Post by Ashurr on May 23, 2011 2:30:14 GMT -5
U9 Crafting
Have you always wanted to make a magical item of your very own… from scratch? Are mundane magical items filling your coffers with coin, but breaking your back in your backpack? Then we have good news for you friends!
Thanks to cooperation between the noble Dragonmarked House of Cannith and the scholars of The Twelve, the secrets of crafting are now available for the everyman! Whether you’re a face-smashing fighter or a spell casting sorcerer, you – yes YOU – can explore the rewarding and fun world of crafting using eldritch devices!
Contents
1 Getting Started
2 Why Craft?
3 What Every Crafter Needs To Know
3.1 The Symbols of Crafting
3.2 Crafting Steps
4 Deconstruction
5 Becoming A Crafter
5.1 Earning Skill
5.2 Making Your First Crafted Item
5.2.1 Finding A Recipe
5.2.2 Gathering What You Need
5.2.2.1 Crafting Shards
5.2.2.2 Keying Items For Crafting
5.3 Finishing Your Item
5.3.1 Buying ingredients, essences, & more
6 Beyond The Basics
6.1 Crafting Multiple Effects
6.2 Maximum Enchantment Levels
6.3 Adding Shards of Potential
Getting Started
If you’re interested in diving into the exciting world of House Cannith’s new and improved eldritch crafting, visit the Crafting Hall!
The House Kundarak has graciously renovated space for House Cannith’s new Crafting Hall, located conveniently close to the Marketplace Gate and Locksmith Square!
Why Craft?
Become a master of craft schools, or scavenge an inventory surplus for useful things to barter with - The choice is yours!
Not yet convinced that crafting is right for you? Here are a few things you can do with House Cannith eldritch devices:
Customized equipment including weapons, clothing, and trinkets!
Liquidate your inventory down to more easily storable (and sometimes even more valuable) components!
Create items with more power… and lower minimum levels!
Easier access to uncommon magical effect combinations
Enhance the inventory slots of your choosing
What Every Crafter Needs To Know
You’re ready to take the plunge, and we’re here to help! House Cannith has thoughtfully placed simplified instructions around the crafting halls. They’re rune based, and so easy that even an illiterate barbarian could figure them out!
Let’s look at these symbols in detail:
The Symbols of Crafting
The Shield – Any unnamed (random) treasure OR a “craftable” item
The Bottle – The solvents used to deconstruct an item down into its most basic and useful form.
The Bits – The deconstructed essence of power and energy that come out after your item has been ground up in an eldritch device. Like coffee! Only magical. Much more magical.
The Shard - A crafting Shard!
The Bag – Crafting ingredients!
The Shiny – Your finished product!
The Chain – If you see this symbol, remember that your crafting is going to bind to you!
As you can see, by combining symbols you will end up with varying results. House Cannith has placed important symbol formulas above each wing of the crafting hall to help you discover what crafters can do with each of our amazing eldritch devices!
Crafting Steps
Let’s explore the crafting process together! It’s very straight forward… take a look at this handy flow chart created by a master Cannith craftsman:
Okay, so that may have been a little too much to process in one sitting. Lars Heyton offered this advice to beginning craftsmen:
"Long story short, you need to get the skills and the stuff to make it happen if you’re going to craft items yourself. Some crafting, like Shard creation, requires crafting mastery to do well. Others, like sticking existing Shards into 'craftable' items, are so straight-forward that you could succeed just by rolling your face on the eldritch device practically."
There are three types of crafting:
Deconstruction
Shard creation
Item imbuing
The most basic form of crafting that everyone – even a complete novice – can readily do is deconstruction, and it's the part of crafting you’re most likely to engage in as a beginner.
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is easy and useful! Just listen to this testimony from one of our satisfied customers:
“You just place a piece of magical treasure and a solvent into an eldritch device and BAM! The device distills the item down into an essence.” – Jeets Shimis, Professional Adventurer
The heart of crafting is essences, which are used during the shard creation phase of crafting. Essences are made by capturing the magic from items using a Deconstruction Eldritch Device.
Every unnamed magical item has three properties: enhancement bonuses, prefixes, and suffixes. By placing an item in a deconstruction device with the proper solvent, you can harness the magic right off it! Here are the three "harvestable" properties:
Enhancement bonuses are the + values on an item
Prefixes are the effects at the beginning of an item’s name
Suffixes are the effects listed at the end of an item’s name
So if you see a +4 Flaming Greatsword of Dragonbane, you can strip the magic from it and get some essences to use during crafting. Does this mean you need to go out and harvest every weapon that has “dragon bane” suffixes just to craft a dragonbane shard?
“Of course not! Every magic effect doesn’t become its own brand of essence… we’d never have figured these devices out if that were true. No, every magic effect becomes one of the essence types, and there are only so many of those.” – Toven d’Cannith, House Cannith Artificer
Look up a recipe and you’ll see essence types listed in the ingredients. In the case of “Dragonbane,” the recipe uses essences of the “divine” type. Not only can you deconstruct weapons that have “Dragonbane” on them, but you can also deconstruct any item that has a divine prefix or suffix. Some examples include: “Resistance,” “Power V,” and “Magical Beast Bane”!
