Blacksmith Essay

Return to: Skills and Professions

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

Professions: The Blacksmith

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.

13. Umm…. How do I travel around, though? Do I walk everywhere? Those ingots and ores get heavy. Isn’t there an easier way?Yes, there is. There are spells with which to magically travel from place to place, and animals to help you with transportation and even smelting (see Question 14 for the animals).The easiest way of all is to use runebooks pre-charged with Recall scrolls. You’ll need to have a steady supply of Recall scrolls, so having a mage character with the Inscription skill might be handy; otherwise you will be doomed to buying the scrolls from player vendors and the occasional rare NPC mage that sells level 4 scrolls. This might, however, be the best method for a total beginner until he/she can acquire enough skill in Magery or Chivalry to travel reliably by spell.If you are going to be a Fighting Blacksmith, it’s best to go to Aelorn in New Haven, on the second floor of the Warriors guild hall, buy a Book of Chivalry, and buy up the skill (and take the quest if you want). Alternatively, you can do the same from the Keepers of Chivalry near Luna moongate, but they charge more for books, and don’t train as well, IIRC. You will also need to “tithe” gold at an Ankh shrine; there is one on the first floor of the Warriors guild hall, as well as on the second floor of Luna’s central structure – coincidentally directly above the blacksmith shop. Inside the Book of Chivalry you will find the spell Sacred Journey. That spell, when cast upon a marked rune or a runebook filled with marked runes, will transport you magically to that place. One needs 65 Chivalry to be able to Sacred Journey 100% of the time. As this typically leaves more space in your backpack free for ore and the like (the “reagents” are tithing done at the ankhs, so does not weigh anything or take up items), it is probably the preferred means of getting around – however, it doesn’t give you a way to mark your own runes. It does, however, give you a way to heal after being brought back from the dead, before charging back into the danger zone where you died to recover your body.If you don’t intend to be a fighting blacksmith, Magery might be an option. 63 magery will allow you to recall 100% of the time, without having to buy scrolls. It will also give you about a 27% chance to cast Mark (to mark your own runes, that you have to buy from an NPC mage, or make with a tinker); you have a 100% chance to use Mark from scrolls at that skill level. One would need magery in the 80s to reliably cast Gate Travel (which is needed to move unbonded pets around, that you can’t ride – see pet section below), though one can successfully gate about half the time at 63 skill, using scrolls of Gate Travel. You’ll just need a source for the scrolls.

13.a. “Is Marking really necessary?”

Prior to 2007’s mining changes, it was vital to get a set of good, productive, mining locations marked, as the type of ore changes every 8 steps in each direction, but up until that time, the ore produced had stayed constant for 99.9% of the spots on the map for about 6 years. Back then, one could set up some runebooks of known spots for each ore, by either marking with your miner, or recording the coordinates using a sextant, and taking a mage character you possessed out to those spots to mark for you.

However, in 2007, mining was radically changed as a means to combat cheaters that ran illegal scripts to mine spots, and to make the rarer metal types truly rare, for the normal miners – in other words, what were supposed to be rare metals, had become TOO easy to get. Now, the ore type at each individual mining spot changes after every few times it is mined, randomly. This has made most attempts to mark for ore type a futile effort, as it could easily change overnight, especially if someone else mines the same spot. Now, simply having someone Mark runes to general starting locations for mining trips will generally suffice. These would be places such as points along the major mountain ranges and inside mines; you could even mark them yourself, then set Magery skill to go down when you need the points elsewhere.

14. What are these useful animals you mentioned?

There are several animals that can help you as a blacksmith. There are pack horses and pack llamas that can transport ore to the nearest forge, just drag and drop the ore onto them (then clik on them to open their backpack when you get to your destination). There are also blue “Giant Beetles” that you can both ride and use as a pack animal. They are very helpful. The most helpful of all, though, is the orange Fire Beetle. The Fire Beetle can be hard to acquire, but they are the most useful pet a blacksmith/miner can own, because you never need a forge when a Fire Beetle is your pet, you just smelt your ore on the beetle itself!

