Crafting with exotic materials such as duskwood, mithral or dragon hide is virtually identical to crafting with basic materials such as leather or iron and crafting with two major differences. Exotic materials require higher skill levels to craft the item and the items created from exotic materials typically have inherent enhancements such as weight reduction, damage resistance, or intrinsic electrical damage just to name a few. What follows below is a list of the basic skill ranks required to craft basic items and the material modifiers for various exotic materials. (NOTE: These skill rank tables apply ONLY to the Original Campaign and Mask of the Betrayer. For SoZ, please check out the SoZ Crafting Skill Rank Requirements page.)
Iron: +0 Leather Hide: +0 (armor only) Duskwood: +5 (can't be used for shields in Storm of Zehir) Darksteel: +10 (can't be used for armor in Storm of Zehir) Mithril: +10 Zalantar: +10 (shields only) Salamander Hide: +12 (can't be used for armor in Storm of Zehir) Adamantine: +15 Umber Hulk Hide: +17 (can't be used for armor in Storm of Zehir) Wyvern Hide: +20 (can't be used for armor in Storm of Zehir) Red Dragon Hide: +23 (can't be used for armor in Storm of Zehir)
The material modifiers represent the additional crafting skill required to make items from that particular material. Crafting a set of plate mail from normal iron would require a craft armor skill of 8 (plate mail base = 8 + 0 for iron). But if you want to make a set of half plate from red dragon hide that would require a craft armor skill of 30(!) => 7 for the plate plus 23 for red dragon hide!
