So you want to take up a trade skill in Everquest, and Fletching has crossed your mind, eh?  Why, you may ask, be a Fletcher/Bowyer?

Will you get rich?  No.
Will you become the world's greatest fletcher and be the envy of all? No.
Wll people beat down your door to buy your bows and arrows?  No.

But...

Will you make better bows than ANYTHING that can be found in a store? Yes.
Will you have at your disposal some of the most powerful single-hit weapons in the game?  Yes.
Will you find that, as one of the classes that can use a bow, your life as an adventurer has suddenly become easier, as well as the lives of your adventuring friends?  Yes.
Will you save money?  Yes.
Will you be PROUD of the time you spend and the items you create? Most Definitely.

Fletching is a skill that takes a lot of time, patience, and money to build up, but from what I have seen, all the trade skills are like this. Right up front, I will offer my opinion, that, if you are not one of the five classes (Ranger, Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, and Shadowknight) that can use a bow, I personally would not take up fletching.  This is because the market, due to the fact that only those five classes can even use a bow, is rather limited.  However, the benefits of having a bow, and being able to use one, are tremendous  (please see my other article on Archery).  And being able to make your own bows and arrows is such a plus that it is hard for me to believe that members of these classes do not ALL take up fletching...just for their own personal use.  Of course, I would rather they didn't, as this would kill the market completely...ignorance is bliss (for those of us who sell to the ignorant...).

Anyway, on to the basics of Fletching.  As with the other trade skills, you must first train at least one point in Fletching.  However, unlike the other skills, I would not recommend training more than this, as your skill will advance quickly by making cheap arrows at 25cp or so per try.  Put one to three points in it, save the rest of your training for something else, and go start making arrows...

On the Making of Arrows

In order to make arrows or bows, you must have:

A supply of cash.
A fletching kit.
the correct components.

I would also recommend getting and reading the books on arrow and bowmaking, as they are cheap and have good info in them.  What components do you need, you ask?  Well, forget about bows for now.  I did not make my first simple hickory recurve bow until skill level 30+, and even then I was failing more than succeeding.  For making arrows (and you will sit in a quiet corner for endless hours making literally hundreds of arrows to get good at this skill)  you need 4 basic components:

A bunch of arrow point.  There are 3 different types:  field points (6 cp each), hooked points (several silver each), and bladed (several gold each).  A bundle of arrow shafts...again, there are several types:  wooden (6 cp each), bone (a gp or so), ceramic (a few gold), and steel (several gold each). A bunch of fletches...either round cut (6 cp each), parabolic cut (a few silver each), or shield cut (a few gold per). And a bunch of nocks...large (6 cp), medium (1 sp or so) or small (a few silver).

To start with, buy 20 each of the cheapest components...wooden shafts, field points, round cut fletches, and large nocks. Now, find a quiet corner, and put these items in a container like a bag or backpack.  Move one of each at a time into your open fletching kit, until you have one of each in there, then hit combine.  Voila!  Most likely you get a red message saying you failed, and all your components in the kit disappear, gone forever.  Do this 19 more times and see how many arrows you get and how much your skill goes up.  Repeat.  Rinse if necessary.  Repeat again.

Keep doing this until you get the message that "This item is trivial for someone of your skill."  Usually this will happen with the 25 cp arrows around skill level 16 or so.  This is good.  Now, go back and buy all the same components, except get MEDIUM nocks instead of LARGE.  Medium nocks are harder to work with (the more expensive a component, the harder it is to make something with), and will raise you skill some more.  Every time you get that blue "Trivial" message, you have to startworking with harder materials...and more expensive ones.  But remember...you only have to add one component at a time, and you can go backwards on some of them.  What I mean by that is that a Parabolic Cut Fletch is more expensive than a medium nock, so when medium nocked arrows become trivial for you, you can go back to large nocks, but change the fletching you use.  This will still make for a harder arrow, and you will save yourself money in the long run.  Don't be afraid to experiment.  Buy a few of the components you think will work, try them out, and see what messages you get.  If they don't work, you can always sell the components back to the merchant.  For the cheaper components, they even give you close to the full value back (although they give you far less than the total value of an item AFTER you have made it).

The components of the arrows and their effects are listed below.  This is much more specific than the manuals found in the game, so it's kind of a spoiler.  You have been warned.  If you want to skip ahead to the part on bows, do so now.

The shaft of an arrow determines basic damage.

wooden shaft:  dmg 1 arrow.
bone shaft:  dmg 2.
ceramic shaft:  dmg 3.
steel shaft:  ?? (dmg 4, I think.  Might be 5 though.)
The point adds to this damage... field points:  no addition. hooked points:  +1 dmg. bladed points:  +2 dmg.

