Skyrim:Enchanting

Skill: Enchanting
Specialization: Magic

Enchanting is the ability to add magical effects to items such as weapons, armor and clothes. Increasing this skill increases the amount of charges on a weapon or the quality of the enchant on the armor. The Enchanting skill tree has a total of 9 perks, requiring a total of 13 perk points to fill.

In-game Description: The more powerful the enchanter, the stronger the magic he can bind to his weapons and armor.

Skill Perks

Enchanter

Fire Enchanter

Frost Enchanter

Storm Enchanter

Extra Effect

Insightful Enchanter

Corpus Enchanter

Soul Squeezer

Soul Siphon

Enchanting Perk Tree

Perk	Rank	Description	ID	Skill Req.	Perk Req.
Enchanter	1	New enchantments are 20% stronger.	000bee97
	2	New enchantments are 40% stronger.	000c367c	20 Enchanting
	3	New enchantments are 60% stronger.	000c367d	40 Enchanting
	4	New enchantments are 80% stronger.	000c367e	60 Enchanting
	5	New enchantments are 100% stronger.	000c367f	0 80 Enchanting
Fire Enchanter		Fire enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f80	30 Enchanting	Enchanter
Frost Enchanter		Frost enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f81	40 Enchanting	Fire Enchanter
Storm Enchanter		Shock enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f82	50 Enchanting	Frost Enchanter
Insightful Enchanter		Skill enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f7e	50 Enchanting	Enchanter
Corpus Enchanter		Health, magicka, and stamina enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f7d	70 Enchanting	Insightful Enchanter
Extra Effect		Can put two enchantments on the same item.	00058f7f	100 Enchanting	Corpus Enchanter or Storm Enchanter
Soul Squeezer		Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging. (soul gems recharge twice as much magicka)	00058f7c	20 Enchanting	Enchanter
Soul Siphon		Death blows to creatures, but not people, trap 5% of the victim's soul, recharging the weapon.	00108a44	40 Enchanting	Soul Squeezer

†	Specifically, this affects Fortify Health, Regenerate Health, Fortify Magicka, Regenerate Magicka, Fortify Stamina, and Regenerate Stamina.

Skill Usage

Arcane Enchanter

For details on available effects, see Enchanting Effects.

You Will Need

• An enchanted item from which to learn a new enchantment or an already learned enchantment.
• An item (weapon, armor, clothing, jewelry) that is not enchanted that you wish to enchant.
• A soul gem with a soul trapped in it.
• Access to an Arcane Enchanter.

To learn an enchantment

• Disenchant an enchanted item with the Arcane Enchanter to learn its enchantment permanently.
• The enchanted item is destroyed when you disenchant it.
• You will only learn the effect, the magnitude is unimportant.
• Not every enchanted item can be disenchanted. As a general rule, an item with a unique enchantment can't be disenchanted.

To Enchant an item

1. Use an Arcane Enchanter.
2. Select the item you wish to enchant.
3. Select the enchantment you wish to apply.
4. Select the soul gem you wish to use. The soul gem will be destroyed during the enchantment process (unless it is Azura's Star or the Black Star). The level of the soul held in the gem, your skill, and whether a Fortify Enchanting potion has just been quaffed all affect the amount of charges on a weapon, or the magnitude of the enchantment on apparel. See Effect Charges and Strength for a detailed description.
5. You may rename the item if you wish:
   • Press the Triangle to enter a name.
   • Type F if you wish to rename the item. Type the new name, then hit enter when finished.
   • Press the Y button to enter a name.
6. Select the Enchant option from the menu.

Optimizing enchanting/skill exploit:

WARNING: Using this procedure, especially together with the "Fortify Restoration/Fortify Skill/equipping-unequiping" exploit described at the end of this topic, can be useful in giving you a boost. But it can also easily render the game so unbalanced that all challenge (and enjoyment) may be lost. If you wish to try it, save your game prior, and begin with modestly enhanced enchanting potions by performing the steps below once or twice, and avoid the "Fortify Restoration stacking exploit" described in the notes below the steps. Having enchantments that allow you to kill every enemy with one weapon strike, and making you virtually impervious to damage can become dull very quickly. For most players, lowering the difficulty level, temporarily or permanently, is a better way to increase your capabilities.

Note: This procedure works because the Fortify Restoration effect strengthens the Fortify Skill effect, and Restoration is itself a skill. Some of the following information is at least somewhat incoherent because it has evolved haphazardly over numerous editors and through many versions of the game. Some things referenced may have been removed from the section, or may no longer work due to exploit patches contained in recent updates. It remains, and in its present imperfect form for now, because it has been popularly requested information.

• You can use these methods to increase your stats at any point, for any skill level, using this same method. However, you will benefit even more at higher alchemy, enchanting, and restoration skill levels, and should generally focus on increasing these before optimizing.

• Note: The Restoration potion exploit has been corrected by version 1.30 of the Unofficial Skyrim patch

• A procedure is:

1. Wear four pieces of apparel enchanted with Fortify Alchemy (head, necklace, ring, arms).
2. Craft a potion of fortify restoration at an alchemy table.
3. Drink it.
4. Steps 2-3 can be repeated multiple times.
5. Craft a fortify enchanting potion.
6. Use the enhanced fortify enchanting potion, along with powerful soul gems, to enchant one or more items.

