BONZZ'S GUIDE TO TRADE SKILLS
A few notes about the various tradeskills.
.
NOTE: For Paladin useful (and friendly) recipes, see my recipe page!
For a guide to mastering these skills, click here!
..........................
If you find this site useful and helpful, donations to support the effort are appreciated!
Donations are accepted via Pay Pal (click above).
............................
Baking (Cooking) Blacksmithing (Smithing) Brewing Fishing Fletching (Bowyering) Jewelry Making Pottery Tailoring Tinkering
.
AKA: Cooking
Use: Oven; Spit; Mixing Bowl.
Recipe Links: Baking
This is you skill at baking and cooking. Your ability to mix ingredients together and successfully create something new -- primarily a food item.
There are many, many recipes you can discover. Some are far more complicated than others and harder to make than others -- but you can find a lot of recipes in the books sold by merchants in various locations, via quests and even from other players.
As your skill increases and you try the various recipes and so forth -- you will soon discover that food is not always just food.
You will find that certain food items last longer than others (you don't need to eat so often) and some items have a side affect (stat increases). Some can even affect your stats just by having them on hand (so long as they are the first edible item in your first bag and you don't consume them all).
This is a reasonably easy and cheap skill to master.
NOTE: "Tool" items will be returned and not used up in the combine.
.
AKA: Smithing; Metalworking; Metallurgy
Use: Forge(s)
Recipe Links: Blacksmithing
This is your ability to work with metal and create or improve things from/with various metals. Eventually you can make high level armor and weapons -- with the right raw materials, molds and forges.
Mastering this skill can be very expensive and involved.
NOTE: Molds will be used up; Other "tool" items used can be reused over and over (such as a File and a Smith Hammer).
You will also need to make items for use with other skills, like a Non-Stick Frying Pan to use in Baking. A skinning knife will be a good item to make at least one of, as well. It can be used with both the Tailoring and Fishing skills. A filleting knife will also be something to make -- as it is used in Fishing and Baking recipes. While you are at it, you may as well make some skewers and a pot.
.
AKA: Brewing
Use: Brew Barrel.
Recipe Links: Brews
This is your ability to combine ingredients and brew them into a new liquid -- usually alcoholic in nature and/or a "temper."
Like food items, higher levels in this skill will allow you to create liquid drinks that can enhance your stats. Some can affect your stats just by having them on hand, so long as they are the first drink in your first bag (and you don't consume them).
Alcoholic drinks will increase your Stamina and Strength to a point. However -- at the same time -- they also lower everything else.
It is rumoured that alcohol also helps you regenerate faster and even run faster. Combined with moderation and a good Alcohol Tolerance skill -- drinking can actually be a benefit.
Example -- the strength and stamina enhancement can help you become unencumbered and thus be able to run faster. The stamina can help you jump more to hop ahead of a mob chasing you (not to mention the hit point boost).
You will find that this skill will come in handy with Tailoring and Blacksmithing (re: tempers).
This is the probably the easiest and cheapest skill to master.
.
Use: Tackle Box, Various Types of Fishing Poles, Various types of Bait
Recipe Links: Fishing
This is pretty much what it seems to be.
It is your ability to fish.... and to make bait items (lures) and even fishing rods.
Oddly enough, it includes some food items -- even if logically they should fall under the Baking skill.
You will need some sort of bait and some form of a fishing pole -- and/or a tackle box. There are a number of poles and types of bait.
I have seen and even possessed some "fishing" spears/weapons -- but they seem to be solely for fighting -- not fishing.
I have not yet ventured into this area myself -- but there is also a tackle box. With it, you can make your own bait and lures by combining certain items in the tackle box.
To increase your Fishing skill, simply fish away, as I did.
You don't have to make lures, etc. -- you can simply fish!
In order to fish, you cannot be on a moving boat, you cannot be in the water and you cannot be too far from the water.
You must be standing on land, right at the edge of the water. Any kind of water will do -- to include rivers, ponds, lakes, fountains and oceans.
I have not yet tried lava, but I hear you can even fish there.
Fishing is the one talent that is slightly profitable from the very start.
You can actually make more money than what you spend on bait (and the pole) by selling what you catch -- mostly various kinds of fish, fish scales, daggers and tattered shoes (or so it seems). However, we are talking small amounts.
Fishing in certain zones or areas can also result in desirable items that are needed as ingredients for other combines or in crafting desirable items (re: Saltwater Seaweed, used to make Sea Temper, etc.).
