First of all, what is crafting?

There are a lot of items that can be collected or mined in LoTRO. They are dropped by killed monsters and mobs or mined from ores,  branches and ancient sites scattered in the world of Arda (this is the name of the world the LoTRO game takes place). From those drops and collectibles, you can make useful things your chars may use. When you chose Vocation, such as Tinker or Armourer, you will have a set of 3 professions that you may use.

This is where the things complicate a bit.

If you choose to be Armourer, you will have Prospector and Metalsmith that cover each other, but your Tailor skills will need Leather which you can’t make. Leather is made from skins of fallen monsters and is needed to be processed by a forester.

The same is valid for all crafting vocations:

Vocation	Professions given	Needs help from	Can help
Armourer	Prospector, Metalsmith, Tailor	Forester to make leather	Jeweler and Weaponsmiths
Armsman	Prospector, Weaponsmith, Woodworker	Forester to collect wood	Jeweler and Armoursmiths
Explorer	Forester, Prospector, Tailor	–	Jeweler, Arm- and weaponsmiths
Historian	Farmer, Scholar, Weaponsmith	Prospector to mine ore	Cooks
Tinker	Prospector, Cook, Jeweller	Farmer to plant crops	Armour and Weaponsmiths
Woodsman	Farmer, Forester, Woodworker	–	Cooks and Tailors
Yeoman	Farmer, Cook, Tailor	Forester to make leather	–

So, what we need to craft EVERYTHING?

This is the bad and tricky part. You need 4 characters. You need to be VIP or if you are F2P – to have patience of a saint to make the ~1200 Turbine Points needed to enable 2 more chars in your account. If you don’t have the patience – use my guide to make 290 easy free Turbine Points. It takes time, so it is not entirely free. And this guide will barely take you half way there. The other way to get 4 chars is to become Premium. This means, you need to buy and spend Turbine Points at least ONCE. Buy lowest possible bundle – 500(600) Turbine Points and then use them to buy 1 bonus character slot for 595 TP. When you complete the buying of the bonus char slot – you become Premium. Becoming Premium automatically unlocks one more character slot, so you are set with 4 characters in the best possible way. If you don’t have international credit/debit card – There was a possibility to buy 500 Turbine Points with an SMS to your Cell phone service provider, but It is not enabled in all countries world wide. So if you want to play as F2P or can’t afford to become premium – you need godly patience, as I told you already. Follow the rest of my guide to make 110 TP from as many chars, created on as many servers as your patience allows. The 45 quests I mention in my TP guide are doable for one afternoon and given you have x 2 chars on all 29 servers, you may collect more than enough in 10 days. Try it. But remember – TPs are not free and you better support Turbine for hosting this excellent game at least once.

If you already have 4 characters, have a look at the diagram below:

This is of course NOT the only way to do it. There are other combinations that will also work. The three consistent vocation for all of them will be Historian, Tinker and Armourer because they are the only Scholars, Jewelers and Metalsmiths in the game. So we may produce another combination: Tinker, Armourer, Historian,  Explorer. If you are never going to use Heavy armors – you may skip the Armourer and use any vocation that has Tailor profession for Medium and light armour making. But in all cases, if you have 4 char – at least one of them will be using them.

Think of what suits you. And If you have already started Yeoman or Armsman – don’t worry. Vocations can be deleted and forgotten and started over. It takes time and ingame money though.

The best places to set an alt-chars for profession only are

Profession	Easiest City/place
Cook	Michel delving – superior Oven
Jeweler	Esteldin in North downs – superior Workbench
Metalsmith	Thorin’s hall – east hall – superior Forge
Scholar	Mathom society at Michel delving – superior Study
Tailor	Esteldin in North downs – superior Workbench
Weaponsmith	Thorin’s hall – east hall – superior Forge
Woodworker	Esteldin in North downs – superior Workbench

 
Esteldin is good stop for another reason. There is a vault keeper beside the workbenches and also 3 vocation master guilds  outside the hall. Tailors, Jewelers and Woodworkers. And Thorin’s hall has the Armour/Weapon guild near the superior forges. Placing cook in the Michel delving is also good because the master guild is in front of the oven.

This is of course just a suggestion. Your 3 alt chars that you don’t currently play but use only for luggage and crafting can be placed everywhere. I suggest those places only because they are close to superior crafting facilities and Post office. And this is the best way to transfer items between characters in LoTRO. (in case you can’t afford the mutual storage solution, which costs lots of turbine points)