Raising Skill
Home Old News Bows Arrows Raising Skill References FAQ

Raising your Fletching Skill

You have become better at Fletching! (200)

...my personal quest completed..!

 

...that 201st skill point was just rude...

The maximum fletching skill is not yet known.  If you have any other trade skill higher than 200, then the maximum fletching skill will be 200.  To increase your fletching skill to the point where you can make some of the nice bows shown above, you must make lots and lots and lots of arrows.  If the arrow you are making has a higher complexity rating than your current skill, you have a chance of increasing your fletching skill.  Note that you don’t necessarily have to be successful in a particular attempt in order to gain a skill level.

A couple of tips will help:

  1. I have seen claims that having your fletching book open while you actually perform the fletching will give you a better chance. I don’t know if this is true or not, but you can bet that mine is always open when I’m fletching. I’ve also seen claims that simply owning the book, in your possession or in the bank, will increase your chances.

  2. The game will use the higher of your INTELLIGENCE or WISDOM to determine the chance for increasing your fletching skill on any given combine attempt.   So spend some money and buy the necessary jewelry to buff up your INT or WIS rating.

  3. For a long time, people believed that a higher WISDOM value would give you a better chance at having a successful combine attempt. However, this does not seem to be true, and certainly wasn't one of the items listed when Verant recently (April 2000) posted information clarifying the effects of many statistics in the game.

  4. When you get to a higher level of fletching and the arrows you are making are expensive, a higher CHARISMA value will limit the economic damage to your bank account. I’ve even heard that some players can buff their CHA values up to the point where they actually make money making the more expensive arrows and selling them back to the merchant.

  5. Use Ctrl-Click to select and move 1 component at a time into your fletch kit. This tip alone will save you vast amounts of aggravation.

    This particular tip is arguably the most useful one in this list, so let me say that once again:  USE CTRL-CLICK TO SELECT AND MOVE ARROW COMPONENTS INTO THE FLETCHING KIT!

  6. Use Shift-Click to purchase components from the vendor in stack of 20, rather than singly.

  7. Do your fletching in a zone without too much lag. It drives me crazy to do it in East Commons, for example, while it’s usually pretty speedy in Surefall Glade.

  8. The complexity of the arrow in question is driven from the complexity of the most complex component.  That means that when fletching for skill, you should be using the single component which will yield an arrow with a complexity which exceeds your fletching skill, and the cheapest things available for the other 3 components.  In general the complexity value of the components increases in direct relation to their individual costs, although there is an exception or two at the upper end of the pricing scale.  The trivial values for the individual components are shown below, in order of increasing cost.

    Arrow Component Complexity Values
    Large Nock 16
    Round Fletch 16
    Wood Shaft 16
    Field Point 16
    Medium Nock 36
    Parabolic Fletch 46
    Small Nock 56
    Bone Shaft 68
    Shield Fletch 82
    Hooked Point 102
    Wood Vane 122
    Ceramic Shaft 135
    Bone Vane 162
    Ceramic Vane 202
    Steel Shaft 202
    Silver Tip 182


  9. In general when fletching for skill, you would like to use the single component necessary to create an arrow with sufficient complexity to exceed your own fletching skill, and the cheapest components everywhere else.  However, this will usually lead to an arrow with such poor statistics that you would never willingly use it in combat, and so you just sell them back to the vendor at about a 10 to 15% loss (why in the world any vendor would be willing to buy these things back from us is a complete mystery!).  However, it is often possible to spend just a little more, and create an arrow that can be used for both skill AND production.  While these arrows are often not the most economic combinations for a given statistic, they at least serve the purpose of allowing you to simultaneously fletch for skill AND production.  Note that the cost values shown here may differ slightly from those shown in other portions of this article - these represent the absolute cheapest prices I was able to obtain through faction and charisma.

  10. Finally, note that arrows constructed using the Bladed Tips are now, or soon will be (as of 1-17-2000) considered magic arrows, capable of hitting magical creatures.  To reflect this new capability, a few lines have been added to the table below showing appropriate arrow configurations making use of the bladed tip.   Note that these arrows, when combined, result in 10 arrows, rather than the standard 5, but to keep the table columns consistent the cost is reported in the following table on a per-5 basis.

  11. To increase your skill above 202, it is necessary to fabricate the new advanced arrows, made available in the Shadows of Luclin expansion.  For details regarding the constrution of these arrows, see the "Arrows" section of this guide.

 

The Cheapest Way To Fletch
Description Triv Dmg/Rng Cost(5) Point Shaft Fletch Nock
Sales, Damage 1 56 1/150 78 Field Wood Para Small
Sales, Damage 2 68 2/150 152 Field Bone Para Small
Sales, Damage 3 102 3/150 462 Hooked Bone Para Small
Sales, Damage 4 135 4/150 1538 Hooked Ceramic Para Small
Magic, Damage 3 182 3/150 2032 Silvertip Wood Para Small
Magic, Damage 4 182 4/150 2069 Silvertip Bone Para Small
Magic, Damage 5 182 5/150 2607 Silvertip Ceramic Para Small
Magic, Damage 6 202 6/150 3447 Silvertip Steel Para Small
Magic, Damage 7 202 7/125 4116 Silvertip Steel Bone Vane Small
Magic, Damage 8 202 8/100 4825 Silvertip Steel Ceramic Vane Small

 
Type 1 16 1/50 20 Field Wood Round Large
Type 2 36 1/75 31 Field Wood Round Medium
Type 3 46 1/100 41 Field Wood Para Large
Type 4 - Cheap 56 1/100 57 Field Wood Round Small
Type 4 - Alternate 1/150 78 Field Wood Para Small
Type 5 - Cheap 68 2/50 94 Field Bone Round Large
Type 5 - Alternate 2/150 152 Field Bone Para Small
Type 6 82 2/0 204 Field Wood Shield Large
Type 7 - Cheap 102 2/50 330 Hooked Wood Round Large
Type 7 - Alternate A 2/150 388 Hooked Wood Para Small
Type 7 - Alternate B 3/150 462 Hooked Bone Para Small
Type 8 122 2/25 697 Field Wood Wood Vane Large
Type 9 - Cheap 135 3/50 1170 Field Ceramic Round Large
Type 9 - Alternate 4/150 1538 Hooked Ceramic Para Small
Type 10 - Cheap 162 2/75 1380 Field Wood Bone Vane Large
Type 10- Alternate 2/125 1417 Field Wood Bone Vane Small
Type 11 202 3/50 2797 Field Wood Ceramic Vane Large

 

If you would like to download an excel spreadsheet containing the Bow Table, the Arrow Table, and the Cheapest Way to Fletch Table, go here.

Fletching Kit Get familiar with this sight...you're going to see it a lot...