Ideal Crafting Characters:
- Race: Grey Elf or Sun Elf for +2 innate Intelligence
- Class: Powerful Wizard for the extra feats and max base Intelligence
- Feats:
(1) Skill Focus: Craft (Blacksmithing)
(2) Skill Focus: Craft (Weaponsmithing)
(3) Skill Focus: Craft (Armorsmithing)
(4) Skill Focus: Craft (Magic Equipment)
(5) Skill Focus: Craft (Wondrous Item)
- Item: something with +Intelligence (they don't stack so just use the highest one)

Already have a save with full party, but still want some optimized crafters:
(1) Go to town with an Adventurer's Guild that provides Substitute Character service
(2) Buy Substitute Character slots if you have not already (1000, 4000, and 9000 gold pieces for first three slots)
(3) Move old character into Substitute Character storage
(4) Recruit either Grey Elf or Sun Elf (doesn't matter the class; higher level is better)
(5) Go to town with any Adventurer's Guild
(6) Right click the icon of the new recruit and select "Retrain", which will reset the character to level 1 and allow you to choose the class
(7) Go to character profile and select level up [+] icon to get all the levels back

As explained by the in-game tutorial, the Crafting Skills can be trained at any of the towns with an Artisan's Guild. The Artisan's Guild provides training in Woodcutting, Mining, Blacksmithing, Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, Magic Equipment Crafting, and Wondrous Item Crafting for a small fee of 200 Gold Pieces. The towns with Artisan's Guilds have the icon with the crossed tools over blue flag shown by their city name, which also happens to be the icon to click when visiting the town to access the menu for the training (seen in bottom left corner when inside town). As only three characters can participate in crafting at the same time (1 main and 2 assistants), there is not much benefit training crafters beyond the three characters you picked to be crafters.

The following towns have Artisan's Guilds:

• Bertbury (Mid-Southeast)
  
• Ironthorns (Northwest)
  
• San Ayrr (Central)
  
• Whitehawk City (Northeast)

Don't confuse the Artisan's Guild icon with the Adventurer's Guild icon (crossed swords over yellow flag shown below), which provides Disable Device Training, Open Lock Training, and/or Substitute Character.

Once you have trained your characters with the crafting skills, you can choose the main crafter and two assistants by opening the Skill Menu in the bottom right of screen (icon shown above). Next, select the party icon in the top left (usually the default selection):

Then, scroll down until you reach the party crafting skills section (early game example shown below). This window shows from left to right: Intelligence icon indicating that this stat gives a bonus modifier with increasing levels of Intelligence, Crafting icons, effective party crafting skill ranks, the three party members assigned in the small boxes, and lastly the character with the highest skill level in the large box.

Finally, to select which characters will be used for crafting, select the Skill Users Icon in the bottom left after selecting the Party Crafting Skill as above. The first character you select will be the main crafter (single fist) and the next two will be the assistants (green hands shaking).

Hovering over the party crafting skill section provides even more information that is especially useful when planning an optimized crafting build. Here is an example using Blacksmithing (the other four crafting skills are essentially the same):

• Crafting Type: Blacksmithing
  
• Skill Rank: current rank / max rank
  
• Breakdown of how that skill rank was calculated: Proficiency Rank (ranks already achieved via proficiency points, which are given by crafting), Assigned Rank (term for max skill rank), Intelligence Modifier (boost in rank due to main crafter's Intelligence level), and lastly additional bonuses applied (Skill Focus feat is the only additional bonus that can currently be applied to crafting skills)
  
• Proficiency Points: current progress towards achieving next proficiency rank
  
• Key Ability (again just showing which stat boosts this skill): Intelligence
  
• Class Skill (shows which character classes can learn this skill): Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Rogue, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Dwarven Defender
  
• Special: Tutor (need to learn skill from Artisan's Guild), Trained Only (can't craft without having at least skill rank 1), and 3 maximum combining users (1 main crafter and 2 supports)
  
• Can get +3 Crafting Rank by selecting the Feat "Skill Focus: Craft (Blacksmithing)"

There are two main ways to increase max crafting skill: proficiency based (only increase max level) and non-proficiency based (immediately increase effective crafting skill level).

Proficiency Based Crafting Skill Bonus:

• +3 Bonus Initial Skill Point Assignment
  
• +1 Skill Point Assignment Per Character Level
  
• i.e. +4 at level 1, +5 at level 2, +6 at level 3, etc

Note: Proficiency gains are permanent in that you will not have to re-earn them. However, if max proficiency drops due to skill reset, then that proficiency will not be used until the max is raised again.

