Crafting and Buildings
Crafting runs the economy in Swag and Sorcery, so turn raw materials into gear and sell the finished products and not the loot itself. Each of the four crafting buildings draws on exactly one stat: strength for the Smithy, agility for the Hunting Lodge, stamina for the Laboratory, and intelligence for the Magic Store. That stat sets the chance of producing a higher-quality item, so put your highest hero for each stat in the matching building and raise them at the Training Camp.
Crafting runs the economy in Swag and Sorcery. You do not make money by selling the raw materials your heroes drag out of the woods. You make money by turning those materials into gear and selling the finished products.
To craft gear, you need the right buildings and heroes with the right stats.
Stat Alignment
Every character in the game has four main stats. Each of the four crafting buildings draws on one of them, and the game states it the same way for all four: the chance to create high-quality items depends on that stat in the hero you put in charge. Put a high-strength hero in the Magic Store and they will craft badly.
| Building | Required Stat | What it Crafts |
|---|---|---|
| Smithy | Strength | Metal armor, swords, spears, axes, hammers |
| Hunting Lodge | Agility | Leather armor, crossbows, muskets |
| Laboratory | Stamina | Healing and mana potions, amulets |
| Magic Store | Intelligence | Cloth armor, staffs, orbs, wands |
Spears are ranged weapons that scale with Strength and are built in the Smithy. They are the one weapon that breaks the tidy melee-and-ranged split, and a player who assumes ranged means Hunting Lodge will hunt for them in the wrong building. This also matters for Hoshi, whose stun trait needs a ranged weapon while his stats are pure Strength. A spear satisfies both.
Assign dedicated crafters to these buildings. Do not make your primary combat heroes do the crafting. Combat heroes need well-rounded stats to survive, whereas a dedicated crafter only needs the one stat their building reads.
Players keep listing maces, bows, daggers, rings, and robes among the outputs. None of those are Swag and Sorcery item types. The hammer is the Smithy's blunt weapon, the ranged families are crossbows and muskets, the Laboratory's accessory is the amulet, and robes are leather goods from the Hunting Lodge and not Magic Store cloth.
Raising Crafting Quality
The stat sets a chance, not a threshold. Each building says the same thing: the chance to create high-quality items depends on the relevant stat of the hero in charge. There is no point at which good results become guaranteed, and no published number at which the curve flattens out.
No specific crafting-quality figures are documented. Players widely repeat 250 as the stat that unlocks "100% crafting efficiency", along with a 75% cap on purple and orange results and a 25% to 50% legendary rate. None of those numbers appear in any patch note or on any wiki, and neither does the phrase "crafting efficiency". Raise the stat because more is better, not because a threshold is waiting.
The one quantified modifier in the game is Aiden's level 5 trait Do-it-yourselfer, a flat +5% chance to craft an enhanced item. That, plus matching the right hero to the right building, is the whole documented lever.
Raise crafting stats at the Training Camp, where you pay gold to level a hero and improve their attributes. It is the only documented way to raise a stat, and the Market is the wrong building for stat gear: it only sells your unwanted equipment, it does not stock anything.
Patch 1.50 removed intermediate refined materials from the game. Planks, ingots, leathers, and fabrics are all gone, and recipes now consume raw logs, ores, pelts, and cloth directly. If you find a recipe list calling for Copper Ingots or Chestnut Planks, it predates that patch.
Upgrading Buildings
Upgrading a building unlocks new recipes and higher-tier gear.
You do not choose the order the buildings arrive in. The main quest chain hands them to you in a fixed sequence: Smithy, then Training Camp, then Hunting Lodge, then Fashion House, then Laboratory, then Library, then Magic Store. Advice to "prioritize the Smithy and Hunting Lodge early" describes something that happens to you anyway.
The one thing worth planning is materials. Check that your parties can reach the zone a recipe's inputs come from before you spend on the station that uses them. A tier two Smithy runs on Battlefield and Dark Ruins materials, so if your heroes are still getting sent home from the Battlefield, the upgrade sits idle.
Upgrade costs beyond the first tier are not documented. The recorded build costs are 3 Chestnut Logs for the Smithy, 5 for the Hunting Lodge, and 6 Chestnut Planks plus 3 Copper Ingots plus 200 gold for the Fashion House, and that last one is a pre-1.50 figure that no longer applies since those materials were removed. Every second and third tier cost is blank on both wikis. Blank means nobody recorded it, not that it is free.
Always keep your crafting queues full. If a hero is standing around doing nothing, you are losing gold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which stat does each crafting building use in Swag and Sorcery?
The Smithy uses strength, the Hunting Lodge agility, the Laboratory stamina, and the Magic Store intelligence. That stat sets the chance of producing a high-quality item, so a hero placed in the wrong building crafts badly no matter how strong they look on paper.
What does 250 in a stat do for crafting?
Nothing documented. The 250 figure and the phrase 100% crafting efficiency appear in no patch note and on no wiki, and neither do the 75% purple cap or the 25 to 50 percent legendary rate quoted alongside them. Raising the stat raises the chance of a better item, with no published threshold.
Where do you raise a hero's crafting stat?
At the Training Camp, by paying gold to level them and improve their attributes. It is the only documented way to raise a stat. The Market will not help, because it only sells your unwanted equipment and does not stock anything.
Should your combat heroes also craft?
No. Assign dedicated crafters to the buildings instead. Combat heroes need well-rounded stats to survive adventures, while a crafter only needs the one stat their building reads.
Do you still need planks and ingots to craft?
No. Patch 1.50 removed intermediate refined materials, so planks, ingots, leathers, and fabrics are all gone and recipes consume raw logs, ores, pelts, and cloth directly. A recipe list calling for Copper Ingots predates that patch.
What to Read Next
- Resource Management. Feeding the crafting chain properly.
- Heroes and Traits. Matching gear stats to each hero.
- Adventuring and Combat. Gear checks before a run.
- Tips and Tricks. What patch 1.50 deleted, and the crafting threshold that never existed.