I have not really tried to craft any items and was wondering if there were any guides / pointers to doing this. If I am interpreting this correctly , you basically need Khelgan to make the weapon / armor 1st then have Quara or Sand cast the appropriate spell. Do the different base metals give any special bonuses and or allow more powerful enchantments to be cast?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Actually almost any character can do the basic crafting of weapons or armor provided their skill level is high enough. Enchanting those items however requires a spellcaster or someone with a high UMD skill. Qara, Sand, Elanee, Zhaeve, and Grobnar can all create magical items provided they have the Create Magical Arms and Armor feat and / or the Create Wondrous Items Feat.

Different base metals do give special damage or protection but those special properties count against the allowed total of 3 enchantments per item (in the OC). Aside from that, all materials can be enchanted to the same level.

Here is a detailed summary of the crafting ranks required to fabricate various items or to use various materials:

Basic Crafting Ranks Required

Craft Armor
Light Shield: 1
Padded Armor: 1
Heavy Shield: 2
Leather Armor: 2
Hide Armor: 3
Studded Leather Armor: 3
Chain Shirt: 4
Tower Shield: 4
Breastplate: 5
Chain Mail: 5
Banded Mail: 6
Half-Plate Armor: 7
Full-Plate Armor: 8

modify the above for material type:
Iron: +0
Leather Hide: +0
Duskwood: +5
Darksteel: +10
Mithril: +10
Zalantar: +10
Salamander Hide: +12
Adamantine: +15
Umber Hulk Hide: +17
Wyvern Hide: +20
Red Dragon Hide: +23

Craft Weapon
Bow: 2
Simple: 2
Crossbow: 5
Martial: 5
Exotic: 8

modify the above for material type
Iron: +0
Wood: +0
Alchemical Silver: +5
Cold Iron: +5
Duskwood: +5
Shederran: +5
Darksteel: +10
Mithril: +10
Zalantar: +10
Adamantine: +15

and a list of gems required for crafting! (now you can dump the ones you've been wondering if you would be needing or not! lol)

Crafting Gem List

Amethyst (grenade like weapons - thunderstone, holy water etc)
Beljuril (+6/+8 stat boosters)
Blue Diamond (+5 weapons and armor and some wondrous items)
Canary Diamond (wondrous items; adds electrical damage)
Diamond (+2 weapons and armor and +2 stat boosters; holy avenger)
Emerald (+3 weapons and armor; adds acid or poison damage)
Fire Opal (Wondrous items)
Jacinth (Wondrous items; +4 stat boosters; weapon of disruption)
King's Tear (+8 stat boosters)
Obsidian (+1 weapons and armor)
Rogue Stone (+6 stat boosters)
Ruby (adds fire damage to a weapon)
Sapphire (Amulet of natural armor +1)
Star Sapphire (+4 weapons and armor and +4 stat boosters; adds cold damage)

Can I leave craft weapon and armor skill to one of my fighters? (ı'm wizard)

Yes. Khelgar makes a good choice for crafting weapons, or even Shandra - but Shandra's usefulness is, errr, limited in duration. You'll probably want Sand to be the armor crafter if you're going to make any plate armor from adamantine because of the high crafting skill required (23).

In fact, you can use most of the NPC's for ALL of the crafting (alchemical, weapon and armor) and Enchanting and save those feat slots for your wizard. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 12-21-2006, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: Micah Foehammer ]

oh i mean skill points?

Yes you can use your NPCs for the craft weapon, craft armor, or craft alchemy skills if you wish.

oh that's good. i wonder about craft magical armor and item feat. if I have this feat then i'll need craft weapon armor skills right? because anyfighter can create any armor weapon but my mage will have craft magical arms feat then the items he create will be magical right?
(if I have only 1 wizard)

It's actually Craft Magical ARMS and ARMOR feat, so you will need to have npcs with skill points in BOTH craft armor and craft weapon. (You can have the crafting skills spread across different NPCs). Just so we're clear, crafting and enchanting are two different things. Crafting only creates a base weapon or base armor (even those made from exotic materials). Enchanting then turns that base item into a magical item. Don't forget to have at least ONE NPC with a high craft alchemy skill. Enchanting an item requires magical essences and most of the essences actually have to be distilled from another item.

The Craft Magical Arms and armor only creates weapons and armor (including shields). To create other magical items, like rings, boots, belts and cloaks for example, you will need to ALSO have a character with the Create Wondrous items feat.

Note that it's unlikely that a specific Spellcaster is going to be able to create Every item. Some items require specific spells that are either Divine or Arcane in nature - so no single spellcaster will be able to create every item. Sand for example can not cast conjuration spells - not even from a scroll - he's a specialist mage and conjuration is his prohibited school. Qara has a limited spell repertoire. Elanee is a druid and doesn't have access to all Clerical spells and Zhaeve is purely clerical and doesn't have access to some druidical spells. Although wands, scrolls and certain items can be used in some cases, the effective caster level of spells from some of those items will NOT be sufficiently high enough to satisfy the caster level requirements for certain items.

Hope that helps.

[ 12-21-2006, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: Micah Foehammer ]

well well i think i get it! I'll get my mage "create wondrous item feat" and "craft magical arms and armors feat" but my craft armor and craft weapon skill wont effect the quality of these items right?

i mean lets say which skills will be useful for my wiz? which skills i should skip? (right now i'm maxing diplomacy bluff intimidate -social wizard- lore (identify) and speelcraft concentration.

Remember that the NPCs can do your crafting and enchanting for you. Sand, Qara, Elanee and Zhaeve all have the capability to enchant items assuming you give them the right feats. And Khelgar, Shandra, and a couple of other NPCs can also craft items as well. In fact, you will NEED at least a couple of them on enchanting certain items because some items require spells that a wizard can NOT access. No matter how hard you try NO single character can craft every item in the game.