Guide: Best Gold-Producing Tasks in Workshops

The Module 15 Workshops made Gold a pretty important part of the game. In this guide I’d like to look at the best Gold-producing tasks, because you can indeed use Workshops themselves to “craft” Gold. That way it is possible to use alternate characters as Gold suppliers and keep tasks running on mains. To start off the mod, Supplements had their five minutes of glory because some tasks were able to net hundreds of Gold per day. But that got fixed fairly fast. So we have to settle for less profitable tasks.

Potions of Healing

Assuming that you might have started doing Alchemy cause of the Supplement farm, here’s good news for you. Because you don’t need to level another profession. The next best tasks are those for the basic Potions of Healing. The listed costs (hopefully) include all tasks from the corresponding production chain. But make sure to double check!

[su_table]

Tasks Sell Value Production Cost Net Gain % Gain
Potion of Minor Healing 600 147 453 308%
Potion of Lesser Healing 1,200 311 889 285%
Potion of Healing 2,256 744 1,512 203%
Potion of Grand Healing 3,300 2,237 1,063 47%
Potion of Major Healing 4,500 3,739 761 19%

[/su_table]

As you can see the % gain decreases for higher-level potions. The reason is that the production chain gets longer and more of your profit has to be spent on Commission. We’re more interested in net gain anyway however, and that’s where the Potion of Healing comes out on top. It’s relatively easy to get Alchemy and Gathering up to the required levels. Additionally, since Commission is a big factor in the costs, Artisans with nice stats, and the “Passion Project” skill, can massively impact your gain. With your normal daily Morale you can run the task 80 times, resulting in a basic profit of 12-15 Gold per toon depending on the size of your Delivery Box. A second skill that makes sense is “Miracle Worker” that adds to your daily completions.

Basic Gear Recipes

A second option are very basic gear recipes in the level 1-20 range. Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Armorsmithing offer the best net gain, but Artificing, Blacksmithing, and Jewelcrafting also have gear pieces that sell for more than their production cost.

[su_table]

Tasks Sell Value Production Cost Net Gain % Gain
Leather Shoes (Leatherworking) 1,187 145 1,042 718%
Leather Armguards (Leatherworking) 2,570 421 2,149 510%
Cotton Sleeves (Tailoring) 2,570 664 1,906 287%
Bronze Greaves (Armorsmithing) 2,570 593 1,977 333%
Iron Bracers (Armorsmithing) 3,418 1,165 2,069 177%

[/su_table]

The basic low-level gear features nice profit margins. Like Alchemy Potions the higher-level tasks are not as profitable, mostly because the added Commission costs of the production chain exceeds the sell value. You might be able to get some more profit by using Commission bonuses and crafting the required mats yourself. Where possible I just took the Gold vendor values and crafting is most certainly cheaper. But it’s also a lot more effort that you might not want to go through on every farm alt. Given the above values, the recipes should be able to generate 16 – 20 Gold per day. Using “Passion Project” or “Miracle Worker” adds to your profit.

Gathering?

I also checked the Gathering tasks, but there indeed seems to be only one task where the initial net gain surpasses the production costs (“Beehive Chip”). There might be more when using Commission Artisans, but overall Gathering isn’t a decent source of Gold. So I would use it to supply at least some of the mats you need for your main Gold-producing tasks.

Why Not Dab Hand?

You might wonder why I’m not recommending Artisans with the Dab Hand skill for Gold farming. Theoretically they should have a chance to double the products and with it your Gold gain. As it turns out however, Dab Hand only doubles Gathering tasks and those of other professions that produce materials. Since potions and equipment are “end products”, the skill doesn’t proc for them. That’s why reducing commissions with “Passion Project” or generating more instant daily completions with “Miracle Worker” makes more sense. You can check out the best Artisans for all professions in this guide.

You have to decide for yourself whether the daily gain is worth it for you, but overall it’s possible to “craft” Gold. If you want to avoid farming Gold in the open world or buying up Treasures from the Auction House, it’s currently your only shot to keep your Workshops running. Which is why it can’t hurt to set up a few farm alts using the recipes above. Even if you don’t plan to use Gold yourself, you can sell or trade it. Gold will become more of an economic factor and using the Workshop is free and relatively easy. The only downside is that you have to login daily to really profit. A key part of this method is to spend your daily Morale.


What’s your take on generating Gold using the Workshop? Have you found other profitable recipes? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

17 thoughts on “Guide: Best Gold-Producing Tasks in Workshops

  • November 20, 2018 at 10:13 am
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    Cheers, JOShi.

    This is all updated for the latest patch nerfs?

    NOTHING should cost more to craft than it sells for. Even if it sells for only +25% or +50%. There HAS to be a net income gain of gold for what is spent, otherwise no one in the real world would ever do it.

    So we could give a character 200 gold, turn on “repeat forever” until they run out of gold and everything collected should sell for a MINIMUM of 250 gp, preferably 300 gp or more.