Also, depending on how powerful a particular magical effect is, you'll receive varying amounts and sizes of (greater or lesser) essences.
Remember: you can only keep one property from an item: the enhancement, prefix, suffix, or the item itself. You can’t undo a deconstruction, so weigh your options and deconstruct carefully!
Here’s a tip from Channa d’Cannith:
“When you place a magical item in a deconstruction device, pay attention to the individual recipes listed. One item could yield greater or fewer types of a particular essence, or even two types of essences, based on which solvent you pour on it. I keep several types of solvents on hand so I can decide which property to strip at my leisure.”
Image:comparedeconstruct.jpg Image:solvents.jpg
Use any of the following solvents to gather magic:
Enhancement stripper – gathers enhancement bonuses
Prefix stripper – Gathers prefixes
Suffix stripper – Gathers suffixes
Supreme stripper – Refurbishes an item to make it “craftable”
So you’ve got a bunch of essences… now what? The most obvious thing to do with essences is bargain them to other adventurers who want them for their crafting; but why let them have all the fun when you can use those essences too!
Becoming A Crafter
Becoming a master craftsman is one of many great self-improvements a Xen’drik citizen can work toward, and the key to mastery is practice! You can get practice through:
Deconstructing items
Creating crafting Shards
Combining Shards with craftable items
All available recipes for creating, combining, or deconstructing are conveniently located inside each Cannith Eldritch Device! We’re also working constantly to discover new recipes!
Earning Skill
You can train in three schools of crafting:
Divine
Arcane
Elemental
Mastery within each school determines how successful you’ll be with a given recipe from that crafting school. When you successfully complete a recipe within one of the three crafting schools, you earn crafting experience for that school! As you increase in crafting level, you can attempt recipes of greater difficulty. To check your progress, open the crafting tab in your character sheet:
On each eldritch device you can see the “chance to succeed” listed for any recipe you select; a higher the percentage equals better odds! Should you fail at a recipe, there is a risk of losing some of your ingredients. All House Cannith Eldritch Devices are equipped to prevent you from attempting any recipe that you have under a 50% chance of succeeding on. Why? Because:
"Cannith cares about crafters*"!
Pay attention to your recipe as you craft it – while your chance of success increases as you gain skill, the amount of experience you earn from that recipe diminishes as you get better at crafting. Attempting “risky” recipes may cause you to lose some ingredients in the process but it can also be an excellent source of large experience payouts! Once you have some crafting levels under your belt, the types of items you can make expands greatly. There will come a time when you out-level a given recipe. When this happens, you should switch to a new recipe that gives you experience, allowing you to continue progressing your skills.
*Subject to terms and conditions. Amounts of caring perceived by crafter is subjective. House Cannith is not responsible for hurt pride or other emotional damages resulting from perceived deficiency in caring amounts.
Making Your First Crafted Item
Let’s make an item! First you should decide what weapon or item you’d like to make. No ideas? That’s ok, we can browse to find something nice to make too! With that in mind, head over to the Crafting Hall.
If you’re new to crafting, speak with the Crafting Hall Greeter "Maker," who can point you in the right direction.
Finding A Recipe
To do any kind of crafting you need a recipe. Fortunately, House Cannith has organized recipes into handy "Recipe Books" that are built into each Eldritch Crafting Device! Click on the device to open the Recipe Book automatically, and then browse or search the available recipes to find one that you’d like to make. You can even add ingredients that you already possess to see what recipes use them!
Since you’re new to crafting, let’s start with a nice easy recipe that yields crafting experience for the Divine school: Greater Ardor I Item
For this recipe, it looks like you’ll need a Greater Ardor I Shard and a craftable Weapon or Shield…
Gathering What You Need
Crafting Shards
Crafted Shards can be made using the Cannith Eldritch Devices in the Crafting Hall. Head over to the Shard Device and search for the Greater Ardor I shard to see what ingredients and essences are needed to make it.
Looks like we’ll need some lesser good essences, and Siberys Dragonshard fragments.
Crafting Tip: Don’t confuse dragonshards with crafting Shards! Crafting Shards are created artificially using Eldritch Devices. Dragonshards are magical crystals that descend to our world from the skies!
Ingredients and essences come in many forms, and desirability varies based on what it is you’re trying to make! Most ingredients, like Siberys dragonshard fragments, can be found through collectibles (those sparkly objects you see during quests) and treasure chests.
Essences come predominantly from chests, quest reward lists, and deconstruction!
Crafting Tip: If you’re having trouble gathering the ingredients and essences for one type of recipe, try searching in the device for recipes that use ingredients you already have. You can drop an essence and/or ingredient in the “Your Ingredients” field and the device will automatically pull up any recipes that use them!
