use Best Weapon Skill: The weapon may use the character's highest melee weapon skill instead of the natural weapon skill. Allows use of special moves if the skill used is high enough to attempt (natural skill), and the appropriate level of Tactics possessed. Archery is not included in the Use Best Weapon Skill list (although bows used to spawn with this property, in error, for a short time in 2003).
*Damage Increase: (50, before Arms Lore and recipe bonuses) A % that increases the amount of damage deliverable by the weapon.
Changes to the Damage Increase property over the last 5+ years:
  • Prior to Publish 19, The Damage Increase for Exceptional Quality was 20%, and stacked with runic amounts for some weapons.
  • After Publish 19, the Exceptional Quality bonus was raised to 35% Exceptional Bonus, and as the damage did not stack, it was impossible for Bronze Runics or lower to produce Damage Increase numbers of 35% (before factoring in recipes, for items made using certain recipes after the release of Mondain's Legacy).
  • As of Publish 44 (April 30, 2007), the change to Arms Lore increased the maximum craftable DI (not using recipes) to 55% (50% from the runic property, +5% from GM Arms Lore), and made it to where a character with GM Arms Lore would have an Exceptional Bonus of 40% Damage Increase.
  • Finally, as of Publish 50, the intensity caps for all runics were removed (with the minimums raised as well), and it became possible to get up to 50% Damage Increase with any Runic.
Note: As the changes to the runics, plus the Arms Lore change, made the previous Minimum/Maximum/Average Damage Increase table moot, it has been deleted.

*Defense Chance Increase: (15) A % that makes the character harder to hit. Applies to the Attacker's skill vs. Defender's skill check. Also is on numerous artifacts & similar items, as well as a possible property on Shields.
*Faster Casting: Decreases the amount of casting time required for spells. Effective with Magery, Necromancy and Paladin spells. Also Occurs on Shields. Only comes in an intensity of 1 on non-recipe crafted items, but "disappears" from the weapon (or shield) if it cancels the "Faster Casting -1" penalty from the Spell Channeling property.
*Hit Area Damage: (50) On a successful hit, the weapon has a % chance to release an elemental attack (at a fraction of the damage done to the main target, before modifiers) against all legal targets in a small area. Subtypes are:
  • Hit Physical Area
  • Hit Fire Area
  • Hit Cold Area
  • Hit Poison Area
  • Energy Area
*Hit Chance Increase: (15) A % that increases the character's chance to hit a target. Applies to the Attacker's skill vs. Defender's skill check. Can also be found on some artifacts & similar items, and used to occur on shields until several years ago (shields with that property from that period can fetch high prices when sold).
*Hit Life Leech: (50, but modified**) On a successful hit, the weapon will do normal damage and in addition has the modified % times 30% of the damage added to the character's. It does not actually lower the target's health, other than the weapon damage.
*Hit Lower Attack: (50) On a successful activation of the ability, the target's attack ability is temporarily decreased by 25% for 10 seconds. The target can offset this in whole or in part by use of Hit Chance Increase property items.
*Hit Lower Defense: (50) On a successful activation of the ability, the target's defensive ability is decreased by 25% of this property for 8 seconds. The target can offset this in whole or in part by use of Defense Chance Increase items.
*Hit Mana Leech: (50, but modified**) On a successful hit, the weapon will do normal damage and in addition has the modified % times 40% of the value of the damage added to the characters. It does not actually leech/"steal" any of the target's mana, despite the name of the property.
*(Hit) Slayer: The weapon delivers double damage against the appropriate target category. There are currently seven "super" categories (one currently found only on a minor artifact), each with at least one opposing "super" category. The user of the weapon will take double damage from creatures of the opposed category(s). Most weapons are "minor" slayers, in that they only affect a small subset of their "super" counterpart's range of targets, but still makes the user vulnerable to all the opposing category.
*Hit Spell Effect: (50) On each successful hit on a target, the weapon has a % chance to release a spell effect (one of the following, determined on creation of the weapon):
  • Hit Magic Arrow
  • Hit Harm
  • Hit Fireball
  • Hit Lightning
  • Hit Dispel (only effective if the target is a summoned creature)
*Hit Stamina Leech: (50) On a successful hit, the weapon will do normal damage and in addition has a % chance to add 100% of the value of the damage added to the character. It does not actually leech/"steal" any of the target's Stamina, despite the name of the property.
*Mage Weapon: Uses the character's Magery skill as a combat weapon (and for factoring defensive bonuses) but lowers the character's Magery skill at the same time. Special moves require the character to actually have the weapon's natural skill and the related secondary skill (Tactics, for most special moves) to attempt. This magery penalty can be offset by the user by using jewelry or other Margery bonus equipment - or simply ignored by those without the Magery skill.
*Spell Channeling: Allows the character to wield the weapon and cast a Magical spell, but increases the casting time slightly; item shows the "Spell Channeling" property PLUS a "Faster Casting -1" property that is included as part of the determination. The -1 may be offset with the Faster Casting property on equipment, or if rolled as a property at the same time as Spell Channeling (in which case only the Spell Channeling Property is displayed, with no "Faster Casting" property showing - these are typically referred to as "SC No Penalty" or "SC-FC0" weapons). Also occurs on shields.
*Swing Speed Increase: (30) A % that increases the weapon's swing rate.

** The Modifiers for Hit Life Leech and Hit Stamina Leech are based on the weapon's speed, after Swing Speed Increase (if present) applied to the speed. It is possible for extremely slow weapons to have a Leech property, after modifier, of 100%. Similarly, a maximum intensity (50%, in the system before the change) fast weapon may end up with a Leech property displayed as less than 50, especially if it has a high value in swing speed increase. The exact formula for how this modifier is determined is unknown, though it is known that an Ornate Axe without SSI had its Mana Leech property increase by 50% (44% to 66%), and that the Soul Seeker (a Radiant Scimitar minor artifact with the artifact maximum 60% Swing Speed Increase) had its life and mana leech numbers drop 25%, from 40% to 30%.</font>

NOTE: Some recipes from Mondain's Legacy also can give specific weapons properties normally found only on Armor, or vice-versa.


Armour only:
The minimum intensity level of these properties is 1, but the actual range is based on a division of the maximum value by 100. For example, the minimum intensity of Lower Reagent Cost is the runic minimum times the maximum intensity; so that a Bronze Runic, with minimum intensity 55%, will have no worse than 11% LRC, if that property is applied to an item created with it. Recipe bonuses can cause the numbers that appear to exceed the normal maximum for the item.
Note that these categories stack with each other, when making a suit, but that there are certain "Caps" that one are subject to, that limit their effectiveness. For example, Lower Mana Cost has a cap of 40% from all items combined.

*Hit Point Increase: (1-5) Increases the character's maximum Hit Points while equipped.
*Hit Point Regeneration: (1-2) Increases the character's rate of Hit Point regeneration while equipped.
*Lower Mana Cost: (1-8) A % that decreases the amount of mana required to cast a spell or perform a weapon special move.
*Lower Reagent Cost: (1-20) A % that casting any spell or using any Chivalry ability will not consume reagents or tithing points. At 100%+ total Lower Reagent Cost a character will not use reagents/tithing points when casting (but, for tithing, still has to maintain a minimum number of tithing points equal to the tithing cost of the spell). Does not apply to Alchemy or Inscription.
*Mage Armor: Eliminates the interference to meditation heavier pieces of armour may have. Automatically applies to most metal Samurai Empire expansion Armor types when Exceptional Quality crafted. Shields use the Spell Channeling property.
*Mana Increase: (1-8) Increases the character's maximum Mana while equipped.
*Mana Regeneration: (1-2) Increases the character's rate of Mana regeneration while equipped.
*Reflect Physical Damage: (1-15) A % of the physical damage delivered to the wearer is reflected back to the source of the damage. Believed to be capped at 100%. Also occurs on Shields.
*Self Repair: (1-5) The item repairs its durability over time. At Self Repair 1, an item may not noticeably regenerate durability. Also occurs on Shields.
*Stamina Increase: (1-8) Increases the character's maximum Stamina while equipped.
*Stamina Regeneration: (1-3) Increases the character's rate of Stamina regeneration while equipped.
 

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Re-examining the previous examples from 1.3, to now include if they were crafted by Runic Hammers.

Valorite Closed Helm, now crafted with an Agapite Runic

As it was before....
Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS      Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Val Close helm   7      3    6     6      6     28  50 Durability[/FONT]
This is the normally crafted state of the item.
If crafted Exceptionally, there would be another 6 to 11 additional resists (based on Arms Lore skill bonus, or lack thereof), divided randomly between the five resists.

For this example, we will assume Grandmaster Arms Lore, with 11 random resists applied as follows.

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS       Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Val. Close helm   7      3    6     6      6     28  50 Durability[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Exceptional Bonus 2      4    2     1      2     11[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]--------------------------------------------------------------[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Pre-Runic Totals  9      7    8     7      8     39  50 Durability[/FONT]
Now, in addition to these bonuses, there will be FOUR Runic item properties, with a minimum intensity of 65%, and a maximum intensity of 100%. For purposes of this example, they will be Mage Armor, Physical Resist, Poison Resist, and Mana Regeneration.
  • Mage Armor is not affected by intensity.
  • Mana Regeneration is Mana Regeneration 2 at 65% intensity.
  • Physical Resist will be a minimum of 10 (65% of 15, rounded up), a maximum of 15. For this example, we will treat it as 80% (12 of 15)
  • Poison Resist will be a minimum of 10 (65% of 15, rounded up), a maximum of 15. For this example, we will treat it as 93% (14 of 15)
The end result is...

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]FACTORS        Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Pre-Runic Totals   9      7    8     7      8     39  50 Durability[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Physical Resist   12(80%)                         12[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Poison Resist                       14            14[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Mana Regeneration                                     Mana Regeneration 2[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Mage Armor                                            Mage Armor[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Final Item        21      7    8    21      8     65[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Additional Properties: Mage Armor, Mana Regeneration 2, 50% Durability Increase [/FONT]

Bronze Spear, crafted by a Copper Runic

Again, we will assume crafting by a smith with Grandmaster Arms Lore, and that the weapon is exceptional. There is a 50% chance that a Copper Runic will only give two properties, but will give three properties the other 50% of the time. ALL of the exceptional spears crafted will have the following properties...

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]Bronze Spear Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total   D.I.  Other Bonuses[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Before Runic    [/FONT][FONT=Courier New]60%    40%   0%    0%     0%   100%   +40%   None[/FONT]
For this example, we will craft FIVE Bronze Spears of Exceptional quality.
  1. 3 properties: Spell Channeling (with Faster Casting -1), Hit Chance Increase 8% (55% intensity, out of a possible 50%-100%), and Elemental Damage
  2. 3 Properties: Faster Casting 1, Defense Chance Increase 10% (67% intensity), and Damage Increase 45% (which replaces the base chance of 40%)
  3. 3 Properties: Mage Weapon -20 (100% intensity - it ranges from -29 to -20), Spell Channeling (FC -1), and Faster Casting 1 (which cancels out the -1 from Spell Channeling)
  4. 2 Properties: Hit Chance Increase 12% (80% Intensity) and Orc Slayer
  5. 3 Properties: Swing Speed Increase 25%, Undead Slayer (one of the super slayer categories), and Elemental Damage
Code:
[FONT=Courier New][B]FACTORS       Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total Other Bonuses[/B][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]#1 Bronze Spear  10%    40%   0%   20%    30%   100% 40% DI, Spell Channeling (Faster Casting -1), and HCI 8%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]#2 Bronze Spear  60%    40%   0%    0%     0%   100% 45% DI, Faster Casting 1, Defense Chance Increase 10%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]#3 Bronze Spear  60%    40%   0%    0%     0%   100% 40% DI, Mage Weapon -20, Spell Channeling**[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]#4 Bronze Spear  60%    40%   0%    0%     0%   100% 40% DI, Orc Slayer, Hit Chance Increase 12%[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]#5 Bronze Spear   0%     0% 100%    0%     0%   100% 40% DI, Undead Slayer, Swing Speed Increase 25%[/FONT]
** (note that neither Faster Casting Line appears, as they cancel each other out)

#5 looks good, but - Oh, no! 100% cold replaces the 60% Physical & 40% Fire damage, and cold is the worst type of damage to use against most undead. You can probably find a Paladin willing to buy it, though, as they will be able to use Consecrate Weapon to temporarily turn the damage type into 100% of the type their foe is most vulnerable to. At least it's a pretty neon blue color...

One might find a customer for #3, in a mage that prefers having a weapon in hand for defense. If they wear +20 bonus in Magery (from Jewelry, or the rare artifacts that give skill bonus in it), they well still function at their normal magery level, plus have a weapon that will hit as if they have a weapon skill equal to their magery.

The other three weapons are unlikely to find a buyer, so one can either smelt them, or give them to a new player needing a Fencing weapon in New Haven. The latter will quite likely make you a potential customer in the future, should you sell your creations; and, maybe, somewhere down the line, the new player might become your friend or guildmate in game.