Fishing is even involved with the Paladin Epic 1.5.
NPC's will buy all the items you catch. Other players may buy the fish scales (a component in the Enduring Breath spell) and other items you can catch that are needed for certain combines.
You can also save money buy simply keeping the fish as food, so that you do not have to buy any food. Some fish are in high demand (read that high sell price) by other players because they are used in high-trivial combines.
Bait is usually only lost if you catch something or you get a message you lost your bait.
Some combines will require that you use a skinning knife, which you can make with the blacksmithing skill.
This skill is the the cheapest skill to get to 200 with, but it is boring and time consuming just to fish and fish and fish.
I recommend Natimbi or Corathus Creep for fishing, as the items you catch there are probably the most useful and lucrative.
AKA: Bow Making; Bowyering; Arrow Making
Use: Fletching Kit(s).
Recipe Links: Fletching
This is your ability to make bows and arrows! The better your skill and the better the parts -- the better the bow and/or the arrow!
Fletching is easy to get to 200 and reasonably cheap.
You can get this skill to 202 at most any Fletching merchant. It is simply time consuming!
It is after a level of about 202 that this skill can become truly involved and/or expensive.
.
AKA: Jewelry; Jewel Making; Jewel Craft.
Use: Jewelry Kit(s).
Recipe Links: Jewelry
This is your ability to use gems, metals and similar to create jewelry type items (rings, amulets, necklaces, bracelets, augmentations...).
This can be a very expensive process -- but with a high skill and the right raw materials -- you will eventually be able to make some reasonably nice items that can have nice stats!
The best place to do this is in the Abysmal Sea.
This skill can be very expensive -- but it is the failures that really cost you.
If you stay very close to trivial combines (less than 10 to 20 away) -- you will find that the expense may not be as great as you might think.
However, it is a very easy skill to advance -- and you can advance it pretty high with just merchant sold items.
Further, you do not need enchanted, imbued or other special items. You can do the same combines with the same trivials without the magically enhanced ingredients. The resulting item simply will not have any stats, but will still sell to a merchant (for the same price as the magically enhanced version with stats).
NOTE: Don't bother wasting time, effort and coin on making the stat-versions of items, as there is not a market for such items among players. You will have to get into palladium items before you actually find a marketable item you can make.
.
AKA: Pottery Making
Use: Pottery Wheel; then a.Kiln.
Recipe Links: Pottery
This is you ability to use clay and other ingredients (sketch, etc), to mold, shape, fire and bake them into something new -- like a bowl.
Unlike other skills -- this one requires, in many cases -- the use of both a Pottery Wheel and a Kiln (if you want the finished product).
Normally you make the initial item on the pottery wheel -- using all the ingredients except the firing sheet.
The resulting "unfired" item is then placed in a kiln with the firing sheet to get the finished product.
You do not have to finish the product if you do not want to (it is normally the "unfired" product that carries the higher trivial).
However, you normally can't sell unfired items back to a merchant. Even so, the finished item doesn't normally sell back to the merchant for enough to make it worth the cost and effort of the firing sheet and extra step.
As with all skills -- a very high skill here allows you to create some very nice items. You will find this skill coming in handy with Blacksmithing (re: ceramic linings).
This skill is relatively cheap to a point, then it becomes a little costly.
.
AKA: Sewing
Use: Loom; Sewing Kit(s).
Recipe Links: Tailoring
This is your ability to work with fur, cloth, silk and similar materials -- to create clothing, leather armor and such.
Higher skills allow you to make better and more beneficial items (better AC, stats bonuses, etc.).
You will find this skill handy with Blacksmithing (re: leather padding).
Tailoring is -- hands down -- the most difficult and expensive skill to master.
.
AKA: None.
Recipe Links: Tinkering
Use: Toolboxes.
This skill is only available to Gnomish Paladins -- as it is a Gnome only skill.
As a Gnome, you start with a skill of 50. However, you will not be allowed to progress that skill until you first attain Level 16. After that, you can progress the skill to maximum.
If you are a Gnome Paladin, this is a beneficial skill, but it can be costly.
It is useful with Fletching, especially (bow cams).
.
If you note any errors, misspellings, item name errors, misinformation or anything that needs addressing on this page -- PLEASE let me know! E-Mail me here (click here)!
.
This Page Last updated January 15, 2007