Runes of Magic: Apprentice Crafting Guide
MMORPG.com Runes of Magic Correspondent Pam Blalock writes this guide to apprentice crafting in the upcoming MMORPG, Runes of Magic.
Creating items in-game is an exciting thing to accomplish in an MMO. Oftentimes, the finished product yields a hefty amount of experience and sometimes a profit can be made. This is true of Frogster’s new free-to-play MMO, Runes of Magic. In RoM there are three harvesting skills and six production skills. All skills can be taken beginning at level one, but as you progress through these skills you must choose which ones you’d like to improve.
Currently there are 80 levels for harvesting and crafting. During levels 1-20 you are an apprentice, during 21-40 you are a craftsman, during 41-60 you are an adept (also called a specialist) and during 61-80 you become a master of that profession. All professions can be leveled to 20, but only 6 can enter levels 21-40. Beyond that only three professions can progress through levels 41-60 and only one can become a master skill.
You can access your crafting sheet by pressing “Y.” Here you can see all of your current progress through the levels of harvesting and production.
Harvesting
RoM’s harvesting and production system will be familiar to most gamers. When you first log in, you’re only a few yards away from Pioneer’s Colony. All three harvesting trainers are either in or very close to this town. Alice the herbalism trainer and Wood (wait for it) the woodcutting trainer, are in the town proper. Hansen, the mining trainer, is a few yards away directly west of the Colony. After speaking with these three different trainers, you are ready to harvest.
Nodes spawn all across Taborea and are plentiful for the apprentice level. You can track all nodes on the minimap with a toggle function that is on by default. There are six different types of nodes for each harvesting skill for levels 1-20. They are acquired at level one, eight, eleven, fourteen and twenty. Those marked with an asterisk are rarer spawns and are used less frequently in vendor bought recipes. World drop recipes, uncommon recipes that not everyone will have, usually require one of these rare spawns.
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Herbalism
- Mountain Poplar
- Rosemary*
- Wild Berry
- Bison Grass
- Bitterleaf
- Moxa
Woodcutting
- Balsa
- Chime*
- Williow
- Stone Rotan
- Maple
- Oak Mining
- Brass
- Flame Dust*
- Tin
- Cyanide
- Iron
- Copper
Since these are harvested resources you must refine them to use them in production recipes. Refinement takes place at different crafting tables. Herb refinement takes place at the alchemy table, woodcutting at the carpentry table and ore smelting at the blacksmithing table. There are usually two steps to refinement, although the rare type of wood has three steps. For example, you begin with two recipes to refine mountain poplar. After you harvest the resource you can take two mountain poplars and turn them into a mountain poplar bundle. If necessary, you can take six mountain poplar bundles and make them into mountain poplar sap. The sap is usually required for recipes with a higher grade (saps are often used to make green items instead of white).
The two refinements for ore are sand and nugget and the two refinements for wood are timber and lumber. However, the rare spawn of wood, chime, does have a third refinement option. Two chime pieces create one timber and six timber can make one lumber. With six lumber, chime can yield one chime plank. That’s a total of 72 harvested chime pieces to make one chime lumber.
Production
Until you arrive in Logar you can’t pick up any of the production skills, however, all skills are available in Logar. It is the second town you’ll come across in your adventures in RoM and you’ll probably be around level five when you arrive. Since you’re an apprentice you can pick up all the production skills. You might as well if you want to try them all out but be warned, each item you create costs gold. This price increases with the level of the recipe in which you are creating. A portion of this gold may be retrieved if you sell your products to a vendor while leveling a certain skill, but you will still be losing gold for each creation.
You cannot craft anywhere; you will need to be near the appropriate crafting table (sometimes called crafting tools). These tables are marked by a green circle above them with a picture of the production icon in the center.
Recipes for production will also feel familiar to most MMO players. Each recipe will take two refined materials from the different types of resources. For instance, a tailoring recipe called Magical Leggings needs three balsa timber and one mountain poplar bundle to be created. Tailoring recipes take from the wood resource and the herb resource. The world drop of Enhanced Magical Trousers, a green quality recipe, requires three balsa lumber, one mountain poplar sap, one chime timber and Magical Leggings. There we see the use of the rare resource and the second step of refinement. All of the production skills have different combinations of the resources they use. No production skill takes from more than two of the harvestable families.
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Production Skill -> Harvestable Family
Alchemy -> ore and herbs Armor crafting -> ore and herbs Blacksmithing -> ore and wood Carpentry -> ore and wood Cooking -> wood and herbs Tailoring -> wood and herbs
Alchemy and cooking are two exceptions. While they require materials from two of the harvesting families, they also need supplies from a vendor on all of their recipes. Alchemy uses vials and containers. Cooking uses additional types of food including fish and frog legs among other things. All of these are found at an alchemy or cooking vendor. These vendors are usually next to the crafting tables.
Levels 11-20
Things change slightly once you hit level 11 with any of the production skills. Your harvesting skills remain the same, but the six production skills will now require a production rune for all recipes level 11 and higher. You will begin looting these runes from the beginning so it’s a good idea to hold onto them until you hit 11 with your production skills.
Production Skill -> Production Rune
Alchemy -> Combine Armor Crafting -> Purify Blacksmithing -> Frost Carpentry -> Link Cooking -> Activate Tailoring -> Disenchant
Once you’ve leveled something to 20 you will need to complete a quest to continue any further. Remember, you can only take six of these skills into the craftsman level so pick your skills carefully. All of the production skills need two types of the harvestable resources so it’s a good idea to choose at least two gathering skills at this point if not keeping them all. Of course, it’s up to you which ones you choose and since there is an auction house resources will surely be available from other players.
Runes of Magic is currently in open beta with a tentative launch date of Q1 2009. It is still in the process of being localized. It is a free-to-play and free-to-download game with international and US servers.