You’ve found some Siberys dragonshard fragments and some “lesser good” essences. Place them in the device and click “craft.” If you fail to craft the recipe, the device will notify you and you may lose some of the ingredients in the attempt. If you’re successful, the device will create a crafting Shard. The Shard will automatically be placed in your inventory (or ingredients bag if you have one)! The "Greater Ardor I" Shard has a success chance of 95% for a level 1 crafter, so let’s go for it!
After successfully creating your Shard, key an item so you can place the Shard on it.
Keying Items For Crafting
To make that "Greater Ardor I" item, you’ll need a craftable “blank” item to stick the Shard into. Run an un-named magical item through a deconstruction device with a solvent to strip it down and prime it for customization.
How do you know what item you should key for crafting? Check your recipe at the Eldritch Device, as some Shards can only be placed on particular item types, such as weapons. For the "Greater Ardor I" recipe, it specifies a weapon or shield. Let's pretend you have a +3 Adamantine Greatsword lying around ( and you’re not that fond of it), so let’s deconstruct that!
Keep in mind -- different solvents remove different properties off a weapon or any item. To key your chosen item, use the solvent that removes practically everything from an item – you want no magic, no enhancements, and no race restrictions to remain. Visit Courtney d’Cannith in the north wing or Reginald Belspry in the south wing, and ask to purchase “deconstruction materials”. Dust of Disjunction will get the job done perfectly!
Even with disjunction dust, some aspects of an item will be retained: guild augment slots, permanent damage to the item, bound state, and the material an item is made of will remain. So if you key a slightly damaged bound-to-character “Adamantine Greatsword with a Tiny Guild Augment Slot”, it would still be a slightly damaged bound-to-character “Adamantine Greatsword with a Tiny Guild Augment Slot” after passing through the deconstruction device – except it would be keyed for crafting!
With your +3 Greatsword and Dust of Disjunction in hand, approach the Deconstruction Device. Place your two items in the device, and press the “Deconstruct” button. The device will automatically deposit your refurbished item in your inventory.
"Don’t worry about trying to pick up the little bags that pop out of the deconstruction device. They’re just for show. It’s pretty mystical and intangible when the device does its thing, so the devices are rigged to spit out ethereal bags because they make the crafters feel happy." – Lars Heyton
Note that your weapon loses all of its magical affects, but gains a property called “craftable”. This means it’s ready to be imbued with crafting shards!
Finishing Your Item
You’ve followed the recipe. You have the crafting shard. You have the "craftable" blank item. Now, it’s time to finish the item! Head over to an item crafting wing. Pay attention to the symbols above the door – if you see a chain/padlock symbol, it means you will be creating a bound item!
Place your Shard and keyed blank item into the device. Be sure to review the recipe, amount of experience, and chance to craft. You want to make sure there are no surprises before you click “craft.” If everything looks good, click the “Craft” button, and your new item will automatically be deposited in your inventory!
Once you have the item, you can use it, pass it through a shared bank to an alternate character, or deconstruct it to try a different recipe! You can even deconstruct it using prefix or suffix solvents to get some of your essences back!
As you start making items you want to keep and use, note that you can add multiple effects to your items! You can add a prefix, suffix, and in some cases even enhancement values!
Buying ingredients, essences, & more
You can often purchase some types of crafting materials from the following places:
The Auction House – be sure to check the “Ingredients” and “Collectible” categories for good deals! You can also buy items and weapons to strip effects from or key for crafting!
The Trade Channel – type /trade in the chat window to haggle with other adventurers who may have the things you’re looking for!
The DDO Store – Use Ctrl-S to access the Store and check the “crafting” category to see what’s available!
If you have too much of a particular kind or size of essence, visit one of the Master Craftsmen in the Crafting Hall. They can help you exchange the unwanted essences for other sizes and types!
Beyond The Basics
After increasing your crafting experience and making some items, you might wonder – what’s next? Where can I go with my crafting from here?
Crafting Multiple Effects
It's possible to craft with an item multiple times, adding other effects to the same item! If you’ve added a prefix, why not try adding a suffix, or even an enhancement bonus if possible? This allows you to create items with uncommon combinations that are difficult to obtain from any mere treasure chest.
To craft multiple times, simply take any one of your existing crafted items and place it in the device with another crafted Shard. Note that every item can only have one prefix and one suffix at a time, and in some cases it’s possible to also add an enhancement bonus, such as on weapons.
Also, be careful – sometimes adding more effects can increase the minimum character level needed to wear or use that item!
Maximum Enchantment Levels
The important thing to remember while crafting is: every magical effect has varying amounts of magical strength and power. The difference between a “frost” and an “icy burst” is more than skin deep! A "craftable" item can only hold so much power, referred to as its maximum enchantment level. If an item has too much power crammed into it, exploding, injuring or "mildly killing" its crafter has been estimated as not entirely beyond the realm of plausibility!
Thankfully, House Cannith has engineered a safety mechanism in each Eldritch Device to prevent just such a catastrophe. If you attempt to add a magical property that exceeds the maximum enchantment level of your item, the device will prevent you from forging it. (Many crafters died to bring you this technology.)