Had #5 only "rolled" 80% Cold, the other 20% would have been Fire Damage (as the metal applies to any physical left after the runic properties are applied). Similarly, if the Poison and/or Energy damage numbers for weapon #1 been higher, they would have displaced the remaining physical first, with any left needed to add up to 100% being fire damage.
 

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Enhancing an Item

To start with, enhancing an item does not require the use of a Runic Smithy Hammer but will allow a more controllable endowment of magical bonuses than crafting an item using a Runic Hammer by allowing the crafter to imbue the item with specific resistances (for armour) or damage conversion (for weapons) and other benefits of using special materials. However, you are almost certain to break most items, so Enhancing should be reserved only for items one finds as loot, and you should always craft with a special metal when using a runic,

Basic Rules of Enhancing

  1. Once an item has been successfully enhanced (or crafted from a special material), it may not be enhanced again. Only items made from iron may be enhanced with metals.
  2. A smith can only enhance those items that a smith can make; a tinker can enhance weapons that the tinker can make of metal. Some items can be enhanced and repaired by one or the other, but are not yet craftable, while a few more can only be repaired, and cannot be enhanced currently (The pre-AOS style "Long Sword", for example).
  3. Successfully enhancing an item uses the full amount of ingots, leather, or wood it requires to craft that type of item.
  4. Enhancing does not use a charge on the crafting tool; the exception to this rule is when an Ancient Smithing Hammer is equipped it uses a charge from the ASH in the enhancement attempt.
  5. You may not use a Runic Hammer to enhance an item with more magical properties. It either already has properties, or it does not.
  6. Talismans do not add to the chance to enhance.
  7. If enhancing a weapon's elemental damage, one must have some physical damage on the weapon prior to the enhancement attempt to convert into elemental damage. This is unlike runic bonuses, where the magical properties can overwrite the metal properties. After all, the magic properties are already present on the item to enhance.
  8. Artifacts and MOST other items with special abilities cannot be enhanced. A few other items (mostly event items) can be enhanced, but typically this was an oversight by the Event Moderator that created them, and the attempt will likely destroy the item in a catastrophic failure. Several unique event items, historical items specific to a single shard (and with an estimated worth in the hundreds of millions of gold), are gone now forever, because some fool tried to enhance them, and failed.
Success, Failure, and Catastrophic Failure

The chance to succeed during an enhancement attempt is based primarily on amount of abilities being imbued onto the item. The higher each property will be (when added to the existing properties of the item), the more likely it will fail.





There are two types of failures when attempting to enhance an item.
  • A normal failure means that the enhancement was unsuccessful and the attempt consumes some of the resources but additional attempts may be made.
  • A catastrophic failure destroys the item.
With Publish 21 (late Nov 2003) higher crafting skill now adds into the chance of enhancement success, at a rate of 1% per property, at 100 skill (Grandmaster), and every 10% of skill over Grandmaster. As a +60 Ancient Smith Hammer would give you a potential +6% bonus when held, it is best used for that purpose alone (all smith items can be crafted Exceptionally 100% of the time using a good Blacksmith talisman combined with a lesser hammer, so it is a waste to use a +60 for any reason other than enhancing).

The properties added to metal objects is based on the color of ingots combined into the item.





When attempting to enhance an item, the chance for success/failure is calculated against each property that is being enhanced in the attempt. The chance for item breakage is approximately 10% lower than the chance to fail; the following formulae do not include the previously discussed higher skill bonus:
  • Resist property = 20% + Current Resist (this is for each resist that increases)
  • Durability property = 20% + Int[Current Durability/40]
  • Lower Requirements = 20% + Int[Current Lower Requirements/4]
  • Luck property = 30% + Int[Current Luck/2]
The percentages for enhancing weapons for resists aren't known, but doing so, while risky as one gets closer to no physical remaining, is more likely to succeed than any of the armor enhancements, or enhancing a weapon for luck, durability or lower requirements.

Several Enhancement Calculators may be found to help determine success and breakage chances for armor, such as the one hosted by Stratics.


For weapons, particular slayer weapons, enhancing to target the creature type's particular weaknesses was once a common and practical method, before Chivalry became commonplace. This site is often used as a reference for just that purpose. Alternatively, one can use the Stratics Hunters Database to look up the typical resists in order to choose the correct metal, especially for monsters that have been added in the last few years (the first site hasn't been updated in years).


Elemental Weapons





Weapons that deliver the majority (or, at least, the largest majority, if all types under 50%) of their damage into one of the four non-physical elemental categories may take on a special hue. Such weapons may be found as loot or either crafted or enhanced into such a condition. The color of the weapon is determined by which elemental attack form produces the most raw damage (before factoring in armor). In cases where two or more elements do the same highest damage, the color is randomly determined. In any case, the physical damage deliverable by the weapon must be lower than the highest elemental amount. The brightness of the hue is determined by how great the controlling elemental effect is on the weapon.
  • Fire creates a blaze hue. (Bronze adds 40% Fire, but the weapon will only take on a bronze hue, unless there is at least 20% in fire, or 30% in all elemental damage present, before factoring in the bronze damage modifier)
  • Cold creates a blue hue. (Agapite adds 30% Cold, 20% Energy; Shadow Iron adds 20% Cold only. In the case of Agapite, blue will only show up if there is at least 20% cold already on the weapon, or 10% cold plus 10% more in some other element. Shadow would need 40% cold or more already on the weapon, or some odd combinations where the 20% from Shadow would increase Cold to dominant)
  • Poison creates a green hue. (Verite adds 40% Poison, 20% Energy - but it applies the energy first, so to have a green hue requires that the Physical damage be reduced below 40% AND the Energy damage not end up higher than the Poison damage. This is best done on weapons with Poison damage already present on them, with enough physical damage to allow at least part of the Poison from the Verite to apply. Copper gives 20% Energy & 10% poison, in much the same manner and limitations as Verite.)
  • Energy creates a purple hue. (Verite adds 40% Poison, 20% Energy; Copper adds 20% Energy, 10% Poison; Agapite also adds 30% Cold, 20% Energy, but the total energy has to exceed the total cold to show up)
Using the suggested ingot does not guarantee that type of elemental weapon will be created. Typically, as long as the physical damage is equal to the best non-physical damage percentage, the weapon will only take the hue of the metal used to enhance or craft it.

Order that these are added: (highest added first)

Cold
Energy
Fire
Poison
*Thanks to Dius Fidus for determining the order that these are added. It has been rumored that the order does have some exceptions, but this has been denied repeatedly by EA, and attempts to replicate these rumored exceptions have failed..

For example, let's say one finds a Broadsword (from a creature, treasure chest or MiB) that delivers 70% Physical and 30% Fire and is an Undead Slayer with +40% damage. Such a weapon may be enhanced by a skilled smith with Bronze ingots. If successful, the weapon should be a fairly bright (almost Blaze) Undead Slayer that does +40% damage with 30% Physical and 70% Fire attack properties!

While, in most cases, a weapon will brighten its existing color when you enhance, there are certain times when it may change color. For example, Enhancing a weapon that is 40% cold, 20% Fire, 10% energy and 30% Physical with Bronze will turn it from a dark blue, to a slightly brighter red, because it is now 50% fire, 40% cold, and 10% energy.





If one enhances in such a way to make the weapon 100% all one type, the weapon will become a very bright "true" neon color. This can only be done for fire, cold and energy, as all metal types that add poison always add another type of damage first (unless one of those long-mythical exceptions somehow occurs - I wouldn't bet on it). The weapon can ONLY have that type of damage, and physical damage, for this to be possible.
  • One can enhance items with 60% to 90% Fire, the rest in Physical, with Bronze for a 100% Fire weapon.
  • One can enhance items with 70% Cold, the rest in Physical, with Agapite to turn it into a 100% Cold weapon. At 80% & 90%, one can use Shadow Iron instead, for higher durability.
  • One can enhance items with 80% or 90% Energy, the rest in Physical, with Copper, for a 100% Energy weapon.
You cannot make a 100% Poison weapon through enhancement - only via runic crafting. They can also be found very rarely as loot. As such, and because of their use in several means of training skills, they are worth 10 to 100 times more than their counterparts of other colors - so long as they don't have hit spell or hit area effects on them.

See The Dius Fidus Guide for Enhancing to Create or Improve Neon Weapons (http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=12409) for a more detailed guide, from the early days of the current crafting system. Note that much of the information may be obsolete after so long.
 

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Crafting Percentages

The Chance to craft an item progresses at a standard rate, as follows.

  • The Minimum Skill to craft an item (for a smith) is ACTUALLY the point were the item has a 0.0% chance to craft, that advances to 0.2% with the next skill gain. So, while Chainmail Leggings has a "Minimum Skill" at 36.7, one does not have the actual ability to make the item (and then only at 0.2%) until 36.8 Skill. Note that for many other skills, such as tailor, the items start out at 50% at the minimum skill (the devs must hate us so!)
  • The Success Chance to craft an item is simple to tabulate. Take the Current Skill of the Blacksmith, subtract the "Minimum Skill" for the item, then multiply by 2. The resulting number is the Success Chance to craft the item as a percentage, before any modifiers. Example: A person with 50 Blacksmithing has a (50-36.7)*2 = 13.3*2 = 26.6% Chance of crafting Chainmail Leggings. One can also look at this as being the chance to craft advancing 0.2% for every 0.1 Skill gained.
  • NOTE that the Success Chance, while it does not display above 100% in the crafting gump, is still recorded as its actual value by the game. The reason for this is that there are several other variables that require the unmodified number (such as the chance to craft as Exceptional Quality).
  • The Exceptional Chance to craft an item is a little more complicated. The chance for an item to be Exceptional, while the Blacksmith is of skill 95.0 or lower, is the Success Chance minus 60%. This number is kept track of internally, and is even kept at negative values, for purposes of Talisman use (see section 1.8).
  • An artifact of the pre-Power-Scroll crafting system (when all skills reached maximum at 100.0 with no chance of exceeding it) means that above 95.0 Skill, the Exceptional Chance temporarily breaks its pattern of following the normal Success Chance. From 95.1 to 100.0 skill, the Exceptional Chance advances 0.5% per 0.1 skill gained, while the Success Chance continues to advance at a rate of 0.2% per 0.1 skill. After attaining 100 skill, the Exceptional Chance advancement returns to the 0.2% per 0.1 pattern.
  • The net effect of the above period of fast exceptional chance gain is that, after one reaches Grandmaster skill, the Exceptional Chance is now Success Chance - 45%.
Knowing how these numbers are calculated can assist one in determining what items to make, when training one's skill (see Section 2).
 

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Talismans

Talismans are an addition to crafting and other uses, introduced in Mondain's Legacy (September 2005).

There are multiple types of talismans, but the ones we are concerned with are the ones that provide bonuses to crafting skills.


A talisman with Blacksmithing bonuses may have one or both of the following:
  • Blacksmithing Bonus (ranging from 11 to 30%): Applies to the base chance to successfully craft an item with your skill. Only adds to ability to make items that one already can make with at least 0.2% chance of success.
  • Blacksmithing Exceptional Bonus (ranging from 11 to 30%): Applies to the base chance to successfully craft an item at Exceptional Quality with your skill. The chance for an item to be Exceptional, under normal circumstances, is detailed in section 1.7 above. As this number is kept track of internally, and is even kept at negative values, this means that one can use a Talisman with the Exceptional Bonus to have a small percentage of crafting an item as Exceptional, when one has not reached the actual skill level to do so without the talisman.
  • Note that the Exceptional Chance is based on the REAL Success Chance, not the one modified by the Talisman. So, a "Blacksmithing Bonus" Talisman will not improve your Exceptional Chance, nor will you get two bonuses to Exceptional Chance from using a talisman with both Bonuses.
Other Effects of Talisman Use.
  • Talismans have no effect on gathering Bulk Order Deeds or Enhancing.
  • However, the bonuses MAY interfere slightly with the ability to gain skill (which is based on the success chance of the items being made), so it is important to remove a "Blacksmithing Bonus" talisman when training, unless absolutely needed to reduce ingot loss (such as making an item with a normal success chance under 20% - and even then it's recommended to find something better to make for training that doesn't require a talisman). The talisman still allows skill gains, even though the total might be more than what would normally allow gains - but will have the effect of slowing gain rate slightly (As the final check to determine if a skill gain occurs is based on success chance).
  • Testing has shown that a talisman with ONLY an Exceptional bonus will not interfere with training, and could be very useful for training methods that sell the crafted items, or use the crafted items to fill Bulk Order Deeds to turn in for more BODs, more quickly. This is because you still have the same success chance, but more of the items you make will be exceptional (less wasted metal when filling an exceptional BOD)
  • Another talisman property that may be of limited use is A Talisman of Ingots Summoning. Such Talismans can (but rarely) have one or both of the Blacksmith bonus types (the crafting bonuses, if any present, are totally random). When worn, every 60 seconds, the wearer can expend one charge to receive a small amount of Iron ingots. This can be especially useful when filling Bulk Order Deeds or doing Recipe quests in Heartwood, if you run low on ingots. These Talismans are typically charge-based, and can be recharged when empty with a "Runed Switch" (an item crafted by a combination of Tinker, Glassblower/Alchemist & Inscription skills).
 