Non-Proficiency Based Crafting Skill Bonuses:

• + Crafting Rank based on Intelligence Level
  
• +3 Crafting Rank by selecting the corresponding "Skill Focus: Craft" feat

Note: Maximizing the Non-Proficiency Based Crafting Skill Bonuses before training the crafting proficiency is especially important as having 100% success rate for the training activities below will drastically reduce the amount of materials consumed and increase the amount of proficiency earned. Essentially, the best route for crafting training is to setup everything up so you can successfully perform the training activities, which then allow you to level the skills up to a point where you have 100% chance to make anything you want to make for your team to actually use. The higher tier crafting gets very expensive and uses a lot of rare materials. Also, for the most part the experience gained from making the very expensive items is often not that much more than the training activities. By using the following training activities to train these crafting skills, it is possible to max your crafting level to the point where everything has a 100% success rate without having to craft anything expensive using materials that are very easy to collect using mining or woodcutting.

For the training activities below, I highly recommend using the batch crafting feature as much as possible. Generally, stocking up enough materials to craft at least one hundred at a time (except for magic equipment and wondrous items as explained later) will save a significant amount of time. Usually it takes a few minutes and will cycle through each of the one hundred crafts one at a time. The batch feature lets you go do something else for a few minutes and come back to the game once the crafting has finished.

Blacksmithing also has the Volume Production feature which allows for crafting in sets of 10 at a time with a higher DC requirement (+5). Using Volume Production makes the crafting effectively 10x faster.

Again, highly recommend increasing base Blacksmithing Skill level by increasing Intelligence (generally easiest with a good Intelligence granting item) to the point where you can at least craft the DC12 Blacksmithing items with 100% success before training proficiency. Also, while there are other items that are easy to craft at these stages, the products generated here will be used for training Weaponsmithing next.

Stage 1: DC 12 Blacksmithing

• Mine 400x Sandstone -> Craft 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 2400 Proficiency per 100x batch
  
• Chop 200x Wood -> Craft 100x Charcoal -> 2400 Proficiency per 100x batch
  

After a 1-2 cycles of DC 12 Blacksmithing or if you already can craft DC 15 Blacksmithing Items with 100% success then move onto Stage 2.

Stage 2: DC 15 Blacksmithing:

• Mine 200x Coal -> Craft 100x Coke -> 3000 Proficiency per 100x batch
  
• Mine 200x Slate -> Craft 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 3000 Proficiency per 100x batch
  

After a 1-2 cycles of DC 15 Blacksmithing or if you already can craft DC 18 Blacksmithing Items with 100% success then move onto Stage 3.

Stage 3: DC 18 Blacksmithing:

• Mine 100x Coal + (100x Charcoal made above) -> Craft 100x Coke -> 3600 Proficiency per 100x batch
  
  
• Mine 200x Iron Ore and 100x Limestone + (100x Coke made above) -> Craft 100x Iron Ingot -> 3600 Proficiency per 100x batch
  

Repeat the above activities to generate enough materials for Weaponsmithing training. Blacksmithing Skill Level will cap before Weaponsmithing. So it is best to focus on using Blacksmithing to prepare specifically for Weaponsmithing.

Stage 4: DC 20 Blacksmithing

• 100x Coal + 100x Wood -> 100x Coke -> 4000 Proficiency
  

Special Feature Unique to Blacksmithing: 10x faster (real life time) and takes half as much in-game time to make items ten at a time instead of one at a time at the cost of increasing DC requirement by 5.


Final Stage: Volume Production (VP)

• Stage 1 VP Recipes: DC 17 (instead of DC 12)
  
  
• Stage 2 VP Recipes: DC 20 (instead of DC 15)
  
  
  
• Stage 3 VP Recipes: DC 23 (instead of DC 18)
  
  
  
• Stage 4 VP Recipe: DC 25 (instead of DC 20)
  

Again, highly recommend having enough base crafting skill to be able to craft DC 12 items with 100% success. For Weaponsmithing Proficiency Training, I recommend either crafting ammunition or throwing weapons (whichever type you use the most) since they are consumable and will end up saving you money in the long run. While a few of the light blades are just as cheap and easy to make as ammunition/throwing weapons, they sell for practically nothing and you end up essentially wasting the crafting materials in exchange for proficiency.

