I have been quite "successful" as a Smith (depending on one's definition of "success"), and would like to share my experience with all who would listen and learn. (Don't worry, reading this article won't raise some dumb skill only to drop you from GM Tank Mage to Master Tank Mage)

First off, this is NOT a lesson in the following:

• How to powermine a cave dry in 2 minutes.
• What items to smith that provide the best gold to ingot ratio.
• Whether it is better to make 1000 daggers or 500 chain coifs to raise your smith skill
• How to play leapfrog with a 800 stone pack of ore.
• How to create mule characters to hold equipment for you while you mine.
• How to MACRO your smith so you can sleep tight and wake up the next morning with a GM Smith.

These lessons provide what I have learned as a way to survive and even thrive in the hostile world of Britannia as a Smith / Miner. So let the lessons begin.

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Creating your new character

Here is the scoop... Smiths need ingots to work with. You get ingots by smelting ore at a forge or by buying them from other miners. The ingots you smelt yourself are free, while the ones you buy from other miners have sold from as little as 5 gold each to as much as 14 gold each. ( hint: if you are confused...I am suggesting to smelt your own ingots at this point. ) The ore you smelt comes from the caves. It takes a good Miner to retrieve this ore. Ore weighs a BUNCH, while the resultant ingots can oft be few. It takes 10 stones worth of ore to produce 1 ingot. Smelting success the first time can often be rare as a new miner. Lastly, there are usually never any forges even remotely close to a cave of ore, so what am I getting at? As a miner you will be WALKING a lot, so you need to be STRONG to make those mining trips worth it. Create your new character with actually only two skills: Smithing and Mining. Set the third skill, I would choose TINKERING to 1. Also, max out your STR stat at 60 so you have the strongest Miner you can start with. Take it from me and the others, STR is HARD to raise unless you follow me here.

Great!! Now you have your Apprentice Smith with a bachelor's in Mining! You will probably want to start out mining in the game so pick Minoc: The Survival Shop as a starting point. ( At least my discussion will be based in Minoc )

Mining: Be prepared

Now I will just list the main ideas for Mining:

1. Be prepared: Always carry AT LEAST 2 pickaxes or shovels. If pickaxes are in short supply from the shopkeeper then you should try to get 3 or 4. There is oft extreme mining competition for the blessed ore, and the last thing you want to happen is to have your pick break during a new ore spawn. The rest of the miners are going to be happily draining the ore while you are asking for a spare pick or must waste a trip back to the shop. Don't carry like 10 pickaxes, because you need to maximize the amount of ore you can carry. If a pick breaks, you have a spare which should get you loaded up and then you can buy a new pick at the blacksmith when you go smelting.

2. An even better tactic to use to maximize your ore carrying capacity without being stranded in a cave with no mining tools is to use your 1 Tinker skill to craft a shovel whenever you break your mining tool. All you need are 4 ingots ( which is what you are mining for so you should have some ) and some tinker tools. ( Which if you followed my suggestion in "Creating your new Character", you will already have these tools ).

3. Dump all worthless items. Get rid of that dagger, any food, ale, lock picks, pouches packs, etc. If you have valuables, leave them at the bank. Remember, as a new Miner you only have some STR but not much yet. There is a bank in Minoc, so leave all your valuables there.

4. Remember when I said STR was hard to raise? Well, now I tell you how. STR to a miner is like honey to a bee. The more STR you have the more ore you can carry and thus the more ingots you can smelt. Practicing MACING on the practice dummies is a great way for building STR...but it is only effective up to MACE skill 25. I have raised my STR from 45 to 74 in less than 3 weeks from macing the dummies.

5. Since you are reading my suggestions and are mining in Minoc, every time you smelt ingots, leave them in your bank vault on your way back to the cave. That way you aren't carrying extra weight and if you happen to die, you won't waste all that effort.

6. As soon as you can raise the gold, buy a pack horse! It is a great investment as the pack horse allows you to carry a ton of ore to the smelt. Name your pack horse something ( mine is called Packsaber ) and MACRO a few dialogues: "Packsaber follow me", "Packsaber come" and "Packsaber stay". Bards enjoy enticing your horse, so you can quickly tell your faithful steed to stay. Others find it fun sport to attack your horse. At this time, you can run to the entrance and tell your horse to "come". I would suggest to make the horse "follow me" at all times. But, if you need the horse to respond and move quickly, saying "Packsaber come" will cause it to immediately come to you whereas saying "follow me" seems to make it stall at first. Finally, keep your horse happy by feeding it apples and pears which can be bought at the tavern. Nothing is worse than seeing your loaded horse turn wild and having someone else tame it.