You can tell how much magic your "craftable" item can hold by inspecting it – the maximum enchantment level will be listed as a number. All “craftable” weapons start with a maximum enchantment level of +5.
It is possible to increase an item’s maximum enchantment level through crafting! You can create Shards of Potential, which can increase the threshold, allowing you to safely add even more effects.
Adding Shards of Potential
You must add a Shard of Potential for each level you’d like to increase. So for example, if you’d like to increase your "craftable" item’s maximum enchantment level from 5 to 8, you’d need to create and apply Shards of Potential to upgrade the item three times to its new maximum enchantment level of 8.
How do you know how much potential your item will need as you’re planning which effects to add? Add up the enchantment value of the effects you’re thinking of adding!
Here’s a good example from Reginald Belspry’s recent experiences:
"I wanted to craft a +2 Flaming Burst Greataxe of Greater Plant Bane, because I really hate trees. After applying a Dust of Disjunction to a Greataxe to prepare it for crafting, my crafting blank could only accept 5 “pluses” worth of enchantment. When I enchanted the Greataxe with the +2 and Flaming Burst effects, I found out that the eldritch device wouldn’t let me apply the Shard of Greater Plant Bane. It turns out that while Flaming Burst is a +2 enchantment effect, Greater Plant Bane is a +4 effect! I would need a craftable item with a +8 maximum enchantment level.
Fortunately I didn’t lose any fingers or ingredients in the attempt because the device told me the magic I was attempting was too strong for my Greataxe. So I made a Shard of Potential (+6), a Shard of Potential (+7), and a Shard of Potential (+8), then applied them one at a time to my +2 Flaming Burst Greataxe. That increased its maximum enchantment level to +8. After that I could apply the Greater Plant Bane shard. Then I rampaged through the Red Fens. Stupid trees!"
Contents
1 Crafting Tips
1.1 Deconstruction Tips
1.2 Crafting Shard Tips
1.3 Item Creation Tips
1.4 General Tips
2 Other helpful resources
Crafting Tips
Here are some handy tips for crafters!
Deconstruction Tips
Before deconstructing an item, place it in the device without any solvents to see a list of available recipes. Compare the recipes and look for which recipe will yield the best results for your crafting goals!
The essences you receive from a deconstruction determine which crafting school you gain XP for.
You earn no crafting experience by merely keying items to make them “craftable”.
Deconstruction can produce differing amounts of essences, but it can also result in “Greater” as well as “Lesser” essences.
Not all effects are created equal! Some magical effects are strong by their very nature, and yield more materials as a result!
Crafting Shard Tips
Crafting shards stack inside ingredient bags! Make the ones you need and save them for later.
You can deconstruct Shards to gain crafting experience, as well as recoup some of your ingredients.
It is possible to deconstruct a crafted item then apply a different shard to it, but remember that you’ll lose the previous shard!
Shards of Potential can help you boost the amount of magic you can stuff into a single crafting item!
Some recipes call for collectibles! You can obtain collectibles in dungeons by clicking on the sparkly objects like bookcases, mushrooms, moss clumps, etc.
Don’t forget – if you have a surplus of a type of essence, you can speak with Courtney d’Cannith or Reginald Belspry in the crafting hall to trade them for something else! Pick “I would like to transmute essences” when you speak with them!
Running out of lesser essences? You can sunder “Greater” essences into lesser essences! Speak with Courtney d’Cannith or Reginald Belspry!
Item Creation Tips
When you key an item for crafting, the enhancement bonus, prefix, suffix, and race restriction, if any, are removed. Any special materials (Adamantine, Silver, Mithral, etc.), and guild augment slots, however, are kept. So the difference between crafting, say, a +4 Holy Greataxe and a +4 Holy Silver Greataxe (Pit Fiends beware!) is just a matter of starting with a Silver Greataxe, instead of a normal Greataxe.
Note that Metalline is not a special material. It is a prefix enchantment, and as such, it is removed by keying the item.
You can key even mundane items for crafting, such as “masterwork greatclubs”.
Some vendor and DDO Store items can be keyed for crafting! Use caution before buying something from a vendor or the Store to deconstruct, as not all of them are eligible for deconstruction!
The value of enhancements and enchantments are equal. A +4 enhancement spirit will yield a +4 enchantment towards your item’s total enchantment level. Remember: every craftable item has a maximum enchantment level!
General Tips
Character and crafting XP are not directly related. It is possible to reach the maximum crafting level in all three crafting schools while only being a level 1 character, as long as that character has access to the supplies they need!
Attempting recipes with lower success chances can earn you a lot of experience, but you risk losing ingredients in the process!
If you’re not sure if the values shown in the device are still accurate as you’re crafting, you can push the “clear” button and manually place the items back in to refresh the device.
If you find an ingredient, and you’re not sure what it’s good for, stick it in an Eldritch Device and find out! The built-in recipe book will automatically identify any recipes that use that particular ingredient (as well as how many are needed for any given recipe).
