
Now if we look at profit margins for selling crafting materials with a Trading skill of about 40… Skill gain modifiers from Focus Points and your Endurance stat change this to a max of x10 at character creation with 5 in END and maxed Focus. Once you have Charcoal and Iron Ore you will refine it into various purities of Iron. You will make orders of magnitude more Charcoal than you ever will smelt Iron Ore so keep that in mind.Ĭharcoal sells for ~200% the cost of Hardwood, making Charcoal a viable material to sell in the beginning if you take the Efficient Charcoal Maker perk and have a plethora of available Hardwood! Refining Iron Note: Making 1 Charcoal nets you 15 Base XP regardless of the recipe you use. If you did not start at 25+ Smithing, I would advice putting numerous Focus Points into Smithing as it will speed up the first few levels much more. If you have not already done so, choose the Efficient Charcoal Maker perk. Once you have a fair amount of Hardwood you can start refining it into Charcoal. The villages will tend to sell it to you for about the same price as the town it serves will.

Explore your area of play for villages that produce it a lot and shop around. You will need a LOT of Hardwood if you plan on getting into Smithing. Hardwood can usually be bought in towns or villages for about 15 gold on average (with decent Trading skill) while Iron Ore can be bought for an average of 60 gold (with decent Trading skill). In the trade menu of each town you will see two important resources listed: Hardwood, and Iron Ore. This guide is designed assuming that you’ve explored the Smithy and understand the layout.I will run the numbers both ways to prove how much better the other perk is. I know I made a mistake, but this is how I did the math originally and it actually furthers my point.Choosing Efficient Iron Maker instead of Efficient Charcoal Maker is a mistake currently.I had chosen the Efficient Iron Maker perk.

There are four important things to note about this guide:

I’m making this guide in my own time using the data I calculated and gathered through experience in the game. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord has such a system with Smithing, turning Iron Ore and Hardwood into various purities of Iron.

As a veteran of games such as Factorio I’ve learned to delve into the math of crafting systems.