Mining: Who is that deathrobed person that keeps bumping into me ?

That is probably a rogue trying to steal from you miners. Here is some miner security tips.

1. Watch out for anyone wearing a Deathrobe. Could be a rogue.

2. If #1, really be wary if they are wearing that default short, grey hair or long, black hair. The first you can understand. Rogues are rather lazy as it is. Why long, black hair? I don't know, but 7 times out of 10, when I see someone in a Deathrobe that has long, black hair...it has been a rogue.

3. Rogue Behavior vs Miner Behavior: Miners will occasionally be hitting the ground. No, they aren't pissed, they are mining. Miners tend to stay away from each others territory. They either occasionally move away from others, or don't move at all. Miners are not the life of the party! Rogues, on the other hand, have ants in their pants. They are constantly moving and snooping packs and will oft brush up alongside you. The best way to spot a rogue ( besides looking at their paper doll ) is when someone walks within 3-5 steps of you, then about 10-20 seconds later, lunges at you for the steal. KEEP MOVING. They can only steal from you if they are right alongside you.

4. Ignore taunts! Scum will try to get you to attack them...don't. They will just run to the guards and YOU'RE the one that gets whacked. JUST KEEP MOVING.

5. Be wary of Mages or Adept Rogues and higher. If you see the words "Corp Por" start appearing in the cave...get out! Go mine somewhere else!. "Corp Por" is mining lingo for "I think I should try another cave".

6. If a fellow miner dies, try to get his stuff back for him. If a rogue dies, ignore it...you have better things to do. Don't go looting bodies, or you will never get anything else done.

7. When you can afford it, buy "Magic Resist" from an NPC so as to avoid #5.

8. Miners are often the target of mindless PKers. Miner PKing has become quite a sport these days. Remember, though, if you NEVER instas-res and keep your valuables in the bank, these mindless PKers will simply be annoying flies without doing you any real harm.

Mining: Smelting for Success

You have a bunch of ore, but every time you smelt it, you only succeed in getting 3 ingots. The problem with smelting is that failure results in half the ore you were smelting to be burned away for nothing gained. Let me share you my experiences with improving overall ingot production.

1. Smelt only some ore at a time. I smelt around 80 - 100 stones worth of ore at a time. You can try even smaller samples of ore as long as it is greater than 10 stones worth. By smelting small piles, failure won't waste so much ore at a time. Plus, since smelting uses the mining skill, you will be using your mining more and have a greater chance of increasing the skill.

2. Keep the bellows pumping. Before every smelt, pump the bellows (double-click those funny looking things at the end of the smelter) 3 times.

3. Keep yourself fed... Seems that a starving Miner has less of a chance of succeeding at smelting than a well-fed miner.

Smithing

So now you finally have some ingots...it was a lot of work, but you got some ingots. Now, the choice is up to you. You can craft those ingots and sell them to the shopkeeper, or (my favorite) you can help the fair citizens of Britannia. Go stand at a busy forge and start advertising your humble services.

1. Don't Spam your advertisement! Only have one dialogue at a time on the screen.

2. Advertise "Free Repairs". No one will come to you if you say "Repairs for 20 gp" or "Most items repaired for free".

3. Occasionally advertise that you make weapons and armor like "Finely crafted weapons and armor made here!". Look at the store prices. Sell well below that...remember, you are only an Apprentice Smith, you need skill points...not money.

4. REMEMBER: Every joe in the land can start out as an Apprentice Smith. You need to lose that Apprentice title as quick as possible to stand out from the smithing horde.

5. Get a unique, easily recognizable outfit that stands out from the crowd. Wear it EVERY time you go smithing. People will start to recognize you even if you don't advertise. With 2-5 other smiths competing with you, you will be the one they come to again. That outfit should be an outfit that is hard to copy. The reason is that people will create Mule Smiths that are nothing short of armor thieves. If you become well-known they will enter the game under your name. That makes you looks bad, but it hinders them if you are wearing, say, a gold chain tunic since they will not have the money for such an outfit. Eventually, people will recognize the thief for who he is without tainting your name in the process.