Alchemical rituals can be performed on crafted items at the Stone of Change!
Have you always wanted to make a magical item of your very own… from scratch? Are mundane magical items filling your coffers with coin, but breaking your back in your backpack? Then we have good news for you friends!
Thanks to cooperation between the noble Dragonmarked House of Cannith and the scholars of The Twelve, the secrets of crafting are now available for the everyman! Whether you’re a face-smashing fighter or a spell casting sorcerer, you – yes YOU – can explore the rewarding and fun world of crafting using eldritch devices!
Contents
1 Getting Started
2 Why Craft?
3 What Every Crafter Needs To Know
3.1 The Symbols of Crafting
3.2 Crafting Steps
4 Deconstruction
5 Becoming A Crafter
5.1 Earning Skill
5.2 Making Your First Crafted Item
5.2.1 Finding A Recipe
5.2.2 Gathering What You Need
5.2.2.1 Crafting Shards
5.2.2.2 Keying Items For Crafting
5.3 Finishing Your Item
5.3.1 Buying ingredients, essences, & more
6 Beyond The Basics
6.1 Crafting Multiple Effects
6.2 Maximum Enchantment Levels
6.3 Adding Shards of Potential
Getting Started
If you’re interested in diving into the exciting world of House Cannith’s new and improved eldritch crafting, visit the Crafting Hall!
The House Kundarak has graciously renovated space for House Cannith’s new Crafting Hall, located conveniently close to the Marketplace Gate and Locksmith Square!
Why Craft?
Become a master of craft schools, or scavenge an inventory surplus for useful things to barter with - The choice is yours!
Not yet convinced that crafting is right for you? Here are a few things you can do with House Cannith eldritch devices:
Customized equipment including weapons, clothing, and trinkets!
Liquidate your inventory down to more easily storable (and sometimes even more valuable) components!
Create items with more power… and lower minimum levels!
Easier access to uncommon magical effect combinations
Enhance the inventory slots of your choosing
What Every Crafter Needs To Know
You’re ready to take the plunge, and we’re here to help! House Cannith has thoughtfully placed simplified instructions around the crafting halls. They’re rune based, and so easy that even an illiterate barbarian could figure them out!
Let’s look at these symbols in detail:
The Symbols of Crafting
The Shield – Any unnamed (random) treasure OR a “craftable” item
The Bottle – The solvents used to deconstruct an item down into its most basic and useful form.
The Bits – The deconstructed essence of power and energy that come out after your item has been ground up in an eldritch device. Like coffee! Only magical. Much more magical.
The Shard - A crafting Shard!
The Bag – Crafting ingredients!
The Shiny – Your finished product!
The Chain – If you see this symbol, remember that your crafting is going to bind to you!
As you can see, by combining symbols you will end up with varying results. House Cannith has placed important symbol formulas above each wing of the crafting hall to help you discover what crafters can do with each of our amazing eldritch devices!
Crafting Steps
Let’s explore the crafting process together! It’s very straight forward… take a look at this handy flow chart created by a master Cannith craftsman:
Okay, so that may have been a little too much to process in one sitting. Lars Heyton offered this advice to beginning craftsmen:
"Long story short, you need to get the skills and the stuff to make it happen if you’re going to craft items yourself. Some crafting, like Shard creation, requires crafting mastery to do well. Others, like sticking existing Shards into 'craftable' items, are so straight-forward that you could succeed just by rolling your face on the eldritch device practically."
There are three types of crafting:
Deconstruction
Shard creation
Item imbuing
The most basic form of crafting that everyone – even a complete novice – can readily do is deconstruction, and it's the part of crafting you’re most likely to engage in as a beginner.
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is easy and useful! Just listen to this testimony from one of our satisfied customers:
“You just place a piece of magical treasure and a solvent into an eldritch device and BAM! The device distills the item down into an essence.” – Jeets Shimis, Professional Adventurer
The heart of crafting is essences, which are used during the shard creation phase of crafting. Essences are made by capturing the magic from items using a Deconstruction Eldritch Device.
Every unnamed magical item has three properties: enhancement bonuses, prefixes, and suffixes. By placing an item in a deconstruction device with the proper solvent, you can harness the magic right off it! Here are the three "harvestable" properties:
Enhancement bonuses are the + values on an item
Prefixes are the effects at the beginning of an item’s name
Suffixes are the effects listed at the end of an item’s name
So if you see a +4 Flaming Greatsword of Dragonbane, you can strip the magic from it and get some essences to use during crafting. Does this mean you need to go out and harvest every weapon that has “dragon bane” suffixes just to craft a dragonbane shard?
“Of course not! Every magic effect doesn’t become its own brand of essence… we’d never have figured these devices out if that were true. No, every magic effect becomes one of the essence types, and there are only so many of those.” – Toven d’Cannith, House Cannith Artificer
Look up a recipe and you’ll see essence types listed in the ingredients. In the case of “Dragonbane,” the recipe uses essences of the “divine” type. Not only can you deconstruct weapons that have “Dragonbane” on them, but you can also deconstruct any item that has a divine prefix or suffix. Some examples include: “Resistance,” “Power V,” and “Magical Beast Bane”!
