Crafting Build

[Twirlip]

I'm relatively new here and have now got around to trying to level a crafting character. I've been reading these forums and one thing that now worries me is that, in answer to another post, Driller refers to an optimum skill level of 80 and there being a specific crafter build. I'm guessing from other things mentioned here that this build is based around bard skills. I'm nearly there with my character but I started it before reading this. As a result it is not bard based and will only have 76 points in the two crafting skills. Are there items available that can close this gap or is there really only one specific crafting build? If so that seems a bit boring, but I guess if that's the case I'll just have to start again with the cookie cutter build.

[Kane0]

Yeah you can find items to cover the difference

[The Flying Rodent]

There's a small collection of crafter builds that are basically either Intelligence-heavy Bard or Wizard variants, given the objective is to reach 80 points in Craft Armour/Weapon [an Intelligence based skill].

A collection of such builds can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3229

[Twirlip]

Thanks for the link. That was one of the threads that made me think that effective crafters have to be bard / RDD mixes. It's not the type of character that comes to mind when thinking about crafters but I guess it's more about mechanics than RP. Do you know how easy it is to acquire an item that would provide +4 to armor/weapon crafting? Is it something you can buy? I've looked in all the shops I'm aware of and am failing to see anything.

[Yunim]

+3 Craft Armor/Weapon is the cap for items. Any item with more than that will be nerfed by a script upon equip to +3.

There are loot-only light hammers that provide +3 Craft Armor and +3 Craft Weapon, and there are other random drops that provide up to +3 Craft Armor/Weapon.

[Mask-inc]

Nerfing craft gears only encourage bard builds more and cut more on the few potential crafter builds, just saying.
And it's not like there is a ton of craft gears around, most of it is random drops and with the amount of items in the drop tables, not like you see that so often.




my 2 cents

Mask

[Twirlip]

Well, I designed and levelled my own bard based build which I'm quite happy with and which reaches 80+ with no problems and can happily survive solo looting sprees in a certain city in the underdark. One thing which I found out along the way which would have been nice to know, and which I can't see referenced anywhere, is that the crafting skills boost from bard song seems to be nerfed so that it can only contribute 10 points max? Fortunately I'd given myself a little wriggle room in case I encountered something like this and so it was not the problem it might have been. Worth knowing about though.

I still would prefer to be able to have a wizard as a crafter; it just seems more natural, but I guess we have to work with the tools that we have available.

[The Flying Rodent]

Yeah, there was a recent debuff added such that Bard Song only contributes +10 to craft skill. This was mainly done to address Bard 30 / RDD 10's with next to no Intelligence focus that were able to cheese their way to 80 skill by using their +19 sultry voice. Pretty sure the situation now is that Bard builds require other items, or 38 intelligence buffed, to hit the cap.

An Int Wizard can get to 76-77 skill before items, so if you're lucky enough to find a couple of those, wizards can make for good crafters. You could also just mix Wizard with Bard and do it that way [I haven't posted the build online, but Wizard 21 Bard 19 can hit 80 without items, and has a Mummy to hit things with... ]