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:fake:There is no Spoon....

(Actually, this is a empty spot to hold a place in case we decide to add something to Section One at a later Date)
 

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This section contains methods used in the past to gain skill in Blacksmithing or a related skill. Each individual section will cover a specific methodology.

This Introductory section will cover the basics of Blacksmithy Skill Gain.


Blacksmith Skill Gaining 101
  1. The chance to gain skill in Blacksmithing is based on the Success chance of the items being crafted. Simply put, once you get to a certain proficiency at crafting an item, you will no longer be able to gain when crafting that item.
  2. If one has not used a Blacksmithing Power Scroll, one will cease gaining from crafting an item at 100% Success Chance. This is why crafting with a normal "Blacksmithing Bonus" talisman is a bad idea.
  3. If one HAS used a Blacksmithing Power Scroll, one can gain crafting an item until the Success Chance percentage reaches the number value of the Power Scroll. As noted in Section 1.7, the Success Chance still continues to rise, even though numbers over 100% are not displayed. See the Comprehensive Smith Skill Gain Range Table. It shows the skill where every non-recipe item item starts for smiths, as well as the exact skill level where that item stops giving gains, depending whether you haven't used a powerscroll, or have used a 105, 110, 115 or 120 Powerscroll. It is an excellent resource should you attempt to build your own personalized training regimen, or have hit a seeming roadblock, and think that changing items for a while might break the gain blockage.
  4. Gains are best in the upper-middle of the crafting range of the item. If one takes the hint from George Hesphaestus (the fast skill gain quest giver for Blacksmithing in New Haven; hint is seen clicking on him again after accepting quest) as being an official statement of the optimum range to craft, that would mean that the optimum range is the period where one is 60% to 80% chance of making an item. However, gains can be gotten at any point between 0.2% and 99.8% (or higher, with power scrolls), and come from successful or failed attempts.
  5. The Guaranteed Gain System can be used to get a gain per day (give or take; quicker if you have a lower skill, more at higher skills) on items that have extremely low (but possible) chance of a gain, and is a slow, but easy & cheap, means of advancing the last few points towards your goal.
  6. Though rare, it is possible to get a gain from repairs to an item.
  7. If one doesn't want to check the chart mentioned above, the basic rule of thumb for skill gain limits is as follows.
  • If you have not used a Blacksmithing Power Scroll, crafting an item can give you gains until your skill equals the item's Minimum Skill + 50, corresponding to a 100% Success Chance.
  • If a 105 Blacksmithing Power Scroll used, crafting an item can give you gains until your skill equals the item's Minimum Skill + 52.5, corresponding to a 105% Success Chance.
  • If a 110 Blacksmithing Power Scroll used, crafting an item can give you gains until your skill equals the item's Minimum Skill + 55, corresponding to a 110% Success Chance.
  • If a 115 Blacksmithing Power Scroll used, crafting an item can give you gains until your skill equals the item's Minimum Skill + 57.5, corresponding to a 115% Success Chance.
  • If a 120 Blacksmithing Power Scroll used, crafting an item can give you gains until your skill equals the item's Minimum Skill + 60, corresponding to a 120% Success Chance.
 

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The New Player's Guide to Smithing was originally put together by former moderator Rhus Radicans.

Since his last update, New Haven arrived (radically altering the path for new players starting up), ore colored locations began to change randomly, and other changes occured. Plus, it did not deal with Heartwood.

The new (version 2) of the Guide is his guide, modified by Basara to include these new changes. It is at the following location: New Smith's Guide
 

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You may ask, "Do I really NEED Arms Lore?"

Well, if you plan to make any armor or weapons, the answer is probably YES.

The Following Charts are a more visible breakdown of the skill's benefits on most shards.

Arms Lore Skill / Race / Exceptional Weapon DI / Exceptional Armor (non-runic) / Exceptional Armor (runic)
0-19.9 / Elves / 35% / 15 points / 6 points
0-39.9 / Human / 36% / 16 / 7
20.0-39.9 / Elves / 36% / 16 / 7
40.0-59.9 / Both / 37% / 17 / 8
60.0-79.9 / Both / 38% / 18 / 9
80.0-99.9 / Both / 39% / 19 / 10
100.0 / Both / 40% / 20 / 11

Now, for Siege Perilous & Mugen, where the bonus is different (and the exceptional crafted equipment is mandatory, without insurance)

Arms Lore Skill / Race / Exceptional Weapon DI / Exceptional Armor (non-runic) / Exceptional Armor (runic)
0-12.4 / Elves / 35% / 15 / 6
0-24.9 / Human / 36% / 16 / 7
12.5-24.9 / Elves / 36% / 16 / 7
25.0-37.4 / Both / 37% / 17 / 8
37.5-49.9 / Both / 38% / 18 / 9
50.0-62.4 / Both / 39% / 19 / 10
62.5-74.9 / Both / 40% / 20 / 11
75.0-87.4 / Both / 41% / 21 / 12
87.5-99.9 / Both / 42% / 22 / 13
100 / Both / 43% / 23 / 14
 

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Using a mix of crafting items and Loring existing items, some people have claimed reaching Grandmaster in as little as eight hours. However, the experience of others and of this FAQ writer makes this number suspect. And, besides, having the skill at Grandmaster really doesn't have any benefit until you actually get the crafting skills it will modify to a level where you'd be using them to craft, anyway.

A more likely range is in 15 to 30 hours of game time, using the "Active Loring" method alone. This is, as previously noted, best reserved for characters with nearly complete crafting skills that are having to add Lore afterward.

If one goes to things like in-game auction houses, this can be done while items you have no interest in are up for bids, with no one in the room being bothered by it. Similar "multi-tasking" can be done bank-sitting to sell items, or to work off counts on a character you do not wish to be become a murderer (then you can soulstone the skill over to the crafter). Just do it attended, please...

Persons training Smith, Bowyer/Fletcher and/or Tailor skills up from New Haven levels should have little trouble getting near to or at Grandmaster Arms Lore, in the process of training their skills, if they stick to crafting items that do damage or have resists. In these cases, the time to train Arms Lore will be about the same time as it takes to finish the crafting skill, perhaps less (if multiple crafting skills trained in the same period). If one is training Mining, one can have their mining macro set up to lore a hand-held item every so often, making the mining macro take a few seconds longer, but training two Smith support skills at the same time (and, if a UOAssist macro, the lore-related lines can be easily deleted out later).

Either method can be supplemented (As noted in section 2.2) by crafting for the recipe quests in Heartwood, or crafting to fill simple weapon, armor & hat (for tailors) Bulk Order Deeds to turn in for replacement BODs.

I made two experiments in this field, training two of my BOD runners.
Experiment #1: started 70 Tailor, 70 smith. Arms lore started at 0. Making only items on which that I could gain both Smith & Arms Lore, or Tailor & Arms Lore (concentrating on smith gains until I hit 90 smith), Arms Lore reached parity with Smith skill at 96 Smith(and arms lore), 85 Tailor.
Experiment #2: Started 70 Smith; bought up arms lore in New Haven. Making only items that I could gain both Smith & Arms Lore on, Smith and Arms Lore became equal around 90 skill.

In all, the speed of reaching Grandmaster is a matter of your level of patience, and how much time one is willing to spend solely concentrating on it, or gaining while performing other actions.
 

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The most recent version of the "Blacksmith Skill Gain Log" can be found Here. However, it is relatively out of date, due to the changes in NPC vendor ingot prices, and the addition of Samurai Empire and Mondain's Legacy items with which to train.

Currently, the best (and most simple) way to start training a blacksmith on Normal Shards (i.e. not on Siege Perilous) is to either start a standard Blacksmith character in New Haven, or take an existing character there. This starting method is detailed below in Section 2.6., in addition to being expanded on in the Guide for New Blacksmiths.

After that point, it is best to already have as high Mining as one can get (can get to Grandmaster in just a day or so), to minimize losses from smelting items created solely for training purposes. It is also best to use one of the new Salvage Bags for recycling, to add even more ingot return. All methods detailed later on will involve Salvaging / Recycling any item not kept for other reasons (such as personal use, sale on player-run vendors, or placing in a BOD - yes, some people actually fill BODs with low-end runics, hoping to get the rare slayers to use or sell)

Question: "What about the 'craft and sell to NPC' method?"
Answer: That method is no longer viable for most people, in light of changes over the last four years. It never worked on SP, and is an extravagant waste of gold and ingots in the game's current state. How, you might ask? Let be break down the demise of this once popular method.

  • Early 2003: NPCs would sell Iron ingots at about 6 GP per ingot; there was also a glut of iron ingots on player vendors, due to the old BOD/Deed smelt exploit from 2002 or so. One could make more back from selling crafted items (other than helmets) than the cost of the resources to make them.
  • November 24, 2003: The "supply & Demand" pricing system was implemented. The default price of Iron ingots from NPC sellers became 8 gp each. With each 1000 sold, the price would go up 1 GP. With each 1000 bought by the NPC, the price would go down 1 GP, to a minimum sell price of 2, buy of 1. Though having different default prices, all other stackables (other than reagents) got the same treatment. Occasionally, the vendors would be reset back to the default price, either intentionally, or (more often) from a publish that required the vendors to reboot. This made it substantially more expensive to "make, then sell" as a training method, but the gold losses were relatively small.
  • 2004-2007: This system worked fairly well. supply and demand meant that occasionally, persons being too lazy to mine would run the price up, but opportunist miners would see the price, and bring in ingots to sell to take those rises as profits over the normal market value, lowering the prices back down. In some cases, people would buy low in one city, then sell them at the high price in Luna or other places. This give and take meant that while the prices rose and fell, they tended to stay in the 12 to 20 GP range. However, some of the other items ended up being caught up in gold-proliferation exploits
  • February 2008: The system radically altered, to not let such item prices drop below a certain point, or be bought back above a certain price point. As the "Buy" point was set at THREE GOLD for ingots, this destroyed the ability of miners to sell their ingots for a worthwhile amount. Ingot prices started to spiral out of control.
  • April 2008: The present. Just TWO SHORT MONTHS after this ill-conceived change, Iron ingots in Luna reached OVER 30 GOLD PER INGOT, on even the low population shards! Some blacksmiths in out of the way places have lower prices, but only temporarily, and it is only a matter of time even on the small shards that those places make their inevitable climb to prices comparable to 2007 Player Vendor Copper/Bronze ingot levels (by which time the price in Luna for Iron will probably be up to 2007 GOLD ingot levels). Since April, there have been several event-related publishes that reset the vendors back to base numbers, but it doesn't take long for the prices to get ugly again.
 

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Now, continuing with the description of how buying ingots has gotten ugly for the skill trainer... The light at the end of the tunnel...

Enter the Salvage Bag

One change to further streamline the ability to train crafting was the Salvage Bag, an item introduced in November 2007 (though not debugged until early 2008). Inspired by the Recycle Agent of UOAssist, it is vastly superior.

First, it salvages everything in a second, be it one or 100 items.
Second, it gives a bonus when used, of 1 extra ingot per item of that type recycled.

The quick speed makes this bag more time-efficient than the old scripts that used "craft one item and immediately recycle" methods, and is also more time-efficient than using the UOA recycle agent. Furthermore, the bonus of an additional ingot back drastically cuts the amount of ingots needed to train.

Consider the following progression (assumes 2/3 ingot return per smelt), making 12-ingot items to train. Start with 12000 ingots, assuming 100% chance of success (one can gain at exactly 100% success chance if any smith powerscroll used. Note that the ratio of attempts between the two returns should be similar at any success level that produces items to recycle).

