Crafting to Mordor, part 2: Words of Wisdom and Rest XP

DanaArodel is head high in fields of grain

I get questions periodically asking how the lildanas (lil-danas) are progressing in their craft-adventure toward Mordor?

All nine of them are full time crafters. Originally, five of them adventured to level 25 to get better tools. The four quadruplets were storage/AH-sales/greeter hobbits and were level 6. Well, to suggest that the first five “adventured” is overstating it… primarily, they just went to festival and got XP. Danaszar actually went to Yule Festival right out of the intro years ago and “ate” her way to level 18 by visiting the food quest many times. 

If they do nothing else, all nine crafters try to make crafted relics each week. The crafted relics net lots of shards and have an AH sale value higher than the materials it took to make them (rohan-shard-queen-master-of-relics).

Update 9 in December-2012 changed the crafter world when crafting started giving XP.

We last left the lildanas in January, 2013… crafting-toward-mordor-with-universal-toolkit

Update 10 release notes in March-2013 (notes-on-update-10-release-notes) said that "craft XP values were adjusted down" but we are happy to report that appears to be an error in the notes. I have found no difference in crafting XP per recipe versus pre-U10.

How have they progressed doing nothing but part-time crafting and occasional festivalling?

	Craft	Current Level, June-2013	Was, Yule-2012
Danadelion	Metalsmith/Prospector (Champion)	51	25
Danadalyn	Armorsmith/Prospector (Minstrel)	51	25
Danaish	Jeweller/Prospector (Burglar)	51	25
Danaszar	Woodworker/Forester (Hunter)	51	25
DanaClaus	Scholar/Farmer (Guardian)	51	25
DanaArodel	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaBoffin	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaHorn	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaOnar	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6

They had planned to go get Legendary Items around level 50… which is probably next on the list. It is mildly disconcerting since they carry flowers and pretzels instead of weapons and none of them have virtues, or skills, or gear. Of course, since they are a craft team, once they set themselves to do it, they can make their own gear. I am advising that they do try to get some class skills before trying to kick in the Door of Durin.

By the way, Danaish the Jeweller sees that cooking may be in her future, though we haven’t started that yet and she was able to level just fine with gems that were lying around.

Danaszar whittles wood while dexterously twirling a festival fire stick

Word of Wisdom from the Farm: We were told that the most crops that can be planted and harvested before they spoil is 5. That is not true; don’t be fooled. The amount of time it takes from “ready for harvest” to “spoiled” is 2 minutes. With a Universal Toolkit (crafting-toward-mordor-with-universal-toolkit), it takes 10 seconds to plant and 5 seconds to gather. In the 2 minutes allotted, a farmer could plant 12 crops at a time, then harvest all 12 with no spoiling. (In case they get distracted chatting, the lildana farmers tend to work with batches of 10.)

Ok, but Dana, I don’t want to buy a Universal Toolkit, or have tools crafted for me, or think I can win a Toolkit in the Hobbit Presents. How many can I plant? A basic farming tool should be able to handle 9 (same spoilage time of 2 minutes applies, but now you craft slower.)

Word of Wisdom from the Farm, #2: “DELETE, U” is your friend. After planting a batch of crops, hit DELETE to select the closest selectable thing to you (in this case, a crop). Then, hit the U key to pick it up. Of course, the Delete key is always helpful to remember if you are trying to find something like spring flowers, nails, mushrooms, doors, etc. It is a very, very useful key.

Word of Wisdom from the Farm #3: Those upper tier recipes come in a standard version as default and a “Hearty Crop” version if you look in the multi-output of the recipe. Always choose the Hearty Crop version. For nearly the same price for the seeds, the Hearty Crop version yields significantly more crops. For a long time the farmer team had been using the default crop recipe. Of course, most everyone else in the world might already know the difference. I was excited about my revelation and pointed it out to another Farmer who just shook his head and mumbled something about “silly noob farmer”. In case it was new to you, now you know there is a difference!

DanaClaus plants and harvests a dozen Apple trees at a time; move over Paul Bunyan

Word of Wisdom from the Smiths: Tier 9 crafter Processing is a great way to level. The four crafts that use Processing are the two Smiths, the Woodworker, and the Tailor. Processing involves turning 2 units (ingot, plank, leather) into 4 shavings which in turn can be turned back into 1 unit. Obviously, there is a decay function associated with this activity (easy to calculate, yay math… anyone want to take a shot at the formula? Bonus points for including the 25% crit in the formula going from shavings back to unit) and soon you will have no materials left. 