DC 12 Ammunition (in 100x batches):

• Arrow: 200x Wood + 100x Iron Ingot + 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 3000x Arrows -> 6000 XP
  
  
• Bolt: 200x Wood + 100x Iron Ingot + 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 2000x Arrows -> 6000 XP
  
  
• Sling Bullet: 200x Iron Ingot + 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 2000x Sling Bullets -> 6000 XP
  

Thrown (in 100x batches):

• DC 12 Dart: 100x Iron Ingot + 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 100x Darts -> 6000 XP
  
  
• DC 18 Shuriken: 100x Iron Ingot + 100x Coarse Grindstone -> 100x Shurikens -> 9000 XP
  

Alternatively, if you run out of materials and just want a simple crafting experience, then crafting Club using 3 Wood each is another good option:

• DC 12 Club: 300x Wood -> 100x Club
  

For Armorsmithing, there is really just one item to use for training: the Light Shield. The rest of the items require a significant amount of items that cannot be farmed easily (by mining or woodcutting) or use too many resources per crafting cycle to be useful for training. That said, there are multiple versions of the light shield worth crafting as your Armorsmithing Level increases. The DC 20 Masterwork Light Shields will be especially important for both Magic Equipment and Wondrous Item crafting. Thus, I recommend making as many Masterwork Light Shields as you can once you have 100% crafting chance at DC 20.

• DC 11: 500x Wood -> 100x Light Shields -> 5500 XP
  
  
• DC 20: 50x Wood + 710 Gold Pieces -> 10x Masterwork Light Shields -> 1500 XP
  

While there are a ton of amazing things to make via the Magic Equipment crafting skill, the vast majority of them are quite expensive and hard to make. For training purposes, I've found the best strategy is to simply enchant the lowest quality enchantable item to +1 magic (blue diamond with blue plus inside). Note that if your party members are high level, then the default enchantment will likely be much higher than +1 and you will have to manually set it to +1 each time by clicking the [–] icon in the bottom left until the number next to it shows a [+1]. And it happens that the cheapest craftable item is as you likely already guessed... the masterwork light shield. In order to be disenchanted an item has to be masterwork quality and not ammunition.

Now that we have chosen the item to craft, where are we going to get all the Arcane Dust? This is where pairing this training with Wondrous Item Skill Training works out so well. Wondrous Item Skill Training is even more expensive and hard to make. In fact, there is not a single craftable Wondrous Item that is easy or cheap. However, the Wondrous Item Skill gives a very important ability in addition to being able to craft wondrous items: Disenchantment. Disenchantment (the very last crafting option at the bottom of the Wondrous Item window) destroys a magical item and gives you arcane residue. It is actually a rather efficient process to the point where you can get back the same amount of arcane residue that was put into an item when it is disenchanted at the cost of the item being destroyed. Thus, once we have at least one Arcane Dust (either purchased from shop or extracted from any magic quality item), it is possible to setup a cycle of enchantment and disenchantment which constantly trains both Magic Equipment and Wondrous Item skills at the same time as long as you have enough masterwork light shields and gold pieces to keep the cycle going.

Note: Magic Equipment also has a disenchantment option, although if you disenchant with Magic Equipment then you will not get the Wondrous Item Proficiency you could have earned with it. That said, if for some reason your Wondrous Item Proficiency is higher than your Magic Equipment proficiency then you can use a similar strategy as below with the cycle going through Magic Equipment both ways to double the Magic Equipment XP.

Strategy for Simultaneous Proficiency Training of Magic Equipment and Wondrous Item Skills

• Craft Masterwork Light Shields
  
• Extract Arcane Dust from Magic rarity items (blue)
  
• DC 15 Enchant Masterwork Light Shield to +1: Costs 1x Arcane Dust + 325 Gold Pieces -> 150 XP
  
  
• DC 15 Disenchant +1 Magic Light Shield -> 1x Arcane Dust + 150 XP
  
  
• Repeat the above cycle until skills are maxed

Once you have your skill level high enough to make it possible to successfully craft the items you want to make, it can still be a challenge to actually get everything you need to craft it and decide how you want to go about the crafting. Here an example will be demonstrated using the +2 Magnificent Belt (+4 to all Abilities):

Multiple Ways to get +2 Magnificent Belt:

• Craft +2 Magnificent Belt using one of three recipes
  
• Craft +1 Magnificent Belt using one of three recipes and then upgrade to +2
  
• Find +2 Magnificent Belt in Dungeon (rare drop and not guaranteed)
  
• Find +1 Magnificent Belt in Dungeon (rare drop and not guaranteed) and upgrade to +2

Given the rarity of dungeon drops and since this is a crafting guide, we will go through the first two crafting methods.

Recipes for Crafting +2 Magnificent Belt

• Recipe 1: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 1x Rich Purple Corundum, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 4x Arcane Shard, 40K Gold Pieces
  
• Recipe 2: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 1x Blue Star Sapphire, 1x Star Ruby, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 4x Arcane Shard, 39K Gold Pieces
  
• Recipe 3: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 3x Alexandrite, 3x Violet Garnet, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 4x Arcane Shard, 38K Gold Pieces
  

The main differences between the recipes are which gemstones are used and how many gold pieces it costs. The most expensive recipe (40K gold pieces) only uses 1x gemstone while the least expensive recipe (38K) uses 6x gemstones. Gemstones are rare drops while mining and this allows the player to decide whether or not to mine more for the gemstones or just pay a couple extra thousand gold pieces. Leather and Velvet are fairly common drops from combat and the shop. Gold Ingot and Platinum Ingot are also from drops and shop, although you can craft them if you want (likely will not need to since they are such common drops from enemies). The Arcane Shards are mostly from disenchanting Epic items, although the shop sells them as well.

