Blacksmithing | Blacksmith Essay | Blacksmithing Skill Gain Limit Charts | Runic Bonuses | Mining Essay | UO Craftsman Forum

Blacksmithing is a skill with much history in the Ultima universe, dating to the single-player games pre-dating Ultima Online. The following guides are an introduction to the skill as it currently stands, and how to become successful in its use.

New Player’s Guide to Blacksmithing (Originally by Rhus Radicans, Updated for 2008-2009 by Basara)

This Tutorial will take the form of questions and answers. Standard questions will be in Green, Multi-part questions and walk-throughs will be in Blue. Warnings and Advisements are typically be in Red.

1. Why would I want to be a blacksmith?

At some point you will wish to repair your armor, weapons and shields yourself, instead of having someone else do it for you, or instead of having to purchase Repair Deeds. You might also wish to see what you can make on your own. There are some nice things to be made as a blacksmith, some of them can’t be found as monster loot.

2. How do I start a blacksmith character? What skills should I choose? What stats should I start with?

The easiest way is to choose the pre-made Blacksmith template when you make a new character. This gives you a useful set of skills and stats to begin with. Note that for a Smith that wishes to one day craft his own equipment, you will want to have the following skills: Blacksmithy, Arms Lore, and Mining. Arms Lore gives bonuses to exceptionally made items in addition to the normal Exceptional Bonus; Mining is needed mining the raw material you will craft with*. For a crafter that probably won’t see much combat, Tinkering and Tailoring are good additional skills, plus one skill to enable easy travel. However, there is also the path of being a rough & tumble type of smith, that is at ease as much in the heat of battle as the heat of the forge. Both these basic ideas will be explored later on.

* NOTE: From April 2013, Publish 81 Mining is no longer needed to re-cycle items, blacksmith skill up to 105 skill substitutes.

Also note on the matter of races, Humans get more ore (about 10% of the time will get one extra ore per dig) and a higher carrying capacity, while Elves have a higher chance (after 95 skill) of getting the special gems used in some crafting. Personally, I believe the human advantages outweigh those of the Elf for a Smith (especially in terms of the mining aspects). Gargoyles get neither of these bonuses, and furthermore can’t ride mounts (such as the beetles detailed elsewhere), so are pretty much unsuited for the profession (their strength lies in the Imbuing skill).

3. What starting city should I choose?

With the introduction of the new player quests, New Haven is now the preferred starting point for a new smith. One should make use of the skill quests (Jacob for Mining, George Hesphaestus for Blacksmithing – and both train Arms Lore) in their particular regions of the area. George is in town, while Jacob is in the mountains south of town. Each quest will speed skill gain to get your smith to 50 in each skill (remember to use your starting gold to advance the skills through buying training from them, before acepting any skill quests). Also use some gold to buy Arms Lore up as high as you can before training blacksmithy. There are quests for many other skills that you can take, to get them to 50 skill, if you just look, so buy all the skills as high as you can, then accept the quests for every skill you have chosen.

However, once those quests are complete, we recommend Minoc, which can be reached by selecting the destination “Minoc” at the New Haven Moongate, then heading northwest. There is a mountain across the river from the Northeast side of Minoc that has plenty of mining areas, and it even has a forge and anvil available for you to use without having to go to town. There are also massive mountains with several mining valleys and caves in it (and even a dungeon!) to the south, and another mountain range to the north, but without the convenience of a nearby forge (except possibly in the homes of locals, that may have their houses accessible to others).

4. Mining? What does mining have to do with blacksmithing?

Everything. Blacksmiths require metal, which in Ultima Online comes in the form of Ingots. Iron Ingots can be purchased from NPC’s, but it is easier (and much cheaper) to mine for your own supply of ingots. You will also have to either mine the special “colored” Ingots yourself, or buy them from other players.

5. How do I mine, exactly? Is it difficult?

Mining is easy to learn. There are two different tools you can use to mine with: pickaxe and shovel. A shovel is a bit lighter in weight, so I’d choose that over a pickaxe. Weight is sometimes a problem for a beginning smith. To Mine, double-click your shovel and target a rock face or the floor of a cave. You will hear a digging sound. If successful, iron ore will appear in your backpack. Repeat. You can set up a macro in the “Classic Client” (usually called the 2D client by older players) for mining, it is last object/last target. Then all you have to do is dig the first shovelful, then hit your macro button to repeat the process without all that annoying mouse clicking. If you are learning to play with the Enhanced Client (sometimes called the Stygian Abyss client), eventually you will learn to make and use a macro (target by resource) that will allow you to mine all the ore from several adjacent spots with the press of one button.

6. Mining is hard! I’m not getting much ore! Does it get easier?

Yes. As your mining skill goes up, you will fail digging less often, and (more importantly, lose ore from smelting attempts less often, and thus get more ingots per shovel. Also, at 65 skill level in Mining, you will start to dig colored ore in addition to Iron. Don’t worry about those right now, we will discuss them later.