The short answer… a stack of ore, wood, or hides will net about 50k XP (using rest XP) so it is still the most efficient way to level a full-time crafter (well, one that isn’t a farmer/cook anyway).

Danadalyn processes ingots in Thorin's Hall

Towynia of Landroval: In crafting part 1, Towynia of Landroval made an appearance. She started at level 1 at the beginning of the year as a farmer and was working as a Cook in the Prancing Pony. She is now level 68 and counting. That is pretty good for a full-time cook who has other obligations. Towynia never did learn to ride a horse; we were suggesting she might want to learn to ride one as Warsteeds are all the rage these days. Give her a /cheer and /tell if you see her around.

Towynia’s Words of Cooking Experience: We asked Towynia what food gives good Experience and is profitable to make. Some food materials actually cost more than the finished product. According to her spreadsheet (we like spreadsheets), one of the best options is “Bowl of Water” under Supreme Cook. It is 1 Mint Leaf + 1 bottle of water = 1 bowl of water. It gives good experience and has a positive economic margin. Now that is a good win! Do you have other things that you prefer that are also a good XP and sale win?

Towynia of Landroval cooking in Bree

Rest XP and Crafting: With Update 11, Rest XP was changed for VIPs. It seemed benign. Before U11, characters got 20% rest XP per day, up to five days worth to make a full level of blue bar. Post U11, characters got what is claimed as 30% rest XP per day, resetting each day during the night.

Regardless of which version, the bigger change was what activities counted toward rest XP and how much those activities contributed.

Here is a crafter’s perspective on Rest XP:

• Before U11, rest XP reduced by 80% of the total XP given. If a craft recipe gave 100 XP, rest XP reduced by 80.
• After U11, rest XP reduced by 100% of the XP given.
• The short answer = for the same number of materials, unless you log in every day, you will run out of rest XP faster post U11, and a lot of the reason has to do with that consumption part (80% versus 100%).

For fun, here is a math proof (~for non-maths, skip the paragraph in pink):

• At level 49, XP needed to increase to next level = 188,088.
• Pre-U11 rest XP for 1 day, 20% = 37,617
• If using a recipe that rewards 100 XP per use (80% subtracted from rest XP), after 471 uses, rest XP is depleted… (471 x 100 x 0.8). You have used 100 uses of mats, you are +47,100 XP.

• Post-U11 rest XP for 1 day, 30% = 56,426
• Same exercise as before, 100 XP per use, +47,100 XP and rest XP is still visible though less than 10k.

• You can see that this balance changes at day 2 and beyond, where Pre-U11 rest XP at 40% and so on while post-U11 stays the same. BTW, if day 1 shows advantage post-U11, and day 2 through 5 shows advantage pre-U11, the breakpoint can be calculated at 24% for pre-U11, i.e. 1 day and 10 hours. (The difference is the consumption.) /math_off

Therefore, if you don’t log on EVERY day and are able to consume your blue bar when you are on (easier to do for an actual adventurer than a full-time crafter), then you will have less effective rest XP available to you.

I read the arguments for why Turbine sees this as a “benefit” to VIPs. However, since I don’t play every day, visiting alts mebbe once a week, this new rest XP plan is a detriment, not a benefit. This change isn't any sort of major game-changer, so I will survive. lol!

DanaArodel learns new recipes, good thing that stein has a lid

On the Bright side of Rest XP debate! 

• (1) At level 50, for a full-time crafter, 30% of a level is still a ton of materials. Yes, I can burn through the blue bar, whereas I rarely could before U11. (That would have a more profound impact at lower levels.)
• (2) With nine crafters, I can always move on to another crafter and burn through that blue bar and another and another… (Mebbe, this new plan will push more people into becomes altaholics.)
• (3) Destiny points still exist. We get 200 destiny points per level and a rest XP boost costs 250 destiny points. Between my alts and the DP that used to be awarded in the Moors, I have more DP that can ever be spent.

All that said… I understand why people are miffed about the change. Some of it has to do with quest XP receiving rest XP bonus, a silly argument since they are really just leveling faster than before. Others point out one of the things I mentioned: 20% daily but accruing over several days trumps 30% daily but capping at 30%. And, of course, my key observation above is that XP is simply consumed faster (the 80% versus 100% pink paragraph).