Recipes for Crafting +1 Magnificent Belt

• Recipe 1: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 1x Rich Purple Corundum, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 3x Arcane Shard, 40K Gold Pieces
  
• Recipe 2: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 1x Blue Star Sapphire, 1x Star Ruby, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 3x Arcane Shard, 39K Gold Pieces
  
• Recipe 3: 9x Leather, 9x Velvet, 4x Gold Ingot, 4x Platinum Ingot, 3x Alexandrite, 3x Violet Garnet, 1x Dragon Heartblood, 3x Arcane Shard, 38K Gold Pieces
  

Compared to the +2 recipe, these use 3 less Leather/Velvet, 1 less Gold/Platinum, about the same amount of gemstones (except recipe 3), 1 less Arcane Shard and cost a little over 1/10th the gold pieces. Note that recipe 3 drops the gemstone cost in exchange for not decreasing the gold pieces cost from recipe 2 to 3.

Then to upgrade the +1 Magnificent Belt to +2, it costs the difference in materials and gold pieces: 3x Leather, 3x Velvet, 1x Gold Ingot, 1x Platinum Ingot, 1x Arcane Shard, and 34K Gold Pieces.


Thus, you end up spending about the same amount of materials and gold pieces whether going straight to +2 or starting with +1 before upgrading to +2. Note that you get 250 XP for the +1 crafting and 300 XP for the upgrade to +2, while you only get 300 XP for the +2 crafting. So the +1 then upgrade to +2 will give you more XP for the same cost.

Personally, I still think the gold pieces cost is way too high considering you are crafting the item yourself, although I can see why they might have done so to prevent players from earning gold from crafting and to make these powerful items even harder to come by. Here is the shop value of the item compared with the selling cost:

+2 Magnificent Belt

• Item Value (Shop Selling Price): 96K Gold Pieces (100% Value)
  
  
• Sell Value (Shop Buying Price): 19K Gold Pieces (20% Value)
  
  
• Crafting Cost (not including materials cost): 38-40K Gold Pieces (~40% Value)

+1 Magnificent Belt

• Item Value (Shop Selling Price): 24K Gold Pieces (100% Value)
  
  
• Sell Value (Shop Buying Price): 4.8K Gold Pieces (20% Value)
  
  
• Crafting Cost (not including materials cost): 4.7-5.7K Gold Pieces (~20% Value)

Some other items that I recommend making:
- 6x Boots of Levitation (enough for entire party) as there isn't really any downside to using these. They don't scale and there is no better item for that slot. So once you get them for the entire party you will never need another shoe item again.
- Extraordinary Counterstrike Bracers (for frontline tanks) - the 75% chance to counterstrike when an enemy misses is huge as most enemies attack with melee and if your tank has high enough defense (or if you buff the character with something like blur) then enemies tend to miss fairly often. Again, these don't scale either so once you have the item you will never have to upgrade it.
- While legend weapons/armor/accessories/etc can be amazing with the right enchantments, often what you can craft (limited to +10 since max level is 40 and you get +1 every 4 levels) will be much lower tier than that which you can find as drops.

Example of a +17 drop from Mining Cave Floor 80 (Current Final Mining Floor) enemies:

Crafting can seem daunting at first. Most of the good craftable items are very expensive (cost 40% final value of item in gold pieces despite only selling for 20% value), use rare items, and without a high crafting level have a very low crafting success rate. As such don't expect to make money as crafting in this game is a huge sink for gold pieces and materials. However, by using the strategies above, it is possible to level up your crafting skill using cheap and common materials until those same items have a 100% crafting success rate. If you only need a few items and the success rate is 100%, then the relative crafting cost goes down significantly and it becomes much more useful to your party. It is more a way to spend a lot of gold pieces and resources to get the exact item made that you want for 60% less gold pieces than the store would offer it minus a bunch of rare crafting materials. Again, this is not a way to make gold pieces, but rather a way to make powerful equipment. In addition to being able to make powerful equipment, this is also a way to generate specific items for town quests as well since once you have the materials you can just craft what you need instead of having to hunt through shops to find it. And you will end up saving Gold Pieces this was since it is cheaper to craft than to buy anyways. Hopefully this guide has helped to make crafting those rare items more feasible and fun.

Other Guides in Series:

• Complete Guide to Mining
  
• Complete Guide to Woodcutting
  
• Complete Guide to Wholesale Trading