Another useful pet is the vollem – either the craftable tinker creation (which cannot bond), or the Stygian Abyss gift version that is a bonded, living, creature. These “Gargoyle Cats” are the best combat creatures a non-tamer can have, and can be used for defense (as they take up the two control slots that aren’t taken by a beetle).It’s very important to know that your pets can be killed by monsters (or other players, if you’re in Felucca), and if your pet isn’t “bonded” to you, you will lose it permanently. To prevent this from happening, feed your pet, put it in a stable for a week real time, and then take it out and feed it again. You should get a message that “your pet has bonded with you!” (if it doesn’t, put it back in the stable and try again in a day or two) After a pet bonds, if it is killed, it becomes a ghost and can be resurrected by players with the Veterinary skill, or by the Veterinarian NPCs (at a cost of more skill loss for the pet). As noted before, only the living vollems bond to you (and do so immediately after being released from the crystal – you have to rebond one traded to you).14.a. Other Important Pet Facts to remember…It’s also important to know the following….*You cannot put a pack animal into a stable, if it has anything in its backpack.

*Pets with empty backpacks will log out with you, if you are alive (you can even bond pets this way, but it’s much riskier than just stabling them to wait it out). If you are dead, they will be put into the stable automatically to await your return to claim them (even if ghosts, themselves – normally you cannot stable a ghost pet)

*Pets that are NOT empty will remain in the game, even if you log out, and will go wild within a few hours, breaking their bond with you. They might even cease to exist, or be killed by city guards (if a beetle type) after going wild. ALWAYS be sure to empty your pets.

* Gargoyles can’t ride pets, so this can make keeping Beetles (the blue Giant Beetles, or the Fire Beetles) alive very difficult, as you can’t mount the beetle to force it out of combat with a monster that is about to kill it, like humans and elves are able to do.14.b. “Will these pets Recall/Sacred Journey with me?”Once a pet is Bonded, it will recall/sacred journey with you; if a pet has not bonded, it either needs to be a mount (like a beetle) being ridden to do travel with you – otherwise one has to use gate travel or the permanent moongates to have them follow. This is one of the reasons the Minoc area was suggested as a base of operations, after your initial training in New Haven. Mining in the Minoc Mines will require little travel, and present little danger, as you can smelt your ore at the mine entrance; plus, there are huge mountain ranges within easy walking distance to the north and south.14.c. How do I get one of these pets, especially a Fire Beetle?*Pack horses and Pack Llamas can be purchased at NPC stables, usually for under 600 gold (sometimes under 500!). Occasionally, you’ll even find some running loose and unowned, that were used when someone transferred their character from one shard to another; it’s sometimes possible to attempt to retame these for yourself (with only a few points of taming, or the human Jack of All Trades), unless you get the message that the animal has had too many owners.

*The blue Giant Beetles can be purchased from other players that have the Animal Taming skill at a fairly low level; in fact, one might even be able to tame your own, if you want to temporarily put about 30-40 points each into Animal Taming and Animal Lore, since the minimum skill to tame one is 29.1 (but one has to beat it until nearly dead, and it gives a message about being subdued to attempt). The giant beetles can be found in Solen tunnels, and in places where solens can randomly spawn out of the ground (some of these holes go into the tunnels, some do not, and randomly a beetle may come out of the “trap” when you step on it, instead of one of the Solens).

A typical price for a Giant Beetle is about 5000 gold on most shards. It can vary, and if you are very lucky, you might be given one free.

*Fire Beetles can be purchased from other players that have very high Animal Taming skill. They are found in the Yomotsu Mines (along with those creatures, and free-roaming Dull Copper & Shadow Iron Elementals). Fire Beetles can be very expensive, but in general terms can be purchased for 30,000-50,000 gold; though sometimes if you’re lucky, someone might get you one for free. If you can manage it (and the tamer agrees), and you can survive the trip, consider going along with the tamer to get any Dull Copper & Shadow Iron that one might get from encounters with elementals there (do note that Shadow Iron Elementals are immune to pets and most spells). The fire beetle also has to be beat into subjugation before taming.