I feel badly for the Turbine employee that tried to help but botched his understand of how pre-U11 rest XP worked versus post-U11 rest XP... http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?512456-Rested-XP-Nerf/page3.

I personally could not argue with a straight face that the post U11 gain/spend rest XP system is more beneficial to much of anyone since you would literally have to log in every day and spend more than 20% of a level every day to come out ahead. As usual, the lildanas will optimize around the change. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that crafting gave no XP for leveling so we feel like we are playing with house money! 

Enjoy the ride and the lildanas will continue crafting toward Mordor!  

Rolliepollie the Cook and DanaBoffin the Cook in synchromized cooking

Notes on Update 10 Release Notes

  

I took the Update 10 Release Notes, ripped out all the parts that didn’t seem interesting, and reorganized it into a more coherent set of information. I interspersed a few comments of my own as I went (in blue). I will dig deeper into some of the stat number changes in a follow-up article. BTW... sorry that the text looks wonky, Blogger is refusing to accept the fonts the way I am setting them and I am having to recode it.

My reorganized categories include:

(1) Barter Wallet Info, (2) Stat Changes, (3) Armor Sets, (4) Runekeeper Changes, (5) New places, (6) The Ettenmoors, (7) Mounted Combat, (8) Crafting, (9) Other details. If you want to read the entire 16 page release notes (where you can get specific details on non-RKs for instance), Merric gives the official link and a very handy PDF at CSTM: update-10-release-notes.

(1) Barter Wallet Info:

• For every Skirmish Seal in your inventory, there will be a one time conversion, 20 Medallions = 1 Seal.

•  Medallions of the North-men no longer exist. Any existing ones will be automatically converted, 10 Medallions = 1 North-men.

• Unhatched Spider Eggs and Orthanc Sigil Fragments may now exchange for Medallions, in place of Seals.

• Existing items which cost seals will either have the Seal cost converted to Medallions, or have an additional option added to exchange for Medallions

• Mithril Coins now available, in barter wallet.

~ Previous Festival tickets and Revival Tomes were converted to mithril coins; 15 coins per revival tome and 5 coins per festival ticket. Those are the only ones I had but the traveler’s writs and a few other widgets were consolidated here as well. Overall, it went from lots of little barters to one consolidated one, which improves your buying power, and that is a good thing.

• Level 85 1st Age Symbols are available on the Skirmish Barter vendors for Seals. They require completion of the new Erebor raids, with different costs based on the Tier of difficulty completed.

• New gems have been added which may drop from the Erebor raids. These are fully tradeable, and used to upgrade the Rohan rings, new raid sets, and used in special crafting recipes.

Bofur and that other dwarf (Dori mebbe? All dwarves look the same to me…) give some final advice or parting words before we near the engine known as The Fires of Smaug.

(2) Stat Changes:

• Fate/Power Revamp: Fate has more noticeable effects on ICPR and OCPR. Will no longer contributes to players' power pools or OCPR.

Players will receive an increased amount of Power at each level, and all skill costs will now be based on a percentage of this power. Each class has also undergone adjustments to their overall power consumption/restoration rates in an attempt to normalize combat longevity.

• Power Pools have been adjusted.

Non-Will users will gain 50 points of power per level,

Will users will receive 65 power per level.

All skills have had their power costs adjusted to account for changes to Fate/ICPR. Several power restore skills/traits have also had their magnitudes adjusted for the time being as we continue to normalize Fate’s new contributions.

~ I tried to push dps output with reckless abandon just to see if I could consume power by forcing out enough skills. I never saw power pool drop below about 80%, and I definitely have not stacked Fate at all.

• Agility/Fate Critical: Agility will now provide 1 point of crit rating whereas Fate will provide 2.5

~ Previously, Critical was 1.75 points for both Agility and Fate. This new change gives a stronger incentive to push Fate. Critical cap is 25% = 13401; and there is mentioned that there is incentive (though diminished) to push past the cap.

• Critical Rating now increases both chance to critically hit and the magnitudes of both your critical and devastating critical hits.

• Will/Tactical Mitigation: Will now provides 2 points of Tactical Mitigation to compensate for the loss of power contribution.

~ Previously Tactical mitigation = Vit * 4 + Armor/5 + direct modifiers. Now, Will-based characters have a lot of tactical mitigation. The Mitigation cap is 40% = 10602. As a relatively high-end RK, the change zipped me right past that mark and I will need to rethink my virtue set to bring Tact mitigation down toward the cap.

