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 ↑ top

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).

The fletcher's tools ↑ top

A set holds 100 uses, or 150 if it was crafted exceptionally — quality buys charges and nothing else. The metal it was tinkered from is what upgrades your work: each tier adds exceptional chance and pushes every magic attribute roll of the bows you fletch:

	Fletcher's tools	Exceptional chance	Magic rolls
	Iron	—	—
	Shadow Iron	+5%	up to +2 points
	Copper	+10%	up to +4 points
	Bronze	+15%	up to +7 points
	Verite	+20%	up to +9 points
	Valorite	+25%	up to +12 points

The magic-roll push is rolled fresh on every craft — the figure is the tier's ceiling, shown on the recipe page's Details toggle as Tool material. The prize commission is an exceptional Valorite set: 150 charges and the best bonuses in one tool.

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

What you can craft ↑ top

Weapons ↑ top

	Weapon	Skill	Wood	Str req	Ammo
	Bow	30 – 70	7	20	Arrows
	Crossbow	60 – 100	12	30	Bolts
	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 ↑ top

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

Ammunition

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

Materials

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

Weapons

	Item	Skill	Resources
	bow	30 – 70	7 × Boards or Logs
	crossbow	60 – 100	12 × Boards or Logs
	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 ↑ top

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	0	(none — plain bow)
	Shadow	60	Ruin
	Copper	80	Might
	Bronze	100	Force
	Verite	110	Power
	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 ↑ top

Fletching is one of the friendlier crafts: every recipe has a 50% minimum success chance. The exceptional chance follows the same rule as every craft — your success chance less a penalty that eases from 60 points at skill 95 to 45 at 120 — plus colored-tool, town and mastery bonuses. 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 ↑ top

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 ↑ top

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.

Skill Mastery ↑ top

The Bowcraft & Fletching Mastery (learned from a Bowyer at 90 skill) adds up to +20% exceptional chance, pushes the magic rolls of every colored-wood bow, and — as the template bonus — gives exceptional colored bows a chance to come out as Slayer bows, which hit their creature family twice as hard. Its ultimate, Bowyer's Fortune, can refund a craft's materials or enchant the bow with charges that fire on every arrow that lands. Every successful craft earns mastery XP, scaled by the amount and grade of wood it consumed — arrows and bolts included.

Town Quests for bowyers ↑ top

Related ↑ top

• Bowcraft & Fletching Mastery — the bowyer's perks and ultimate
• Town Quests — the Bowyer's crafting quests
• Crafting Overview — success and exceptional chances, tools, materials
• Resources — wood tiers and where to find them
• Lumberjacking — gathering the wood
• Archery — using what you make
• Repairing — keeping bows alive