Well, I plan on staying in the Serenguard, but would like people's input on ALL of the tradeskills - half out of curiosity. For me as a warrior, forging, herbs, and poisons seem to be the most important and useful, but what will let me make the best livelihood as well? Herbs seem to sell very well cause everyone needs it, but forging makes sense cause I can make fullplate and my own arms and armour.

Herbs are excellent IF you take a *lot* of time to forage. If you have limited time, or don't want to spend hours harvesting / replanting, don't bother. If you do have plenty of time, though- it's one of the most profitable skills there is. And helps you combat-wise a lot as well, rarely run out of necessary herbs when you can pick your own.

Yeah, I'm weighing the differences between having really good, sustainable offense and defence, or better curing. On the plus for forging, good weapons and I assume armour seem to sell for credits, while I don't see herbs going for that. But I guess if herbs make rediculous amounts of money you could buy the credits from guild and market.

I don't think forging is the path you want to take if you plan to make gold/credits from it. I haven't heard very good things; it's not very sustainable.

I would say herbalism is your best best, especially if you can set up a semi-automated system for it. Just something that you can press a button, harvest what you need (only go down to 5, or whatever the advised minium). That way you could go through whole planes at a time as quickly as possible.

Yeah, it still takes a while, but time is your only outlay in herbalism, unlike every other trade.

Time and some frustration at finding out how far too many places are overharvested. Perhaps I'm soft since I had grown used to Achaea where just about every room that could have plants had them. Here, entire areas can be deherbed. I'm suprised some of the plants havn't gone exinct yet.

But that's a personal issue. If you do have the time, don't need High Magic, and don't mind grumbling over 'selfish fools who don't think long-term' then herbs makes a great choice.

Forging, by how I hear it, isn't a tradeskill realy: it's a way to strengthen yourself more and perhaps help another along the way.

It still would be nice to be able to make my own weapons and armour, especially because I am a warrior, but it seems to give very little payback for the money in comms put in. I'm also picking my skill on an RP side too; what type of warrior does...say... bookbinding when hes not smiting his enemies? (sorry to all bookbinding warriors out there )

For the love of all that is holy, do not pick bookbinding if you want to make money .

A warrior that isn't all "Kill kill, slaughter slaughter" forever. A person who's trained to kill will always have a tinge of 'war' in anything they do, but many will want/need another outlet.. just to get away from the slaughter.

Thus, I can see a warrior/bookbinder, though mostly they will write war stories in those books (as well as selling them). Artistry would be another option for such people. Posions and herbs would be for the 'selfreliant' folks who get away by exploring. I can even see a Warior/cook who's big on social ties and a Jeweler either for momentos or because of a deep respect for magic.

Only person I realy can't see is a Clothing/warrior.

RP becomes very flexible once you see that humans are 3 demensional. Realy, check out any RL soldier who focuses ONLY on fighting and see how sane he becomes after a few wars and kills.

In any case, if you want Forging, go for it and treat it more as a way to become more powerful (full plate, working hard to get that perfect weapon, ext.) than a money maker. If you want something more profitable, then answer this question:

What sort of person is your character when the armor comes off?

My advice to any warrior is to take Forging, for the very simple reason that you will never, never be able to pay anyone enough gold to go through the process of creating exceptional gear for your use. It's a labor of love you have to do yourself...and even when you find great forgings available on the market that you can use, they are the discarded lovers of other smiths.

To be fair, though, you need to nearly trans it to really use it. If that's not likely, Poisonists are few and far between, and Herbalism is both lucrative and very useful at any level of skill.

Forging might be more profitable if people stopped the, "If you get me the comms, I'll do it for free mentality."

Part of the reason why poisonists are so few and far between. If you've got a vial of poison, you don't need a refill for a long time usually - and I remember a lot of poisonists extracting for free if you brought them the creature and an empty vial.

Don't be afraid to charge, whatever tradeskill you take.

EDIT: I don't mean that all forgers/poisonists do this, but given that most business seems to occur -within- the tradesperson's city/commune, many will often act on a good-will basis. And who wants to pay for a service and comms if someone else will just charge them for comms?

Forging isn't a great tradeskill because everyone does it, and they all do it for themselves, like Melanchthon says. Herbs is great, but it takes a lot of time.

I've done enchanting, alchemy and now poisons and by -far- poisons has been my favourite. Its not nearly as bad anymore now that more than just warriors need poisons and it goes along very well with my rp of being a druid with ecology.

im still confused with why other people would need poisons, hitting with the weapons will be harder, you still only have at best a 50% charge of afflicting...why not just use the skills you already have, unless of course im missing something here..

You are. Mage telekineticists can use levitating envenomed daggers to slash at people with, and druid ecologists can use a fetish (weird bony thing) to jab people with double venom comboes.

They really can't go extinct. Entire areas *do* die off during their hibernation... you can walk through and not see a single one. But the next month, one or two places will randomly grow one plant, and then if you let those rooms grow a little you can replant from there. Always nice when there's a room of 60 that survived to replant from, though.

Wow, now I am even more divided about which skill to pick than when I started this topic . I now am considering a bookbinding warrior, kind of like a warrior-scholar. I don't see how it would make me any money but it sounds cool and the skills would let me to churn out papers and stories for all to enjoy, in addition to cursing people and such.

Do forgers still get to make fullplate as their reward for sticking with forging? Why isn't forging a good money-maker? Are there a lot of herbalists around?

Well, I went to gifted with forging before dropping it to dump those points into blademaster. After putting all those lessons into it I could only just barely make chainmail, which costs a crapload of cash (about 20k for a full suit) and provides VERY little benefit over scale, and pretty much no benefit over greatrobes. And the weapons I could create would only sell for 3-4k a piece, and don't hardly seem to move at all.

That is why forging is kind of a bad choice. Almost no use until you are VERY far up the skill-ladder. Not to say I won't pick it up again someday, but it was definately a mistake for someone who likes bashing as much as I do to start it that early.

I'd say forging's useful if you like supplying swords for your guilds novices and your guild doesn't mind paying for em.

I love tailoring, but I have a shop and I'm fairly well-known. And trans.

My warrior is a jeweller (of all the odd things) but that makes decent gold once you get to virtuoso (mastercut) and borrow/buy a hammer. People buy a LOT of gems for vials. And you can make your own damn jewellery for enchantments, which helps.

Enchantment is boring. I spent two hours enchanting today. *tired* Chained to the pentagram indeed.

You think 2 hours are much?!
Enchant 57 scrolls, I dare you! My eyes started to bleed yesterday, and I only did 19 of that offer!

You can make yourself a fullplate if you are trans forger. Stats can be around 100/100.
If you want to earn gold on forging you have to be almoust trans, 50% mythical is Masterweapons, so you will be able to make master weapons and this is only good profit from forging.
And herbs generally are far better skill to earn gold.
No matter how many herbalist there will be. Everybody needs them to fight/cure/making potions/making tints. And even on adept you will be selling lots of herbs.
If you have time for picking herbs, take herbs.
Forging is good gold only when Thorgal is looking for new weapons, but as he have them already it wont be in near future