Crafting and Trades

Trades and their stations

Eight trades on the Wheel of Skills each own their stations, and only someone who holds the trade may use them. The first time you set your hand to one, you take the trade up for one point and start at Novice. If every one of your 300 points is in use, set a skill to Lower in your skills menu (K) first.

A craft you finish at a real bench is work for its trade, and a costlier piece counts for more. The first time you make something you have never made before, it counts three times over: the full bonus lasts for your first 25 different pieces in a trade and then grows smaller, so a new recipe always teaches a little more than an old one. This goes for Blacksmith, Alchemist, Cook and Tailor; tempering does not count. The Leveling Guide has the numbers.

Mining, woodcutting and the other gathering now have a page of their own: Gathering and Labour.

Smithing

A Blacksmith works through seven craft tiers. Your craft tier follows your Blacksmith points on the Wheel of Skills, and each tier opens a group of material families:

Since 10 October about 580 weapons and armour pieces that could not be made before have forge recipes, among them new sets of Bronze, Copper, Brass, Adamantium and Mithril.

Techniques

Every Basic family is open to any Blacksmith. Above Basic, each family is a technique: you need to know it as well as reach its tier. A few need nothing more than the tier: Steel, Brass and Goblin work, and Imperial and Guard work, which follow Steel. Gilded Elven is worked with the Elven technique, and Adamantium with Steel Plate’s.

Try to forge something above your tier, or a family you have not learned, and the forge tells you why. Your materials come back when you close the menu.

Learning a technique

• From a schematic. Every technique you must learn has its Schematics book, except Orcish and Aetherium. Only a Scholar can follow one, and two things must be true: your Blacksmith craft tier reaches the book’s tier, and your Scholar tier is high enough (any Scholar for Standard to Superior schematics, Apprentice for Rare, Adept for Legendary and Mythic). Read one too early and you keep the book. Once you learn from it, the book is used up, like a spell tome; a book for a technique you already know stays yours.
• As an apprentice. Forge 10 pieces of a family close beside a Blacksmith of 75 points or more who knows its technique and has its craft tier, and the technique is yours for good. Your own craft tier must already reach the family’s. The closely held crafts are never taught this way: Mithril, Glass, Ayleid, Glacial Crystal, Ebony, Stalhrim, Daedric, Madness and Dragon. The only way to learn one now is its book.
• By birth. Every Orc smith knows Orcish, and every Dark Elf smith knows Bonemold and Chitin, once they reach the craft tier. Orcish gear is forged only by Orcs: anyone else may only temper it.
• Amber, a Valenwood craft, is never found by reading or in a chest: learn it as an apprentice, or from a schematic copied by a Scholar who knows it. Aetherium is taught only in roleplay.

Smiths from before the rework kept their experience: the first time they logged in after it, they learned every technique their craft tier already allowed.

Where schematics are found

A Scholar’s reading now and then turns up a schematic folded into the binding. Some are found only inside the ruins of their own kind, and Ebony and Stalhrim only by a Master Scholar:

Others lie in the big chests of the places their craft comes from, and in boss chests. The harder the claim, the better the chest; Dungeons and Expeditions explains the difficulties.

Never found in a chest: Glacial Crystal, Ebony, Stalhrim, Daedric, Madness, Dragon, Bonemold, Chitin, Orcish, Amber and Aetherium. No Chitin schematic is found in Cyrodiil yet.

Schematics are not sold. Neither the Synod nor a blacksmith’s ledger sells them. A schematic you find is a book like any other, though: keep it, trade it or pass it on. A Scholar who has learned a technique can also copy its schematic at a Scholars’ Ledger for a sheet of paper, within a daily limit, if their Scholar tier is high enough to read it. The closely held schematics can never be copied.

Your Blacksmithing page

The Blacksmithing page of your journal (F3) shows your craft tier and points, the techniques you know and how you learned them, what each family makes and how much of it your materials would cover, and where to learn the rest.

Recipes that asked for a perk

Some forge recipes once asked for a Smithing perk. Here your Blacksmith rank stands in for it: Steel, Elven and Dwarven recipes at Apprentice, Orcish and advanced armour (Steel Plate and Scaled) at Adept, Glass and Ebony at Expert, Daedric and Dragon at Master. Such a recipe needs that rank as well as its craft tier and technique.

Books on smithing

The skill books that teach smithing teach a Blacksmith here too: reading one adds to your Blacksmith progress, once for each book, within the usual hourly and daily limits. Someone who is not a smith learns nothing from them.

Tempering

Only a Blacksmith can improve gear at a grindstone or armour workbench, and your Blacksmith rank caps how far: Fine at Novice, Superior at Apprentice, Exquisite at Adept, Epic at Expert and Legendary at Master. Most pieces also belong to a family, whose craft tier sets how far a piece can go: up to two tiers above its own, never past tier 5 (Rare), and never past your own craft tier. Each tier above the item’s own is one improvement level, so most gear tops out at Superior. (Fine to Legendary here are the improvement levels, as the game names them; Basic to Mythic are craft tiers.)