Also, depending on how powerful a particular magical effect is, you'll receive varying amounts and sizes of (greater or lesser) essences.
Remember: you can only keep one property from an item: the enhancement, prefix, suffix, or the item itself. You can’t undo a deconstruction, so weigh your options and deconstruct carefully!
Here’s a tip from Channa d’Cannith:
“When you place a magical item in a deconstruction device, pay attention to the individual recipes listed. One item could yield greater or fewer types of a particular essence, or even two types of essences, based on which solvent you pour on it. I keep several types of solvents on hand so I can decide which property to strip at my leisure.”
Image:comparedeconstruct.jpg Image:solvents.jpg
Use any of the following solvents to gather magic:
Enhancement stripper – gathers enhancement bonuses
Prefix stripper – Gathers prefixes
Suffix stripper – Gathers suffixes
Supreme stripper – Refurbishes an item to make it “craftable”
So you’ve got a bunch of essences… now what? The most obvious thing to do with essences is bargain them to other adventurers who want them for their crafting; but why let them have all the fun when you can use those essences too!
Becoming A Crafter
Becoming a master craftsman is one of many great self-improvements a Xen’drik citizen can work toward, and the key to mastery is practice! You can get practice through:
Deconstructing items
Creating crafting Shards
Combining Shards with craftable items
All available recipes for creating, combining, or deconstructing are conveniently located inside each Cannith Eldritch Device! We’re also working constantly to discover new recipes!
Earning Skill
You can train in three schools of crafting:
Divine
Arcane
Elemental
Mastery within each school determines how successful you’ll be with a given recipe from that crafting school. When you successfully complete a recipe within one of the three crafting schools, you earn crafting experience for that school! As you increase in crafting level, you can attempt recipes of greater difficulty. To check your progress, open the crafting tab in your character sheet:
On each eldritch device you can see the “chance to succeed” listed for any recipe you select; a higher the percentage equals better odds! Should you fail at a recipe, there is a risk of losing some of your ingredients. All House Cannith Eldritch Devices are equipped to prevent you from attempting any recipe that you have under a 50% chance of succeeding on. Why? Because:
"Cannith cares about crafters*"!
Pay attention to your recipe as you craft it – while your chance of success increases as you gain skill, the amount of experience you earn from that recipe diminishes as you get better at crafting. Attempting “risky” recipes may cause you to lose some ingredients in the process but it can also be an excellent source of large experience payouts! Once you have some crafting levels under your belt, the types of items you can make expands greatly. There will come a time when you out-level a given recipe. When this happens, you should switch to a new recipe that gives you experience, allowing you to continue progressing your skills.
*Subject to terms and conditions. Amounts of caring perceived by crafter is subjective. House Cannith is not responsible for hurt pride or other emotional damages resulting from perceived deficiency in caring amounts.
Making Your First Crafted Item
Let’s make an item! First you should decide what weapon or item you’d like to make. No ideas? That’s ok, we can browse to find something nice to make too! With that in mind, head over to the Crafting Hall.
If you’re new to crafting, speak with the Crafting Hall Greeter "Maker," who can point you in the right direction.
Finding A Recipe
To do any kind of crafting you need a recipe. Fortunately, House Cannith has organized recipes into handy "Recipe Books" that are built into each Eldritch Crafting Device! Click on the device to open the Recipe Book automatically, and then browse or search the available recipes to find one that you’d like to make. You can even add ingredients that you already possess to see what recipes use them!
Since you’re new to crafting, let’s start with a nice easy recipe that yields crafting experience for the Divine school: Greater Ardor I Item
For this recipe, it looks like you’ll need a Greater Ardor I Shard and a craftable Weapon or Shield…
Gathering What You Need
Crafting Shards
Crafted Shards can be made using the Cannith Eldritch Devices in the Crafting Hall. Head over to the Shard Device and search for the Greater Ardor I shard to see what ingredients and essences are needed to make it.
Looks like we’ll need some lesser good essences, and Siberys Dragonshard fragments.
Crafting Tip: Don’t confuse dragonshards with crafting Shards! Crafting Shards are created artificially using Eldritch Devices. Dragonshards are magical crystals that descend to our world from the skies!
Ingredients and essences come in many forms, and desirability varies based on what it is you’re trying to make! Most ingredients, like Siberys dragonshard fragments, can be found through collectibles (those sparkly objects you see during quests) and treasure chests.
Essences come predominantly from chests, quest reward lists, and deconstruction!
Crafting Tip: If you’re having trouble gathering the ingredients and essences for one type of recipe, try searching in the device for recipes that use ingredients you already have. You can drop an essence and/or ingredient in the “Your Ingredients” field and the device will automatically pull up any recipes that use them!