• Critical Defense: Players will see a reduction in their current Critical Defence values as we intend for itemization to play a stronger role in this system.

~ The actual number for Critical Defense did not change; however its protectiveness went down (for example, reduction was 36%, now 22%)

• Legendary Item DPS: The damage per second of level 85 weapons has increased, especially for 2nd Age LIs.

~ No, no it didn’t. My LI was 158.0 DPS before, and 158.0 after. If there is a change, it is not observable by the digits shown.

Daweirdo, Blinkinn, Kronuz, Meriband, Ulderen, and Supergirl say hello to the first boss in Bells of Dale.

(3) Armor Sets:

Armor sets which give players skill modifying set bonuses have been altered. They will no longer give players stat boosts in addition to skill modifying bonuses. In addition, skill modifying bonuses have been standardized to be on the 2-set and 4-set bonuses. This allows for greater freedom in variety for what the player can wear, and allows for equipment to be upgraded without worrying about losing additional stats from set bonuses, which were becoming increasingly more powerful with each set.

~ Yep, the stats dropped off the armor sets. I am going to investigate exactly where the numbers changed, but what I see is that this change dropped my Will by 107, and subsequently dropped my Tactical Mastery by 1070 (3% less mastery).

The Hytbold and level 85 Ettenmoors sets have seen their stats change to reflect the Fate alterations.

~ No, no it didn’t. Neither the Hytbold set nor the Ettenmoors set changed before versus after U10. To verify, I also looked at the barter NPCs and they have what I have.

New level 85 armor sets have been added to the Skirmish Vendors

~ Yes, there are new armor sets. They require completion of the new Raids in T1, and the advanced armors require completion on T2. Additionally, they cost marks, medallions, seals, and new special Erebor gems. I will go into the armors in another post.

The Bells of Dale looks lovely when all is empty and things aren’t attacking.

(4) Rune-keeper:

Sustaining Bolt will now reduce power costs by 5% rather than 10%

Reduced the power heal on Rune of Restoration

~ These are two power changes to RK. It is mostly irrelevant since power was little concern before U10 and is of no concern after U10.

Improved Rune-sign of Flame: Miss Chance buff has been replaced with a buff that allows skills to Bypass 5% of their target's Resistances.

~ The Improved Rune-sign of xxxx is a healing skill that is modified by whichever Element you are in. Each Element has a different buff. The Flame’s Buff changed slightly… whoopy.

Scribe A New Ending: This skill now dispels 1 Poison, Disease, Wound, or Fear every two seconds, for six seconds from a target.

~ Scribe a New Ending was the RK skill to remove dread. Since there is no more death dread, this skill changed. It is single target but has some potential to be useful. As it attunes toward Healing, it will take some getting used to but is a now potent skill when you are bombarded with effects.

Group visits the Battle of Erebor.

(5) New Places:

New instances:

The Bells of Dale (6 Player)

Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12 player)

The Fires of Smaug (12 Player)

The Battle for Erebor (12 Player)

In Their absence:

All of the instances in the “In their Absence” instance cluster can now be scaled from level 65 to 85.

Two trolls are well separated, divide and conquer, during Battle for Erebor.

(6) The Ettenmoors:

Freep Battlefield Promotions: Freeps now gain a Battlefield Promotion effect for each PvMP Rank they earn. Battlefield Promotions grant bonus Health, Power and Damage for each Glory Rank the player has. Battlefield Promotions are only active while in the Ettenmoors.

Creeps have also undergone significant changes … clip…  are able to actively participate in combat for longer periods of time. Although many restoration effects and buffs have been reduced, innate power expenditure should be at a much more manageable point.

Creep armor base critical defense reduced, but critical protection corruptions increased.

Lainedhal's Insignia and Ak’lhun's Brand (ranks 1 through 14) are now usable in combat, provide a break out of negative combat states and no longer grant any immunity. Their cooldowns have also been reduced.

~ I rarely went to the Moors after Rohan released. Many believe that the changes made to Creeps to match scaleup to Freep 85 made high end creeps nearly invincible; however, some people saw the system as balanced before this change, so as usual, people were mixed. From my perspective, the week before U10, I went out in full Raid where I was possibly the weakest link (most of the other Freeps were R10 and above, and I am only R8) and the Creep Raid wiped us out at will repeatedly with rarely a defeat on the other side. These changes, I believe, are any attempt to rebalance classes. With all the new Free people goodies, will the tide turn back and unbalance the other direction?