7. My shovel/hammer broke! What do I do now?

You have several choices.

*One option, if you are still in (or wish to travel to) New Haven, are the tool quests. The Mining skill gain quest (from Jacob) gives Jacob’s Pickaxe, which is a 20 use pickaxe that does not break, but instead recharges 1 use every 5 minutes. This is more useful for smelting ore than mining, though, because this tool also gives a +10 bonus to mining when held (up to 100 skill) allowing you to more easily smelt the ore, and to get more ingot return from recycling your unneeded metal items (junk metal items from dead creatures is another easy source of ingots when recycled).

*The equivalent quest item for Smithing is the Hammer of Hesphaestus (from George Hesphaestus), which has 20 uses and gives +10 Blacksmithy skill when held. However, it’s a lot less likely you’ll ever use this hammer than it is that you’ll use Jacob’s Pickaxe (there are better means of skill gains for smithing, later on).

*There are two other Quest Givers in New Haven that will give you tools for filling their quests, though ironically you’ll need to have some uses left on your current tools. Both are at the same location as Jacob (south of the moongate at the foot of the mountains). Mugg will let you trade 5 large ore for a Craftman’s satchel with 2 Pickaxes. This is probably the easiest to do, if you haven’t smelted the ore already. The equivalent NPC for Blacksmithing is named Gervis, and for 10 bucklers, he will give you a Smith hammer and 10 ingots.

*Your next option is to buy more tools from an NPC Blacksmith or Tinker. The shovels and pickaxes will have 50 uses on most shards (the exception is on the Seige Perilous & Mugen shards).

* Smith crafting tools are more random in uses than the mining tools (and can be downright awful), but in terms of weight consideration (and often gold cost) it is better to buy tongs, than hammers or sledgehammers.

*The last option, if you chose the pre-made Blacksmith template or picked up the skill another way, is to use the Tinkering skill to make tools.

Doubleclick the Tinker’s Tool Kit in your backpack, select Tools from the menu, and scroll until you see the item you want (Shovels or Pickaxes, for mining, Tongs for smithing). Try making a shovel (you need 4 ingots in your pack for the mining tools, and can lose ingots on crafting failures. Tongs only take 1 ingot, and you don’t lose an ingot on a failure). However, when you gain the ability to exceptionally craft these tools, the exceptional mining tools will have 100 uses (except on those two special shards). Blacksmith tools are much more variable in their use numbers – ranging between 20 & 80 for normal tools (but rarely above 60), 50 to 150 when Exceptional. Always make Tongs; they weigh less than hammers, and take less ingots to make as well.

8. Ah, ok. I have another shovel. Back to mining. Hey, I have a backpack full of ore, what do I do with it?

Now you will need to smelt the ore into ingots. If you are at the New Haven Mine, or in Minoc at the main mine, there is a forge right outside the entrance, and an anvil, as well. Stand beside the forge, doubleclick the ore, and target the forge. You will begin smelting. At low Mining skill, you will fail a lot and be left without ingots (it takes over 25 skill just to have a 1% chance to get ingots back), but as your Mining skill goes up, your ability to produce ingots will increase. Also, starting at 65 Smithing, you will be able to smelt colored ore, also. It is typically best for gaining Mining skill to smelt ore 1 large or medium-sized piece at a time, until your skill gets into the 70s, as you can gain Mining skill from both mining and smelting the ore (just remember to take Jacob’s Pickaxe out of your hand if you are trying to train skill using iron ore).

9. Ok, what is this “colored ore” stuff you are talking about?

There are 9 different metals available in Ultima Online. They are: Iron, Dull Copper, Shadow Iron, Copper, Bronze, Gold, Agapite, Verite and Valorite. You start being able to mine only Iron ore. Starting at 65 Mining, you will begin pulling up this colored ore. Each one of these metals has different qualities when made into weapons, shields and armor. (it’s beyond the scope of this essay to discuss those right now.) Even when mining colored ore, some of the ore will still come out as normal Iron ore. The numbers listed for mining, are also the skill livels (for Blacksmith) needed to make items with the ingots of that metal.

At 65 Mining you can mine Dull Copper, if the vein can produce it.

at 70 Mining you can mine Shadow Iron.

at 75 Mining you can mine Copper.

at 80 Mining you can mine Bronze.

at 85 Mining you can mine Gold.

at 90 Mining you can mine Agapite.

at 95 Mining you can mine Verite.

at 99 Mining you can mine Valorite.

at 100 Mining, you also can get special gem types used in crafting, from mining any type of ore.

at 100 mining, one can also read certain special books one can buy at the Gargoyle City in Ilshenar, to allow you to mine sand for glassblowers (a special subskill of Alchemy, which alchemists gain from a book bought in the same city), and mine stone for masons (a subskill of Carpentry, acquired in a similar manner). A similar book for producing normal gems is available in the Gargoyle Royal City, and also requires 100 skill.

