Hail Gnomes,

As a wizard I have never really had a problem keeping my intiligence high.
It used to be said that for tradeskills high INT would help you gain skill
and high WIS would help you succeed. In a patch about a month ago Verant
claimed that they were changing this so that even the not so bright would
be able to succeed and gain skill relatively easier than before.
With reguards to tinkering I worked my skill up in the normal fashion
(using the old rules for stats) with Flameless lanterns till 68, Standard
Bow Camms till 75, and then Stalking Probes till they trivialed (I forge
the number). At that point the Thermal Cloak, Powdered Gloves and
Catipults had not been able to be fashioned. Aqualungs saw my skill up to
111 where I stoped tinkering for a while due to cost.
Eventually Powdered Gloves to 122 and then Catipults to 135? put me in
range that I could make Rebreathers about 35 - 40% of the time. Thankfully
the Warrior Epic Quest helped sales. At first I had to charge 2.5k for
each rebreather but have since pulled my prices down to 2k each.

When the patch came into play that changed the way the stats affected
tradeskills I noticed that I seemed to gain alot of skill, in my next
tinkering session. Prior to the patch I had gotten my skill to 139, and on
that first after patch session I attempted a dozen Rebreathers and saw my
skill climb to 145 (between raises from aqualungs and rebreathers).

Str: 107, Sta: 98, Agi: 111, Dex: 99, Wis: 82, Int: 204, Cha: 54
The Low Cha is because I have some other stat items that lower my Cha, I
would remove the negative Cha items when buying. Before every tinkering
session I would ALWAYS get a CHA buff from a Shaman or Enchanter, and if
Enchanter I would get an INT/WIS buff as well.

I don't know if my stats are aranged great or what just though I would
share some anctitdotal(sp?) evidence with my brother and sister Gnomes. I
don't go way out of the way to tinker. I usually keep 2 - 4 Rebreathers on
me, and I generally don't advertise except by word of mouth from my
clients. Since there will never be a shortage of warriors wanting to work
on their epic I just plan to tinker as needed and when Rebreathers
eventually trivial, great I will give some armor a shot. I would expect
Rebreathers to trivial some where around 170 - 180.

Lomack
Gnome Wizard (55) and Tinker (149)
Brotherhood of the Crimson Knights ( www.bck.org )
"The Crimson Knights" Fennin Ro