One Vollem trapped in a crystal comes with the special gift codes from upgrading to Stygian Abyss (or starting a new account with Stygian Abyss). The much more difficult to use Vollem “Golems” are craftable by Tinkers who have taken a Stygian Abyss quest, because of their inability to bond.Once you get these pets bonded, especially the beetles, you might want to try to train their combat skills up. You’ll have to use close Wounds (chivalry), Greater Heal (magery) or a tamer friend (with the Vet skill) to heal them.15. Ok, what else do I need to know?Well, this is a New Smith Guide, and the information I gave you is really all that a New Smith needs. You will also find the essays on Mining and Tailoring useful as well. There are a few things I’ll caution you about, though:

15.a. Ore Elementals. Occasionally when you turn in a BOD, you may receive a Gargoyle’s Pickaxe as a reward (they can also spawn on most gargoyle types as loot). If you mine with a Gargoyle’s Pickaxe, it will magically “promote” the colored ore you mine one level up. If you are mining Iron, you will get Dull Copper (as of publish 56; prior to that, you only got iron). If you’re mining a Dull Copper spot, you will get Shadow Iron instead; if you’re mining a Bronze spot, you’ll get Gold instead, and so on.

When you use a Gargoyle’s Pickaxe to upgrade to Shadow Iron or higher ore, though, there is a chance that an Ore Elemental will appear and attack you. These look like Earth Elementals, and behave similarly – but each has a special offensive or defensive power. The ones that can be dug up with a Garg Pick range from Shadow Iron all the way to Valorite. Each of them, when killed, drops 25 large ore of its own color, some gold, and some items. Be careful when using a Garg Pick, and be ready if an Ore Elemental appears. See the Mining guide for a list of the dangers presented by the Ore Elementals. Note that there are some dungeons where the Shadow Elementals spawn naturally, as well as Dull Copper Elementals (that only give 2 large of their ore when killed).

Note that earlier I mentioned training your pets up to better survive the wilds, once they have bonded. Often, the easiest means for the the later stages of pet training are best done using a Shadow Iron Elemental dug up with a Gargoyle’s Pickaxe, since the elemental is immune to pet damage. In fact, as a miner, you will often be asked by Tamers to dig up such an elemental specifically for them to train their pets (and in the process, train their Vet skill on the pets). Just be sure they save the ore for you when they finally do kill it.

15.b. Player Killers/Miner Killers. There is a mining bonus for mining in Felucca. You get twice as much ore as you do anywhere else. Unfortunately, you can also be killed and looted by other players in Felucca, as well. Some players love to kill miners, so consider carefully before going to Felucca. Note that most of the Miner Killers are typically bottom-feeders in the PvP arena, and it might very well be possible for a combat-oriented miner to kill their attacker (maybe even purposefully try to suck such types in to hunt the hunters…)

15.c. Monsters. There are monsters that wander in the wilderness. Most of these are easy to kill or avoid. Sometimes you will find them in a mine or cave, as well. Some caves are full of monsters and traps, and are called Dungeons. For the most part, dungeons aren’t good places to mine, though there are exceptions (the open-air passages between sections of the Dungeon Covetous, for example, typically have high-output veins, regardless of ore type, and have no spawn or at worst, skeletons, depending on the section one is in). There is also a mosnter called the Orc Brute, which is an orc that’s bigger than a titan, that spawns in the orc mines, that carries 25 Shadow Iron ore. Combat capable miners will sometimes go there, mine ore for themselves (using a fire beetle), and kill the Brutes as they spawn for additional Shadow Iron ore.

The Way of the Forge

(more detailed information on the Blacksmith skill)
By Basara & others (constructed from sections of the Blacksmith FAQ)
If you’re a more experienced player, you’re probably wanting more in-depth information than that provided in the tutotial above. That’s where this section of the Blacksmith Guide comes in.

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).

Note: Samurai Empire Armour Types & “Mage Armor” property

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 the metal types, when Exceptional, gain the “Mage Armor” attribute, allowing the wearer to meditate in them as if they were leather.

Weapon Base Properties:

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 (12.5 on SP & Mugen), 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.

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.

Metal Physical Fire Cold Poison Energy Total added Other Properties Added (armor)
Dull Copper 6 0 0 0 0 6 +50% Durability, +20% Lower Requirements
Shadow Iron 2 1 0 0 5 8 +100% Durability
Copper 1 1 0 5 2 9
Bronze 3 0 5 1 1 10
Gold 1 1 2 0 2 6 40 Luck, +30% Lower Requirements
Agapite 2 3 2 2 2 11
Verite 3 3 2 3 1 12
Valorite 4 0 3 3 3 13 +50% Durability
Dragonscale Armour is not 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 BonusesBlack (Shadow Wyrm): +10 Physical, -3 EnergyBlue (sea serpent): +10 Energy, -3 PoisonGreen (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.

