Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Arrow head recipe and equipment crafting?

So... String Enthusiast II says arrow heads are made from the teeth of our enemies. Well, I can get stunning arrow heads from teeth, but I want plain ones so I can make other arrow head types.

Anyone know the recipe because I don't see it in the guide thread or wiki.

As for other equipment... is there any benefit to crafting my own weapons and armor or will I always be able to find better gear while scrounging?
I tried making some swords and armor at smith 3 and they were worse then the gear scrounged on the fields of battle.

The only things I've crafted and put into use were a couple belts since I seldom find any... oh, and a leather helm of leadership.

A crafted one handed sword at blacksmith 5 gets either additional damage or add. may. action points, can be sharpened and enhanced with a tormented soul.

According my craft history a legendary or unique usually beats a self craft at level 5 BS only and so far as the additions (stun, cripple, burn etc.) are useful.

After some hundred hours of play I would rank weapons like unique > self craft BS 5 > rare > self craft BS 3 > magic > common.

Particularly for bows the self craft at CS 5 can be better than anything else, if you enhance it with a bowstring, a telescope and some essence/tenebrium etc. My rangers damage output at level 21 was with a self crafted bow rated between 350 and 550.

Biggest advantage of crafting is you can fill gaps for specific weapons where the last one found good was say level 7 but your characters are already level 11. You will mostz likely find something better in the future but you can fill that gap with a self craft in between.

Regards,
Thorsten

Okay, so I just need to consider crafting as a filler between finding of new gear. This is my firs playthrough, and my sister's first, so we are making mistakes in character building all over the place... so we are now finding gear that we can't equip due to lacking enough of a particular stat. We are also fighting things completely out of order (We already visited Lucelle before finding Braccus... level 9 when we took on Braccus and level 10 when we took on the Baron and his lady friend).

We thought that if we took on higher level fights that they would be worth more experience than if we waited until we matched them in level. Looks like the experience is the same... a level 8 opponent looks to be worth a set amount of experience, whether we are level 6 or level 10 when we defeat it. I haven't hard tested it (written down experience values), so I may be wrong.

I still have the question of how do I get more basic arrow heads for crafting my own arrows? Are they only available through purchase or is it supposed to be possible to craft your own?

Youｴll find the, plenty. And I do not understand the need - normal arrows donｴt use uo, so the only reason for arrowheads would be crafting the fire and poison versions, the stunning ones are made from teeth. You should have so much money by now that it is MUCH easier to simply buy arrows if need be. To give an indication - 70,000 entering Luculla map, 200,000 entering Phantom Forest map. Without any specific effort besides bartering 3 and raising attitudes of preferred traders to 100.

Regards,
Thorsten

Hmm... well, we entered Luculla with around 100k. My sister is handling the money (has the bartering) while I handle the crafting. No idea about attitudes (they are what they are, not putting effort into trying to increase them).
So, crafting arrows is fairly pointless then? Aside from AP cost keeping me from using the fancy arrows, I'm a bit of a collector so I like to have at least one of each on hand. If I only have one then I tend to resist using it, especially if I can't be sure I'll find more and can't currently make more.

I only made one basic arrow... since in game it didn't tell me that such an arrow is no better then the infinite supply ones, until I made the arrow.
I'm starting to question the use of worrying about crafting beyond the anvil and whetstone since it easier to just buy the items instead... or just find them. I've got a collection of scrolls that we are considering making skill books from, but we are at the point of just buying the skill books. It is a matter of luck on if we find something we don't already have or can actually use right now...

I haven't yet tried making my own gear from scratch and seeing how much I can buff it up to see if I can make it compete with gear we find. I can already say that crafting accessories (belts, necklaces and rings) is useless beyond filling in until proper gear is found.

It depends. Fighting is so easy after you get the baiscs (crowd control) that no gear really counts. I had to fight naked after a weak spell disabled shield and armour on a character.

Nevertheless between level 5 and 13 (finishing Hiberheim) I constantly used crafted belts (for strength or constitution), rings for speed (mages with glass cannon) or movement (tanks). In Cyseal e.g. everything boosting air, earth or water resistance is useless, so there is a huge luck factor in finding gear.

I regard craft 5 as an essential leaving Cyseal (at least 2 provided by bracers or belts), blacksmith is of minor importance. And the companion Jahan lends itself perfectly for this task. If nothing else than already the ability to improve gear by essences and rubins pays for itself - resistances are far more important than physical protection, same for willpower and body building.

Regards,
Thorsten