12000 ingots = 1000 items; smelts to
8000 ingots = 666 items (and 4 ingots left); smelts to
5337 ingots = 444 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
3561 ingots = 296 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
2377 ingots = 198 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
1585 ingots = 132 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
1057 ingots = 88 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
705 ingots = 58 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
473 ingots = 39 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
317 ingots = 26 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
213 ingots = 17 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
145 ingots = 12 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
97 ingots = 8 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
65 ingots = 5 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
45 ingots = 3 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
33 ingots = 2 items (and 9 ingots left); smelts to
25 ingots = 2 items (and 1 ingot left); smelts to
17 ingots = 1 item (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
13 ingots = 1 item (1 ingot left); smelts to
9 ingots = need more ingots.
Total items produced: 1000+666+444+296+198+132+88+58+39+26+17+12+8+5+3+2+1+1= 2996 items

Now, the same numbers, same stats, with a salvage bag used.
12000 ingots = 1000 items; smelts to
9000 ingots = 750 items; smelts to
6750 ingots = 562 items (and 6 ingots left); smelts to
5063 ingots = 421 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
3800 ingots = 316 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
2852 ingots = 237 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
2141 ingots = 178 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
1607 ingots = 133 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
1208 ingots = 100 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
908 ingots = 75 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
683 ingots = 56 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
515 ingots = 42 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
389 ingots = 32 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
293 ingots = 24 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
221 ingots = 18 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
167 ingots = 13 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
128 ingots = 10 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
98 ingots = 8 items (and 2 ingots left); smelts to
74 ingots = 6 items (and 2 ingots left); smelts to
56 ingots = 4 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
44 ingots = 3 items (and 8 ingots left); smelts to
35 ingots = 2 items (and 11 ingots left); smelts to
29 ingots = 2 items (and 5 ingots left); smelts to
23 ingots = 1 item (11 ingota left); smelts to
20 ingots = 1 item (8 ingots left); smelts to
17 ingots = 1 item (5 ingots left); smelts to
14 ingots = 1 item (2 ingot left); smelts to
11 ingots = need more ingots.
Total items produced:
1000+750+562+421+316+237+178+133+100+75+56+42+32+24+18+13+10+8+6+4+3+2+2+1+1+1+1=3996

In other words, the addition of 1 extra ingot back from using the Salvage Bag resulted in ONE THOUSAND more training attempts from the same 12000 ingots - and a LOT less time spent recycling.

This equates to about 4000 ingots saved using the Salvage Bag, that training without it would have needed.

Compared to the "make and sell" method, the number of attempts resulting from (make and recycle without Salvage Bag) would have used almost 36,000 ingots (with the scaling prices, about 1.4 million gold of ingots; selling that many plate gloves would only give you 600k, at best); the number of attempts using the salvage bag, done by selling items and buying, would have needed almost 48,000 ingots (over 2.1 million gold, compared to about 800k sellback for the plate pieces).

See what I mean about ugly ingot prices?
 

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Currently, the best (and most simple) way to start training a blacksmith on Normal Shards (i.e. not on Siege Perilous) is to either start a standard Blacksmith character in New Haven, or take an existing character there. SP Players & Mugen can skip ahead to section 2.7.

The Custom character creation method has been rendered moot for most templates by the New Haven quests. Only a few professions would find the custom character useful on normal shards, and those are typically ones that have extremely hard skills to train, that would be best worth spending the money on an Advanced Character Token (Tamers & Bards).

This tutorial starts in New Haven, with a standard Blacksmith (30 Mining, 30 Blacksmith, 30 Tinker - character ALSO has 30 Tailoring, if started with the Kingdom Reborn client, making it better (120 skill points, and a higher starting STR), than using a custom character with 100 skill)

Step 1. You will arrive in New Haven in front of the bank. In your pack will be some ingots, a pickaxe, a tinker tool, and some gold. In your hand will be a Smith Hammer. Step up to the bank, open your bankbox, and put half the gold, all of the ingots, and the hammer into it. Retrieve your other pickaxe from the bankbox.

Now, go southwest, following the coastline of the bay that was once Haven's lake. This will take you to the mines. Buy Mining, Blacksmith and Arms Lore as high as possible from Jacob (important to do this first, as you cannot buy up skills while under the effects of any skill gain quest), then take Jacob's quest. You can also take the quest of Mugg at this point. Jacob's quest will train your mining up to 50 quickly (about 10-15 minutes). Mugg's quest will let you trade 5 large ore for more tools to dig with, if you run out.

Once you complete Jacob's Quest, you will be at 50 mining, and the Jacob's Pickaxe he gives you has 20 uses, regenerates one use per 5 minutes (back up to 20), and gives a +10 Mining Bonus when held.

Description: The best use for Jacob's Pickaxe is to be held when you smelt items or ore during training, as it gives you a higher mining skill. It is best to smelt 1 ore at a time to maximize mining gains without the pickaxe in hand, both during and after the quest, but once you hit about 70 mining, you are better off smelting the iron in large piles, only smelting colored or in small piles or piece by piece. It cannot be held when using another tool to mine, so its bonus has no easily usable bonus to your mining in the field, as its low number of uses makes it a tool for mining only as a last resort (such as your regular tools run out mid-way through a vein).

Step 2. Now that you have the special pickaxe, mine some more until you get about 500 ingots (skip to next step if you have an outside source for these ingots, such as another character, and choose not to immediately work on mining training), doing Mugg's quest for more tools as needed and holding Jacob's Pickaxe while smelting the ore one piece at a time for additional mining gains.

Step 3. When ready, return to New Haven and the Tinker shop there. Buy Tinkering skill as high as possible from Amelia, in order to craft your own tools. Then, accept Amelia's skill gain quest.

You should be able to do Amelia's quest with your ingots on hand, making clock parts (another 10-15 minute quest). You can accept the tinker quest from Nibbet (turning in those same clock parts) for gains, as well as more tinker tools (and some random tinkered items), and can probably finish the tinker side of the skill quests for well under 100 ingots (putting you in the range of making the blacksmith and mining tools for yourself. However, until you hit about 55-60 tinkering, you'll probably save more ingots by buying tongs, and doing Mugg's quest for picks). Plus you will have Amelia's Toolbox (a blessed tinker toolkit with 500 uses; don't know if it recharges or not)

Step 4. Now, retrieve your hammers from the bank, go to the Smithy, and find George Hesphastus. If you forgot to do so earlier at Jacob, buy Blacksmith & Arms Lore up from George, then accept his quest, making daggers & maces. If you have the ingots on hand, you can do the quest in about 10-20 minutes - however, as a starting character, you might not have them or the gold to buy them, which is why I recommended mining up substantially more ingots before returning to town from Jacob's mine.

After making sure you have a decent supply of ingots, settle in at George's smithy (where the fast skill gain area is), and start training. If gains get slow, follow George's advice and switch to maces, if you have the ingots to spare.

Step 5. After this is done, you will have the Hammer of Hesphaestus (analogous to Jacob's Pick, but much less useful). Plus, you will now have 50 mining, 50 tinkering, 50 blacksmith, and somewhere between 35 & 50 Arms Lore.

It is at this point that you will be ready to progress to the Skill Guides in the following sections. However, it is suggested that you do the following before doing so...

  1. Go ahead and get mining to Grandmaster. It will only take a day or two, and give you much-needed ingots for the training, regardless of the method used.
  2. Try to acquire Ringmail Gloves of Mining +5 to wear while crafting/smelting. This will increase your base return (before rounding down) from 66.0% to 69.3%. Even Studded Gloves +3 will be sufficient for most purposes.
  3. Purchase a Salvage Bag from the provisioner (if you didn't before starting smith training). Use of a salvage bag adds 1 ingot to the normal amount returned, added to your percentage-based return.
  4. Acquire a Blacksmith Power Scroll. Use of the scroll increases the top end of your crafting gain rainge by 5% (2.5 skill) for every 5 points over 100.
For the experienced player:

Note that if one is GM Mining, wearing the Ringmail Mining Gloves, and using a Salvage bag, that one can make daggers and get ALL of their ingots back. This gives an alternate means (potentially faster as well) to train Arms Lore to GM quickly (since the salvage bag salvages all items in 1 second, and crafting has less of a time delay than active arms lore use), as well as potential gain use.



It ALSO gives a means of drastically cutting down ingot use for training. If one goes into training Blacksmith with GM mining, +3 or +5 gloves, the salvage bag AND a Blacksmith Power Scroll, one can achieve the following skill levels WITHOUT LOSING A SINGLE INGOT. All ingots will be recovered on smelting with the salvage bag.
  1. No Scroll - Gain on daggers until 49.2 at ZERO ingot cost (still have to have some to make, but you recover 100% on smelt)
  2. 105 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 51.7 and recover 100% of ingots.
  3. 110 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 54.2 and recover 100% of ingots.
  4. 115 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 56.7 and recover 100% of ingots.
  5. 120 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 59.2 and recover 100% of ingots.
Start with 300 ingots in salvage bag, make 100 daggers in salvage bag, trigger salvage bag to get back 300 ingots, move ingots to the Salvage Bag, repeat as necessary.
 

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This method works best utilizing the Salvage Bag, as well as high mining, mining gloves +3 or +5 to go with that mining skill, and shopping for a power scroll (since you won't be doing many BODs in the time it takes to train). The ability to buy ingots (or free time to mine) will be the only real slow points in your training.


50-up... Consult the charts link above for things you can gain on, if you wish to build your own, personal training chart.

The following is a guide that minimizes ingot use, as long as you are enabled for Mondain's Legacy items:

  • Continue with the items you were training with (daggers and maces) to 50 at New Haven (remember, if you've already used a high-end smith PS, you can get to the high 50s with daggers with zero ingot loss, if you do it in conjunction with the salvage bag and Gloves +3 or +5)
  • Switch to Cutlasses somewhere in the 50s.
  • Switch to Krysses somewhere in the mid 60s.
  • Switch to Shurikens somewhere in the mid 70s.
  • Switch to Circlets around 90*
  • Switch to Royal Circlets at GM, keep making them until 120.*
* if you need to fill Platemail BODs, feel free to do these during your training as well, but the circlets use a lot less metal.

None of the items in this list will use more than 8 ingots, and the old standby (katanas) actually use more than the Shurikens & circlets you replace that part of training with. Those SE & ML items definitely use a lot less ingots than platemail! With the salvage bag in use with mining totalling 101.2 or lore, you will only lose 2 ingots for every 8-ingot item crafted, 1 ingot for the 5 & 6 ingot items! Plus these tend to be very light, so it will be likely that you will run into item count stoppages before weight ones.

This is also one of the types of training that using Kingdom Reborn on would make even faster, if your machine can run that client.

1. Log into KR.
2. Get a bunch of crafting tools, and ingots
3. Open up tool, choose item, and "Make Max"
4. Start making items. Make Max will run making items until you hit a failure (and even some of the skins & enhancement packages that are available for KR will make it ignore failures and keep going), or you run out of room, materials or uses of the tool.
5. Restart as necessary (with a new tool if the old one runs out).
6. When full, use the salvage bag to smelt.
7. Move ingots from smelt back to bag, repeat until you drop to somewhere less than 100 ingots total after smelting.
8. get more ingots, go back to #1.
 

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This method makes use of the changes several years ago, that allow you to turn in a filled BOD, and immediately request a new BOD. A more detailed version of the BOD Cycling concept will be detailed in Section 3.

This method is slower than the smelting method, and will cost more - but it will quickly build you up a BOD supply, especially once you get to the level to get colored BODs. It's a method that is most popular among those that feel that "crafting just to smelt" takes away from their gaming enjoyment, or that it's just throwing ingots away (at least you get paid for the BODs).

Items Needed (Italics are optional items)

A constant ingot supply (better train that mining to GM)
+3/+5 Mining Gloves & Salvage Bag (get these at the latest by the time you start getting Exceptional BODs at 70 skill - if not starting out)
5 BOD Books
A talisman with a Blacksmith Exceptional Bonus, but WITHOUT a normal Blacksmith Bonus (the higher the exceptional bonus, the better).
Acquire the best Blacksmith scroll as you can get - and upgrade whenever possible.
30-100 iron smith BODs as a starting base for the project.


What to do:

1. Name the BOD books.
Book #1 is for BODs you can gain skill on.
Book #2 is for BODs too difficult to Gain on now (include everything that has a 30% or less chance of success, as you'll waste too many ingots on them).
Book #3 is for BODs too Easy to gain on.
Book #4 is for colored BODs.
Book #5 is for Filled BODs to turn in.

2. Sort your BODs into these books, as designated.
Use the guide at this Stratics Page to see what items you can gain on, and which are too easy or too hard at your skill level.

3. Take Book #3 to the blacksmith's.
Buy the items for the normal BODs in the book, instead of crafting them - you wouldn't gain on them, and it costs more in the value of ingots to fill them by hand, compared to buying the items. Put Filled BODs in Book #5.

