Complete Crafting Guide

Crafting in LOTRO is a deep and rewarding system that lets you create weapons, armor, jewelry, food, and consumables. Whether you want to be self-sufficient or earn gold on the auction house, this guide covers everything you need to know.

How Crafting Works

Every character can learn one Vocation, which bundles three Professions together. You can master all three professions in your vocation, but you can only have one vocation per character.

Note: Since the Umbar expansion, you can purchase a 4th crafting profession slot from the LOTRO Store. This extra profession can be any profession, regardless of your vocation — letting you fill gaps in self-sufficiency or add a profitable skill. Each vocation section below includes a recommended 4th profession pick.

Each profession has tiers that you progress through:

Apprentice
Journeyman
Expert
Artisan
Master
Supreme
Westfold
Eastemnet
Westemnet
Anórien
Doomfold
Ironfold
Gundabad
Umbar

Each tier has two stages: Proficiency (craft enough to unlock the next tier) and Mastery (craft more to unlock critical success recipes at that tier).

Choosing Your Vocation (Or Combination of Vocations)

Explorer — Best All-Around Choice

Professions: Forester, Tailor, Prospector

This is widely considered the best starting vocation because:

Prospector lets you gather ore (used by many other professions)
Forester lets you gather wood and hides
Tailor makes light and medium armor

4th Profession Option: Scholar — gives you access to potions, scrolls, and dyes that complement any playstyle. Perfect for: Hunter, Burglar, Warden, or any class wearing light/medium armor

Armsman

Professions: Prospector, Weaponsmith, Woodworker

Craft weapons and shields. The Prospector profession makes you self-sufficient for gathering ore.

4th Profession Option: Metalsmith — lets you craft heavy armor and your own crafting tools. Perfect for: Champion, Guardian, or anyone who wants to craft their own weapons

Tinker

Professions: Prospector, Jeweller, Cook

Make jewelry and food buffs. Cook is one of the most profitable professions — top-tier food like Luxurious Roasted Oryx Shank and Luxurious Stuffed Eggplant is always in demand. Jewellers also craft Mûrai Edhelharn Token for hope buffs.

4th Profession Option: Scholar — adds potions and scrolls to your consumable repertoire alongside food. Perfect for: Crafting jewelry for all characters + cooking buff food for sale

Historian

Professions: Farmer, Scholar, Weaponsmith

Scholar is unique — it creates potions, battle and warding scrolls, and dyes. At end-game, Scholars craft Scroll of Mûrai Battle Lore and Scroll of Mûrai Warding Lore, plus healing essences like Greater Mûrai Athelas Essence and Greater Mûrai Celebrant Essence. Farmer grows pipe-weed and cooking ingredients.

4th Profession Option: Prospector — makes your Weaponsmith self-sufficient for ore gathering. Perfect for: Support-minded players who want to provide consumables

Armorer

Professions: Prospector, Metalsmith, Tailor

The premiere armor-crafting vocation. Metalsmith makes heavy armor and shields.

4th Profession Option: Cook — adds buff food crafting to your already strong armor production. Perfect for: Guardian, Captain, or anyone wanting full armor crafting

Woodsman

Professions: Forester, Woodworker, Farmer

Craft bows, staves, and musical instruments. Self-sufficient wood gathering.

4th Profession Option: Prospector — gives you ore gathering to complement your wood-based crafting. Perfect for: Hunter, Lore-master, Minstrel

Yeoman

Professions: Farmer, Cook, Tailor

No gathering profession requires another player's help for materials. But Cook + Farmer is very self-sufficient for food production.

4th Profession Option: Prospector or Forester — adds a gathering profession to fuel other characters or sell materials. Perfect for: Dedicated cooks or players who want to focus on consumables

Crafting Tools

Every profession requires a specific crafting tool equipped in your tool slot to craft or gather. Without the right tool equipped, you cannot use that profession's recipes or harvest its nodes.

Tool Types by Profession

Profession	Tool Required	Used For
Cook	Cook's Tools	Preparing food and buff items
Farmer	Farmer's Tools	Planting and harvesting crops
Forester	Forester's Tools	Processing hides and wood
Jeweller	Jeweller's Tools	Crafting jewelry and settings
Metalsmith	Metalsmith's Tools	Crafting heavy armor, shields, and tools
Prospector	Prospector's Tools	Mining ore and gem nodes
Scholar	Scholar's Tools	Crafting potions, scrolls, and dyes
Tailor	Tailor's Tools	Crafting light and medium armor
Weaponsmith	Weaponsmith's Tools	Crafting melee weapons
Woodworker	Woodworker's Tools	Crafting bows, staves, and instruments

Tool Tiers & Quality

Tools come in tiers that match the crafting tier progression (Apprentice through Umbar). Higher-tier tools are required to craft at their corresponding tier.

Within each tier, tools can have different quality levels:

Standard — Basic tool, no bonus
Superior — Grants a small bonus to critical success chance
Supreme — Grants a larger bonus to critical success chance

Using a higher-quality tool is one of the easiest ways to increase your crit rate, making them well worth the investment.

Guaranteed Crit Items (Optional Crafting Ingredients)

As an alternative to relying on tool quality and luck, many recipes accept an optional crafting ingredient that guarantees a critical success. These are sometimes called "crafting journals" or "compendiums" depending on the profession and tier. When you open a recipe that supports one, you'll see an optional ingredient slot alongside the required materials.

Each profession has its own line of guaranteed crit items — for example, Weaponsmiths use Westernesse Steel-blades Recipes, Jewellers use Gem-cutter's Journals, and Scholars use Compendiums of Lore. They are tier-specific, so you need the matching tier's crit item for the recipe you are crafting.

