Getting Started!

What better endeavour to while away the hours then with a craft.

What better endeavour to while away the hours then with a craft.

Jill Brushwood - Combe Crafting Hall

Jill Brushwood – Combe Crafting Hall

After you have an understanding of each of the Professions, what is next?  Next you need to select the vocation which best suits you.  To do this, you will need to visit a Master or Mistress of Apprentices in the crafting areas found in various locations throughout Middle Earth.

How do I find the Master of Apprentices?

The quest, Outfitting Yourself and Others, sent from the Masters and Mistresses of Apprentices, is received in your gift box for completing the introduction.  By accepting this quest, you will be sent to the crafting area to speak to the Master or Mistress in that area.

Master/MIstress of Apprentices Location Area
Moror Thorin’s Hall, The Maker’s Hall Erid Luin
Jill Brushwood Combe Crafting Hall Bree-land
Golphedinir Celondim’s Crafting Terrace Erid Luin
Blossom Proudfoot Michel Delving Craft Fair The Shire

 

There are also quests that you can pick up at each of the starter areas you find yourself in after the Introduction.  These quest givers will give you a quest to speak to someone in the crafting area.

Quest Giver Location Found Send To
Bogi Deepdelver Thorin’s Gate Thorin’s Hall, The Maker’s Hall
Edward Carver Archet Combe Crafting Hall
Mibrethil Celondim Celondim’s Crafting Terrace
Alf Goodcliff Little Delving Michel Delving Craft Fair

 

What is next?

Once you speak to the Master/Mistress of Apprentices in your chosen area, they will invite you to choose a vocation.  Once you choose a vocation, speak to Master/Mistress again and will give you three introductory quests

From the Master/Mistress of Apprentices.  Your mission should you choose to accept it is...

From the Master/Mistress of Apprentices. Your mission should you choose to accept it is…

associated with that vocation as well as inferior tools, the worst quality tools to have, but suitable for doing the introduction quests.

Introduction to Prospecting, Introduction to Tailoring and Introduction to Forestry are the three quests associated with learning the Explorer Vocation.

Introduction to Prospecting: you will need to speak to the Supplier in the area who will give you a crate of supplies.  Open the crate to receive the ingredients to craft a Copper Ingot and a Tin Ingot.  You must be at a Forge to complete this quest.  Equip the Inferior Prospector’s Tools and complete the two tasks.  Speak to the Supplier again to finish the quest.

Introduction to Forestry: you will need to speak to the Supplier in the area who will give you a crate of supplies.   Open the crate to receive ingredients to craft a piece of light leather and a plank of treated rowan.  You must be at a work bench to complete this quest.  Equip the Inferior Forester’s axe and complete these two tasks.  Speak to the supplier again to finish the quest.

Introduction to Tailoring: you will need to speak to the Novice Tailor in the area who will give you a crate of supplies.  Open the crate to give you the ingredients to make a Leather Pad.  You must be at a work bench to complete this quest.  Equip the Inferior Tailor’s Toos and complete the task.  Once the Leather Pad is made, you will then need to make a Rough Cloth Cloak. Speak to the Novice Tailor again to finish the quest.  Once the quest is completed, you may equip the cloak.

Now with all three professions learnt, you will need to speak to the Master/Mistress again.  They will give you a Practice Makes Perfect quest with the reward being 3 Apprentice Ingredient Packs.  Accept the quest and then talk to the Master/Mistress again to complete the quest and earn your reward.

You can either use these packs straightaway, or save them for later.  I tend to save mine until I have enough to make all my jewellery, then save more for my armour etc.  The choice is yours.

After completing the Vocation Introduction a Deed will be completed.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t have anything other than a title, in the Explorer’s case, Easily Lost associated with it.

You may now choose another vocation and follow the same steps.  All experience earned previously will be lost however and if you have already learnt a profession, such as Forester, you will not need to relearn it.

After Selecting a Craft.