4. Sort Book #1 from easiest to hardest, then start filling BODs via crafting. Put filled BODs in Book #5.

This is where the training really begins.
  • Make sure that, if you have the suggested talisman, that you wear it when you are attempting to fill Exceptional BODs.
  • Also, if you have both exceptional and normal BODs for a specific item, fill them side by side, first combining the exceptionals into the exceptional BODs, then the normals (and any leftover exceptionals) into the normal BODs. You'll save time, energy & ingots that way.
  • Don't forget to stop and get new BODs if the filling session lasts long enough to where your time for new BOD requests comes back around again.
  • When you run out of BODs, check the chart against Book #2. If you have gained enough skill to where you have at least a 30-40% chance to make the items, move them to book 1.
  • Don't go out of your way to attempt to fill any exceptional BOD you have less than a 20% chance to make an exceptional item for it (in other words, only combine in exceptionals that occur when trying to fill a normal BOD of the same type, and if you run out of normal BODs, put the incomplete Exceptional BOD back into Book #1 till next time)
  • When all iron BODs you have that can be easily filled are filled, it's time to proceed to the next step.
5. Take the book of filled BODs with you, to your next BOD request.
After getting your new BOD, start pulling the filled BODs from the book. This typically works best with two bags (or a bag, and an extra BOD book for sorting). Put the filled BODs into one bag. Turn in a filled BOD, then request a new BOD. Move the unfilled BODs into the second bag (or sorting BOD book), to be sorted later. Repeat until all the filled BODs are turned in.
Note that along the way you'll probably get a LOT more mining tools than you'll ever need - drop most of them, or sell them to the tinker, and put the ones you need for your own mining into the bank.

6. Sort your New BODs and rewards.
Eventually, you'll start getting a few Iron larges worth attempting (Ex Polearms, Ex Ringmail, 20 normal Fencing, Iron Plate normals and Ex 15). Everything else will get sorted into the Appropriate books.
If you kept mining tools, you'll at best need 1 prospector tool per 8 digging tools. Of the sturdy tools, only keep the 200 use shovels; the picks are too heavy, and 150-use shovels are less efficient. Only keep Gargoyle picks if you can survive the experience (or have someone who'll buy them from you).
Visit the bank, and total the gold payout of the BODs you turned in. This will be used to buy stuff for the too-easy BODs, as well as cheap Iron ingots if you can find them.
Note that, until you hit 110 skill, 3/4 of your BODs will be Iron (the 50% that are Weapons, plus the half of the remainder that are Iron armor)

7. Replenish your ingots.
This isn't just by mining - this can also include going out on a combat character and bringing in gold to buy ingots.

8. Assess your situation.
If you have too few BODs or ingots for an immediate restart of the process, give yourself a couple days to set back up.
If you have a lot of extra ingots, and too few BODs that give gains, maybe check the method in 2.7, and train with that method for a while, until you get more BODs.
Check your Color BODs for their rewards as smalls, and (if applicable) when combined with their large. If you have the skills to do so, fill the ones that don't have good rewards as part of a large, and turn them in with your next BOD cycle. Some of them (the helmets and female plate) are good for gains into the 90s or later.
Once you get your supplies, gold and BODs back to the level you think is appropriate, then go back to step 3, and go through the process again.


I've personally used this method with all my crafters (though half of them started with 70 or more skill, thanks to my being given an account).

I used this SIMULTANEOUSLY with 4 smiths, from December through April (when my crafting came to a standstill due to events occurring in-game that a crafter was only needed for repairs). Their skills were 100, 85, 70, and 70. While doing this type of training (and turning in with a 120 smith, so there was only 55% iron BODs coming back), once a week, I advanced the 4 characters an average of 20 points each (115, 105, 95, 90). One can only imagine if I'd put all that effort into one character (not to mention I was also training 2 of them in Tailor at the time, and all 4 in Arms Lore).
 

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With either method described above, it is easy to see someone getting bored of doing the same thing over and over. There is more to life than the blacksmith shop and the home forge, after all.

Eventually, as a smith, you'll want to try to get a number of the smith recipes from Heartwood (and maybe a good talisman). The Recipes (which will have their own section later in the FAQ) range from some items with minor bonus abilities (cumulative with runics), to artifact-level items that only have their stated properties (meaning, don't use a runic).

If the normal method of training has you down, run to Heartwood and do some of the recipe quests.

Here are the quests that a Smith in training is likely to do.

Bascinet quest
You can start attempting to make bascinets at 8.3 skill. Will be able to gain on Bascinets up to 58.3 skill, if no powerscroll used. Add 2.5 points for every 5 points of powerscroll over 100, up to 68.3 if you've already used a 120 Blacksmith scroll.

Heater Shield quest
Because of the high ingot cost, you might want to skip this one. Can gain up to 74.3, unscrolled (up to 84.3 with a 120 PS).

Broadsword quest
This is your preferred quest for training while simultaneously getting recipes and talismans. Can start crafting at 35.4 skill, which means you can gain on them to 85.4 unscrolled, 95.4 if scrolled to 120. As it is also the most ingot-efficient, it's the one you're likely to still be doing after 95 skill, trying for other recipes (cause there are a LOT of smith recipes!)


The Britain Library Collection

Similarly, if one has the skills to do the Friend of the library quest (or just do bags of stuff for a character that HAS done the quest to run in and donate), one can make a few things for that collection system.

For the easier parts, you can always do the Master of Trades, and donate any surplus colored ingots there. It's probably the easiest (due to the weight to point ratio) collection to do, but that's mostly a mining gig.

For the Samurai Collection, you get 22 points for Daisho, 27 points for a No-dachi. While these are ingot hogs, they WILL get you gains all the way up to 120 skill, so if you get stuck on the easier royal circlets, go for the no-dachi and collection points for a while.

The Warrior collection gives 9 points each for the Buckler (you can't gain anything on it), and the Battle Axe (which you stop gaining at 80.5 with no PS, 90.5 with even a 120). So, the warrior can be used for lower-end gains (but again, nowhere near as efficient as the Smelting or BOD methods).

To get to each reward tier.

Samurai
Points / # Daisho / # No-Dachi
100k / 4546 / 3704
200k / 9091 / 7408
350k / 15910 / 12963
550k / 25000 / 20371
800k / 36364 / 29630

Warrior
Points / # Buckler or Battle Axe
100k / 11112
200k / 22223
350k / 38889
550k / 61112
800k / 88889

Note that even the No-Dachi, using just no-dachi, would take about 250 trips with a maxed out item number pack animal (that many no-dachi won't fit in your pack from weight) to get to 800k. And people wonder why those quests (and the artist & vesper museum, both that take wood) were dominated by scripters.... :p
 

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Original version By Hermlock on Pac.
Highly Modified by Basara in 2008 to include new information.







Contents:
  1. What is a BOD (SBOD)?
  2. How do I get a BOD and how often can I get them?
  3. How do I fill a BOD and get the reward?
  4. What kinds of BOD's are there?
  5. What is an LBOD?
  6. How do I get an LBOD?
  7. How do I fill an LBOD?
  8. There is only one button on my BOD/LBOD gump how do I combine deeds?
  9. I've tried everything and I still can't get a deed. What's wrong?
  10. I refused a BOD when offered one will I get another one?
  11. What Are BOD Books?
  12. Why are these BODs in this Vendor's books not priced? Is it Legal?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------



1. What is a BOD (SBOD)? A BOD is a Bulk Order Deed. BODs may be offered to anyone with Blacksmithing skill on request of the character, or when they sell items to NPC Blacksmiths or related NPCs (Armorers, Weaponsmiths, Iron Workers). These deeds come in many forms but the one thing they have in common is that they may all be completed and turned in for a reward. The reward depends somewhat on the type of deed you turn in, ranging from simple mining tools for the easy ones, to magical crafting tools for the rarer ones.

2. How do I get a BOD and how often can I get them? In order to get a BOD just sell any item that the NPC Blacksmith will buy or select "Bulk Order Info" from the context-sensitive menu when clicking on an NPC Blacksmith. The deed you get at and after 70.0 Real Skill is completely random, though GM smith's have a slightly higher chance of getting an Exceptional Deed, and being an Elder or Legendary (110 or 120) Smith reduces the number of Iron Armour deeds one gets (too bad it does nothing to reduce the number of weapons deeds. :(





Under normal circumstances, you may recieve a BOD only once during a given time period depending on your skill level (based on real skill):
  • 0.1-50.0: every one hour (Normal Iron Small armor/weapon BOD only)
  • 50.1-69.9: every two hours (Normal Iron Small armor/weapon BOD only)
  • 70.0-109.9: every six hours (Exceptional/Normal Colored/Iron Large/Small). At this skill level, 50% will be Weapons, 25% will be Iron Armor, 25% will be Colored Armor. Starting at 100.0 Skill, 60% of the BODs will be exceptional, 40% will be normal (was even chances of either below 100)
  • 110.0-119.9: every six hours (Exceptional/Normal Colored/Iron Large/Small). At this skill level, 50% will be Weapons, 15% will be Iron Armor, 35% will be Colored Armor
  • 120.0: every six hours (Exceptional/Normal Colored/Iron Large/Small). At this skill level, 50% will be Weapons, 5% will be Iron Armor, 45% will be Colored Armor
This timer is per character, and with the addition of BODs for other tradeskills should be noted that a different timer applies to each BOD system. In other words, if a character accepts a Blacksmithing BOD, he must wait the appropriate amount of time before he is eligible to receive another Blacksmithing BOD but is eligible to receive a BOD for another skill such as Tailoring. One may check in-game approximately how long a specific character will have to wait by selecting "Bulk Order Info" on an NPC Blacksmith's context-sensitive menu.


In 2005, a change was made in the BOD system, so that if one turns in a BOD, it resets the timer, making the Smith immediately able to claim another BOD, on turning in a smith BOD for a reward. This led to a form of BOD collection & filling known as "BOD Cycling", which will be discussed in a later section of the Smith FAQ.


3. How do I fill a BOD and get the reward? After receiving your BOD double click it and read it carefully. It should tell you the quantity and quality of the items as well as the ingot type needed to complete the order. There are also two buttons on the bottom of the deed, the bottom one is the Exit button which will close the gump, and the top button combines the item needed with the deed.

Craft (or purchase) the items and add them to the deed. To add an item double click on the deed if it is not already open, choose the Combine this deed with item button, then target and click the item you wish to add. After you add an item the gump will automatically reappear with updated information to reflect that you have added an item.

After you have filled the deed you may turn it in to any NPC Blacksmith for a reward. To turn in the deed drop it on the an NPC Blacksmith and you will receive your reward. Rewards consist of: an item, an amount of gold (placed directly in your bank, and may take the form of a check), and an amount of fame.

Below is a picture of a small BOD's selection gump. For a smith, if the item requires one of the colored metals, the line will say so (this BOD, for example, requires Verite inots be used to make the shields). If the items need to be of exceptional quality, it will say so as well (on a normal quality BOD, the line will state as such, but exceptional items can still be combined with it).





4. What kinds of BOD's are there? This is a little complicated.

There are Weapons BODs and Armor BODs, that come in Large (sets, for a greater reward) and Small (set parts, or stand-alones) types. In turn, each BOD type comes in Normal & Exceptional varieties, in 3 different "counts" - that request 10, 15, or 20 items, respectively.

Armor BODs also come in both "Iron" and "colored" versions (one of the 8 specific colored special metals in the game).





Effectively, discounting color, there are 6 BOD types for every item that has a BOD. A dagger, for example, comes in these deed forms:
  • 10 normal daggers
  • 15 normal daggers
  • 20 normal daggers
  • 10 exceptional daggers
  • 15 exceptional daggers
  • 20 exceptional daggers
Normal (non-exceptional) deeds may be filled with exceptional items. Exceptional deeds may be filled with only with exceptional items. One must take care not to confuse the two, or a lot of work can be wasted. Similarly, exceptional small BODs can be combined with a normal large BOD, by accident or deliberately to serve in place of a normal small (and in most cases, the exceptional small would have been a lot more valuable to the smith, so it should be avoided unless you know the normal large is worth more than the exceptional small or its exceptional large).


Armor BODs including shields come in all the ingot colors as well so that every armor and shield deed comes in 54 different types. One can combine a colored deed small with a corresponding Iron large, but there is no reason to ever actually do so.

Not all armor BODs may be used to complete a Large Bulk Order Deed (LBOD). The Ringmail, Chainmail, and (male) Platemail (including Plate Helm) smalls have LBODs, so, only 13 of 24 items that have armor BODs have a corresponding large. The rest - the various Shield types, Bascinets, Norse Helms, Helmets, Close Helms, and Female Plate Armour, are stand alone deeds and are not part of any current LBOD. All weapon BODs may be combined with a corresponding Weapon LBOD.

5. What is an LBOD? LBOD stands for Large Bulk Order Deed. It is a bulk order deed that requires other BODs to complete. An LBOD may be turned in after it has been combined with the appropriate small BODs. There are eight type of LBODs: Ringmail, Chainmail, and Platemail for Armour BODs; Axes, Macing, Fencing, Polearms, and Swords for Weapon BODs.

6. How do I get an LBOD? The same way you get a BOD (see above). They are randomly given out to smiths of 70.0 Real skill or higher. Approximately 7.5% to 8% of all BODs will be LBODs.

7. How do I fill an LBOD? To fill the LBOD you must match EXACTLY what is on the LBOD with the appropriate BOD. However, just as you may use exceptional items to fill normal BODs, you may use exceptional BODs to fill normal LBODs (though, depending on the comparative rewards, you may not want to).