These items are typically obtained by:

Crafting guild reputation vendors — Unlocked at higher guild standing
Drops from humanoid enemies and treasure caches
The Auction House — Often the quickest way to get them

Tip: For expensive single-output recipes (like legendary weapon components or end-game armor), always use a guaranteed crit item rather than gambling on your crit chance. Save your crit items for high-value crafts and rely on tool quality for bulk crafting.

The 4th Profession

With the Umbar expansion introducing the 4th profession slot, the Umbar-tier tool system was updated to fully support it. Umbar crafting tools are available for every profession, meaning your 4th profession gets the same top-tier tool access as your original three. You do not need a separate vocation to obtain Umbar-quality tools for your extra profession — any Metalsmith or Woodworker can craft them for you (or you can find them on the Auction House).

This is a significant quality-of-life improvement: previously, adding a mismatched profession meant relying on lower-tier or hard-to-find tools. Now, Supreme Umbar tools for all ten professions are craftable and tradeable, so your 4th profession can perform at full capacity from day one.

Who Crafts Tools?

Crafting tools are made by two professions:

Metalsmith — Crafts metal-based tools (Prospector's Tools, Metalsmith's Tools, Jeweller's Tools, Cook's Tools, and others)
Woodworker — Crafts wood-based tools (Forester's Tools, Woodworker's Tools, and others)

This is one reason Metalsmith and Woodworker are valuable professions — they supply tools for every other crafter on the server. Since the Umbar expansion, both professions can craft tools for all ten professions up to Umbar tier — including tools for any 4th profession slot. If you're choosing a 4th profession, Metalsmith is a strong pick because it lets you craft your own tools (and sell them).

Tip: Always upgrade your tools when you enter a new crafting tier. The crit bonus from superior/supreme tools adds up significantly over hundreds of crafts.

Leveling Your Professions Efficiently

General Tips

Gather everything — As you quest, gather every node you see
Focus on Proficiency first — Reach Proficiency to unlock the next tier, then come back for Mastery later
Use recipes wisely — Craft the cheapest recipe that still gives progression credits
Check the Auction House — Sometimes buying materials is faster than gathering

Fastest Leveling Routes

For gathering professions (Prospector, Forester, Farmer):

Follow the natural zone progression
Ered Luin → Bree-land → Lone-lands → North Downs → Evendim

For production professions (Weaponsmith, Metalsmith, etc.):

Craft items that use the fewest materials per skill-up
Vendor or AH the results
Process raw materials into ingots/leather (gives skill-ups too!)

Crafting Guilds

At later tiers, you can join a Crafting Guild that unlocks exclusive high-end recipes. Each profession has its own guild:

Guild	Location
Cook's Guild	Michel Delving (The Shire)
Jeweller's Guild	Rivendell
Metalsmith's Guild	Thorin's Hall
Scholar's Guild	Rivendell
Tailor's Guild	Esteldin
Weaponsmith's Guild	Thorin's Hall
Woodworker's Guild	Esteldin

To advance in a guild, complete daily crafting quests using guild-specific recipes and materials.

Making Gold with Crafting

The most profitable crafting activities:

Cooking — Buff food is always in demand. Luxurious Roasted Oryx Shank, Luxurious Eggplant Dip, and Pot of Mûrai Honey and Oats sell consistently. Feasts like Splendid Mûrai Feast and Durable Umbari Feast are premium items that fetch top prices.
Scholar — Scroll of Mûrai Battle Lore and Scroll of Mûrai Warding Lore are consumables that raiders always need. Greater Mûrai Athelas Essence and Greater Mûrai Celebrant Essence are also steady sellers.
Jeweller — Everyone needs jewelry, and Mûrai Edhelharn Token is a staple raid consumable. Craft and sell settings + finished pieces.
Processing Materials — Buy raw ore/wood, process into ingots/planks, sell for profit.
Dyes (Scholar) — Cosmetic players buy dyes regularly.

Auction House Tips

List items during peak hours (evenings and weekends)
Undercut by small amounts, not massive price drops
Bundle materials in stacks of 50 or 100
Check prices before crafting — some items cost more in materials than they sell for

Critical Success

When you've mastered a tier, you unlock critical success on recipes. Crits produce superior versions of items with better stats. For early crafting tiers, crits require optional critical ingredients:

Weaponsmith: Brimstone
Metalsmith: Coal
Tailor: Patterns/Threads
Jeweller: Various gems
Woodworker: Resin

Always try to crit when crafting gear for yourself or to sell — crit items are significantly more valuable.

End-Game Crafting at a Glance

At cap, every raider needs a steady supply of crafted consumables. Here's what each profession contributes:

Profession	Key End-Game Output
Cook	Luxurious Roasted Oryx Shank, Luxurious Stuffed Eggplant, Luxurious Eggplant Dip, Pot of Mûrai Honey and Oats, Splendid Mûrai Feast
Scholar	Scroll of Mûrai Battle Lore, Scroll of Mûrai Warding Lore, Greater Mûrai Athelas Essence, Greater Mûrai Celebrant Essence
Jeweller	Mûrai Edhelharn Token (hope buff)
Metalsmith	Mûrai Westernesse Shield-spike Kit, Mûrai Beleriand Shield-spike Kit, Mûrai Ancient Dwarf Shield-spike Kit

All of these are consumed on use — meaning there is always demand. If you want to make gold, focus your crafting here.

Crafting in LOTRO rewards patience and planning. Build up your professions alongside your adventures, and you'll always have the best gear and a healthy gold balance.

For the full crafting tools listing, see the Crafting Tools Index on lotro-wiki.com.

Complete Crafting Guide — Vocations, Leveling & Profit

Complete Crafting Guide

How Crafting Works