Enchant skill is crazy(spoiler)

[Zantax]

The enchant skill is way overpowered in this game. This could be a spoiler, you have been warned.











Ok I don't understand why the enchant skill makes all the other magic skills pointless. I mean you can bind any spell from any other magic skill into an item regardless of your skill level. In other words you don't need a high conjure skill to make a fire atronach amulet for example. You only need a good enchant skill. You don't even need good mysticism skill to bind high level souls.

I made a warrior guy with an enchant in major. He is level 2, Enchant skill is now at 50. These are some of the things I have made so far.

Bloodrinker- Nordic broadsword with absorb health 10, with a duration of four. So every time I land a blow it sucks 40 points of health from the monster and gives it to me. Can do that 10 times before my charge runs out.

Demonsword ring- Casts summon blade, duration of 60 seconds, 10 times, by the time one sword is gone it is almost fully recharged. So I always have one if I need it, use it when my blood drinker is out of charges.

Health amulet- Darn thing has 100 charges of 4 health duration 3. Not to mention I have added health charges to a lot of my armor as well.

Flying ring- 240 seconds of flying, 5 charges. Yeah it is magnitude one but when it lasts that long I can afford to walk slow.

I have mark and recall rings, summon ancestor ghost, bonewalker, invisibility, strength, cures, you name it.

Now for the really sick part. Unlimited funds.

Summon an ancestor ghost from my ring and use my soultrap glove then kill it with my summoned sword after it fills my mana(atronach). I now have a soulgem woth 6000 drakes.

If I get tired of that I use a telekinesis targeted spell to swipe anything the npc's leave lying around.

They need to fix this in a patch. Have to make it so that you cant enchant something with a spell you can't cast with a 90% or better chance. It wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't spent a lot of time raising a legitamate mage character the hard way .

[fable]

Summon an ancestor ghost from my ring and use my soultrap glove then kill it with my summoned sword after it fills my mana(atronach). I now have a soulgem woth 6000 drakes.

Most merchants won't accept soulgems, and the few that do, don't have anything approaching that amount of gold. Where have you successfully sold your soulgems, and what did you get for 'em?

[Zantax]

Enchanter npc's have some very nice enchanted items that can cost up to 9000 drakes(highest I have seen so far anyway). I got a nifty helm that casts summoned breast plate. Forgot the name of it, dragon helm or something. If it isn't an item you want to use then you can always peddle it away at an armoror. You can also trade them in for the highest end soulgems with twylite. Or if you can't find buyers for those you can always churn out the lesser gems with skeletal minion etc. souls.

[Viz]

Enchant is balanced - much less useful later

Theres a couple of things you need to remember:

1/ High level enchanters need to put all their time into the skill to get it up to specialise and become powerful at it, imbuing equipment with the highest spells. This time put into another skill would have given him a lot of power in that other particular area too - its just that the effect looks even more unbalacing when compared to all your other super low skills in comparison.

2/ Much more importantly, there are a *fixed* number of the highest quality soul gems. The highest quality soul gems are needed to imbue items with the highest magics. This will mean that at the end game you will have levelled high and the ninja monkeys will have levelled with you. Normal soul gems will no longer have spells that will do much against these things but you will only have a *limited* number of high quality items with the top spells.

While a destructive specialised mage will be throwing around area lightning bolts and fireball stoems and whatever custom spells he wants from the highest tiers without any limit whatsoever (well except to his magica level but the point is, he has no limit to his choices and there will be countless custom spells he can make and use).

3/ Which brings me to spellcrafting. Imagine spellcrafting with the highest tier spells and combining them to create amazing magic. You wont be able to do it forever with enchanting - as I said, there is a finite number of the highest quality soul gems. How many combination of artifacts will you make before they are all full and thats that? Only way out then would be to use the editor and create more or clear the highest soul gems you have. i.e cheat. So you will need to decide everytime you imbue a rare high quality soulgem whether the item you are making is something you *really* want.

4/ People have limited encumburance - when using lower quality soul gem items,how many trinkets will you carry? And how easily will you keep swapping between them everytime you need the relevant spell? Tedious normally but imagine the situation in combat.

Overall, enchanting is a very useful skill allowing you to create amazing powerful artifacts but just remember, in the long run, you will be able to only create a limited number while specialist magis will be spellcrafting and creating top tier custom spells till the implode. It is balanced.. its just that so early in the game its not clear what happens later

Simply, enchant vs other spell circles = have the best for a lot of the game but then have very little vs other spell circles and their custom spells at the end due to finite soul gems.

But don't get me wrong, this doesnt mean enchanting is useless later because - well, you would have just made yourself some of simply, the best magical imbued items in the game for your character, something someone who doesnt have enchanting as a skill couldnt do without forking out a maddening fortune. And of course the ease with casting any spell you wish with lower quality gems and trinkets earlier on is somehting non enchanters will never have <and natural magica regen in the items>.

P.S Atronach plus conjure ghost, absorb ghosts fireballs and refill magica, kill ghost is a perfect example of hose to use enchant to create magica refilling stations too.

[fable]

P.S Atronach plus conjure ghost, absorb ghosts fireballs and refill magica, kill ghost is a perfect example of hose to use enchant to create magica refilling stations too.

At least, until this is fixed by Bethsoft. I've been told that they're aware of this cheap way of advancing skills, and doing something about it.

@Viz, are you positive that high level soul gems do not re-seed in dungeon or city areas during the game? I don't mean to doubt you, but it is a point worth being absolutely sure over.

