Trade Skills
Trade Skills are New World: Aeternum’s non-combat progression systems for gathering resources, processing materials, crafting equipment and consumables, performing music, and improving mounted travel. Each Trade Skill levels independently, allowing a single character to participate in every part of Aeternum’s player-driven economy.
The core economy follows a simple loop: gather raw resources, refine them into usable materials, and craft those materials into finished items. Music and Riding sit alongside that economy as independently leveled utility skills with their own progression and rewards.
Trade Skill Categories
How Trade Skills Work
New World does not lock characters into professions. Every character can level every Trade Skill, and many skills support one another. Mining feeds Smelting, Smelting supplies metals to multiple crafting professions, and crafted tools can then improve future gathering. Similar relationships exist throughout the system.
| Stage | Purpose | Trade Skills |
|---|---|---|
| Gathering | Collect raw materials from the world | Mining, Logging, Harvesting, Skinning, Fishing |
| Refining | Convert raw resources into crafting materials | Smelting, Woodworking, Leatherworking, Weaving, Stonecutting |
| Crafting | Turn materials into finished items | Arcana, Armoring, Cooking, Engineering, Furnishing, Jewelcrafting, Weaponsmithing |
| Utility | Progress through performances and mounted travel | Music, Riding |
Progression
Trade Skills can be leveled to 250. Higher levels unlock new resources, recipes, materials, bonuses, and profession-specific opportunities. The level cap was raised from 200 to 250 with Rise of the Angry Earth, which also introduced new endgame gathering and refining tiers.
Crafting professions also reward experimentation through the First Craft Bonus. The first time a character crafts a particular item, that recipe grants increased Trade Skill XP, encouraging players to make a broader variety of items instead of repeating only one recipe.
At maximum level, supported Trade Skills can continue earning experience through Trade Skill Aptitude. Aptitude converts continued profession XP into recurring reward checkpoints, allowing gathering, refining, and crafting progression to remain useful after the normal level cap.
Trade Skills at a Glance
There are 19 Trade Skills in modern New World: Aeternum: five Gathering skills, five Refining skills, seven Crafting skills, Music, and Riding. Together they form the foundation of resource acquisition, crafting, trading, housing utility, consumables, and long-term economic progression across Aeternum.