Crafting

Crafting is the process of making objects, typically out of materials gathered in the open world.

While you can ignore crafting completely, it is something that adds more depth to the game and more personality to your character.

Making a choice

Spend some time to carefully select your Vocation and its associated professions. While your Vocation has some influence on your gameplay, you are completely free in your choice as you can play through the game with every Vocation, and even without one.

Every Vocation consists of three Professions:

Vocations and their associated Professions Vocation Professions Armourer Prospector • Metalsmith • Tailor Armsman Prospector • Weaponsmith • Woodworker Explorer Forester • Prospector • Tailor Historian Farmer • Scholar • Weaponsmith Tinker Prospector • Cook • Jeweller Woodsman Farmer • Forester • Woodworker Yeoman Farmer • Cook • Tailor		Profession availability by Vocation Profession Vocation Cook Tinker • Yeoman Farmer Historian • Woodsman • Yeoman Forester Explorer • Woodsman Jeweller Tinker Metalsmith Armourer Prospector Armourer • Armsman • Explorer • Tinker Scholar Historian Tailor Armourer • Explorer • Yeoman Weaponsmith Armsman • Historian Woodworker Armsman • Woodsman

Note: A character may change vocations at any time; however, you will lose ALL progress and recipes memorized in any profession that is not available in your new vocation.

If you play a single Character in Solo Play, you can choose your Vocation to add to your personality. Some Classes have "natural" Vocations. An Elf-Lore-master is a born Historian, a Hobbit-Hunter a Woodsman, a Dwarf-Champion an Armourer or Armsman. But this is a matter of personal taste and every combination has it's appeal.

You may choose your Vocation for the produced items. Every class profits from Scrolls, Potions, Food and Jewellery, so a vocation containing a Scholar, Cook or Jeweller is no bad choice. The following tables show further dependencies:

Profession vs. Item Class

If I have a profession, then which Class profits from it by which item class? ^{[confirmation needed]}

Class vs. Item Class

If I have a class, what profession is needed to produce which item class? ^{[confirmation needed]}

Profession vs. Class

What crafting professions can craft for what classes? ^{[confirmation needed]}

Profession	Beorning	Burglar	Captain	Champion	Guardian	Hunter	Lore-master	Minstrel	Rune-keeper	Warden
Cook	Food	Food	Food	Food	Food	Food	Food, CSI	Food, CSI	Food	Food
Farmer
Forester
Jeweller	Jewellery	Jewellery	Jewellery	Jewellery, CSI	Jewellery	Jewellery	Jewellery, CSI	Jewellery	Jewellery, Weapon	Jewellery
Metalsmith	Armour		Armour	Armour	Armour, CSI			Shield	CSI
Prospector
Scholar	Scrolls	Scrolls	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls, CSI	Scrolls, CSI
Tailor	Cloak	Armour, Cloak, CSI	Cloak, CSI	Cloak	Cloak	Armour, Cloak	Armour, Cloak	Armour, Cloak	Armour, Cloak, CSI	Armour, Cloak
Weaponsmith	Weapon	Weapon, CSI	Weapon	Weapon	Weapon, CSI	Weapon		Weapon		Weapon, CSI
Woodworker	Weapon, CSI	Weapon	Weapon, CSI	Weapon, CSI	Weapon	Weapon	Weapon	Weapon, CSI	CSI	Weapon, CSI

CSI: Class-specific Item

If you play several Alts, or a single character in a Kinship, you should consider the Dependencies between Professions. If you want to be self-sufficient, you need four characters with the Vocations: Armourer, Historian, Tinker, Woodsman.

Later in the Game, you can enter Crafting Guilds. For every producing Profession, there is a Guild. Every character can enter the Guild of any of his professions. Guild Crafters can produce better items, so if you are the "complete" type, you want to have one character in every guild and so you will need some Alts.

If you play more Alts (e.g. one of every class), you can have some Alts with the same Vocation. You should consider:

• Every Alt can use 7 pieces of Guild-Jewellery.
• Many classes can use 7 pieces of Tailor-made Guild-Armour.
• Some classes can use 6 pieces of Metalsmith-made Guild-Armour.

Guild recipes may have up to one week cooldown time. So if you're considering double vocations, an extra Jeweller or two, an extra Tailor and perhaps an extra Metalsmith are good choices. Also make sure to have some more gatherers for those, i.e. Prospectors (everyone can produce Hides, an one single Forester is enough to convert the Hides to Leather. And you don’t need a second Guild Woodworker in normal circumstances. So no need here for more than one Forester. And you don’t need a second Guild Cook, neither. So no need for more than one Farmer. But your Metalsmith, Weaponsmith, and Jeweller(s) need Metals, so every Prospector is helping.) My recommendation is one additional Tinker and one additional Explorer at least.