9.a. Um, not to sound like a smart-aleck or anything, but in real life, Bronze is an alloy, you can’t mine it.

Shhh. I know that, too. I guess the developer that came up with the colored ore didn’t. Let’s not embarrass him, ok? *winks*

10. *laughs* Ok, I’m good with that. What about all these ingots, though? What do I do with them?

Let’s find a blacksmith shop and talk to an NPC blacksmith. He should be able to find work for you; specifically, a kind of contract called a Bulk Order Deed.

10.a. “Ok, here is a blacksmith, his name is Barton. What do I do?”

Single-click Barton, and choose “Bulk Order Info” from the menu that appears. A scroll will appear in your backpack, this is called a Bulk Order Deed, or BOD for short. Take a look at it and tell me what it says on it.

10.b. “It says to make 10 daggers. Is that what I’m supposed to do next?”

Yep. Come over here to the forge and anvil, and stand beside them. See that blacksmith’s hammer in your backpack? Doubleclick it to bring up the smith’s menu. On that menu, look around until you see the word bladed, and click on that. You’ll see a menu of bladed weapons, daggers will be among them. Each weapon has a box to the left and right of it. If you click the box to the left, you will make the weapon, if you have enough skill. The box on the right will give you information about the weapon: how much skill is necessary to make it, what you need in the way of ingredients, your chance to make it at your skill, etc. Most of the simple weapons like daggers only take a few ingots to make. Go ahead and make 10 daggers with the ingots in your pack.

10.c. *clang clang clang* “Ok, I have 10 daggers in my backpack, what now?”

Now you have to “combine” the daggers with the deed. Doubleclick the deed and select the option to combine the items with the deed. A Targeting cursor will appear. Target each dagger until all ten disappear. They are now combined with the deed. Now take the deed back to Barton and drag/drop the completed deed onto him.

10.d. *funny flute noise is heard* “Hey, what was that? I got a message that I earned gold, fame and a gift! Where are they?”

The gold goes into your bankbox. The fame accrues slowly and affects your title. You can go all the way to Lord just by filling BODs with your Smith, but it is very difficult to do that way. As for the gift, it should be in your backpack. Probably a sturdy shovel or pickaxe with 150 or 200 uses.

10.e. “Yeah, I got a sturdy pickaxe with 200 uses. I guess I use it to mine with, huh? Can I get other stuff, too?”

Yes. The BOD system has a whole range of rewards, varying from tools like these to nice anvils colored like the various metals, to magical Runic Hammers that make some really great weapons and armor. As the reward system is point-based, on the value of each individual Bulk Order Deed, the more difficult rewards require filling the more difficult BODs, however.

Eventually, you will start getting Large Bulk Order Deeds, which require you to get each of the small BODs, fill them, then combine them with the Large BOD in the same way you combined the items with the small BODs.

Remember, though, to fill a deed that requires ingots of a specific colored metal type (which, like LBODs, you won’t get until you hit 70 skill), you will need to set your tool to use that metal – that is done with the selection arrow that, at start, points to “Iron” on your tools (and will display whatever metal you have chosen, even if you switch smithing tools). The choices of metal will come up where the items normally show, until you choose the metal type.

By the way, single-click Barton (or any other Blacksmith, Armorer or Weaponsmith) and get another BOD from him. Whenever you turn in a BOD, get another BOD immediately, before turning in another BOD. You do not have to turn in a BOD to the exact same person who gave it to you; any of the blacksmith types will work (Blacksmith, Armorer, Weaponsmith and Iron Worker), except the Gargoyle smiths in Ter Mur and the Elven Metal Weavers in Heartwood (they are new arrivals, and aren’t part of the “BOD Network”)

11. There are some items in the crafting menu that say “You have not learned this recipe.” What are those?

Those items are special ones introduced in the expansion “Mondain’s Legacy”. To get the recipes, you will need to go to Heartwood, the Elven city, which is accessed by a magical entrance in the center of the city of Yew. Look for the “Metal Weavers” in the Southeast part of town. Note that the strange equipment there includes the elven version of a forge and an anvil, so you can craft at that location, as long as you brought tools and ingots.

If you double-click on these NPCs, you will be given the option for a quest, much like those from New Haven. The difference is that these quests’ Craftsman’s Satchels that they reward do not give tools, but give random elven equipment, talismans, jewelry, and recipes. Most of the equipment is not worth keeping, but can be recycled for more ingots if metal. Click on the NPC repeatedly to get a quest within your skill range (preferably one you can gain skill on – they give four, but only 2 worth doing), then accept your desired quest. Craft the items, mark them as quest items, then click the NPC again to initiate the turn-in process. This has been substantially automated in that you can now choose to make a specific number of items and automatically mark them for a quest, in the crafting menus adopted in both clients after the release of Stygian Abyss.