The fletching affects the range of the arrow.  Every arrow has a base range  of 50.

round cut fletch:  no change.
parabolic cut fletch:  +50 range.
shield cut fletch:  +1 damage, SUBTRACTS range (-50, I think).
wooden vane:  +1 damage, -25 range
bone vane:  +1 damage, +25 range
ceramic vane:  +2 damage

Finally, the nock adds range as well, smaller nocks being more aerodynamic.

Large nock:  no change.
Medium nock:  +25 rng.
small nock:  +50 rng.

Thus, the basic 25cp bundle of arrows has a damage of 1, and a range of 50.  An arrow with a field point, bone shaft, small nock, and parabolic fletch would be damage 2, range 150.  Better than the flight arrows they sell in the stores, and cheaper too!  Just keep experimenting with arrows until your skill gets up there.  If you don't have customers for arrows, and you don't  want to waste the expensive ones yourself, then you can sell them back to the merchant for about 60-75% of their value, which will allow you to keep making more arrows...

The Art of the Bowyer.  (you can stop scrolling down now if you were skipping  the "spoiler.")

Ok.  You've gotten your first 30 or so skill points now, and you are bored to tears of making arrows.  You want a bow, to shoot those arrows out of!  Well, my friend, bows are tough to make, and expensive.  But they are the real reason for having this skill in the first place.

There are several components available for making bows.  The most basic requirement is a bow stave, made of some wood.  Hickory is the simplest and easiest to work with, and also the cheapest.  After that comes Elm, Ash, Oak, and Darkwood.  A hickory bow stave is less than 3gp, and Elm is around 3pp, Ash is 18pp or so, Oak is 75 pp, and Darkwood is over 250pp just for one bow stave!  Stick with Hickory for now. Second in importance is the string.  Only 3 choices here, and all of them  cost less than 1gp.  Hemp, Linen, and Silk, with Hemp being the easiest, and silk being the most difficult.  String affects the damage and delay of the basic bow stave, with hemp being the slowest but most damaging, and silk being the fastest and least hard-hitting. There are other components to bows as well...planing tools and whittling knives, and cams for making compound bows, but all of these are HORRENDOUSLY expensive and should be avoided until much later.  Forget about them for now.  Just stick with a bow stave and a string.  Buy a hickory bow stave and a length of hemp string.  Put them both in your fletching kit and hit combine.  That's it.  If your lucky, you'll have a new "rough hickory recurve bow."  If not, you'll be out 3gp or so and will have to try again.  Thats all there is to basic bow making.  But because it is so expensive, especially when you fail, it is NOT a good way to try to raise your skill.  Use arrows for that...sit in the proverbial corner making arrows until your eyes bleed, and you have a high skill, then go try to make a couple of bows to use and sell.

Every bow requires these two components...a stave and string.  What about planing tools and whittling knives and cams, you ask?  You want to make finished compound bows?  Well, I can tell you what you need to know, but my fletching skill is approaching 150, and I have not yet made a compound bow.  The parts are just too expensive.  But this is what I know:  Hickory bows can only take string.  That's it.  No tools or anything else. Elm bows can be finished with a whittling knife.  You cannot use a planing  tool on them. Ash (and any better) bows can be finished with either a knife OR a planing  tool, but not both.  I am not sure if an Ash bow can have a single cam, two  cams, or no cams at all.  Not much point in putting 45pp cams on an 18pp bow anyway.Oak bows can be cammed, but I am not sure if they can take two cams.  That  would be an expensive bow to experiment with too.  A basic oak stave is in the neighborhood of 75pp, with cams running 45pp+ each, so a failure will hurt.  Darkwood bows (which cost 250pp just for a stave) can have anything you want done to them.  There are even rumors of Steel and Ceramic Bow staves, but I have never seen such offered for sale.

As far as which components do what, I have compiled a list (below, much like the arrow components above), along with what skill level I would recommend  you achieve before trying.  I will list the skills as numbers and slashes, i.e. 30/35/46, which is the skill minimum, the skill nominal, and the point at which the bow becomes trivial to make.  Note that these are conservative figures...better to wait for those few extra fletching points before trying something expensive.

Hickory bow staves (30/35/46) are damage 10, range 50, delay 50.
Elm bow staves (50/55/66) are damage 13, range 75, delay 51.
Ash bow staves (80+, not trivial for me yet) are damage 16, range 100, delay 58.
Oak bow staves are damage 21, delay 65, range 125.
Darkwood bow staves are damage 25, delay 68, range 150.