Getting Started

To start crafting, you must first play through the initial series of quests and move out into the wider world. In various towns throughout Middle-earth, you will find a Master or Mistress of Apprentices who will help you select your vocation. Each vocation is made up of three professions, as shown above. At least one workplace of each type is near each Master or Mistress of Apprentices, so that you can immediately begin crafting. A Supplier is also nearby, to sell you tools and some of the necessary ingredients.

Craft Training

Near each Master or Mistress of Apprentices, there is a Supplier and Novice-level Crafting Vendors of all types. The Vendors are stationed at the assorted workplaces that are needed to engage in crafting tasks. Between the Supplier and the Crafting Vendors of your chosen professions, you can acquire most of the items you need to begin crafting. All crafts require the correct tools, raw materials, and a workplace to perform the task. For instance, woodworking requires a set of woodworking tools, a supply of wood (which can be found throughout your travels in Middle-earth), and a workbench. (You receive your initial tools when you choose a profession.) Workbenches are found in many locations in most towns.

The Craft

Craft requires:

• a Recipe,
• a Tool,
• a Crafting Facility,
• Crafting materials.

Recipes

The crafter must have learned the recipe for items he wants to craft. Recipes are either given automatically when achieving a crafting tier, purchased, dropped from mobs, or obtained as treasure.

Type of Recipe	Description
Basic	Each tier has a number of basic recipes that are provided for you once that tier is available.
Vendor	This recipe can be purchased from a Novice or Expert profession NPC. Example: Heavy Quilted Armour Recipe can be purchased from Tailor Vendors.
Guild	This recipe can be purchased from the appropriate Guild Representative for Improved or Legendary Recipes.
Reputation	This recipe can be purchased from the appropriate Faction Representative. Recipe access and use is normally controlled by Reputation Level.
Dropped	Obtained as loot from various creatures or from treasure chest (or alike). These recipes are one of "vendor" or "single-use" type.
Single Use	A recipe can only be crafted once and then it is removed from your recipe list. Note: Quest recipes are generally single-use and do not offer crafting XP.

There are hundreds of recipes per profession and to list them all is crazy, but we tried our best!

Icon	Recipes	Recipe Indexes
	Cook Recipes	Cook Recipe Index
	Farmer Recipes	Farmer Recipe Index
	Forester Recipes	Forester Recipe Index
	Jeweller Recipes	Jeweller Recipe Index
	Metalsmith Recipes	Metalsmith Recipe Index
	Prospector Recipes	Prospector Recipe Index
	Scholar Recipes	Scholar Recipe Index
	Tailor Recipes	Tailor Recipe Index
	Weaponsmith Recipes	Weaponsmith Recipe Index
	Woodworker Recipes	Woodworker Recipe Index

Crafting Changes in Update 17

With the release of update 17 in October of 2015, several significant changes were made to Tier 9 and Tier 10 crafting, and to crafting in general.

The details are found in the Tier 10 Crafting Developer Diary: https://archive.lotro.com/en/game/articles/tier-10-crafting-developer-diary

Gathering

• Three professions are considered “Gathering” professions: Scholar, Prospector, and Forester. The gathering professions have been consolidated to require fewer items. Each gathering profession now only needs one tier of refined material. For example: in tier 9, a Westemnet Prospector would harvest skarn and smelt it into low-grade ingots, which were turned into mid- or high-grade ingots in turn. An Anórien Prospector will gather Anórien skarn and process that into Anórien ingots, without having to upgrade those ingots to a higher grade before using them to make final products. This means fewer kinds of crafting material to keep in your inventory.

Recipe drops

• There will be no tier 10 recipes dropped on landscape. All tier 10 recipes will be acquired automatically once you attain the tier. In future updates we will be adding more recipes to region reputation and guild barter, but not for U17.
• Any new crafting guild recipes that are released in the future will only require Westemnet Master of the Guild reputation; we have no plans to add another tier of required crafting guild reputation.

General Crafting Changes

• In all tiers, all crafting materials now stack to 500. This includes everything: farming crops, logs, ingots, vendor items, journals, etc.

(Tip - to stack items already in your vault or shared storage, move them to your inventory and back again.)

• All landscape crafting nodes in all regions can be harvested from horseback.