When you receive your deed click on it and you will see all the information you need to complete the deed. It should look similar to a small Bulk Order, instead of listing one item, it will list 2 to 6 items. See the BOD Book picture further on in this section, as it shows the parts listed for a Swords LBOD.

When you double click it the gump will show what deeds are required to fill the deed. Only completed BODs of the proper count (and quality/metal, as appropriate) will be able to be combined with the LBOD. The following example is of a Tailor LBOD, but Smith LBODs work on the same principle.



As you combine the appropriate filled small BOD, the 0 will become a 15. Note that if an iron (or leather, if tailor) LBOD, you can combine colored material smalls of the appropriate item, quality and count to it, but doing so is usually a waste of materials, unless the reward for the colored small AND its corresponding large, are both undesirable (comes up more often with tailor BODs, than with Smith ones).


Here is what is required to fill each LBOD:

An LBOD Ringmail deed needs the following BOD's: ringmail gloves, ringmail sleeves, ringmail legs, ringmail tunic

An LBOD Chainmail deed needs the following BOD's: chainmail coif, chainmail legs, chainmail tunic

An LBOD Platemail deed needs the following BOD's: platemail gorget, platemail gloves, plate helm, platemail arms, platemail legs, platemail tunic. Note that the Plate Helm is located in the Helmet part of the crafting took gump, not the Platemail section.

An LBOD Axes deed needs the following BOD's: large battle axe, double axe, battle axe, two-handed axe, axe, executioner's axe

An LBOD Swords deed needs the following BOD's: cutlass, viking sword, long sword, scimitar, broadsword, katana

An LBOD Macing deed needs the following BOD's: mace, maul, war mace, war hammer, hammer pick, war axe. Note that the War Axe is in the Axe part of the Blacksmith tool gump, but is a macing weapon in terms of skill used in combat.

An LBOD Fencing deed needs the following BOD's: dagger, kryss, war fork, short spear, spear. The first two are in the "Blades" part of the Blacksmith tool gump, the latter three are in the "Polearms" section.

An LBOD Polearm deed needs the following BOD's: halberd, bardiche.

Quantities (10, 15, 20) must match to place a BOD in an LBOD, as well as, ingot type (iron, dull copper, etc.), and only exceptional BODs can be combined with an Exceptional LBOD.

Once you get an LBOD you must find the appropriate BOD's to fill the order. To fill the deed you combine them in the same way as a BOD. Use the Combine this deed with another deed button on the LBOD to combine with the completed BOD. Target the BOD and the deeds will combine. The information should change on the LBOD.

8. There is only one button on my BOD/LBOD gump how do I combine deeds? A BOD/LBOD must be in your pack to combine with items or other deeds. place the deed anywhere in your pack then double click it, the second button should be there.

9. I've tried everything and I still can't get a deed. What's wrong? There are three typical reasons why you have not received a deed. Either, you do not have enough skill, you have not waited long enough, or you have too many items in your pack.

Remember your REAL skill must be .1 or above. You must be sure that you have waited long enough (see #2 above). Also, if you have too many items in your pack this will prevent you from being offered a deed.

10. I refused a BOD when offered one; will I get another one? If you refuse a BOD it is just like accepting one. You will not be able to get another one until your time is up again, or you turn in a completed BOD for a reward. See #2 above for times.

11. What are BOD Books? BOD Books were added to the game, to free up space for Smiths and tailors, and are a craftable for scribes (Inscription skill). The book and the first 4 BODs placed inside count as one item, with each additional 5 BODs (or fraction thereof) counting as an additional item. They can hold up to 500 BODs. (taking up only 101 items in containers that only can hold 125 items). BODs can only be placed in or taken out of a BOD book when it is in someone's backpack.

One can also price individual BODs for sale inside the book, allowing someone to place multiple books in a vendor to sell. the purchaser then opens the book and hits the gem to the right of the price to purchase the BOD. One feature from this is that one doesn't have to pay rental based on the value of the BODs inside the book (which was one of the main problems prior to the books, as it could cost a seller thousands of gold a day just to sell a few BODs on a vendor, quickly adding up to more than their worth).

An in-depth explanation of how to use them is located at this official UO Web Page. The following picture is what BODs look like in a BOD Book.




12. Why are these BODs in this vendor's BOD Books priced Zero? is it legal? Yes, it's legal. If you've found this, you've found a true professional of the crafting trades. It means that those are either his BODs for trade (there are typically signs or named given to the vendor or book to this effect), or he is storing his BODs on the vendor. In either case, it is a sign that the person has so many BODs, that he has no normal room for most of his BODs in his house(s). If you need one of the BODs that are stored that way, look around the house (sign, message board, locked down books or books inside the vendor, etc.) for contact information. That person might be willing to make you a trade, or a private sale.
 

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There are over levels of BOD reward, in total, which makes keeping track of the rewards fairly difficult. After all, there are 162 different Armor LBODs, 30 Weapon LBODs, and 72 possible small types (if you count all smalls of the exact same metal, count and quality as one type)

The Actual system for Smith BODs is the following point system (taken from the official numbers at EA's Support site, and corrected for typoes on EA's behalf):

1. Count Points:
10 for 10-count BODs
25 for 15-count BODs
50 for 20-count BODs.

2. Quality Bonus: Add 200 Points if Exceptional

3. LBOD type (if an LBOD)
Polearm, Ringmail: 200
Chainmail, 6-part weapon (Sword, Axe, Mace): 300
Fencing: 350 *
Platemail: 400
* note that for the longest time, there was a typo on the site that had Fencing at 300, & the 6-part weapons at 350 - hence the errors on the Tower of Roses charts for those weapons.

4. Metal Type
Iron: 0
Dull Copper: 200
Shadow Iron: 250
Copper: 300
Bronze: 350
Golden: 400
Agapite: 450
Verite: 500
Valorite: 550

The Point value of a given BOD is these 4 values added together, ranging from 10 points for a small iron 10-count BOD to 1200 for a Large 20-count Exceptional Valorite Platemail BOD.

5. The Mysterious Random BOD Bonus: In 2008, a random bonus was added to the BODs that are in the "High-end" category below. These bonuses seem to only factor in about 20-25% of the time, but can raise the final point value of a BOD reward by 200 points, if not more! Assume that these charts are the Minimum reward that you will get, and that there is small chance that your reward will be 1-4 (or more) steps higher. Of course, if you were wanting a gold or agapite runic, and get an ASH, you won't FEEL like it was a bonus, but that's life.

The rewards, by point totals, are as follows. Blue items are considered to be the only desirable rewards from the Low-end BODs (under 900 points). From 900 points upward, every reward typically sells for hundreds of thousands of gold. Some people would also consider Copper Hammers valuable, but if you use the BOD cycling technique, you are likely to get so many Bronze hammers that filling larges for copper hammers (except the ones with the Anvil chances) will seem a waste of resources.

Low-end BODs (10-875 points)

10 points: Sturdy Shovel
25 Points: Sturdy Pickaxe
50 Points: 45% chance Sturdy Shovel, 45% Sturdy Pickaxe, 10% Leather Gloves of Mining +1

200-375 Points: 40% Prospector's Tool, 40% Gargoyle's Pickaxe, 20% Studded Leather Gloves of Mining +3 (may be 45/45/10 - due to typo)
400-425 Points: 40% Prospector's Tool, 40% Gargoyle's Pickaxe, 20% Powder of Fortifying
450-475 Points: 90% Powder of Fortifying, 10% Ringmail Gloves of Mining +5

500-525 Points: Dull Copper Runic Hammer
550-575 Points: 60% Dull Copper Runic Hammer, 40% Shadow Runic Hammer
600-610 Points: Shadow Runic Hammer

625 Points: 30% Shadow Runic Hammer, 60% Blacksmith Power Scroll (105 skill), 10% Anvil hued one of the special metal colors.
650-660 Points: Copper Hammer
675 Points: 30% Copper Runic Hammer, 60% Blacksmith Power Scroll (110 skill), 10% Anvil hued one of the special metal colors.

700-725 Points: Bronze Runic Hammer
750-775 Points: Ancient Smithy Hammer (+10 Skill)
800-825 Points: Blacksmith Power Scroll (115 Skill) (highest possible reward for a small BOD)
850-875 Points: Ancient Smithy Hammer (+15 Skill)

High-end BODs (900-1200 Points). All are considered valuable rewards.

900-925 Points: Blacksmith Power Scroll (120 Skill)
950-975 Points: Golden Runic Hammer
1000-1025 Points: Ancient Smithy Hammer (+30 Skill)
1050-1075 Points: Agapite Runic Hammer
1100-1125 Points: Ancient Smithy Hammer (+60 Skill)
1150-1175 Points: Verite Runic Hammer
1200 Points: Valorite Runic Hammer


Short descriptions of the various types of Rewards:


"Sturdy Mining Tools": considered a "bad" reward in that practically no one will actually do a BOD to GET this reward, but the typical BOD-filling smith will get (and throw away) these by the thousands when filling these BODs to get replacement BODs (see "BOD Cycling").

"Enhanced Mining Tools": Gargoyle's Pickaxe, Prospector's Tool, +3 & +5 Gloves of Mining
Considered a bad reward by those that do not mine for themselves, less so for miners - but miners incapable of combat hate the GPA, and there are WAY too many Prospector's Tolls given out (about 5 times too many for average use), so they get dropped constantly. And, Typically, one only needs one pair of +5 mining gloves, unless you misplace your pair, or they get broken by a Verite or Valorite elemental you dig up while using the GPA. See the Miner FAQs for descriptions of the uses of these tools.

Powder of Fortifying
Considered one of the best rewards that isn't a Runic Hammer, this reward comes with 10 charges. Each charge, when used, adds 10 Durability to the durability cap of any items with a Durability value, that isn't immune to it (some event items and artifacts are immune), up to a maximum of 255. Also adds that much durability as a quasi-repair. For example, an item that is at 0/245, will be raised to 10/255 by one use, but cannot have another use put on it, until it drops to at least 0/254 (the max durability starts dropping, if the item is damaged while at 0/xxx).

"Low-End Hammers" (Dull Copper, Shadow(Shadow Iron), Copper)
Since these only give 1-2, 2 or 2-3 properties, with low minimum intensities, most people find these not worth getting (except in the case below)

"Anvils"
While each of the two point values that give the anvils are tight groups (the math means only certain 15-count BODs can drop them), and the other 90% of the time you'll get a low-end hammer or equally bad Powerscroll, the resale of these anvils to collectors (8 possible colors) is such that filling the BODs to try for them (especially if a Normal 15 count gold or agapite small BOD) is worth the effort.

"Low-end Ancient Smithy Hammers": Ancient Smith Hammer +10, or Ancient Smith Hammer +15
While really not all that BAD a reward (they raise your effective skill level for crafting (but not for BODs), and can be used in conjunction with Runic hammers by placing it in the smith's hand, when using a runic to craft), they are considered less valuable for one big reason. Simply, with 600 to 800+ charges, it is NOT all that important to get many of them, as one will last you a long time. A +15 hammer and a good talisman will allow you to craft every smith item (except the Platemail Do & Kabutos) at 100% exceptional. One can take your time in pursuing them (and if one gets to the point of having 5 or more +15 ASH in your gear, you probably won't be needing more of them any time soon)

"Lower Powerscrolls (105-115 PS)"
Typically a waste of time, unless you've not yet succeeded in getting a 120 PS for your smith, and need a PS to progress above 110 skill. At least when you get a 105 or 110, it's as the conolation prize for trying to win the "Colored Anvil Lotto". Filling a large for the 100% chance of a 115 PS is a big waste of time, on the other hand (unless you're desperate and a 120 scroll seems nowhere in your future). The 115 is the highest possible reward one can get with a small BOD (a Valorite Exceptional 20 count), and since 11 of the 24 Armor smalls aren't combinable, you're likely to get one of the Valorite smalls for it as a big tease from the random number generator.

Bronze Runic:
Considered the bottom end of the "Useful" runics, it gives 3 properties, and makes very usable items.

120 Powerscroll
Every smith that isn't dabbling will need one of these. Considered a GOOD BOD as long as you need a 120 PS for one of your Smiths, or if you are collecting BODs to sell/trade. Also, the BOD tends to give really good gold rewards when turned in for the PS.

Higher ASH Types (+30 & +60)
These give major skill bonuses, and are primarily used for enhancing attempts (each +10 of Smith skill over 100% add +1% to the success chance of an enhance attempt!). Considered a VERY GOOD BOD.

"UBER HAMMERS" (Gold, Agapite, Verite & Valorite hammers)
If you're crafting for high value, these are the hammers you shoot for. These hammers cost in the near-million (gold) to 10s of millions (valorite) range. when sold on the open market. But, watch out if you see these for sale. Valorite and Verite hammers are often the subjects of duping exploits, and if you see one for less than 25 million (or an already-filled BOD for one, in a BOD book), it's probably a dupe (especially if the seller has more than one, or can restock one immediately on selling). Personally, I'll never use a high-end hammer that I didn't earn myself.
 

