Fletching

The official GemStone IV encyclopedia.
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Fletching is the art of creating arrows, bolts, and darts for use in combat. This guide is here to help you on your way to being a successful master of the art of Fletching.


Required Tools

  • A Handaxe based OHE weapon
  • A Dagger based OHE weapon or Hook-knife based Brawling weapon
  • A Short, Composite or Long Bow for arrows
  • A Light or Heavy Crossbow for Light or Heavy Bolts

Optional Tools

  • A Drill
  • A Scriber

Required Materials

  • A source of Wood
  • Fletching Glue
  • Fletchings

Optional Materials

  • Paint
  • Paintsticks
  • Arrowheads
  • Caps

Tools Guide

If you are unfamiliar with any of these tools or what exactly they are used for, this section will help you.

Handaxe - A Handaxe based OHE weapon is used to create shafts of wood from various sources used to make your projectile of choice. Current available projectiles available for fletching include arrows, light/heaby bolts, and darts. You must specify the projectile you wish to make in order to get the correct shafts from your source of wood. Any Handaxe that INSPECTs as a handaxe based OHE should be compatible with fletching.

Dagger - A Dagger based OHE weapon is used for the more fine and precise steps in making your projectile that are not possible with a Handaxe. Paring the projectile shaft to a more precise shape, making the shaft the correct length after measurement, cutting nocks in the end of an arrow, and whittling the end of the projectile shaft to a point are all steps that require the use of the dagger. Any Dagger that INSPECTs as a dagger based OHE should be compatible with fletching.

Bow, Crossbow, or Dart - A Bow, Crossbow, or Dart are required to measure your projectile to the correct length required. Short, Composite, or Long bows are needed to measure arrows. Light/Heavy crossbows are required to measure Light/Heavy bolts. Only a completed Dart can be used to measure the correct length of a dart shaft. Arrows currently will be the same length no matter which bow is used to measure. However light bolts must be measured and used by light crossbows, and the same goes for heavy bolts.

Process

The process for creating an arrow, bolt, or dart varies slightly. The instructions below cover an arrow, which has all the require steps for producing any of the three, but the other two will no require all of these steps. This will be expanded in time, but basically:

  • With wood and handaxe out: cut arrow shafts with my handaxe from my wood. This produces one ore more shafts for your use.
  • With a single arrow shaft and your dagger: cut my shaft with my dagger. This pares down the shaft.
  • If you want to use paint or a paintstick, then now is the time.
  • Paint should be applied before paintsticks.
  • To paint the shaft, paint my shaft with my paint.
  • You will have to wait for the paint to dry before you can do anything else with the shaft. This takes approximately 10 - 15 seconds.
  • Paint sticks can be used to add cresting or banding to an arrow.
  • To apply a band, paint my shaft with my paintstick.
  • After applying that paint, you will have to wait for it to dry. Like above, this takes approximately 10 - 15 seconds.
  • You can apply bands 2 - 3 times (need to check which) and have multiple bands of the same color or multi-colored bands.
  • With the cut shaft and your dagger: cut nock in my shaft with my dagger.
  • If you didn't paint your shaft, you will have to do this twice as it asks you to confirm.
  • With the nocked shaft and your bow out: measure my shaft
  • With the measured shaft and your dagger out: cut my shaft with my dagger
  • With the trimmed shaft and a bottle of glue: put glue on my shaft
  • Note that after applying the glue, you have approximately 30 seconds to apply the fletchings before the glue will dry and you will have to reapply the glue.
  • With the shaft with glue on it and a bundle of at least 3 fletchings: put fletching on my shaft.
  • After you apply the fletchings, you will have to wait for the glue to dry. This takes approximately 30 seconds from the point that the glue was applied.
  • After the fletchings are done, you can either carve a tip for the arrow or apply and arrowhead/cap on it.
  • To use an arrowhead or cap:
  • With your drill and the shaft in your hands: turn drill on my shaft.
  • With your shaft and your arrowhead or cap: Turn arrowhead/cap on my shaft.
  • To carve a tip:
  • With the shaft and your dagger in your hand: Cut my shaft with my dagger.
  • You will have to perform the above step twice to confirm that you really want to cut the tip and not to apply an arrowhead or cap.

Congratulations, you've created an arrow.

Available Materials

Plain Wood

  • All the fletching shops carry various sizes of regular wood that can be purchased.
  • You can forage for sticks in certain areas around towns (look for forests).
  • The Kobold Mine has a supply of sticks and logs that can be used.
  • Firewood dealers will sell you logs that you can use.


Magical Wood

Woods come in three sizes: stick (S), branch (B), or limb (L), where stick is the smallest and limb is the largest.

Wood Landing Solhaven Ice Mule Ta'Vaalor Sylvarraned River's Rest Teras Isle
SBL SBL SBL SBL SBL SBL SBL
Carmiln X X X X X
Deringo X XX XX XX
Faewood XX X X X XX X XX
Ironwood XX XX X XX XX X XX
Kakore XXX XX X XX XX XX X
Messile XX XX X X X
Mossbark XX XX XX XXX
Rowan XXX XX XXX XX XX XX
Villswood XX XX XX X X XX

Arrowheads and Caps

Landing

  • a steel broadhead arrowhead
  • a mithril conical arrowhead
  • an ora swept arrowhead
  • an imflass arrowhead
  • a vultite triangle-bladed arrowhead
  • a steel broadhead cap
  • a mithril conical cap
  • an ora swept cap
  • an imflass cap
  • a vultite triangle-bladed cap


Custom Arrowheads Sometimes custom arrowheads can be purchased at merchant events. These arrow heads may add flares to your arrow.

Fletchings

Landing

  • a bundle of fletchings (plain, don't show up)
  • a bundle of plain white fletchings
  • a bundle of dingy grey fletchings
  • a bundle of light brown fletchings

Custom Fletchings Sometimes custom fletchings can be found in boxes as treasure. There are also merchants (such as Surriel) who will make custom colors for you. A number of merchant events have also distributed special fletchings.

Paints and Paintsticks

Generally all paint and paintsticks come in 30 uses. Some treasure found ones can come in uses of 100 or more.

Paints Available in All Towns

  • bright golden
  • fiery orange
  • (more)


Paintsticks


Custom Paints and Paintsticks Sometimes custom paint or paintsticks can be found in boxes as treasure. There are also merchants (such as Surriel) who will make custom colors for you.

Experience

You can gain experience from felcthing in two ways. While you are learning, you will gain experience each time you gain a rank. For example, if you gain your 100th rank, you will gain 100 experience.* Also, once you have mastered, you will gain 5 experience for creating an arrow. There is, however, a cap on the amount of experience you can gain for a particular time period by completing arrows as a master.

* Note: This is only true if Fletching is your only artisan skill. Reference Artisan Skill Experience to see the complete details.

Notes

  • The enchant of an arrowhead and of a wood will not stack. The highest enchant will be used. The +5 from being a master fletcher will stack though. So it is possible to make upto 5x arrows.

Reference Links

Archery Shop Listing from Keelty's Glade

Official Simutronics Guide - This is somewhat out of date because it does not include the most recent changes to fletching.

Retrieved from "https://gswiki.play.net/index.php?title=Fletching&oldid=22057"