To help you select a vocation, you can visit the Crafting Explained Guide for information on each vocation.  After your selection, you will want to visit the Supplier again and buy better tools.  These tools will cost you 2 silver each, but worth it. I generally keep the inferior tools until they are worn out and then swap to the upgraded tools.  Once I have equipped the upgraded tools, I simply throw away the damaged tools.

The Supplier will also have other crafting items you will need to craft with.  If you are a Forester and need to turn Branches into Planks, you will need to buy Lumps of Wax from the Supplier.  If you are a Cook, you will need to buy such items as Lumps of Butter, Cups of Cream and Raw Pork Sausages and so on.  It is worth checking out the Supplier for things that your craft will need.

An icon for a Tailor Recipe

An icon for a Tailor Recipe

When you go to your crafting panel, you will notice that each profession has Recipes to get you started on crafting.  Looking at the Explorer again, you will find that you can now make the components needed to make Light and Medium Armour as well as the Cloak you made in the Introductory quest.

These are generally enough to get you started earning experience to your next level, however, other recipes can be bought from the Novice Tailor in the area.  Recipes are also dropped from killing mobs in Middle Earth, so don’t feel like you have to rush out and buy all the recipes at once.

Levelling Your Craft.

By crafting the items in your profession or by gathering materials, you earn experience.  Once you have reached 200 experience a second level opens up where you need to earn 400 experience points.  It is worthMastery Bars noting, that after earning 200 experience points, the Tier 2 Crafting level, Journeyman, will open up.

This means that if you are in the Barrow Downs, you can collect the next level of materials for your profession.  Without the Journeyman crafting level unlocked, you will only be able to collect Copper and Tin, in the case of Prospecting.

Crafting Leather will take 2 Light Hides and earn you 6 experience points per hide.  To complete both levels of Tier 1/Apprentice crafting you will need 200 Light Hides if you wanted to level using Hides alone.  You will receive Hides by killing, wolves, bears and boars.

Making a Treated Rowan Plank takes 2 Logs of Rowan Wood and 1 Lump of Wax but will give you 8 experience points per plank.  The Lump of Wax costs 24 copper per piece, so to earn both levels of Tier 1/Apprentice crafting, you will need, 150 Logs of Rowan Branches and 75 Lumps of wax costing 75 silver.

If you are a woodworker, you will need to craft the Planks, but if Planks are not required, then farming the Hides and crafting those are the cheaper alternative.

 

Congratulations! You are now a Crafter.

Congratulations! You are now a Crafter.

This guide is only dealing with getting started with Crafting and the Master/Mistresses of Apprentices here are the only ones that will give you your Vocation Introductory Quests.  Other Masters/Mistresses can be found throughout Middle Earth and we will go more into them when we cover the Crafting NPC’s in a future guide.

5 comments

  1. Andang /

    I might actually start crafting. I have never really been interested but this guide might change that. Thanks Myst!

  2. Your welcome Andang. I will be going into the crafting tiers in more depth shortly. Still gathering some screenshots etc.

    Have fun

  3. Well done, Myst. From what I have seen from other players and LOTRO’s crafting system, they either generally pick it up right away, or are so confused that they may skip trying to get the whole mechanic.

    Hopefully this guide ya made (and any past/future ones) will help to sway that latter group toward the path of crafting. It can be a rather lucrative task, or even just there to help friends/kinnies.

    It might also be noteworthy to mention that the Universal Toolkit is available from level 1 (either from the store or lootboxes – both should be Bound to Account), and is basically comparable to high-level crafting tools (3-in-1; 20% crit/-3 seconds, etc). Though I assume most beginning players would probably not have access, unless they had spare TP, so yeh…

    • Kaleigh Starshine /

      I would second this. A good many probably decide it is not worth their time to learn, but guides like this one can help them make a more informed decision about it 🙂

  4. Thanx Zyngor. I actually didn’t know you could get those toolkits at such a low level. I will have to investigate further now. Mind you, I currently have 6 lootboxes and no keys. Maybe I have one and just don’t know it 🙂

    Have fun

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