6. Make sure you get ALL the items repaired. It is especially easy to miss black gorgets because they are small and blend into your pack rather well.

7. If you want to make items just for progressing your skill, don't make 400 daggers. Your skill will progress much faster if you attempt the hardest thing available. If you are an Apprentice...try chain items. Once you reach Journeyman...keep trying plate items. Yes, you will waste precious ingots. Don't worry, you will advance better and soon you will be able to make a full set of plate for every warrior that comes to you.

8. Be courteous to other smiths and try to stand far enough away from them such that your advertisements don't cover up their advertisements.

9. Avoid Advertising Spam wars! Nobody likes to see 3 smiths each trying to out-advertise each other. Often times, another rude smith will smith right next to you and purposely cover up your advertisement each time you advertise. Don't worry, rude smiths don't last long, and reacting in a similar rude fashion makes you look just as bad. Ask them to please not spam. If they continue to do so and you NEED to vent a little, wait till they have just advertised then do your advertise MACRO. It will cover their advertisement up and force them to spam more to get the upper-hand. Others will view the other spamming smith as being the jerk and start to chastise him. ;)

Smithing: Customer relations

1. Eventually, someone will ask you to repair for them. Be humble and kind. Try to use their name as much as possible.

2. If you are repairing and someone else starts handing you items to repair, decline and say you are repairing and to please wait. You don't want to start mixing customer items.

3. YOU HONOR IS YOUR ASSET: Never, never, never, never...steal weapons or armor from someone!!! That is the quickest way to be put out of business.

4. Try to emote something like " *Joe toils at the forge* " so that your customer know that something is going on.

5. Be quick. Have your pack open and MACRO LastObject so you can get those repairs done fast. People like speedy service.

6. If you are fortunate to repair without weakening, tell the customer so. Others will see this as well and think "Hey, he's not a bad smith". Your customer will be pleased as well. Otherwise tell them that you repaired everything. If something is too weak to repair.. MAKE SURE YOU TELL THEM!!! Don't let them walk away until they know that their chain tunic is too weak to repair!! They need to get a new one and that NO smith can repair it.

7. If several customers are starting to line up, try to say who will be next. That way there is no weapon drag frenzy after you finish your current customer. Plus it lets the others know you see them waiting.

8. Don't advertise while you are repairing. Its rude to your customer and you don't need more people standing around waiting while you are busy anyway.

Smithing: When thieves take what is not yours

1. Where you are repairing is fraught with thieves. This is just a fact of life. If they DO happen to steal that Viking sword you were repairing for NightHawk... you are responsible! Now is a chance to use your ingots and build smith skill. Otherwise, you must buy him a new one. Explain that a thief just stole it and here is a new one. They will be most appreciative!

2. Keep your tips and valuables in a pouch as well as any extra tongs and smith hammers. Cover this pouch with a big pile ore ( weighs 20 stones ). That way no thief can see your valuable pouch and will more than likely be caught trying to steal that ore. Thieves can't move the ore around, so they must steal it first to get at your valuable pouch. Most thieves aren't that strong, so they are not going to be very successful stealing that stupid pile of ore.

3. To keep thieves from stealing your customers armor and weapons, keep your valuable pouch open and to the side of the screen. That way, you can cover it up with that big ore and still get at the contents inside. As soon as someone gives you items to repair, move those items into the pouch that is protected. Now you don't have to worry about losing it.

3. Don't go looting dead rogue bodies, ESPECIALLY if you are repairing!! It makes you look bad and it gets the customer wary that you are greedy or that you might run off. Plus, when it is busy at the forge (as oft is the case) you might not be able to jostle your way back to the anvil.

Well, now you have mined some ingots and repaired and crafted for the citizens. But you say "How do I make money at this?" Well, if you follow what I have said, the generosity of the fair citizens will simply astound you!!! For instance, I have been smithing in Britain for a long time now. I am recognized by my repeat customers by my full gold chain armor, red body sash, red Kite shield and red bandana and my faithful pack horse, Packsaber. I also have money enough in the bank to fully replace all my armor upon death AND buy a big forge when I am able enough to defend myself. More importantly, my customers trust me! I have many conversations both at the forge and when I meet them in the wilderness. This will go along way should someday I be viciously wronged!

Have a great Mining / Smithing life and Fare Thee Well!!

- Runesaber, Smith of Britain and owner/operator of Runesaber's Weapons and Armor shop