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"Famer" BODs

Unlike Tailoring, there are a number of Smith small BODs that have no corresponding Large BOD. Unfortunately, these make up about 45% of the colored small BODs you will get (11 out of 24 possibles). These BODs are commonly known as "Famer BODs". The reason for this is as follows:

Before the advent of BOD cycling and the change of the Powder reward to work on non-smith items, these were mainly done by smiths simply to "Fame Up" (gain fame towards a Lord/Lady title). After the change of PoT to PoF, they became the primary source of that reward. And, with the "turn-in to get a new BOD" system instituted in 2005, they became even more worthwhile to turn in, as you could conceivably get a BOD with an even better reward back.



These "Famer BODs" are:
  • Any of the Shield BODs
  • The Female Plate BOD
  • Bascinet
  • Close Helmet
  • Norse Helmet
  • Helmet
But, just because they do not go toward a large, does not mean they are totally worthless. Any of the rewards, up to the +10 ASH & 115 Smith Powerscroll, can be gotten using small BODS. In fact, since you will only have to use 100-400 ingots to get the reward, it is much more desirable to get these rewards, when wanted, from the smalls, rather than filling a LBOD. There are also a number of Large BODs who have really crappy rewards, but whose smalls are worth considerably more for their rewards turned in as smalls.



Example of a "One Large versus many smalls" decision: 10 Exceptional Shadow Iron platemail - is it worth more as:
  • 1 ASH +15 reward & 25,000 gold, or
  • 6 90% chances of Powder of Fortifying (that sell for 60-80k each) and about 3000-5000 gold?
It's a matter of resource cost (and risk, for those rewards with only a percentage of occuring), vs. the potential reward.

The following is a list of the good (or potentially good) small BOD payouts, for both the "famer" BODs, and their corresponding combinables that have bad rewards for their large turn-in.


Iron BODs have only mining-related rewards as smalls, but ALL of them are also easily fillable in terms of materials needed to fill them, in order to get replacement BODs. Heck, you can even BUY the items to fill the normal quality smalls from Blacksmith & Armorer NPCs.

Dull copper Exceptional Quality smalls
10 Ex & 15 Ex have a 20% chance of Powder of Fortifying (used to be called Powder of Temperment; the new version works on nearly all items that have resists, not just smith items)
20 Ex has a 90% chance of PoF.

Shadow Iron Exceptional 10 & 15 smalls
Both have a 90% PoF chance

(note: no Copper smalls give a reward worth turning in for, in the opinion of most smiths)

Bronze Normal 20 smalls
20% chance of PoF

Gold Normal Smalls
10 & 15 count have 20% chance of PoF
20 count has a 90% chance of PoF

Gold Exceptional 15 & 20 smalls
Exceptional 15 has a 10% chance of a colored anvil deed (which, even after all these years, still sell for a couple hundred thousand).
Exceptional 20 gives a copper hammer (which, with the runic changes in February, now can make decent weapons)

Agapite Normal 10 & 15 smalls
Both give 90% chance of PoF

Agapite Exceptional smalls
10-count gives a copper hammer
15-count gives a 10% chance at a colored anvil, and a 30% chance of a copper hammer instead. If you get the 110 PS, oh well...
20-count gives a bronze hammer

Verite & Valorite Exceptional smalls
10 & 15 count Verite give Bronze hammers
20 count Verite & 10/15 count Valorite give +10 Ancient Smith Hammers
20 count Valorite gives a 115 PS
 

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Trading BODs is a time-honored way for smiths to get much better rewards, much quicker, than simply collecting their own.

There are several types of BOD trading:

  • Balanced Trading: This is where BODs of (near-)equal value, or contribution to a specific reward, are traded between two crafters, for the immediate benefit of both.
  • Fodder BOD Trading: This is where a person collects Iron BODs for a Smith, in exchange for something that isn't Smith BODs. The person trading to the smith will put 0.1 Smith on each of their characters, then make as many BOD runs as is feasable each day, given their availiability and style of play. They trade these BODs to the Smith, for the smith to use in "BOD Cycling" (see next section of this FAQ). A common setup is for a person that plays a tailor, but not a smith, to put 0.1 smith on all their characters, in exchange for the smith's player to put 0.1 tailor on their characters, then they swap the BODs out for cycling about one time a week. This is a method primarily done on the same shard.
  • Cross-Shard Traders. Similar to the above, this is where a person plays one shard, and trades with someone that plays a completely different shard. Each player creates a full slate of characters with 0.1 skill on the others' shards, and does smith (& tailor, usually) BOD runs, collecting them in books provided by the other. Every so often, the two arrange in-game meetings, and swap the low-end BODs for empty books to continue the process.
IN FACT, prior to the introduction of the change that allowed BOD Cycling, it was a common thing for Cross-Shard traders to actually take the time and train the characters up to at least 70 Smith & 70 tailor, to where the swaps would include colored BODs. One famous trader, in the era before Character Transfers, managed to get a Valorite Hammer on Lake Austin in less than a year, by arranging such trades with several dozen other players, who all made 5 70 skill smiths on LA, and he had 5 on their shard collecting for them (and he had many accounts, to allow him to trade with multiple people per shard!)

The following mainly for the first type of trading, but has some applications to the other types...

************************

Tips to Successful BOD Trading
By Timshort




Slightly edited.
  1. Be nice - I'll make an uneven trade if the other person is sincere and is trying to trade in good faith. If they are flexible, polite, offer other ideas they score some points and I'll trade aggy for gold straight up if it doesn't hurt me too bad.
  2. Be considerate - See #1, I remember good trading partners, people that are flexible, creative, polite, offer alternative proposals, and don't make me jump through hoops for their trades.
  3. Do your homework - Don't expect me to do your work for a trade you want. Don't IM me about wanting to trade something and then ask me what I want in return. You were smart enough to figure out what I had, you ought to be smart enough to figure out what I need and match that against what you have and offer a few proposed trades.
    *Exception, if you are new and sincere and polite, then I'm happy to help.
  4. Be reasonable - Be fair in your appraisal of bods. You can't always change 15 bronze for 15 bronze so being flexible and working towards a win win is a good thing. Sometimes I make a better trade, sometimes I give a better trade. In the end it all evens out. I remember reasonable trading partners and will work to help them out, even if it means taking a temporarily bad trade, I know they'll make it up later.
  5. Don't be arrogant or rude - Just because you have a few killer BODs and 10 smiths does not give you the right to be rude. Comments like "Your trade sucks, or You don't have " won't get you anywhere. It is a small BOD world on your shard and I will remember you. Alienating a trader can have future negative repurcussions.
Just my .02, but if you want a good trade from me you'll get further with the Golden Rule: Treat others how you would like to be treated yourself.
 

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BOD CYCLING


or, How to get a LOT of GOOD BODs with one Tailor (or Smith) and a little effort

In April 2005 (has it really been 3 years already???), Publish 32 made it so that if you turn in a Bulk Order Deed, the Timer normally associated with requesting a new BOD resets to zero, allowing you to immediately request a new BOD.

As a result, with time, luck and a lot of crafting, you can (over 4-8 hours), turn about 100-200 small crappy BODs into about half as many BODs worth keeping, by filling the junk smalls that you don't keep to fill larges (except for Bone smalls for tailors, which you toss - unless you want to fill them by farming skeletons). For smith, this is done with weapon BODs and many of the armor smalls (you night choose to not do the BODs for the items that take 18-25 ingots per item - especially the plate Arms, legs and tunics, if exceptional).

The process is simple (note that the actions after the (a) are "as needed" - typically you just keep going through steps 1-3, or even just 1 & 2, until you HAVE to do the others from weight restrictions or lack of BODs to turn in) -

Setup: Get a stack of 30-40 filled BODs in a bag (works quicker than getting out of the book one at a time to turn in - I've got this method going so fast with such a steady rhythm before people thought I was scripting), leaving the rest in a book also kept in the bag. Keeping them in an open bag also keeps you from mixing up the filled BODs and the new BODs, and keeping them from being concealed by the rewards (especially for tailosrs getting cloth).
Step 1. Turn in a filled BOD
Step 2. Request a new BOD
Step 3. Stick new BODs where they won't get in the way (a BOD Book to sort after all filled BODs turned in). This can be done every pass, or you can wait and do all the new ones at once at the same time as #4. Either way is fine, as long as the BOD Book window is pushed over to not interfere with the turn-in process, and doing it every turn-in allows you to turn in more BODs per pass (due to weight issues)
(a)
Step 4 - weight clean-up. If near weight limits (about 390 for Elves, 435-440 for humans, despite what your strength actually allows), sell or drop all the rewards you don't want to keep.
Step 5 - refill your bag. If Filled BOD bag empty, pull more filled BODs from the "filled book", and put into the bag.
Step 6 - when you're done. When all filled BODs replaced by new, unfilled BODs, sort them into the stuff you are throwing away, the stuff you are keeping to fill for rewards, and the stuff you're going to repeat this process with. Each time through, you'll end up with about half as many junk BODs to fill for more BODs, about 30% BODs you'll set aside as keepers, and 10-20% junk you just throw away.


It would look something like this.

This example starts with 150 BODs (as with a tailor, if you keep the cloth, 160 BODs' worth of cloth is all one pack animal will hold. Suggest you ride a giant beetle, if you want to keep the cloth). Similarly, for a smith, if you want to keep any of the tools, bring a giant beetle (or at least a pack horse, if you're riding a fire beetle). Of course, if you do this in Luna, you could just walk the items to the bank, but some people will think you're scripting when you're not, an may page on you (and at the speed one can get going, and with the open containers & BOD book popup blocking parts of the screen, you might miss a GM call and end up in UO Jail). NOTE: ALWAYS Turn in your Smith BODs with your highest-skill Smith, if that smith is 100 skill or greater (120 skill preferred).

Set-Up: Starting with 150 filled smalls of various junk types in a book, you'll want to do this in 5 groups of 30.

1. Turn in each, getting the reward.
2. Immediately after turning in each BOD, request a new one.

3. Look at the new BOD... Two choices - sort now, or sort later.
"Sorting Now" means pausing long enough to stick the BOD into a book of the corresponding type (something for cycling, something to definitely keep, something you have to double-check later, or something you know is trrash, and can drop on the floor - someone will always pick up dropped BODs, no matter how bad). See the end of this FAQ section on sorting procedures.
"Sorting Later" means to keep running until you run out of space in your backpack, then dumping all those new BODs into a book (or multiple books, as in "sorting now"), at the same time you sort/dispose of the rewards in your pack.

4. When you run out of space to turn in, or run out of filled smalls to turn in from that open bag, sort your rewards, placing them in your pack animal or the bank. This should get you back to at or near your weight before.

5. Open up the BOD Book with the filled BODs, and pull out 30 more, placing them in the open bag. Then go back to step 1.

6. When you run out of filled BODs....
You have two choices: wait a while for another trip through the process, or sort out the ones you can fill immediately, and go through the process all over again. This is much easier for Tailors, as they can buy most of the normal items from tailors & armorers, and get cloth as a reward to make the exceptional items. Smiths will only be able to buy the normal items for their junk BODs from Smiths, armorers and weaponsmiths, and will have to have an existing source for ingots to fill the exceptional ones (and typically, the ingot prices get too high, too quickly, in the Smith shops).

Here is a breakdown of #6 for each skill, if one chooses to immediately fill the new BODs and go for another cycle run.
Tailor:
a. Use a dye tub to make all the reward cloth you don't want to keep for personal use all one color.
b. Buy everything normal you can to fill the BODs. Provisioners have most of the hats, Tailors have most of the normal cloth items & leather caps, and Armorers over in the smith areas have the armors. The cobblers will have footwear, but only a small amount at first.
c. Craft the exceptional cloth items, from the dyed reward cloth, as well as the normal items that don't spawn on the tailors you shopped at. If any normal cloth BODs left to fill (the tailor ran out of items), check the tailor to see if they respawned, and either buy them (if respawned) or craft them from the reward cloth.
d. if you have a supply of leather handy, craft any exceptional leather items you are going to turn in.
Smith:
a. Buy everything normal you can to fill the BODs, from Blacksmiths, armorers & weaponsmiths.
b. if you have a supply of iron handy, craft the exceptional items.

It's time now to go back to the start of the "Cycle" process, with about half the BODs you started with. Repeat until you run out of easy-to-fill junk, run out of resources, or you decide to save the few junk BODs left for the next trip.

Summary

Over time, this process will convert any size pile of junk BODs, into new BODs that are about 60% keepers, 40% junk (some of it worthless larges, the rest pumpable back into the cycle system with the proper raw materials). Even a person with only 1 Tailor or Smith character, if they can get a stack of "seed" BODs to start this process, can maintain it at about 50-150 BODs turned in per week (1 pass through, then waiting a week to repeat, instead of doing it immediately) for months at a time. It will, in effect, give them the BOD-collecting power of someone with 4-6 70+ skill BOD runners, for the effort of concentrating one day a week on BODs.

