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Bowcraft & Fletching

Bowcraft & Fletching turns wood into ranged weapons — bows, crossbows and heavy crossbows — and their ammunition. Because UO Sagas is a Renaissance-era shard, a bow's power comes from the colored wood it is made from: a Valorite-wood bow can be a Vanquishing bow, straight off the crafting menu. See the Crafting Overview for the general crafting model; this page covers what is specific to Fletching.

Tools and workplace

You only need fletcher's tools in your backpack — there is no station requirement, so you can fletch anywhere, even in the field next to the trees you just chopped. Fletcher's tools are made by tinkers (see Tinkering) and carry limited uses like all crafting tools; a tool made from colored metal has more uses and boosts your exceptional chance.

Wood comes from Lumberjacking. See Resources for the wood color tiers.

What you can craft

Weapons

Weapon Skill Wood Str req Ammo
Bow Bow 30 – 70 7 20 Arrows
Crossbow Crossbow 60 – 100 12 30 Bolts
Heavy Crossbow Heavy Crossbow 80 – 120 16 40 Bolts

All three are the weapons of the Archery skill — see the Weapons page for their combat stats and special moves.

Ammunition and materials

Item Skill Materials
Shaft Shaft 0 – 40 1 log
Arrow Arrow 0 – 40 1 shaft + 1 feather
Bolt Bolt 0 – 40 1 shaft + 1 feather
Kindling Kindling 0 1 log

Shafts, arrows and bolts are batch-crafted: one craft attempt converts your whole stack of materials at once, so making ammo in bulk is quick. Ammo production is a two-step chain — fletch logs into shafts, then combine shafts with feathers (plucked from birds) into arrows or bolts. Kindling is campfire fuel for the Camping skill.

The complete list

Ammunition

Item Skill Resources
arrow arrow 0 – 40 1 × Arrow Shafts, 1 × Feathers
crossbow bolt crossbow bolt 0 – 40 1 × Arrow Shafts, 1 × Feathers

Materials

Item Skill Resources
kindling kindling 0 – 0 1 × Boards or Logs
shaft shaft 0 – 40 1 × Boards or Logs

Weapons

Item Skill Resources
bow bow 30 – 70 7 × Boards or Logs
crossbow crossbow 60 – 100 12 × Boards or Logs
heavy crossbow heavy crossbow 80 – 120 16 × Boards or Logs

Repair Deeds are also craftable — one per material tier (regular, shadow, copper, bronze, verite, valorite). Each costs 20 of that tier's material and needs the skill that tier normally requires.

Colored-wood bows

The wood tier decides how powerful the finished weapon can be. Making a ranged weapon from colored wood hues it and rolls built-in magic properties — accuracy, damage level and durability — capped by the wood's tier:

Wood Skill to use Maximum damage level
Regular bow Regular 0 (none — plain bow)
Shadow bow Shadow 60 Ruin
Copper bow Copper 80 Might
Bronze bow Bronze 100 Force
Verite bow Verite 110 Power
Valorite bow Valorite 120 Vanquishing

The wood tier is the main driver of the damage-level roll (the tool's material chips in a little), and your Luck nudges every roll upward. A plain-wood bow gets no magic properties at all — colored wood is where the value is.

Exceptional quality

Fletching is one of the friendlier crafts: every recipe has a 50% minimum success chance, and the exceptional chance is roughly half your success chance minus 10% — generous compared to most crafts. Exceptional weapons deal +10% damage and get bonus durability, and at 100+ skill you can stamp your maker's mark on an exceptional bow. Bows and crossbows can be repaired through the fletching menu.

Raising the cap to 120

Bowcraft/Fletching can be pushed past Grandmaster with Crafting skill scrolls, up to 120. That matters for one big reason: Valorite wood needs 120 skill to use — the only way to craft Vanquishing-capped bows. 110 gets you Verite (Power); 120 is the endgame.

Training path

Skill What to craft
0 – 40 Shafts from logs (batch-crafts entire stacks — cheap and fast)
30 – 70 Bows (7 wood each)
60 – 100 Crossbows (12 wood each)
80 – 120 Heavy crossbows (16 wood each)

Wood is the only real cost, so pair training with Lumberjacking. Failed bows lose their materials, but the 50% success floor keeps the waste tolerable. From 60 onward you can also switch to colored woods as you qualify for them — they are harder to work but produce sellable magic bows while you train.

Town Quests for bowyers

Your bows are worth citizen points

The town Bowyer posts crafting town quests for a set number of one item. They pay citizen points, town score and reward currency, and count toward Town Exports.

Switch it on first. Toggle Craft for Quest in the crafting menu. The label is greyed out until you have a quest for the highlighted item, and turns green once the toggle is on. While it is on, a qualifying craft spends your materials and counts toward the quest — you do not keep the item.

Daily and weekly quests are always regular wood; bi-weekly and monthly ones name a wood tier up to verite and may demand exceptional quality.

Nothing is wasted if you miss the requirement: a craft that does not qualify is simply made the normal way and stays yours, it just earns no progress.