You’ve found some Siberys dragonshard fragments and some “lesser good” essences. Place them in the device and click “craft.” If you fail to craft the recipe, the device will notify you and you may lose some of the ingredients in the attempt. If you’re successful, the device will create a crafting Shard. The Shard will automatically be placed in your inventory (or ingredients bag if you have one)! The "Greater Ardor I" Shard has a success chance of 95% for a level 1 crafter, so let’s go for it!
After successfully creating your Shard, key an item so you can place the Shard on it.
Keying Items For Crafting
To make that "Greater Ardor I" item, you’ll need a craftable “blank” item to stick the Shard into. Run an un-named magical item through a deconstruction device with a solvent to strip it down and prime it for customization.
How do you know what item you should key for crafting? Check your recipe at the Eldritch Device, as some Shards can only be placed on particular item types, such as weapons. For the "Greater Ardor I" recipe, it specifies a weapon or shield. Let's pretend you have a +3 Adamantine Greatsword lying around ( and you’re not that fond of it), so let’s deconstruct that!
Keep in mind -- different solvents remove different properties off a weapon or any item. To key your chosen item, use the solvent that removes practically everything from an item – you want no magic, no enhancements, and no race restrictions to remain. Visit Courtney d’Cannith in the north wing or Reginald Belspry in the south wing, and ask to purchase “deconstruction materials”. Dust of Disjunction will get the job done perfectly!
Even with disjunction dust, some aspects of an item will be retained: guild augment slots, permanent damage to the item, bound state, and the material an item is made of will remain. So if you key a slightly damaged bound-to-character “Adamantine Greatsword with a Tiny Guild Augment Slot”, it would still be a slightly damaged bound-to-character “Adamantine Greatsword with a Tiny Guild Augment Slot” after passing through the deconstruction device – except it would be keyed for crafting!
With your +3 Greatsword and Dust of Disjunction in hand, approach the Deconstruction Device. Place your two items in the device, and press the “Deconstruct” button. The device will automatically deposit your refurbished item in your inventory.
"Don’t worry about trying to pick up the little bags that pop out of the deconstruction device. They’re just for show. It’s pretty mystical and intangible when the device does its thing, so the devices are rigged to spit out ethereal bags because they make the crafters feel happy." – Lars Heyton
Note that your weapon loses all of its magical affects, but gains a property called “craftable”. This means it’s ready to be imbued with crafting shards!
Finishing Your Item
You’ve followed the recipe. You have the crafting shard. You have the "craftable" blank item. Now, it’s time to finish the item! Head over to an item crafting wing. Pay attention to the symbols above the door – if you see a chain/padlock symbol, it means you will be creating a bound item!
Place your Shard and keyed blank item into the device. Be sure to review the recipe, amount of experience, and chance to craft. You want to make sure there are no surprises before you click “craft.” If everything looks good, click the “Craft” button, and your new item will automatically be deposited in your inventory!
Once you have the item, you can use it, pass it through a shared bank to an alternate character, or deconstruct it to try a different recipe! You can even deconstruct it using prefix or suffix solvents to get some of your essences back!
As you start making items you want to keep and use, note that you can add multiple effects to your items! You can add a prefix, suffix, and in some cases even enhancement values!
Buying ingredients, essences, & more
You can often purchase some types of crafting materials from the following places:
The Auction House – be sure to check the “Ingredients” and “Collectible” categories for good deals! You can also buy items and weapons to strip effects from or key for crafting!
The Trade Channel – type /trade in the chat window to haggle with other adventurers who may have the things you’re looking for!
The DDO Store – Use Ctrl-S to access the Store and check the “crafting” category to see what’s available!
If you have too much of a particular kind or size of essence, visit one of the Master Craftsmen in the Crafting Hall. They can help you exchange the unwanted essences for other sizes and types!
Beyond The Basics
After increasing your crafting experience and making some items, you might wonder – what’s next? Where can I go with my crafting from here?
Crafting Multiple Effects
It's possible to craft with an item multiple times, adding other effects to the same item! If you’ve added a prefix, why not try adding a suffix, or even an enhancement bonus if possible? This allows you to create items with uncommon combinations that are difficult to obtain from any mere treasure chest.
To craft multiple times, simply take any one of your existing crafted items and place it in the device with another crafted Shard. Note that every item can only have one prefix and one suffix at a time, and in some cases it’s possible to also add an enhancement bonus, such as on weapons.
Also, be careful – sometimes adding more effects can increase the minimum character level needed to wear or use that item!
Maximum Enchantment Levels
The important thing to remember while crafting is: every magical effect has varying amounts of magical strength and power. The difference between a “frost” and an “icy burst” is more than skin deep! A "craftable" item can only hold so much power, referred to as its maximum enchantment level. If an item has too much power crammed into it, exploding, injuring or "mildly killing" its crafter has been estimated as not entirely beyond the realm of plausibility!
Thankfully, House Cannith has engineered a safety mechanism in each Eldritch Device to prevent just such a catastrophe. If you attempt to add a magical property that exceeds the maximum enchantment level of your item, the device will prevent you from forging it. (Many crafters died to bring you this technology.)