If one manages to totally deplete their stock of even the colored junk, it would only be a matter of waiting a few weeks (making 2-3 runs a day) to to restart (can take only a few days, if they have multiple characters with 0.1 skill to get mass BODs with - or they can opt to buy some from another crafter).


Sorting BODs in the Field
Sometime's it's easy to see what a BOD is good for - sometimes it's not.

a. If the BOD is an obvious keeper, stick in a book for unfilled keepers to sort
b. If the BOD is an easily filled junk BOD (normal iron smalls, cloth smalls, normal leather smalls), put into a book of junk to fill while you're here, or the next trip.
c. If a BOD is known junk (most weapon larges, colored non-combinables of normal quality for DC-Bronze, normal regular or spined leather bone BODs, etc.), just drop it on the floor - someone will pick it up.
d. If uncertain of a BOD's reward, put into a 3rd book to be sorted later.

OR, you can just dump them all the colored BODs in the same book, and sort them between Keeper and Junk at home.
 

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This section will cover things like the recipes, and other items of interest to Smiths.
 

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Mondain's Legacy introduced a quest system, that offers as some of its rewards, recipes for new items with special powers. These recipes can be broken down as follows:

  1. Normal Item Recipes: These are recipes that have an additional power or two over and above normal crafting. They typically take just one special ingredient (usually one of the new gems from the Mondain's Legacy expansion, or rarely one of the peerless ingredients). These items' special properties are cumulative with those of a runic crafting tool (runic hammers, in the case of smiths), though some properties do not stack, and some categories can only occur once on a weapon (like "hit spell" effects).
  2. Artifact Recipes: These recipes are extremely rare, and produce powerful items. They do not take on the metal properties of the material made from, nor does crafting with a Runic tool give it additional properties. These typically require TWO STACKS OF TEN peerless ingredients, an additional special ingredient that peerless drop, and possibly other things.
  3. Quest Recipes: These are only gained by following a specific quest, and are not gained through the normal quests in Heartwood or Sanctuary. An example of this is the Bone Machete recipe, discussed later.
Where you get these Recipes:

The easy place to get the first two categories is the city of Heartwood, located through a teleporter in the center of the restored city of Yew. The quest givers are the Iron Workers in the southeastern section of town.

More difficult is to go to Sanctuary. Sanctuary is located at the BACK END of a dungeon between Skara Brae & Yew, in the mountains to the west of the house of Grizelda the Hag. Sanctuary has the benefit (if you can call it that) of being accessible to Reds (murderer characters) in Felucca, but exists on both Trammel & Felucca.

Note that one cannot recall IN OR OUT of these two locations.

The Bone Machete quest chain starts with Jamal the Fisherman, who is about 1-2 screens to the west of the entrance of the Blighted Grove (a new dungeon introduced with ML, to the SE of Shame dungeon, at the waterfall). The Bone Machetes are needed to enter the Blighted Grove, and break after a few uses, so can be a profitable thing to sell. Note, however, that it must be the SMITH to do the quest - unlike the other recipe types, there is no recipe scroll - it is added directly to the user's ability to craft.
 

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This does not include the Bone Machete, which comes from a quest outside these locations. (see Section 4.1). All of the Blacksmith Recipes are variations of Mondain's Legacy new weapon types (which hold true for most other weapon & armor recipes, except Fletching, which has some Crossbow-based artifact-level items). The "standard" versions of these items do not require recipes.

Note that some of the "Normal" item recipes are rarer than others (in some cases as rare as the Artifact recipes). The Rune Carving Knife is actually a common recipe from Tinker quests, due to an error in coding during ML that was never corrected, but is "rare" as a Smith recipe reward. Rarer "Normal" recipe types are indicated by Italics. The Most desirable Normal Recipes are marked with an Asterisk*

Important Notes: You can only read recipes when you are at least approaching the level to make that item (within 5 or 10 points), if not already at that level. Recipes STAY WITH THE CHARACTER. The DO NOT transfer with a skill if you soulstone the skill to someone else, but if you return that skill later, the crafter will still remember the recipes.

Normal Recipes

Recipe Name / Special Ingredient / Bonus
Unless otherwise noted, only one of the special ingredient is needed per item made for these items. The ingot numbers are the same, usually, as the non-magical version of the weapon.
Red items are penalties; Green items are Peerless ingredients (instead of the gems that are the majority of ingredients for weapons of this level)

Assassin Spike Recipes:
Charged Assassin Spike / Ecru Citrine / Hit Lightning 10%
Magekiller Assassin Spike / Brilliant Amber / Hit Mana Leech 16%
True Assassin Spike / Dark Sapphire / Hit Chance Increase 4%, Damage Increase 4%
Wounding Assassin Spike / Perfect Emerald / Hit Harm 15%

Elvish Machete Recipes:
Adventurer's Machete / White Pearl / Luck +20
Diseased Machete / Blight / Hit Poison Area 25%
Machete of Defense / Brilliant Amber / Defense Chance Increase 5%
Orcish Machete / Scourge / Damage Increase 10%, -5 Penalty to INT score

Leafblade Recipes:
Leafblade of Ease / Perfect Emerald / Use Best Weapon Skill
*Luckblade / White Pearl / Luck +20
Magekiller Leafblade / Fire Ruby / Hit Mana Leech 16%
True Leafblade / Blue Diamond / Poison Resist +5%

Radiant Scimitar Recipes:
Darkglow Scimitar / Dark Sapphire / Hit Dispel 10%
Icy Scimitar / Dark Sapphire / Hit Harm 15%
True Radiant Scimitar / Brilliant Amber / Night Sight
Twinkling Scimitar / Dark Sapphire / Defense Chance Increase 6%

Rune Blade Recipes:
Corrupted Rune Blade / Corruption / Poison Resist 12%, Physical Resist -5% Penalty
Mage's Rune Blade / Blue Diamond / Faster Casting 1
Rune Blade of Knowledge / Ecru Citrine / Spell Damage Increase 5%
Runesabre / Turquoise / Mage Weapon -29, Resisting Spells +5

Spellblade Recipes:
Fiery Spellblade / Fire Ruby / Fire Resist 5%
Icy Spellblade / Turquoise / Cold Resist 5%
Spellblade of Defense / White Pearl / Defense Chance Increase 5%
True Spellblade / Blue Diamond / Spell Channeling (Faster Casting -1)

War Cleaver Recipes:
*Butcher's War Cleaver / Turquoise / Bovine Slayer, plus ability to cut leather directly into one's backpack, as cut leather instead of hides.
Knight's War Cleaver / Perfect Emerald / Hit Point Regeneration 3
Serrated War Cleaver / Ecru Citrine / Damage Increase 7%
True War Cleaver / Brilliant Amber / Hit Point Regeneration 2, Damage Increase 4%

Ornate Axe Recipes:
Guardian Axe / Blue Diamond / Hit Point Regeneration 1, Hit Point increase 4
Heavy Ornate Axe / Turquoise / Damage Increase +8%
* Singing Axe / Brilliant Amber / Musicianship +5 (primarily wanted by carpenters for the music bonus)
Thundering Axe / Ecru Citrine / Hit Lightning +10%

Diamond Mace Recipes:
Emerald Mace / Perfect Emerald / Poison Resist 5%
Ruby Mace / Fire Ruby / Damage Increase 5%
Sapphire Mace / Dark Sapphire / Energy Resist 5%
* Silver-Etched Mace / Blue Diamond / Undead Slayer


Artifact Recipes

Cold Forged Blade (Spellblade) / 10 Taint, 10 Blight, 1 Grizzled Bones / Cold Damage 100%, Swing Speed Increase 25%, Damage Increase 50%, Hit Harm 40%
Luminous Rune Blade / 10 Corruption, 10 Putrefaction, 1 Grizzled Bones / Energy Damage 100%, Night Sight, Self Repair 5, Swing Speed increase 25%, Damage Increase 55%
Overseer Sundered Blade (Radiant Scimitar) / 10 Blight, 10 Scourge, 1 Grizzled Bones / Fire Damage 100%, Swing Speed increase 35%, Hit Chance Increase 10%, Damage Increase 45%, Stamina Regeneration 2
Rune Carving Knife (Assassin Spike) / 10 Putrefaction, 10 Muculent, 1 Dread Horn Mane / Swing Speed Increase 35%, Damage Increase 30%, Hit Mana Leech 40%, Lower Mana Cost 10%, Stamina Regeneration 2
Shard Thrasher (Diamond Mace) / 10 Muculent, 10 Corruption, 1 Eye of Travesty / Swing Speed increase 35%, Hit Chance Increase 10%, Damage Increase 40%, Hit Physical Area 30%, Stamina Increase 8.
 

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This is how to get the Bone Machete recipe, in order to make the Bone Machetes people need to enter the Blighted Grove. NOTE: You MUST do this quest with the crafter that is to make the machetes - the recipe is added DIRECTLY to his crafting list, and does not transfer between characters.

Step 1: Go to the Blighted Grove entrance, and find Jamal the Fisherman.

Jamal is typically around the Sextant coordinates 3 degrees south, 54 degrees west (or, about 15 seconds run south from the entrance to Shame Dungeon).

The Quest name is "Vile Poison". Jamal gives you a "tainted tree sample" to deliver to Iosep in Jhelom.

Step 2: Go to "Deadly Intentions" in Jhelom, and meet Iosep the Exporter.

Iosep is in this Weapons Shop, which is between the Dueling Pit and the Jhelom Bank. Double click on him to get the next part of the quest ("A rock and a Hard Place").

Step 3: Futile Quests

This part of the quest chain will require you to have a Grandmaster Miner, or know one, because it requires 4 stone (that can only be mined by a grandmaster miner that has read the "mining high quality granite" book from the Gargoyle City in Ilshenar) and 2 blue Diamonds (which can only be mined up by a GM miner).

Once you have acquired these commodities, mark them as quest items, and return to Iosep.

He will take these, and they are destroyed. He then progresses to the next part of the quest chain, "Sympathetic Magic", in which he asks for 10 bark fragments (which Grandmaster Lumberjacks get as a usually-unwelcome side item from logging). While it is useful to be able to get this yourself, odds are you can find the bark on the ground anywhere someone has recently been chopping on trees. Return with the bark marked as a quest item. This, too, is destroyed.

Step 4: A "workable" solution.

Isep now asks for something that is brittle, but "already dead" (the name of the quest). The quest asks for "workable samples". What it really wants is 10 bone, of the type used for tailoring.

To get these bones, go kill Giant Serpents & Zombies in Trammel or Felucca, Shadow Wisps in Ilshenar, or Horde Minions in Tokuno. The minions are probably the easiest kill, but you have to run through nasty stuff in the fan dancer dojo to get to them. The Zombies seem to take forever to get enough bone pieces, and the Giant serpents are down-right poisonous (but at least you can skin them for spined leather for your tailor). Most likely (unless you're negative karma), you'll find yourself at Spirituality Gate region in Ilshenar, killing Shadow Wisps at the Oaks Champion spawn.

Each of the creatures given as examples carry either body parts or bones as loot. The body parts are worthless to you, as are skulls. All other bone types (individual bones, up to bone piles) have to be cut with scissors in your backpack, to be of use in crafting (both for tailor, and for this quest and its recipe). The weight of the bone/bone-pile before cutting is the number of workable bones you will get from the item when you cut it.

Gather Bones, cut them, and return to Iosep.

Step 5: "Eureka!"

The bones do the trick. Iosep now gives you sealed notes to take back to Jamal.

When you get to Jamal, you will be given the recipe automatically into your crafting list, to make the bone machetes. You may get an error message saying you can't grasp the complexities of making the machetes, but that is a BUG - ignore it.

Step 6: Finishing the quest

Go make some bone machetes (or borrow/buy one from another player) to finish the quest. For this you can send another character in that can survive the Blighted Grove, and recover three bottles of the corrupted water. For a reward, you'll get a crappy bag of treasure (most likely only good as stuff to recycle for raw materials), but you can on rare occasions get a decent talisman or item from it.

Bone Machete / 6 bones (and 20 ingots) / Allows entrance to Blighted Grove - practically worthless in combat when equipped.
 

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Its been a while now, but I have seen a rare exception to the standard enhance order. A few years back I imbued a 90% poison 10% physical dagger that I had crafted with copper and it became 100% poison.
 

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Its been a while now, but I have seen a rare exception to the standard enhance order. A few years back I imbued a 90% poison 10% physical dagger that I had crafted with copper and it became 100% poison.
I guess you mean "enhanced" with copper.

There have been rare tales, as long as the colored metals have been around, of such things occurring, but they are rare, and not repeatable. They seem to be accidental flukes of the enhancing system, as they can't be done intentionally (and there were years of testing in the AOS era that tried to reproduce such results, and never managed to).
 
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