Tools and Facilities

Professions	Facility
Cook	Campfire • Oven
Farmer	Farmlands • Workbench
Jeweller	Workbench
Metalsmith	Forge
Scholar	Study
Tailor	Workbench
Weaponsmith	Forge
Woodworker	Workbench

Once you have spoken to a Master or Mistress of Apprentices and chosen your vocation, they will give you a set set of appropriate inferior crafting tools and offer you a series of introductory quests. These quests include appropriate Ingredient Packs to begin your crafting career.

After completing this basic training, your next stop should be at the nearby Supplier.

You begin your profession with a basic set of inferior crafting tools. These are "brittle" and should immediately be upgraded to "normal" tools at the nearest Supplier or Crafting Vendor. As your character progresses in level (not crafting rank) additional tool types are available from a friendly Metalsmith. (They are player-crafted items.) Or are often found at the Auction House at prices ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. For the gathering professions, these improved tools decrease the time necessary to gather a "resource node". Higher ranked tools also provide an increase in the "critical chance" associated with their use.

See: Crafting Tools for details on their availability and capabilities

In addition to the necessary tool that must be equipped on your character for use, every profession has an appropriate place to actually do the work. The gathering professions, Scholars, Prospector and Forester, primarily harvest "resource node," in the wild. Farmers also grow resources in Farmlands. However once harvested, these resources must then be "refined" in the same Crafting Facility used to create crafted items.

The Cook and Scholar are the only two professions who can craft certain items anywhere.

Gathering Resources

Crafting materials are found throughout Middle-earth from Vendors, as loot drops or Resource Spawns, in the assorted chests and crates around the world and later in special Crafting Instances. Raw materials for crafting consist of Ores, woods, gems, seeds, cooking supplies, dye components, hides and lore items.

• Ores and woods are most commonly found as ground spawns, and if you have the gathering skill to collect them, you will have a tracking skill that you can activate to give you an indicator when you are near that resource. Ore nodes can also produce gems for Jewellers, and minerals for Scholars.
• Seeds and cooking components can be purchased from Suppliers or tradesmen.
• Hides are found as loot drops from many creatures.
• Lore items are found as loot drops on humanoid enemies or in and around ruins inside ancient Artifacts.
• Rare items for high level crafting and single use recipes may be found in Farming fields as well as any appropriate level resource node. They may also drop from "Rare Elite" or "Rare Signature" creatures. See Crafting Rare Components
• Rare Drop Effect: Some people have observed that rare items (ie. Emerald Shard) do not drop as easily if you are working on a field at higher level than your craft. For example, a Master Supreme Weaponsmith/ Master Supreme Scholar may find rare items for crafting up to the Farming level of Supreme, but less likely higher. This effect also seems to occur in other resource nodes, if for some reason, you gather ore/wood from nodes much higher level than you can craft reasonably. There is no factual confirmation of this effect, so your experience may vary.
• All of these assorted materials can also be found in chests scattered throughout the landscape and in dungeons (Instances).
• Crafting resources (Ingredient Packs) are also available for purchase from the LOTRO Store.
• Starting at level 50 special Crafting Instances provide another way to gather resources. For more information about crafting instances in Moria, Hytbold, and the Entwood
• Additionally, some instances not designated as crafting instances may be sources of crafting materials. An example would be the scalable instance Warg Pens; the wargs therein drop hides for a crafting tier commensurate with the level at which the instance is set upon launch.
• Missions are another source of crafting materials. The On a Mission (Weekly) (15-mission) and On a Continuing Mission (Weekly) (45 missions) wrapper quests, offer a selectable reward of a Bonus Crafting Materials Box, one of the subcomponents of which is a Crate of Crafting Materials, which can ultimately provide a crafting resource of any type and any tier, even if the player receiving it is as low as level 20. Moreover, certain the Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins missions contain Tier 5 (Master) resource nodes, regardless of the level of the player -- Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 contain Lebethron branches and Dwarf-iron Ore nodes.
• Lastly, some boss chests for the Woe of the Willow and Agoroth, the Narrowdelve instances, will drop a random "crate" of crafting materials, from which materials of any tier of the relevant crafting profession can be selected, even if the instance is set to minimum; level 20 for Woe of the Willow, or level 45 for Agoroth. See the specific instance pages, for details.

