Crafting in Elder Scrolls is fun. It’s very functional from the start up to when you get to the maximum level. What’s more it’s very easy to learn and use. You have six crafting profession to choose from; Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Enchanting, Alchemy, Clothing and Provisioning or what is sometimes called Cooking. Blacksmithing is used to craft heavy armor and melee weapons; Woodworking is for ranged weapons, shields, and staffs; Clothing is for the creation of light and medium armor; Provisioning is for the creation of food and drink; Alchemy is used in creating potions; and Enchanting is used to enhance you weapons and armor.

Blacksmithing, Woodworking, and Clothing has four tabs you use; creation, improvement, extraction, and research. Creation is the tab you use to create items. Improvement is for upgrading an item you have to a higher rank by using what is known as tempers. This can acquired when you use the extraction tab. Extraction breaks down an item you have down to its basic materials (such as ore from heavy armor of melee weapons) and you have a chance to get tempers when using extraction. There are 4 types of tempers for the different item levels and using one on improvement increases the chance of the item getting upgraded. If the upgrade fails, you lose both the temper and the item. Research is much like extraction as it involves breaking an item down but what it does is allow you to get an item’s trait such as Sturdy, giving that trait to an item you create. Once learned, all items you craft in one profession can have this trait if you so choose.

For alchemy, mixing the solvent and reagents creates potions. A reagent has 4 attributes and you can discover the first one by eating it raw. For its other attributes you’d need to experiment by mixing it with other reagents. Once you know a reagent’s attribute you can mix it with another reagent with the same attribute to get a potion with that effect. For example, adding a reagent with “restore Health” as an attribute to another reagent with the same attribute nets you a healing potion.

For Enchanting, you use runestones which you find all around the world to create a glyph. Each runestone has a word that you’d need to translate by mixing it with other runstones. Three runestone will then become a glyph when you use the creation tab and you can also use the extraction tab to break down glyphs into runstones.

Provisioning requires recipes that you obtain from either looting or an NPC that gives you the recipe. Just add the needed ingredients and Viola! It’s done.