Runic Tools

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, with the introduction of Publish 50: 

 

 

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%

The Details on these properties can be found elsewhere on UO Stratics, as well as on the official Ultima Online site.

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.
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 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.
Crafting PercentagesThe 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 below).
  • 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.

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 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 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.

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 Blacksmith character in New Haven, or take an existing character there. SP Players & Mugen can skip ahead to the next section.

Whether one goes with the Custom character creation method or the Standard Blacksmith template is really up to the scope you wish for your crafter. If you plan the character to just use the 4 basic crafting skills from the template, go ahead and start standard Blacksmith. If you want to add Bowcraft/Fletching, Carpentry, and/or Lumberjacking, starting with those skills with a custom template would be better. In EITHER case, you need to start the character in the Kingdom Reborn client (or its Stygian Abyss successor), and go through the beginning quest. This will get you 120 starting skill points instead of 90 or 100 with the 2D client.

This tutorial starts in New Haven, with a standard Blacksmith (30 Mining, 30 Blacksmith, 30 Tinker, 30 Tailoring, if started with the Kingdom Reborn client), rather than using a custom character with 120 points divided between 4 skills. If you go the custom method, be sure to put the majority of your skill points into the skills you want (tailoring, bowcraft. carpentry, lumberjacking, etc.) that do NOT have New Haven Accelerated Skill Gain quests.

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. (for custom template, the tools will be for the skills chosen. put them into the bank, but keep ALL your gold – it’s a lot more expensive to start this way). This page will give you a visual guide to the directions below.

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 – note that you will use ALL your gold up, and be well short of full training in one skill, if you went the custom route – PLUS will have to buy your starting tools if you didn’t have at least 1 point in mining), 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 (going out and earning some gold through sales or hunting creatures, if you used a custom template) 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; does not recharge)

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 (or lacked funds to do so), buy Blacksmith & Arms Lore up to their full starting “buyable amount” 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 for smithing), and start training. If gains get slow, follow George’s advice and switch to macessometime in the high 40s, 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 (plus whatever other skills, if you started with a custom template).

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 of Mining +3 will be sufficient for most purposes. These are cumulative with Jacob’s pickaxe, as long as you pick up the pickaxe, THEN put on the gloves, at high skill levels
  3. Purchase a Salvage Bag from the provisioner (if you didn’t before starting smith training).
  4. Acquire a Blacksmith Power Scroll. Use of the scroll increases the top end of your crafting gain range by 5% (2.5 skill) for every 5 points over 100.

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

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 skill gain chart 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 to 105 skill, 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. One can also to switch to Cyclones (Gargoyle throwing weapons from Stygian Abyss) for slightly faster gains at around 110+ skill, but will use considerably more ingots. Using the salvage bag with 101.1 or higher mining, will lose 2 ingots per success when smelted, instead of 1 per royal circlet, also greater losses from failures from both difficulty and higher ingot use. There is also the matter that the weight of royal circlets will allow crafting up to 120 of them per training session (with only tools and salvage bag with ingots in the crafter’s backpack), while the weight of the cyclone would limit the crafter to 90 at best, before recycling.

None of the items in this list will use more than 8 ingots (other than the Cyclones), 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 type of training was made much easier by the “Make Max” function, introduced in the defunct Kingdom Reborn client, and now found in both the 2D/Classic and Enhanced (Stygian Abyss) clients.

1. Log into your Blacksmith.

2. Get a bunch of crafting tools, ingots and a Salvage Bag. Put 1 or 2 tools and the Salvage Bag into your backpack, and load ingots into the Salvage Bag.

3. Open up the tool menu, choose the item to make, and select “Make Max” (in the 2D/Classic client, this is located in the secondary menu for each item, that is opened by clicking the button to the right of the item name).

4. Start making items. Make Max will run quickly, making items until you run out of room, materials or uses of the tool.

5. If not at backpack maximum capacity for weight or total items, restart as necessary (replacing the tool or adding ingots, whichever ran out).