Crafting levels

Tier Level	Proficiency	Points Needed	Mastery	Points Needed	Resources**(***)
1	Apprentice	200	Master Apprentice	400	75(39)
2	Journeyman	280	Master Journeyman	560	105(54)
3	Expert *	360	Master Expert *	720	135(69)
4	Artisan	440	Master Artisan	880	165(84)
5	Master	520	Grand Master	1,040	195(99)
6	Supreme	600	Supreme Master	1,200	225(114)
7	Westfold	680	Westfold Master	1,360	255(129)
8	Eastemnet	760	Eastemnet Master	1,520	285(144)
9	Westemnet	840	Westemnet Master	1,680	315(159)
10	Anórien	840	Anórien Master	1,680	315(159)
11	Doomfold	840	Doomfold Master	1,680	315(159)
12	Ironfold	840	Ironfold Master	1,680	315(159)
13	Minas Ithil	630	Minas Ithil Master	1,260	???(???)
14	<profession> of Gundabad	630	Master <profession> of Gundabad	1,260	???(???)
* Until Update 21.2, a crafting quest was required once the Expert Proficiency was completed, before further advancement was possible, in all trades except Prospector and Forester. This hindrance was removed with Update 21.2 on October 10, 2017. ** Resources refer to prepared resources needed to achieve mastery in a tier. For example: this would be ingots, not ore, boards, not wood, and leathers, not hides. Double this number if you are starting with ore/wood/hides/etc. It takes into account that most players want some resources left over after they have completed a crafting tier, therefore, with crafting XP scrolls and speed potions, this number can be considerably reduced, especially if leftovers are not desired. You would process half of this number into shavings (for example), and then return them to their intact state to complete a tier. You should expect considerable loss of resources whenever you use Processing. *** For Processing, (Processing is a popular way to gain crafting exp, and master the tiers.) I add the amount of experience needed to achieve mastery in a tier (proficiency and mastery together); I use the formula: [exp/16]+1. I.E: [600/16]+1 = 39.

Every time you complete a recipe, you gain Craft Experience Points (Craft XP) in the respective Profession. You advance in a Profession by gaining Craft XP.

Each profession is broken up into tiers, and each tier has two requirements furthering your progression towards the higher crafting tiers. See the table for requirement per tier. Each requirement you reach, you earn a new crafting title which provides new abilities (notice the footnote attached to the table).

Proficiency: Completing the Proficiency part of a tier (denoted with a bronze anvil) enables you to achieve critical successes while crafting items from that tier (see below), and, furthermore, it opens up the first part of the next tier, and for gathering professions it allows you to harvest nodes for the next tier.

Mastery: Completing the Mastery part of a tier (denoted with a gold anvil) enables you to begin earning mastery points of the next tier. Until Mastery is completed you can just earn crafting points to complete Proficiency of the next tier, but not any further. Once Master of a tier you do not earn any more crafting points from crafting items of that tier. Critical success on a tier requires Mastery of all previous tiers.

The following explains the four levels of crafting progress per tier:

	An empty bronze anvil: you are currently working towards Proficiency.
	A bronze anvil: you have gained Proficiency.
	A bronze anvil and an empty gold anvil: you are currently working towards Mastery.
	Two filled-in anvils: you have also gained Mastery.

With Update 12, a new type of Recipes were introduced: Processing recipes. In a two-step-process, resources are transferred into an intermediate form and back to half the amount of the resource. The only result of processing is the production of Craft XP. This is the way to produce max Craft XP from min Resources.

Critical Successes

After gaining Proficiency in any tier of a crafting profession, each time you craft an item for that tier, you have the chance to receive a Critical success. This is commonly referred to as "to crit" or "critting"; the resulting product of such a success is often called a "crit item".

Types of Critical Success

There are two different outcomes when you critically succeed while crafting:

• Producing a larger number of items. Example: Normally Bronze Ingots produces two ingots at a time, but a critical success yields four ingots.
• Produce a better quality item with improved statistics. Example: A normal outcome is Leather Armour but a critical success gives Tough Leather Armour which has increased stats.

Notice that Weaponsmiths, Metalsmiths, Jewellers and Tailors also have a special feature attached to critical successes at Artisan level and above: they are given the option to Inscribe Item (allowing custom named items).

• Certain Guild Recipes are referred to as "Auto-Crits." These recipes can only generate the Critical Success outcome. They normally require a "Guild pattern" of some sort associated with that profession, as well as the same materials as required by the "normal" recipe, and are typically on Cool-down timers. They typically require a certain Guild Reputation level to acquire and execute. No "critical success bonus" is associated with these as the success rate is always 100%. Example: Item:Cloak of Théodred Recipe

• Similar to "Critical Successes" are Bulk Crafting Recipes available from Guild's "Improved Recipe" vendors and from the Skirmish Crafting Trader. These recipes allow the creation of multiple items at one time. Most are related to resource or component production. They typically require specific Mastery or Reputation levels. Examples: Item:Bulk Brushed Doomfold Leather Recipe, Bulk Tome of Wisdom Recipe

Achieving Critical Success

Critical Success is governed by the laws of probability.