Group prepares for the incoming attack in Flight to the Lonely Mountain.

(7) Mounted Combat:

Increased Base Power Levels for War-Steeds (formerly 2175 for all 3 steeds, now 2500 for Light, 2350 for Medium, and 2250 for Heavy)

Altered the Medium Steed Traits ""Patience"" and ""Understanding"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Altered the Heavy Trait ""Conservative Combatant"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Lowered the Mount Power Cost for Mounted Runekeeper Skills ""Fixation of Flame"" and the ""Oration"" skills

Mounted Combat: The War-steed's Power Trait will now reduce the cost of using Spur On. If Power is fully ranked up, there will be no additional power cost of using your skills. The Power trait will also decrease the power usage per second cost of using Spur On.

~ These changes reflect the power changes for classes.

The following Mounted Combat traits/legacies/relics have had their critical rating contribution reduced:

Wrath trait (Light Steed): 25% to 15%

Light Bridle 'Wrath Crit Chance' Legacy: 10% to 5%

Here is a shot of two news weapons Danadalyn built over the weekend.

(8) Crafting:

• The Tarnished Crests of Rohan can now be found on the Crafting Skirmish Barter Vendors.

• Crafting XP values are being adjusted down.

• Cooks will now be able to use ovens, as well as campfires, to make trail foods.

• Recipes for First Age weapons and class items can now be found on the Legendary Craft Guild NPCs.

~ It says, “Crafting XP values are being adjusted down”… No, no it didn’t change at all thankfully. Yay to the use of ovens for trail food. 1st Age recipes cost 900s each; Danadalyn, Weaponsmith to the Stars, was in sticker shock. Team lildanas will still be crafting their way to Mordor.

UPDATE: After further review of all data I have, I stand by my statement. Character XP for crafting did not change post-U10 versus pre-U10. If anything changed, it wasn't that. So "Crafting your way to Mordor" wasn't affected. (crafting-toward-mordor).

Ok, this week, I went to exploring in many different places with friends. Here is nice shot of Lanwyn tanking the 3 mini-boss sisters in Ost Elendil.

(9) Other Details:

• Several buffs (Run speed, slayer boosts, etc) now have stackable durations

• Dread on Defeat effects removed.

• Any quest can now be advanced in a raid.

• War-steed: The simple tail should now accept dyes correctly.

• XP from mobs that are more than 8 levels above has been zeroed out

• Conjunctions have had their power restore magnitudes increased slightly.

• The ""Find Items"" feature now darkens the non-matching items and bag icons instead of using the ""New Item"" swirlies.

• There are two new chat text filters: Loot ( Self ) and Loot ( Fellow ). Loot notification messages for you and your fellows will go to these filters and you can change their font/size in the Options/Chat panel.

• “Forced” Emotes: "Enable Involuntary Emotes" has been added to your social options panel. Henceforth, you may uncheck "Enable Involuntary Emotes" to opt out of involuntary emotes (emotes which another player is attempting to force you to execute).

• Standardized the names of Tier 1 through Tier 9 relics.

• Slightly lowered the amount of xp on the heritage runes received when refining relics. The amount of xp will increase as the level/tier of the relic being refined increases.

 Jasparhawk, Norinrad, Elmlorn, Lanwyn, Dandur, and Supergirl make sure Annuminas is still in control after U10.

Crafting toward Mordor with a Universal Toolkit

This article could also be titled craft-leveling in lotro. One of the subtle changes that came about with Update 9 in December-2012 was that crafting now gives leveling XP.

That significantly changed how Team Dana works. You see, I am an adventurer but I have a support staff of 9 lildanas (lil-danas). All of the crafting materials I have gotten in my adventures end up in the hands of the group, who craft with them or horde them away for some future use. With Update 9, that future use is now.

My five main crafters: How big of a deal is the ability to craft-level? At Yule festival 2012 a month ago, the five main lildana crafters were all level 25, now they are level 35 to 38. They sat in the various craft halls nearest to their Guilds and came out for a couple of minutes a day to make crafted relics out of the abundance of materials I found while adventuring. Update 9 opened up leveling opportunities for these lildanas that had no intent to adventure. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the team had an abundance of materials stock-piled and are working through inventory.  