Hemp twine makes the basic bows listed above.  Slow, but damaging.
Linen string gives -1 damage, -4 delay.
Silk string gives -2 damage, -8 delay.

Whittling knives are -1 damage, -4 delay as well.
Planing tools are -2 damage, -8 delay to the finished product.

Cams offer a final -1 damage, -5 delay modifier, but shouldn't be used unless you have already decided to use silk string and a planing tool.  Using a cam (or two on a Darkwood bow) without these items is a waste of cash, pure and simple.

From this, it is easy to see that using such combinations as Linen string and a knife are a pointless waste of money.  Simply using silk string gives the same effect.  Don't use a knife unless you are already using silk.  Likewise, don't use a planing tool with hemp twine.  Be smart about your money.  String is dirt cheap, tools are expensive and hard to work with.

Thus far we have discussed the making of arrows and basic bows.  This information will get you easily to a skill level of 100+, if you are diligent and practice regularly.  At skill level 101, you are considered to have mastered a skill, so beyond that, you should have the abilities to figure things out for yourself.  Your apprenticeship is over.
 

Marketing.

Where do you sell your bows?  Who do you sell them too?  How much do you sell them for?  Well, as mentioned previously, only Rangers, Warriors, Rogues, Paladins, and Shadowknights can use bows.  Before I auction my bows, I use the /who command to see who is in my zone.  If there aren't at least a few of these classes, or a lot of anonymous people, I usually don't bother.  I have had several people expess interest in buying a bow "for a friend," but no one has yet done so.  I guess their friendship isn't worth the platinum I ask for my bows.

NEVER sell a bow to a merchant.  They give you far less than you paid for the basic materials.  All you will do is lose money.  Also, although I have occasionally given away a Hickory bow or two (usually to friends, once as part of a game for some first level Rangers), I NEVER sell my bows for a loss.  I spent many hard hours making arrows to get my skill where it is at, and much money as well, and bow parts are expensive.  That is time and money I could have spent earning experience and better equipping myself.  That time is woth money.  If the other person cannot or will not acknowledge this, then they don't deserve to carry one of my bows.  Simple as that.  I also charge more if I have to travel far, or for custom orders.  I only know of 3 places  in the world to buy bow making supplies, and if I have to travel halfway across the continent to hawk my wares, through dangerous terrain, then the price goes up.  You get what you pay for, and bows are worth the money.  Smart players realize this.

In general, I charge 1pp for a simple hickory bow.  2pp if I have to travel a long ways.  Elm bows cost me 3-4pp to make, so I sell them for 6-7, sometimes more.  Ash bows cost nearly 30pp (assuming a 2/3rds success rate), so go for correspondingly higher prices.  I try to only mark my bows up 25%-50%, and I give good deals on arrows (I was making them for my skill points anyway, so what the heck...they are only arrows).  I also frequently trade bows for other equipment.  Especially equipment that other people have made with THEIR trade skills, such as armor or simple magic jewelry.  As you are walking about using the /auction command to sell your creations, be prepared to answer A LOT of questions.  "What are the stats on  such-and-such bow," "how much for this-and-that," "how do you make bows," "what good are bows," and things of that nature.  Selling bows and adventuring are not compatible, so I do one at a time, usually making time for both during a period of play.  I might try to sell bows when I first sign on, then go adventure for a while, then head back to town to try to sell again before I sign off.  Seems to work alright for me.  Also, don't be afraid to advertise custom bows and arrows, and make them to your customers requests.  Some people like high damage bows, some people like fast bows, some people like some combination of the two.  Be flexible, and, most of all, be prepared to put a lot of your time into the craft if you want to be good.

Sabrael leaned back as she finished her glass of wine.  "There you are my young friend, all that you need to know to begin a life of hardship, boredom, and toil.  But the rewards are great, if one knows what to look for."    It was nearly noon now, and she was sleepy.  The young man, Radel, finished writing on the piece of parchment he had brought, and smiled at her.  "My lady, it would seem I have kept thee awake for quite some time.  I cannot begin to express my gratitude for what you have shared with me.  I am in your debt."    She smiled back and stood up to stretch.  "Aye.  So it would seem.  You can begin to repay me by allowing me to excuse myself to my room.  It was a pleasure speaking with you, and I wish you luck in your journeys, wherever  they may take you."   He stood and kissed her hand, and as he walked away, she thought to  herself that she had better get back to practicing her craft soon...this young man had been quick of wit indeed, and had asked all the right questions of her.  If he had the patience to match, she would have some serious competition in the future...

Mistress Sabrael, Ranger of Surefall Glade (master fletcher)
Hahati@aol.com