Faction gear goes further. Since 11 October it improves one level for each of your craft tiers, from Fine at Basic up to Legendary at the Legendary tier, though never past what your Blacksmith rank allows, so Legendary takes a Master. That includes the Officer’s Sword, the General’s Sword and the Penitus Oculatus Sword.

Faction gear

A faction’s armour and weapons are made only by its own smiths (at the forge) and tailors (at the loom and tanning rack), or by its leader. They make it at any forge or loom, whatever land its designs come from, and a faction’s smith needs neither the craft tier nor the technique for it. Anyone else is told who makes it. The Holds & Factions Guide lists the factions and their ranks.

• The Dawnguard make the silver weapons of the Silver Hand as well as their own gear; the Mantle of the Silver Hand stays the Silver Hand’s. Every crossbow, plain, enhanced or Dwarven, is Dawnguard work. Bolts are open to every smith.
• The Imperial Legion makes Legion gear, the Imperial General’s and the Emperor’s sets, the Legate’s armour and the Officer’s Cloak among them. The Officer’s Sword and the General’s Sword go to the Legion’s smiths, and the Penitus Oculatus Sword to the smiths of the Penitus Oculatus or the Legion.
• Orc clan gear, the Orcish sets among it, belongs to the strongholds’ clans.
• The College of Whispers has its own armour since 12 October: Witchplate with red runes, a heavy set of hood, cuirass, gauntlets and greaves. It is forged only by a College Artificer, the College’s Blacksmith rank, or by its leader.
• The Great Houses keep their own cloaks as faction gear. The Rhino Beetle Cloak, the Bonesaint Cloak and the Redoran Watchman Cloak looked the same as the Houses’ cloaks, so since 12 October they can no longer be made at the loom or the forge.
• The Vigil of Stendarr owns its whole set since 13 October: the Vigil mail, plate, armour, coif, helms, shield, boots, greaves and gauntlets and the Vigilant Mace and Warhammer are forged only by Vigil Smiths, and the Vigil Robes and Hood made only by Vigil Tailors, or by the Vigil’s leader.

Faction gear is evened out for war. Light faction armour is as good as Glass and heavy as Steel Plate; faction shields match Orcish (heavy) or Glass (light). The weapons of the Imperial Legion and the Penitus Oculatus, the Silver Hand’s silver weapons, the Orc clans’ weapons and the Dawnguard’s war axe and warhammer hit like the Glass weapon of their type, and the Legion’s three swords share a base damage of 12. Since 12 October the Stormcloak Sword, War Axe, Bearded Axe, Greatsword and Battleaxe have the same base damage as the other factions’ weapons: 12, 13, 13, 21 and 22.

Crafting follows the land

Gear is made where it belongs. What you may make depends on the province you stand in, and during the alpha that is Cyrodiil. In Cyrodiil the land allows the common work found everywhere and the styles of Cyrodiil and its neighbours, Imperial, Cyrodilic and Elven work among them. The arms of Skyrim, Morrowind and Solstheim are not made here, and most Ancient Nord, Dwarven, Falmer, Nordic, Stalhrim, Bonemold and Chitin designs are among them. Knowing a technique does not change where its gear may be forged.

A people can always make their own, wherever they stand:

Bretons and Argonians wait for High Rock and Black Marsh. Your people’s styles still need the craft tier and the technique, and a faction’s own smiths make its gear anywhere. A craft the land refuses costs you nothing: your materials come back when you step away from the bench.

Cooking is free everywhere. Every dish can be cooked in every land.

Guard armour

Of Cyrodiil’s guard armour, only Bruma’s can be forged for now. The guard armour of Anvil, Bravil, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Kvatch, Leyawiin and Skingrad (armour, helmet, boots, gauntlets and shield) does not show in game, so whoever wore it looked invisible or bald. Since 12 October nobody can forge or improve it: try, and your materials come back when you close the menu. None of it drops as loot either.

Pieces already made are taken back, and whoever carried one gets back the materials for forging it. A piece no recipe made, boots and gauntlets among them, returns nothing, and neither does a piece found in a chest. Bruma’s guard armour is unchanged, and it is still the work of the County of Bruma’s own smiths.

Smelting

A smelter burns fuel. Every ingot you smelt costs 2 firewood, and most metals need charcoal as well:

Short of charcoal, the smelter burns 3 firewood for each piece missing. Without enough fuel the smelt is refused and your materials come back when you close the menu. Woodcutters get firewood and charcoal at the chopping block (see Gathering and Labour).

The smelter puts leftovers to use too: tin and copper make bronze, and Dwemer scrap smelts to Dwarven metal.