The hobbit quads: The other four lildanas on staff were the hobbit quadruplets, who mainly hung out in Thorin’s Hall as greeters, and had various jobs like “Chief Festival housing item Organizer” (CFO), “Clothes closet Analyst”, “AH Buyer”, and “Danania’s personal loot Assistant” for items that overflowed out of my inventory. All were level 6, having just made it out of basic training and carrying no weapons; now they are level 17 and looking forward to level 20 when I allow them to get Horse Driver’s Licenses at Hengstacer.

Consumers: What we noticed was that Jeweller, Woodworker, Metalsmith, Weaponsmith, Scholar, and Tailor were all Consumers of materials. Ok, technically, Jeweller polishes gems, but then most of those gems are worthless as NPC-fodder; there just aren’t enough uses for polished gems to make it worth keeping thousands of polished gems around. At some point, we will reach an impasse where craft-leveling is not sustainable due to the extreme amount of materials needed to level. We haven’t gotten there yet at sub-level 40.

Creators: Farming and Cooking effectively Create their materials. One could literally self-sustain as a craft-leveler (actually, see Towynia below). My hobbit quadruplets all took up Farming, which was really the first endeavor Team Dana had at farming. Fortunately for the Scholar, one of the three crafts a Scholar knows is also Farming. With all these farmers farming so much, we were soon replete with Dye materials from flower and berry farms, which are used by the Scholar to make new dyes.

Eastemnet Processing: While the crafting team has not run out of materials yet, they have progressed very well over the past month. The metalsmith, weaponsmith, and woodworker use the Eastemnet “Processing” feature a lot. (The tailor also has this feature, but I, Danania, am the Team tailor). It turns the worked material (ingot, plank, leather) into shavings and then back to worked material. There is some loss in the Processing, but at 175 XP per craft hit each way, it is not that hard to rack up a lot of XP with a team that is focused toward the task! 

A very cursory look at Processing indicated that I could get about 45,000 XP out of one stack of 100 Riddermark ore. I didn't bother to calculate the decay function, with the %crit, and the XP gain, but I think that is a good guess. At level 40, it takes 98k XP to level, and at level 50, it takes 188k XP. At some point, it might just become too expensive to level a consuming crafter who doesn't go adventuring. 

Universal Toolkit: Ah-ha! A lotro store item I bought that looks like it was designed for me is the “Universal Toolkit”. The cost is 150 TP. A look at it reveals the subtle reasons why I would buy it. The item can do as well as any crafter tool except the new Eastemnet tools for level 80+.

What makes it better than the crafted tools that my metalsmith could make? It is usable at any level. So, the crafter no longer has to think about what “tier” tools to advance toward; she already has the best tools below level 80, even though she might be only level 1.

And, what else? The Universal Toolkit is Bound to Account. I can only be on one crafter at a time anyway, and they end their time near a Vault each day. The Universal Toolkit gets passed through the Shard Storage and used by every crafter.

The Toolkit was an easy decision for me and one of the best 150 TP purchases I have made.

Towynia, Farmer Girl of Landroval: Oh my… I was amused by the lildanas’ progress in crafting, but then I was floored to meet Towynia, a Cook in the Prancing Pony of Landroval. She has never carried a weapon or killed anything. She bypassed the Intro and found her calling as a Farmer and a Cook. Though she started at the first of the year, she is now level 38, having only ever farmed and cooked. She tells me that she is self-sufficient and the funds she makes as a farmer and a cook fuel her growth. Since it is a Creating Craft (versus Consuming), I have no doubt that she can slowly make enough coin, though if you see her in the Prancing Pony, don’t forget to tip your waitress; they work hard for the betterment of Middle Earth!

            Farmer Girl’s BIO: “Losing her family as a child, Towynia grew up in Dale under various foster care.  As a teenager, she spent most days scrounging for food, cooking for travelers, and pan-handling.

After continuous abuse by her foster family, she decided to run away, starting anew in another distant land.  She dreamed of a normal, quiet life, but ran out of food and coin upon stepping into Bree.

Forced again to beg for a living, she tried scraping by in the back alleys of Bree-town.  Falling again into the wrong crowd, she was forced into service by folk of some rather shady nature and character.

 Although waiting on them daily is hard, she continues looking for a way out or a kind and gentle benefactor, as she saves what little coins she makes to continue on her journey.”

Dye table: For fun, here is a copy of the table my farmers and scholar are using to know what farming supports what dyes. If it helps you, enjoy. (With all pictures on the site, click it to see a larger version.) Some of the information is abbreviated focusing on what I needed, so if you need more detail, http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Dyes is always a great source.