Bowcraft

Skill · Any level 14 · (helpful)
(85% per practice)
Requires: fletcher
Guild: The Woodwrights GuildRank: Adept
(Profession)
Usage
  • woodcraft help
  • woodcraft list
  • woodcraft create <item> <wood>
  • woodcraft finish <wood>
  • woodcraft add <arrowhead/fletching> <woodcrafted ammo>
  • stop

The 'fletcher' skill allows you to craft ammunition such as arrows and crossbow bolts. The ammunition produced is merely sharpened wood - you can enhance its potency by adding arrowheads. The 'bowcraft' skill allows you to craft bows, and if you have knowledge of metallurgy, crossbows. Flexible woods, such as yew, ash or hickory, work best for making bows.

Be aware that any runes carved into arrowheads will be lost when they are mounted to ammunition. The shaft will retain any runes that it has, and can be rune-carved more if desired.

Crafting bows requires the Woodcrafting and Fletching skills.

Making a Bow

Wood

Bows are ideally made from wood with the Flexible affinity. This includes species such as Elm or Hickory. Rarer flexible woods include Bodark, Boxwood, and Yew; using these rarer woods gives you a higher chance to create high quality bows.

Finishing

Bows can have grips added for additional stats. For ranged combat you want high Hitroll, high Dexterity, and Luck[needs confirmation]. Using a Flexible wood will naturally apply Dexterity and Movement Regen, a Green Jade grip can supply a healthy amount of Luck.

Fletching

Making arrows is known as fletching. The skill includes the ability attach feathers and arrowheads to arrows.

Wood

Whereas the bow itself should be created with a Flexible-affinity wood, arrows are ideally created with Dense or Rigid wood with a significant difference in damage. As with all wood crafting it's a good idea to choose a less common wood to get higher quality results.

Example arrows of different woods. All are MASTERCRAFT quality and of the same level to create a steady baseline of comparison:

Wood Affinity Damage
Catalpa Soft 3 to 21
Sandalwood Aromatic 3 to 24
Elderberry Flexible 3 to 24
Darkwood Exotic 3 to 33
Ironwood Exotic 3 to 33
Beech Dense 3 to 33

Arrowheads

Adding arrowheads to your arrows allow you to add Hitroll and change the type of damage. Standard arrowheads do pierce damage, broadheads do slash damage, and blunt-tip do crush damage. Readily available and producing good stats, Steel is an easy choice for creating arrowheads.