    • November 20, 2018 at 10:17 am
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      Yes that’s post nerf

    • November 22, 2018 at 7:21 am
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      To visualize this:
      Your ideal: gold (via treasure / drops) -> professions –> Gold+n

      Devs thinking: gold –> professions –> AD (via AH) / character use.

      In your example, if *everything* was profitable, the game would have a glut of gold in no time. Alt armies would be back in business cranking out coinage in no time flat. With the devs thinking, there is a cost to get into professions. The benefit is that you don’t need to rely on the AH to get pieces you might want (i.e. wholesale pricing). It also helps keep the economy moving – for the first time in years (ever?) gold is actually useful to players. It’s no longer a virtually infinite resource that just sits there. Combined with a (hopefully) healthier AH system for things like potions and it should lead to some interesting fluctuations.

      Now, would it be nice if we could just set it and forget it on any task and walk away with 25-50% more gold than we started with? Sure. But then we are right back where we started – where everyone has sacks of gold, and complaining about how there is nothing to use it on.

    • December 19, 2018 at 6:01 pm
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      In the real world, there is an opportunity cost to production… your time. If MMO’s made crafting a mundane item much more difficult than selecting a few ingredients and pressing a button, we wouldn’t see many crafters. At all. So, they remove most of the time cost of production.

      In game, you can sell that spiffy new pair of Leather Boots for whatever price the market commands. If Leather Boots are all the fashion rage (or maybe are bugged to give +1000% damage in PVP), there will be a great deal of demand and prices will rise. NPC buyers are the buyer of last resort. Think, no normal (player) buyer wants those boots you so lovingly hand crafted so you sell them to the second hand store so at least your investment isn’t a total loss.

      • December 19, 2018 at 7:19 pm
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        @TripsOfThrymr
        There is a time cost in Neverwinter as well, and as the system is new it takes vastly more time than the old. With the exception or using Morale to train new Artisans and rushing tasks, the Artisans also take time to craft items, and we spend time visiting the Workshop etc.

        But you won’t sell much to players, and they will buy for AD and not gold, so the boots you mention is an irrelevant example. The cost of Gathering and the price of selling those items to a Vendor, compared with what the vendor charges for the same items, is broken. It is broken because the copper price of most gathered items is the same number as the rank of the Gathering Task, because the cost is a place holder and they never finished the system properly. And the copper Trade Price of selling most Crafted items in a category is the same, regardless of level or stats. No wonder Karmel went bankrupt and got sacked! Every vendor in NW was ripping her off!

        The main problem of the new system is that it is not finished because, like all Neverwinter Mods, it was rushed to release by a certain date. Some recipes DO make a decent profit, although that may be a bug – like making 12 Potions of Healing from only 1 Sweetgale and 1 Stilled Water and basically doubling your gold. Without spending Materials Exchange Credits (MXC), you can start from scratch with level 70 Professions and Gather the Sweetgale and Well Water, use Morale to train an Alchemist to produce Stilled Water and then set them to make Potions of Healing, then sell them to a vendor at a profit. But you cannot sell the Well Water, Sweetgale or Stilled Water at a profit and the Vendors will charge anything from 10 to 25 times the cost of Gathering, because our Selling Trade Prices are just a place holder for the item’s rank rather than a real in-game Trade Price, due to rushing to release.

        The cost of Gathering is set to a certain Cost Price at +0% Commission, but everything we Gather has not had a proper Trade Price set, while everything that the Vendors sell has had a Retail Price set, which can be 2500% or more of Cost, while our Trade Price for supplying the Vendors can be something like 0.025% (example figures, it varies).

        It’s a great shame as I really like the new system. It’s fun working out what to do on each character, analysing the recipes and artisans screen shotting Begum’s rotation and making a database etc. Those characters I intended to be Artificers may become Tailors, because the best Tailoring Artisan has turned up, for example. Some of my Jewel Crafters generating Black Opals spent all their 100 gp starting gold I gave them and are now Alchemists generating gold.

        But there are other issues apart from incomplete Commission cost chains with apparently no thought in them. Gathering raw materials, processing them into refined materials and crafting them into items should not haemorrhage money in >99% of cases. Sure, some items will be sold for AD to newer players, some will be sold to Begum for South Sea Credits (SSC) and some will be used for RP. But it’s such a shame that so many items like jewelry sells for the same copper price regardless of level, crafting cost and stats.

        That just seems lazy and incomplete.

        🙂

  • November 20, 2018 at 10:22 am
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    The higher the level and quality of an item, the LESS you make until you start to lose money? Because of the chain of Commission costs?

    Does that happen in the real world with Faberge Eggs, de Beers diamonds, Porche and Ferrari, Gucci, Armani etc? They are all trading at a net loss? Or do they pass their costs on to their customers?

    WAKE UP, Craptrick!

    😡

    • November 22, 2018 at 7:35 am
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      You can’t just go around killing animals and have them drop money into your lap in the real world, either. So it works both ways.