There are three types of recipes; common, semi-rare, and rare. Common and semi-rare recipes typically require only a single special gem from mining, or rarely a single exotic ingredient from the Peerless monsters, with the only real difference being that the semi-rares are much less frequent than the commons. The rares are effectively recipes for craftable artifacts, and are very hard to get (and crafting them requires many exotic ingredients).

It may take a hundred or more quests to get most of the common items, and it may take thousands to get all the rare ones. But, the advantage is that you can use these quests for training as well as getting recipes.

You use recipes by double-clicking them, at which point the character permanently gains the ability to use them. One can only use a recipe on a character that is within 10 skill points of being able to make the item.

11.a. “What Heartwood quests are good ones for a Smith?”

There are two quests you should do there.

The first one is the Bascinet quest, “Nothing Fancy”. You 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 skill if you’ve already used a 120 Blacksmith scroll that you bought somewhere or were given.

The second quest to do is the Broadsword quest, “Cuts Both Ways”. This is likely to be your main form of training with quests. Can start crafting at 35.4 skill, but you’ll waste too many ingots if you don’t stick to the bascinet quest until you hit about 55 skill (best to keep making the bascinets until 58.3). Gains will run up to 85.4 skill without a power scroll, up to 95.4 with a 120 power scroll. Even after gains stop, this is the optimum for continued quests for smith recipes.

11.b. Any other quests I should know about?

There is also one other quest that gives a smith recipe, though it can be dangerous. It is gained from Jamal the Fisherman, outside the Blighted Grove, and is for the Bone Machetes that are used to be able to enter the Grove. As this quest requires some combat for certain ingredients, and entering the Grove itself for others, you may want to have a combat-capable character get the items for the smith to turn in. As this recipe is added directly to the character doing the quest (unlike the others), it must be the smith that actually does the quest. If you can get this quest done fairly early, and can get a good source of bones for it (giant Serpents anywhere, or the black wisps at Ilshenar Spirituality region’s two champion spawns), one can make a steady income making and selling these machetes to those going to hunt in the Grove.

12. Ok, what next?

Well, that is pretty much all that there is to Blacksmithing. Mine metal, make it into metal ingots, and use the ingots to make armor, weapons and shields. You can also repair armor, weapons and shields made of metal.

The Way of the Forge

Armor 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: All metal armor types start out with 15 resists, assigned in a specific manner, depending on the item. 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).

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.

Runic Tools

RUNIC TOOL (Charges) Properties Bonus Intensity Range

Dull Copper (50) 1-2 40-100%

Shadow Iron (45) 2 45-100%

Copper (40) 2-3 50-100%

Bronze (35) 3 55-100%

Golden (30) 3-4 60-100%

Agapite (25) 4 65-100%

Verite (20) 4-5 70-100%

Valorite (15) 5 85-100%

Tailor Runics, for Comparison

Spined Kit (45) 1-3 40-100%

Horned Kit (30) 3-4 45-100%

Barbed Kit (15) 4-5 50-100%

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, In addition, some items might be best kept to unravel for special ingredients with Imbuing (the item property adding skill introduced with Stygian Abyss), or as a basis for adding skills with Imbuing, rather than being enhanced themselves.

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.

• 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.

• 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]

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:

Other Effects of Talisman Use.

• Talismans have no effect on gathering Bulk Order Deeds or Enhancing.
• However, the bonuses are believed to slow down 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).
• 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).

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 before, 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.

Starting a Blacksmith Character

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, as well as in the Guide for New Blacksmiths, above.

Mining can be used for smelting items created solely for training purposes, being necessary for obtaining resources and easier to raise, but you can also re-cycle using your blacksmith skill. It is also best to use a Salvage Bag for recycling to reduce time taken. 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? It was THE way to go, in the old days, and made a profit while training.”

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: 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 then, 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.

Now, as buying ingots has gotten ugly for the skill trainer, there is a light at the end of the tunnel…

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.

It salvages everything in a second, be it one or 100 items.

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.

For the experienced player:

1. No Scroll – Gain on daggers until 49.2
2. 105 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 51.7
3. 110 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 54.2
4. 115 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 56.7
5. 120 Blacksmithy Scroll Used: Gain on daggers until 59.2

Start with 300 ingots in salvage bag, make 100 daggers in salvage bag, trigger salvage bag to get back 200 ingots, move ingots to the Salvage Bag, repeat as necessary (getting new tools as needed).

Training from 50 to 120

Alternate means of supplementing training methods

The Bone Machete Quest:

Bulk Order Deeds and You