Enchanting

Only an Enchanter can lay an enchantment, on weapons, armour and jewellery. Its strength is measured against the strongest enchantment of the same effect on the game’s own gear: half of it at Novice, three quarters at Apprentice, the full strength at Adept, one and a half times at Expert and twice at Master.

• You learn an enchantment by disenchanting an item that carries it. The item is used up, and disenchanting trains your Enchanter skill.
• Capturing a soul with Soul Trap trains Enchanter a little as well, up to 10 souls an hour, the bigger souls more, once you have taken up the trade. A Soul Trap weapon whose charge has run out no longer fills soul gems.
• What you learn is kept from one login to the next, and every enchantment you have learned comes back on its own when you use an arcane enchanter.
• Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Enchanting can be learned, but they cannot be put on an item on this server. Solstheim’s Chaos Damage can.
• When the server refuses an enchantment, it tells you why. The item keeps its previous state and no soul is used.

Alchemy and brewing

Only an Alchemist can brew. Your tier decides how strong a potion or poison comes out, from weak at Novice to the strongest brews at Master, and each brew is work for your Alchemist. Using an alchemy lab also shows you which potions the ingredients you carry can make, and which two to combine.

Brewing drinks

Crouch and use an alchemy lab to open the Brewing list; standing, the lab works as before. The list holds every drink your Alchemist tier allows, with what it needs, and marks the ones you lack ingredients for. Each click brews one.

Skooma is forbidden in the Empire.

The Draught of Revival

An Alchemist of Expert tier who has learned its recipe can brew the Draught of Revival at any alchemy lab from troll fat, fly amanita and yellow cinnabar polypore. The recipe turns up now and then in a boss’s chest. Pour the draught on a fallen player with E to bring them back.

Tailoring

Only a Tailor uses the loom, where clothing and cloth armour are made. Backpacks, satchels and pouches are made there too. A bag you wear shows on your character and adds to what you can carry: a backpack +50, a satchel +25 and a pouch +10. A cape can be worn with a backpack or a satchel.

Since 12 October your Tailor rank decides what the loom will make for you, as a smith’s craft tier does at the forge. A piece’s tier follows what it is worth:

A piece above your rank is refused, and your materials come back when you close the menu. A faction’s own tailors, and its leader, still make its gear at any rank (see Faction gear). The Wheel of Skills shows the level each rank starts at.

Linen wraps turn up in dungeon chests, most often in Nordic tombs, and go into linen capes, robes and hoods.

Cooking

Only a Cook may use cooking pots, spits and ovens. A cooked meal fills you far better than raw food: a meal eases your hunger by 35, a snack by 15, a drink by 8 and a raw ingredient by only 4. A dish with more ingredients counts for more Cook work, so the stew teaches more than the grilled leeks.

Breaking things down

What you no longer need can be broken back into materials at the station of its trade: metal gear at a smelter (Blacksmith), hides and leather at a tanning rack (Skinner), clothing at a loom (Tailor), and books at a writing desk or the Scholars’ Ledger in the Synod Conclave (Scholar).

• Gear with any metal in it breaks down at the smelter, so a steel helmet gives back its steel. Breaking down metal gear needs the Blacksmith rank that works its metal: a Novice can already break down iron, steel and Elven gear.
• Metals above steel come back as steel ingots.
• A piece that took two or more of its main material always gives at least one back. When it took only one, your share is the chance of getting it back.
• A bound book gives two sheets of paper and a leather strip; a note, one sheet.
• Worn gear is never offered, and neither is anything enchanted, named, tempered, poisoned or charged.
• Dragon gear gives back its other materials, never its dragon bone or scales.
• Making again something you broke down in the last hour teaches your trade nothing.

Showing your work

Weapon racks, shield racks and dagger displays in homes hold your own weapons; Homes and Property explains who may use them.

What no forge makes

• Dragon bone and dragon scales come only from a dragon’s body, skinned by a Master Skinner. No loot, shop, reward, recipe or breakdown gives them. Dragons are away for now.
• Artifacts are never crafted and never found as loot; they come to the champions of the realm through the story. Harmony and Mayhem, the two swords that came into the world on 11 October, are artifacts.
• A few pieces were far stronger than intended and can no longer be forged or improved by anyone: the Dawnguard War Axe SPR, the Enhanced Crossbow SPR and the armour of the Lost Ark Reborn Paladin Legendary set, in both its versions. Since 12 October the two weapons no longer deal many times what they should: the Dawnguard War Axe SPR now has a base damage of 13 and the Enhanced Crossbow SPR 19.
• Giant’s clubs were far too strong in players’ hands. Since 12 October no giant’s club can be forged or improved, and every club in a pack or a chest has been exchanged for a Steel Warhammer. Since 13 October none drops as loot either.