[Zantax]

Fable even if they close that loophole it wouldn't be hard to mark a spot that has a magic using monster and just recall there for a magic refill. So unless they are gonna get rid of the Atronach sign and the spell Absorb Magika I don't see how they are going to stop that method.

I am also curious as to whether he is right about there being a limitied number of high end soulgems. I certainly haven't seen enough of the game yet to come to that conclusion and I could have sworn that I have bought gems for merchants than had them spawn more but I am not absolutely sure about it.

As for encumbrance being a problem, well rings don't weigh much. I did put destruction as a major skill as well because I knew that was one area that items wouldn't be able to carry enough charges in the end game.

[Sirius_Sam]

Limited soulgems ?

Hi guys,

I just got the game yesterday and was trying to figure out what kind of character I was going to make. I was told by a friend that 'Enchanting' is good for supplementing a primarily combat-oriented character, so I have been leaning toward a 'Spellsword-type' melee fighter.

Viz claims that the number of high-end soulgems is finite (might be true...I've only explored with a test character long enough to kill 2 crabs ...so I. R. n00b ), but does this matter if you ultimately only use enchanted objects (via the enchanting skill) to give your character additional 'punch' ?

I've never been one make a pure spellcasting character for my primary persona. I guess I just like the high-end Hack-N'-Slash (melee, missile and SOME magic) and really enjoy playing a well-rounded character (at least the first run through). So my question is:

...Can a combat-oriented character with limited magic ability (Enchanting) make it to and finish the endgame ? Even with all the 'cheap' exploits to the enchanting skill and in Viz's words, "Simply, enchant vs other spell circles = have the best for a lot of the game but then have very little vs other spell circles and their custom spells at the end due to finite soul gems"...can 'Enchanting' be a viable secondary skill for a fighter or is another magic school more appropriate ?

Ooops, sorry...two questions then

S_S

[Viz]

Its a very important question I know but I dont have first hand experience but draw from comments of other players - there was a very high level enchanter giving tips in the spoilers section of the official site and I asked whether enchanting was balanced. A short debate took place where the point came up of 'finte top level gems'

http://www.elderscrolls.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=cheat&Number=377678&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1

is the beginning of the thread (has lots of great advice in it for enchanters plus debate of balance.. no other game spoilers, just enchanting tips).

Someone mentioned the fact of finite high level gems (Graceland page no.5 in thread when talking about why enchanting is balanced) and it seems from the thread posts that the highest enchanters don't actually farm them but find them in various places. And it seems to definitely be the case that they are far from common. One of the newer posters indicates he has found quite a few but indicates you must be prepared to really explore the land. I dont think we have concrete evidence until we are higher but I dont think they 'repop' in dungeons as loot but are stuck statically in hidden places to be found just the once. Which indicates a 'finite' number.

Again no concrete evidence.. maybe there is way of checking though data files, shrug. But I did reask the question for it to be clarified as a new post but I dont think we will get another answer...

[Sirius_Sam]

Good Info...

That's a very informative thread, Viz...thanks

As far as I can decipher, I accept your theory about the limited number of highest-quality soulgems...it makes sense that they are 'placed' (much as most, if not all, of the other exceptional items in the game) and if this is correct, then the obvious conclusion is that there can be only so many in the gameworld.

I'm not exactly sure yet (remember, I only got the game yesterday and haven't even scratched the surface of the Morrowind Universe ) what effect a limited number of the best Soulgems would have on most character builds. It would seem that if you ONLY used the Enchanting skill then this dearth of good soulgems would leave the character crippled at higher levels, but having the ability to create/enchant reasonably powerful items with lower-quality soulgems in order to supplement other, non-enchant primary skills (at least initially) still makes the Enchanting skill sound like an excellent complimentary magic school for ANY character. I don't really see how it would leave the casual enchanter weaker than any other class regardless of whether having access to the best enchanting items is limited or not.

Now, before I shove my foot any farther into my mouth ...to the best of your knowledge, are the number of ALL soulgems in the game finite, or just the BEST soulgems ?

S_S

[Sirius_Sam]

OK...read some more

OK...finished reading the thread (it's HUGE and I have to work sometime ).

This is a direct quote from Sarbian on the topic of # of soulgems in the game (gleaned from his perusal of the editor):

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>>>"Fadase Selvayn in Tel Branora should sell unlimited amount of petty/lessser/common soulgems and other gems are avaible in limited amount".<<<

It would seem that there are an infinite number of the lower-quality soulgems available to enchanters, but fewer (although, judging by the posts, still a great number of...) Higher-quality soulgems. Minor effects and magical 'tool kits' can be fashioned in abundance from the Petty-to-Common gems, but care should be taken when deciding what should be created using the gems above 'common', since they cannot respawn.

Thanks for the heads-up, Viz

S_S

[Viz]

My pleasure Actually I really wanted to get to the bottom of this because ot bothered me that there would be such a big unbalance. I mean, if enchanting was so good, why would anyone do alchemy.. apart from just the roleplay reasons or any other magical school for that reason?

I think with the fact that there are finite gems, it means alchemy is a very valid tradeskill to allow up to four effects from an unlimited source <the flora and fauna of Morrowind>. And getting to the highest in magical schools will allow you unlimited playa t spellcrafting within your schools. And all of these are very powerful too But there is no question - enchanting is a really great skill for any char as you say!

There are quite a few gems it seems at the highest level so you could still have a nice stash of high enchanted items. But still its something to be considered since you could actually play Morrowind forever and you could every easily run our of gems and not be able to use that amazing new spell that you thought up