If a crafter is proficient in the crafting tier being used, and if the recipe allows critical success, the base chance of attaining a critical success is 5%. This base chance can be increased by using player-crafted Crafting Tools, special "mastery components", and Scholar-made crafting lore scrolls.

To see possible outcomes from critical successes, open a recipe in the crafting panel (at the page Critical success an example is included that illustrates this section). The lower area of the screen is commonly called the Mastery Component area. The special name of a critical success is displayed in this area, if one is possible. Hovering over the icon will display the improved stats and bonuses. Notice that if you have not yet attained proficiency for the tier of the recipe, the content of this area will be disabled.

The Mastery Component area of most recipes also displays a special ingredient slot for what is commonly called a "Mastery Component". If the crafter has the special ingredient available, he may select the "use" box and that way increase the likelihood for critical successes. In the example to the right Chunk of Crude Brimstone may be used. Single-use recipes usually require "crafting journals" crafted by scholars, e.g. Artisan Metalsmith's Journal rather than standard mastery components.

• One mastery components is used per craft attempt.
• Mastery components are optional; also crafting without them may yield a critical success.
• Standard Mastery components are random loot but Farmers may buy them from vendors.
• Not all recipes have an option for mastery components.
• The base chance stack with crit chance from crafting tool, mastery components, and scholar's lore.
• A critical success is never guaranteed as you may never reach 100% likelihood (except for Farmer fields).
• The percentage outcome of critical successes is generated per crafting attempt, not over a series of attempts, thus the mileage of a shorter crafting session may differ considerably. The average of longer sessions should be close to the expected likelihood. If a crafter, as in the example crafts 20 Items, that is 20 individual attempts!

At the page Critical success a hands-on example illustrates how the different improvements interact to a better likelihood for critical successes.

Crafting Guilds

Crafting Guilds provide additional paths of advancement for many professions.

Every Character can join to Guild of any of his professions. While the join is possible as soon as a Vocation is selected, the lowest level of Guild Recipes is Expert (Tier 3). Improved Guild Recipes produce slightly better items than Single-Use-Recipes with Critical Success. While levelling, this is the best Armour, Weapon, and Jewellery available. Later on, better gear can be found.

Prior to Update 30.3 it was advantageous to replace Legendary Items every so often, and since there are guild recipes for crafted legendary items, those who could make them were in demand, particularly for the (at that time) maximum-level (100) "first age" legendary items, the only other source, for weapons only, being Gift-giver's Brands barter. However, with the 30.3 changes, the same legendary items that are acquired as part of the Walls of Moria questline can be reforged indefinitely, and even if a new set is required, they can be bartered quite inexpensively for Ancient Script in Gobeth Teithian (see Legendary Item page for more details). Thus, crafted legendary items are effectively obsolete.

Similarly, guild crafters also have recipes for legendary-item Relics that could be slotted into the "crafted" slot of a legendary item. This is not supported as of Update 30.3 -- now only Traceries go into legendary-item slots, and crafted relics are effectively obsolete.

Membership in a crafting guild isn't exclusive any more - now you may be a member of two crafting guild at a time. Your second crafting guild can be selected when you have achieved Expert Tier in the relevant profession.

You may choose to change a different crafting guild, but bear in mind that you must abandon all guild recipes and progress gained from your current guild in order to join a new one.^{[confirmation needed]}

Note that there is no guild for Farmers, Prospectors, or Foresters.

Locations

Crafting Guild Halls can be found in the following locations around Middle-earth:

Guild Name	Location	Region
Cook's Guild	Michel Delving's Craft-fair	The Shire
Weaponsmith's Guild	Thorin's Hall - The Forging Hall	Ered Luin
Metalsmith's Guild	Thorin's Hall - The Forging Hall	Ered Luin
Scholar's Guild	The Last Homely House in Rivendell	Trollshaws
Tailor's Guild	Craft-hall of Esteldín	North Downs
Jeweller's Guild	Craft-hall of Esteldín	North Downs
Woodworker's Guild	Craft-hall of Esteldín	North Downs
All crafting guilds	Galtrev	Dunland
All crafting guilds	Snowbourn	Sutcrofts
All crafting guilds	Aldburg	West Rohan
All crafting guilds	Dol Amroth, Library of Saphadzîr	Western Gondor
All crafting guilds	Minas Tirith, The House of Craft	Old Anórien
All crafting guilds	Dale, crafting Hall	Eryn Lasgalen
All crafting guilds	Estolad Lân	Morgul Vale

See also

• Crafting Facility
• Crafting Instances
• Crafter interdependence
• Master Item Index