You can find Forges, Crafting Benches, and Potion Cauldrons in many places. Just click on one of these to be presented with the crafting options. Forges can be used to craft metal items; benches can be used to craft cloth, leather and wooden items; and you can use cauldrons and alchemical tables to brew potions. The Craft Weapon and Craft Armor skills can be employed to make weapons and armor, and the Lore skill can be used for potion making.
To craft you will need raw materials which you can pick up in various ways: some monsters drop useful ingredients for potions; Iron, Steel, Silver, Adamantium, and Mithral can be found in mines; and if you have enough ranks in Crafting skills, some trees and other wooden items can be bashed to create wooden planks. All of these things can be found in various areas of the world, so look around carefully or ask other players where the best places are. Crafting each item also requires a small amount of gold, so you will need to have some money as well.
If you have enough skill, mundane ingredients will enable you to craft Masterwork (+1) items, and rare ingredients will enable you to create items with special properties:
- Ironwood: creates weapons that are lighter and stronger than normal, and shields with lowered arcane spell failure
- Silver: creates weapons that harm Shapechangers and Undead, and armor that defends against some kinds of magic
- Adamantine: usually creates +2 items
- Mithral: creates armor that is lighter than normal with reduced arcane spell failure, and usually a +1 bonus
- Winter Wolf pelt: creates leather armor with extra protection against cold
In order to use the Craft Scroll and Craft Wand skills you will also need raw materials. There’s a huge list of these that players can discover, but here are a few hints:
- Leather for summoning animals
- Bones for anything to do with Undead
- Gemstones for some offensive spells
- Grenades (like tanglefoot bags, thunderstones etc.) for some other offensive spells
- Oak planks for Barkskin
- Iron for holding things
- Steel for things with blades
- Holy water for blessing stuff
Note that some scrolls are not available to buy or are very rare in the Hidden Tradition world – particularly Resurrection scrolls, which are extremely rare. So having someone able to craft these items can be very handy for a party.
Characters with high Intelligence and Lore skills are best for crafting, so if you want to craft things the best classes to pick are Bard, Rogue, or Wizard.