Crafting in Dragon Age: Inquisition can be one of the most rewarding systems in the game—when you know how to navigate it. Whether you’re trying to deck out your team in powerful armor or forge high-DPS weapons for a stealthy assassin like Cole, this guide walks you through the mechanics, resources, and finer details of making the most out of crafting. Let’s break it down, one section at a time.

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Loot, Merchants, and Where to Find Gear

One of the most common questions players ask is, “Where did you get that armor or weapon?” The answer often boils down to two methods: loot or merchants.

• Loot is randomized and comes from corpses, chests, and battlefield drops. You may find a legendary schematic—or just junk and gold. It’s mostly RNG, so don’t expect to find the same items twice in the same spot.
• Merchants offer a more consistent way to find schematics and basic crafting materials. While you won’t find fade-touched gear here, they’re great for building your stockpile of cloth, leather, and metal.

When it comes to rare crafting materials like fade-touched iron or fade-touched cloth, you’ll have to gather them manually. These enhanced materials are generally exclusive to field harvesting and aren’t available via merchants or war table requisitions.

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Schematics and Slots: Crafting Basics

To craft gear, you’ll use either the weapon or armor crafting tables, where you’ll find all your schematics organized by type and class compatibility. Different characters will wear armor differently, even from the same schematic. For instance, Vanguard Mail looks vastly different on Cassandra than it does on Blackwall, even if it’s built from the same blueprint.

You’ll also encounter arm and leg upgrades (e.g., Vanguard Mail Arms), which add visual flair and stat bonuses. These upgrades only apply to armor pieces that have available slots, which is visible in the armor description in your inventory.

Weapons also follow a tiered schematic system:

• Tier 1: Basic, fewer slots.
• Tier 2: Moderate customization.
• Tier 3: Highest potential and more material slots.

Each weapon may also have slots for upgrades—like grips, hafts, pommels—and runes. These upgrades dramatically enhance performance, both visually and mechanically.

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Understanding Slots: Primary, Offensive, Utility, and Masterwork

Each schematic has slots that determine how materials affect the finished product:

• Primary Slots determine base stats (e.g., armor rating or weapon DPS). A high-tier metal like Stormheart can push your crafted DPS beyond the listed schematic range.
• Offensive Slots provide combat bonuses like critical chance, stagger on hit, or armor penetration.
• Utility Slots affect core attributes—e.g., strength, willpower, constitution—depending on the material used.
• Masterwork Slots allow the use of fade-touched materials to add special abilities, like “chance to use Hidden Blades” or “gain guard on hit.” These are optional but incredibly powerful when used correctly.

Visual cues help identify slot types—a rocky texture indicates metal, a fabric-like background means cloth, and so on. Each slot reacts differently based on the material and its function.

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Creating Cole’s Assassin Daggers: A Practical Walkthrough

To illustrate how it all comes together, here’s a live example: crafting a precise dual dagger setup for Cole, your party’s rogue assassin.

1. Choose a Schematic: A Tier 3 Split Blade Dagger schematic with four crafting slots is ideal.
2. Primary Material: Stormheart, a rare metal, is chosen for high base DPS (aiming for 301 max).
3. Offensive Slots: Bloodstone is used to provide armor penetration (8%), stacked in both offensive slots.
4. Leather Slot: Adds crit chance. Great Bear Hide (6%) or alternatives can be used depending on inventory.
5. Masterwork Material: Fade-Touched Ring Velvet grants a 10% chance to trigger Hidden Blades on hit—a powerful assassin ability that shines with Cole’s attack speed.

Once the weapon is crafted, it’s time to head over to the weapon modification table to apply upgrades:

• Grips: Add bonuses like +11% crit chance.
• Runes: Enhance the weapon further. For example, a Corrupting Rune adds +32 damage versus living targets.

Remember: once applied, runes can’t be removed—only overwritten. So choose wisely.

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Finding Rune Schematics and Blank Runestones

Rune schematics are acquired by exploring dungeons with Veilfire torches. Look for rune-marked walls and interact with them to unlock new blueprints. You’ll need blank runestones and essences (e.g., frost, spirit) to craft the final rune.

Blank runestones are easy to obtain from merchants, while essences are rarer and may require targeted farming. But once in your hands, crafted runes can dramatically boost your weapon’s power.

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Final Tips for Efficient Crafting

• Always keep an eye on material tiers—Tier 4 rare materials can push your gear beyond schematic limits.
• Don’t burn your best materials early—save high-end supplies for Tier 3 schematics.
• Upgrades like grips and hafts can be reused, so don’t be afraid to craft extras.
• Masterwork materials are powerful, but optional. Don’t let them bottleneck your creativity.
• Explore multiple builds. Different schematics and slot setups allow for tons of customization.

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With this deep dive into Dragon Age: Inquisition’s crafting system, you now have the tools to create powerful weapons and armor, fine-tuned to your characters’ strengths. Experiment, tweak, and optimize until your team is fully geared to take on the toughest dragons and darkest demons Thedas has to offer.

Stay sharp, and keep crafting.