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Crafting

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Crafting is one of Vanguard's "three spheres" (the other two being adventuring and diplomacy). The crafting system is a fantastically complex and interesting system that is also useful. Some really good equipment comes from crafting, and gear made from it is highly customizable. In addition, crafting is how one can get things like houses and boats, which are not only useful, but really cool.

This page is a general overview of the major crafting terms... more details will follow as people can add them in, also see the link above to reach our crafting-exclusive wiki.

Crafting Types

Crafting is broken into three major groups, each of which has sub-categories (specialties). The major groups are Artificing, Blacksmithing, and Outfitting. Artificing includes Carpentry and Mineralogy, while Blacksmithing contains Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, and Outfitting contains Leatherworking and Tailoring.

All crafts include expendable item patterns and upgrades, but the type and uses vary wildly.

Artificing includes the skills needed to assemble houses and boats, but requires components from the other crafts. However, it also includes the ability to make wooden weapons, such as staves, and many expendable items, such as statues, for temporary buffs, as well as furniture and items for houses.

Blacksmithing is the art of making weapons and heavy armor, as well as miscellaneous metal items such as horseshoes.

Outfitting is the craft of making light (Tailoring) and medium (Leatherworking) armor as well as expendable items such as bandages. It also includes the (really useful) art of making bags, cloth bags (Tailoring) for normal slots and saddlebags (Leatherworking) for your horse.

In general, crafted items are better than most drops, especially if you can get very high quality ones (more explanation on that later).

Specialties

As mentioned above, each crafting type has sub-categories, or specialties. When you reach level 11 in your crafting, you will need to go do a quest and take a specialty. After this point, you will be able to make the generic items for your craft plus whatever is in your specialty, but you will stink at making items in the other specialty. For example, a Kojani Blacksmith who specializes in Weaponsmithing will be able to make generic Blacksmithing items, like horseshoes, but he won't be able to make any but the crummiest copper plate armor.

Region

Unlike a lot of games, Vanguard crafters don't make the same stuff if they're from different places. This can have a tremendous effect on the appearance of gear and items, especially things like houses and boats. A Qalian boat and a Kojani boat look very different from one another.

There are three "regional" crafting styles -- Thestran, Kojani, and Qalian. Your race determines your starting crafting "style", even if you start on the Isle of Dawn. You can learn additional regions at any time, by doing special quests. (These quests typically involve a lot of running around and making special items.) However, the tier quests for each regional style are different.

Tiers

Each crafting style has tiers, beginning with Apprentice. You can keep going up in levels as long as you gain experience making things, but you can't learn new patterns unless you have completed "tier quests" that give you special titles and flags. Most of these quests require a lot of running around and making special items.

If you know multiple region styles, you will have to do the tier quests for each one separately. For example, if you have a Halfling Paladin who started with Thestran style and becomes an Amateur Blacksmith (tier 2), then goes on to learn Kojani style, is still only a Kojani Novice Blacksmith (tier 1), and has to go do the Kojani Amateur Blacksmithing quest. This is a bit of a pain, but it's a one-time thing, and gives you more flexibility in the appearance of your stuff.

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See Also
Basic Game Concepts
VgCrafters
Guide to Managing Crafting Stats