      The benefit of a lot of the high end crafted stuff is … it’s high end crafted stuff, and in some cases is very close to BiS (new pants come to mind). This isn’t a real world economy, any more than Neverwinter is a place in the real world. The basic rules of supply and demand apply, sure, but being a closed system, where currencies are infinitely generated, it won’t react like a normal economy. If everything was profitable, there’d be massive inflation, and people would compalin that gold was useless (again).

      So, as shown, there *are* things that can be converted for a profit, but not everything can be – and in a system that has no real way for currency to leave circulation beyond being spent, those kind of sinks / forced spending is aboslutely needed.

      • November 23, 2018 at 6:03 am
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        But you don’t do that in Neverwinter, either. Rats do not drop money. Rat Men and Wererats do.

      • November 26, 2018 at 6:14 am
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        Also, it’s important to remember that Gold, in Neverwinter, is NOT money. It’s NOT a currency. It’s a crafting material, like wood and iron ore and tarantulas.

        AD is currency. Gold is something you consume to create objects

  • November 20, 2018 at 10:59 am
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    The core business strategy of PWE and Cryptic is something like this:
    Get players addicted to the game, then try to make them lose wealth, and by that strongarm them into either spending real money or quitting the game. I think PWE and Cryptic do not want established, loyal long term hardcore players, only big spender casuals that spend a lot of real money quickly, and then fuck off.
    This is typical f2p player/consumer hostile “pump and dump” monetization.

    • November 20, 2018 at 3:24 pm
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      It’s a fucking Chinese game publisher, what do people expect really? Ask yourself honestly, and I love playing Neverwinter as much as the next person, but do you really trust spending real world cash on a product controlled by corporate owners located in Beijing, China ? With no oversight whatsoever if the RNG in the game is not manipulated in some way….

      Not getting a dime from me anymore.

      • November 20, 2018 at 8:17 pm
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        #Don’tBuyZenUntliTheyFixThisShit!

      • November 21, 2018 at 12:13 pm
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        I really have no problem with where a game publisher comes from. The world is an awesome place, and every time I’ve been to Asia I’ve met awesome people that have more in common with us than things that set us apart. It’s a cool planet.

  • November 29, 2018 at 11:14 am
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    Actually lots of producers DO create goods at a loss. There a MANY examples of products that are only profitable after being subsidized. You can also boost profit by outsourcing your raw materials (buy them cheaper) and hiring artisans with cheaper commissions. This is very much like the real world in which a company employs strategies to produce a specific product with the least amount of overhead. Companies that just throw in without a solid plan lose money.

  • January 30, 2019 at 3:45 pm
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    If all you want to do is use an alt’s morale to farm gold, I like crafting Brass Rings.

    You can make up to 80 of them with 400 morale. You can buy 80 Sandstone Whetstones and 80 Brass Ingots for a total of 8.28 gold. You can vendor 80 brass rings for 27.34 gold, netting a profit of 19.06 gold minus commissions. If you have the artisan who charges -75% commission, the total commission on 80 brass rings is only about 39 silver (minus occasional Passion Project proc), netting well over 18 gold a day. Yes, there is the opportunity costs of taking the time to make 80 rings, but this can be done in 10 minutes, netting a rate of over 100 gold an hour.

    • March 19, 2019 at 7:34 pm
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      I just did the math and found that the best thing to make is a Hartshorn Ring – you can make 80 in your 400 morale day, the mats are the cheapest with just two less expensive ones at 1.15 and 1.31 when bought outright, and 3.16 commission totals to a manufacture cost of 5.62 and a sale price of 34.18 thus leaving a potential profit of 28.56 per, not including any reduction in commission costs – and I have a -25% crafter who reduces it, so I end up with after making 80 of them, a profit of 23.48 gold per day per alt, depending on their crafter. I need to level up these other alts and choose Jewelcrafting to support my toons I am trying to get done with SouthSea, lol.

  • February 11, 2019 at 3:03 am
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    The way they set it up was wrong from the outset.

    Having a Workshop with 20+ workers and a maximum of 8 of them “working” is just dumb.
    The way the workshop should have been presented is that ALL the workforce is always active. Not doing stuff for the player, but doing the nuts and bolts crafting and gathering to create stuff to sell to the everyday people of Neverwinter in order to pay the bills and keep the workshop running.
    THEN, when the player wants a personal commission creating they drag the worker away from their duties and go do the 3/5 tasks as set up in the UI. That way, the player is removing income from the workshop, and therefore jobs done for the player will cost more.

    Instead, you have an army of workers sitting around drinking, while less than half of them are creating stuff at the behest of the player that sells for less than it costs to make.

    Isn’t that how the previous owner went bankrupt?

    All they had to do was frame the Professions system in a different way, and the pricing issue would have at least made a bit of sense.

    It seems like they don’t have any story tellers working on their game at the moment.
    The shower, rinse, repeat format of campaigns has little to non depth, and even simple stuff like “How can we make this Professions thing a little more realistic?” doesn’t seem to be important.

    We once had Rob Salvatore writing campaigns, now we have the D&D version of a Michael Bay movie (juvenile story telling with adult humour) writing a levelling campaign that takes months to finish.

    I’m going to shut up or I’ll keep ranting till next week…

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