by Niami DenMother (Tunare Server)

If you've never tried a trade skill before, there are a several things that you should know.

• The standard, or "main" tradeskills are: Baking, Brewing, Fletching, Jewelcraft, Tailoring and Smithing. All other tradeskills are restricted to certain races (tinkering), certain classes (alchemy, make poison, research), or are level capped (fishing). The standard skills could, theoretically, be raised to 200 by a level 1 character, but we don't recommend it. ;)
• Remember that training points can only be spent on trade skills early on. Once you hit a skill of 21 in the standard trade skills, you MUST gain skill increases through hands-on-practice.
• While tradeskills in EQ increase with practice, trade skills cost you money (in supplies), regardless of success or failure. For the more expensive skills (such as jewelcraft), it's wise to not only stockpile some money in advance, but also spend the training points to get to skill 20 before trying the skill.
• Low-level players: Before you even train in a trade skill, you should check to be sure that the materials you will need to practice your skill are available nearby. If they are not easily available, you have to make a hard decision -- do you want to try the skill anyway or do you want to try another trade skill? For example, if you want to bake, and the only baking supplies within the nearest several zones are batwings, you'll realize you're going to be running through a lot of zones to get some of your more basic supplies. This isn't meant to discourage you, but to make sure you don't spend a lot of training points before you realize the scope of the task ahead of you. (Higher level players tend to move around a lot, so this isn't as much of an issue for them.)
• When you see mention of a "trivial" on a chart, it means that at that skill level, you will no longer gain skill increases from making the item. You will, however, still continue to fail quite a bit when making the item. Just because something is trivial does not mean you can do it in your sleep. Eventually, as your skill improves, your chance of failing at making the item will decrease, but there's generally always a chance of failure. (silk swatches and silk thread are an exception to this). In addition, there are many spots on the recipes pages where items are listed as <=X or >Y (or a combination of the two). Please remember that: "<=" means less than or equal to -- all we know about the trivial is that someone of X skill attempted the item and it was already trivial. It may be that the trivial is 1 point below it, or it may be 100 points below. The only way we find such trivials is by folks reporting in their skill levels and trivial status after they make combine attempts. Similarly, if you see ">", it means greater than -- someone at Y skill attempted the combine, and it was not trivial. Again, there's no way to easily tell if the trivial is 1 point or 100 points above that in trivial unless folks actually report in their results.
• If you fail to make an item, regardless of your skill level, you will receive a message "You lack the skill to fashion these items together" (or something to that effect). ALL this message means is that you failed to make the item (see the mention above about trivials and the fact that things can always fail, regardless of skill). Failure to make an item does NOT indicate whether an item is trivial or not.
• If you're getting a failure rate that will rapidly bankrupt you, find something that trivials closer to your current skill to practice on. (i.e., don't try to make a silver sapphire necklace the first time you try jewelcraft).
• For everything but fishing, sell your goods to other players as opposed to NPC merchants where possible. If you sell to NPCs, you rarely will be paid what the raw materials cost you, much less the value of the item. For example, you'd get slightly over 1 gold for a piece of patchwork armor, when sold to an NPC merchant. The going rate when selling directly to players is generally 2 gold or so, depending on supply/demand and individual whimsy.
• When a recipe calls for two or more of a single item, DO NOT STACK the items. Have two (or more) single pieces of the item in your forge, brew barrel, etc., not one pile of two. Stacked items count as a single item! If you put a stack of 20 of an item in the tradeskill container during a combine, the container will yell at you and refuse to do the combine.
• The main trade skills are not level-capped, meaning that with enough time and raw materials, you could master the tradeskill at level 1. Other special skills, such as fishing, make poison, and alchemy may have various limits.
• Grandmaster: Grandmaster (GM) in a tradeskill is generally considered someone with a skill of 300 in a specific tradeskill. Of the 7 main tradeskills (baking, brewing, fletching, jewelcraft, pottery, smithing, tailoring) you may start by having only one of them above 200 (up to 300), while the rest are capped at 200. For those players that are level 51 or higher, they may spend AA points on the Tanaan crafting mastery AA, but for the beginners that are reading this guide, that's not something to worry about right away. ("Grandmaster" has meant various things over time and was only given a firm meaning with the Prophecy of Ro expansion trophies. Old timers and older information may use it differently.)
• Specialized tradeskills are capped separately. Regardless of whether another skill is above 200 or not, other specialized tradeskills are as follows: Alchemy is level capped such that you cannot start until level 25, but unlimited thereafter; Poison Making 300; Tinkering 300, Fishing level capped until it reaches 200.