6. When full by weight or items, use the Salvage Bag to smelt.

7. Move ingots from the smelt from the backpack into the Salvage Bag.

8. Put more ingots into the backpack, and go back to #1.

Of course, if you have a collection of Smith Bulk Order Deeds, you can see which BODs require items you can gain skill on, and make filling those BODs part of your training regimen as well. You can also do some of the Heartwood quests for part of your training (as suggested earlier), in order to get crafting recipes.

Alternate means of supplementing training methods

With the 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.One can also fill BODs of items that one can get skill gains making, to do two chores at once (see BOD Cycling training method, at the end of the BOD section of this page)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.

Blacksmith Recipes: A Guide

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.

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 RecipesRecipe 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.

The Bone Machete Quest:

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.

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.

Bulk Order Deeds and You

Bulk Order Deeds 101

(by Hermlock on Pac & Basara)
  • What is a BOD (SBOD)?
  • How do I get a BOD and how often can I get them?
  • How do I fill a BOD and get the reward?
  • What kinds of BOD’s are there?
  • What is an LBOD?
  • How do I get an LBOD?
  • How do I fill an LBOD?
  • There is only one button on my BOD/LBOD gump how do I combine deeds?
  • I’ve tried everything and I still can’t get a deed. What’s wrong?
  • I refused a BOD when offered one will I get another one?
  • What Are BOD Books?
  • 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 (Tailor) BOD’s selection gump from EA’s own web page. Smith BODs function exactly the same. For a smith, if the item requires one of the colored metals, the line will say so, that is where the “spined Leather” line is in the Tailor example. If the items need to be of exceptional quality, a line saying so will be beneath the materials line.

Click the image to open in full size.

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 BOD, 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). Only 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. On a Platemail LBOD 10 count (normal) gump, for example, you would see:

Amount to make: 10 Items requested: platemail gorget 0 platemail gloves 0 plate helm 0 platemail arms 0 platemail legs 0 platemail tunic 0

As you combine the appropriate filled small BOD, the 0 will become a 10.

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. The “Combine” button does not show up if the BOD is not in your pack. Place the deed anywhere in your pack then double click it, and 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.

Click the image to open in full size.

12. Why are these BODs in this vendor’s BOD Books priced Zero? is it 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. And, Yes, it’s legal; if you search for “vendor exploits” on the EA support system, you’ll eventually find (practically as a footnote to the answer) the statement that storing unpriced BODs on a vendor in BOD books is legal.

Bulk Order Deed Rewards

There are many 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 2004-2007.

4. Metal Type

Iron: 0

Dull Copper: 200

Shadow Iron: 250

Copper: 300

Bronze: 350

Golden: 400

Agapite: 450

Verite: 500

Valorite: 550

5. A Random Bonus was added in 2008 or 2009, that can increase the rank of the reward. The exact particulars are yet to be revealed, but it seems to be worth 0-4 steps on the table. These seem to apply only to BODs worth at least 900 points prior to the bonus.The Point value of a given BOD is these 5 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 (plus the bonus for who knows how much).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 FAQ 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 15 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.

BOD Trading

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.

BOD CYCLING

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

In April 2005, 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.

BOD Cycling as a Training Method
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, train with other methods for a while (as detailed in the earlier essays), 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, for 5 months. 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, and was only getting about 10-12 BODs a week from their normal pulls).

Last modified: April 19, 2013

5 Comments to “Blacksmith Essay”


  1. Garry G says:

    Anybody know what malleable alloy is for?

    1
  2. @joseph: buy a blank scroll, then on the Blackmith Gump, click on [Repair] and target the scroll. Now u have created a Blacksmith Repair Deed (w/ur title: ex. Master/GrandMaster/Elder)

    @Peter: about the point system. It’s NOT cumulative, that means that if u turn 100 smalls BoD’s u dont get prizes u can get for 1 Large BoD. It’s more a Ranking System: 0~100: Sturdy Pick/Shovel. 101~250: Prospector’s/Gargoyle. 251~500: etc. etc.

    3
  3. i have been gone for about 6 years and back only about a month. have a 120 blacksmith and foregotten how to make repair deeds? can you help me? tks

    4
  4. Peter Robinson says:

    where in the game can you find your points accumulated from turning in completed bods to get an award from the list based on return bods points, where in the game????

    5


Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.