You can tell how much magic your "craftable" item can hold by inspecting it – the maximum enchantment level will be listed as a number. All “craftable” weapons start with a maximum enchantment level of +5.
It is possible to increase an item’s maximum enchantment level through crafting! You can create Shards of Potential, which can increase the threshold, allowing you to safely add even more effects.
Adding Shards of Potential
You must add a Shard of Potential for each level you’d like to increase. So for example, if you’d like to increase your "craftable" item’s maximum enchantment level from 5 to 8, you’d need to create and apply Shards of Potential to upgrade the item three times to its new maximum enchantment level of 8.
How do you know how much potential your item will need as you’re planning which effects to add? Add up the enchantment value of the effects you’re thinking of adding!
Here’s a good example from Reginald Belspry’s recent experiences:
"I wanted to craft a +2 Flaming Burst Greataxe of Greater Plant Bane, because I really hate trees. After applying a Dust of Disjunction to a Greataxe to prepare it for crafting, my crafting blank could only accept 5 “pluses” worth of enchantment. When I enchanted the Greataxe with the +2 and Flaming Burst effects, I found out that the eldritch device wouldn’t let me apply the Shard of Greater Plant Bane. It turns out that while Flaming Burst is a +2 enchantment effect, Greater Plant Bane is a +4 effect! I would need a craftable item with a +8 maximum enchantment level.
Fortunately I didn’t lose any fingers or ingredients in the attempt because the device told me the magic I was attempting was too strong for my Greataxe. So I made a Shard of Potential (+6), a Shard of Potential (+7), and a Shard of Potential (+8), then applied them one at a time to my +2 Flaming Burst Greataxe. That increased its maximum enchantment level to +8. After that I could apply the Greater Plant Bane shard. Then I rampaged through the Red Fens. Stupid trees!"
Contents
1 Crafting Tips
1.1 Deconstruction Tips
1.2 Crafting Shard Tips
1.3 Item Creation Tips
1.4 General Tips
2 Other helpful resources
Crafting Tips
Here are some handy tips for crafters!
Deconstruction Tips
Before deconstructing an item, place it in the device without any solvents to see a list of available recipes. Compare the recipes and look for which recipe will yield the best results for your crafting goals!
The essences you receive from a deconstruction determine which crafting school you gain XP for.
You earn no crafting experience by merely keying items to make them “craftable”.
Deconstruction can produce differing amounts of essences, but it can also result in “Greater” as well as “Lesser” essences.
Not all effects are created equal! Some magical effects are strong by their very nature, and yield more materials as a result!
Crafting Shard Tips
Crafting shards stack inside ingredient bags! Make the ones you need and save them for later.
You can deconstruct Shards to gain crafting experience, as well as recoup some of your ingredients.
It is possible to deconstruct a crafted item then apply a different shard to it, but remember that you’ll lose the previous shard!
Shards of Potential can help you boost the amount of magic you can stuff into a single crafting item!
Some recipes call for collectibles! You can obtain collectibles in dungeons by clicking on the sparkly objects like bookcases, mushrooms, moss clumps, etc.
Don’t forget – if you have a surplus of a type of essence, you can speak with Courtney d’Cannith or Reginald Belspry in the crafting hall to trade them for something else! Pick “I would like to transmute essences” when you speak with them!
Running out of lesser essences? You can sunder “Greater” essences into lesser essences! Speak with Courtney d’Cannith or Reginald Belspry!
Item Creation Tips
When you key an item for crafting, the enhancement bonus, prefix, suffix, and race restriction, if any, are removed. Any special materials (Adamantine, Silver, Mithral, etc.), and guild augment slots, however, are kept. So the difference between crafting, say, a +4 Holy Greataxe and a +4 Holy Silver Greataxe (Pit Fiends beware!) is just a matter of starting with a Silver Greataxe, instead of a normal Greataxe.
Note that Metalline is not a special material. It is a prefix enchantment, and as such, it is removed by keying the item.
You can key even mundane items for crafting, such as “masterwork greatclubs”.
Some vendor and DDO Store items can be keyed for crafting! Use caution before buying something from a vendor or the Store to deconstruct, as not all of them are eligible for deconstruction!
The value of enhancements and enchantments are equal. A +4 enhancement spirit will yield a +4 enchantment towards your item’s total enchantment level. Remember: every craftable item has a maximum enchantment level!
General Tips
Character and crafting XP are not directly related. It is possible to reach the maximum crafting level in all three crafting schools while only being a level 1 character, as long as that character has access to the supplies they need!
Attempting recipes with lower success chances can earn you a lot of experience, but you risk losing ingredients in the process!
If you’re not sure if the values shown in the device are still accurate as you’re crafting, you can push the “clear” button and manually place the items back in to refresh the device.
If you find an ingredient, and you’re not sure what it’s good for, stick it in an Eldritch Device and find out! The built-in recipe book will automatically identify any recipes that use that particular ingredient (as well as how many are needed for any given recipe).
Alchemical rituals can be performed on crafted items at the Stone of Change!
Attachments:
