Rift crafting will help you improve your game-play in Rift in more ways than one.
Each of your characters can learn three different professions. They are not dependent on each other, nor on class or race. They don't offer you any special abilities.
There are three gathering professions and six crafting professions. Some of these trade skills support each other.
If, for example, you select armorsmithing, you will need mining to obtain metal in order to create chain and plate armor.
Butchery is a good idea, too, because some hides are needed to make chain armor. Foraging can be a good idea as well (wood is needed to make some shields).
Of course, you can naturally hold it to one gathering profession i.e. mining, and buy the remainder from the auctioneer or have another character gathering for you.
The professions available in Rift are:
Gathering Professions:
* Butchery obtains hides, bones and teeth from animal corpses.
* Foraging collects plants and wood logs.
* Mining extracts ore from nodes.
Crafting Professions:
* Apothecary creates Flasks, Potions, Philtres, Tonics and Vials.
* Armorsmithing creates chain, plate armor and shields.
* Artificing creates jewelry and caster weaponry.
* Outfitting creates cloth, leather items and bags.
* Runecrafting creates runes, used to augment weapons and gear.
* Weaponsmithing creates all types of weapons.
You learn your specific profession from a trainer. If you have a gathering profession, you level it up by gathering and transforming products (by gathering ores and smelting them, or by gathering wood and manufacturing planks from them).
If you have a crafting profession, you level it up by crafting items.
Most crafting professions level up 10 points at a time. For example, if you make 10 daggers, this will take you to level 10 in weaponsmithing. Then you go to your teacher and learn the next recipe. Then you make 10 more swords, and this will bring you up to level 20.
The crafting professions give you the possibility to salvage items. If you have Armorsmithing, you can salvage armors; if you are weaponsmithing, you can salvage weapons. If you are runecrafter, you can runebreak almost anything.
When salvaging, you can break down an item and obtain materials from it. Sometimes it will be "salvaged leather" or other things used to make augments for your weapons or armor. At other times you will obtain planks, leather or bars which can be used to make a new item. This saves you both money and gathering time.
It is best is to have a profession that enables you to make things which your character may need, but this is not a must.
And you can very easily select one of the many Rift crafting professions available that you feel you'll enjoy the most.