• If you wear four fortify alchemy 20% pieces of apparel, and have 100 alchemy skill, as well as the benefactor perk, after two iterations you can equip a 25% fortify destruction/restoration/etc. enchanted gear and you will have 108% magicka reduction for that magic school as long as you never take that item off again.
• The earliest this is possible is level 7 with enchanting 20 and alchemy 30. You need to have the benefactor perk, physician perk (prerequisite for the benefactor), 2 levels in alchemist, and 2 levels in enchanter. You need four grand soul gems on four equipment with fortify alchemy.
• This Fortify Restoration potion exploit works because fortifying restoration strengthens any Restoration effect on an item, including Fortify Skill enchantments, and this effect of Restoration Potions stacks. By taking a Fortify Restoration potion prior to equipping Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing items (or by taking several Fortify Restoration potions, since this exploit works on potions as well) you can increase the Fortify Smithing and Fortify Alchemy enchantment strength on items. Because the effect stacks with each potion taken (by un-equipping and reequipping the apparel after each potion taken), you can increase these enchantments exponentially and make exponentially more powerful Fortify Enchant potions with the Fortify Alchemy apparel.^{[verification needed — see talk page]}
  • Extremely high Fortify Enchantment effects may cause your game to crash when trying to enchant an item.
• Beware of creating overly powerful weapons. Even without following the above adjuncts it is possible to create a one hit/shot kill weapon. The problem arises if you have followers or NPCs you want to keep alive. You can accidentally send them to Sovngarde on a regular basis in the thick of the battles causing a lot of exasperating game reloads.

Tips on Soul Gems

• If a soul gem gets filled with a weaker type of soul, e.g. Grand Soul Gem (Petty), it can be emptied and reused by simply dropping it on the ground and picking it up.

• Your follower can act as your "soul harvester" if you give him/her a Soul Trap/Fiery Soul Trap enchanted weapon, and empty soul gems.
  • Note that many followers are bugged so that they will continue to use their low quality default bow instead of the one you gave them that would trap souls. See the Followers article for more information on this.

Skill Increases

Character Creation

The following races have an initial skill bonus in Enchanting:

• +5 bonus: Altmer, Imperial, Orc

Trainers

• Sergius Turrianus in the College of Winterhold (Expert)
• Hamal in Markarth (Master)
• Neloth^DB in Tel Mithryn (Master)

Skill Books

• Catalogue of Armor Enchantments
• Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments
• Enchanter's Primer
• A Tragedy in Black
• Twin Secrets

Free Skill Boosts

• +1 Enchanting reward (+1 every magic skill) from Pantea Ateia (Bards College) for completing the quest Pantea's Flute.
• +5 Enchanting (+5 every magic skill) by selecting "The Path of Magic" when reading the Oghma Infinium after completing the quest Discerning the Transmundane.

Gaining Skill XP

• Crafting enchanted items gives the biggest overall skill increases.
• Disenchanting items gives widely varied skill increases, dependent on the effect learned and the magnitude on the item, with apparel effects generally giving larger increases than weapon effects. However, only one item per effect may ever be disenchanted.
• Recharging enchanted weapons using Soul Gems gives small to moderate skill increases, based on the size of the soul used. It does not matter how many charges there are left on the weapon. Using the Black Star and a Weapon with Soul Trap effect, you can train by recharging the weapon after every kill without having to worry about soul gems.

One way to level up Enchanting quickly is by disenchanting items - the more powerful the better - but will only get you so far. After that, you will have to advance by crafting items: acquire a number of filled soul gems of any size and the same number of unenchanted weapons or armor. Enchant all of them; preferably with the most expensive enchantment you know for maximum profit. Using The Mage Stone and a Sleeping bonus (such as Well Rested) will increase the experience you gain per enchantment.

Achievements

One achievement is related to enchanting:

• Artificer (10 points/Bronze) — Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion
  • For the purposes of this achievement, disenchanting an item counts as "making" an enchanted item.

Notes

• It would appear that the Soul Siphon perk does not work with staffs, for which this perk would have been very useful.

• The Insightful Enchanter perk also affects new enchantments on clothing and jewelry, despite only specifying armor in the description.

• The Fire, Frost, Storm, Insightful and Corpus Enchanter perks, as well as the Extra Effect perk, will not change existing enchantments, despite the description differing from the base Enchanter perk. This means you will need to plan your enchantments carefully, or be prepared to craft or acquire new pieces of armor, clothing, or weapons as you increase your enchanting skill.

• The Fire/Frost/Storm Enchanter Perks increase the value of your Fire/Frost/Shock Resistance enchants. Even if you have all three perks the value of Magic Resistance Enchant (general Magic Resistance, not from a particular school) will not increase.

• Magical effects available for enchanting are not related to the spells that you have learned. Enchanting is independent of the other magical skills.

• It is possible with enchanting to cast spells without using magicka. This can be done by wearing multiple pieces of armor/jewelry with multiple enchantments that reduce spell cost of a certain school with a combined total of 100% (or greater, though this has no effect beyond 100).

As above, items with enchantments that reduce the magicka cost of spells will also affect charge levels on weapons associated with that school of magic. For example, with Armor, Helmet, Ring and Amulet all enchanted with at least -25% Skill Cost in Destruction, Chillrend will have infinite charge.

• The destruction perks that increase elemental damage directly affect elemental enchantments on weapons. Or more accurately, they increase the effective magnitude of an enchanted weapon at the time it is wielded by a player with destruction perks, but will not be applied to another character if given a weapon enchanted by a player with destruction perks. This effect is applied a second time when using a weapon with two such enchantments. With all relevant enchant perks combined with destruction perks fire +50%, and shock +50%, and a store bought +25% to enchant elixir you are able to create weapons that, when wielded by you will deal 78 fire and 78 shock damage (it will still be 39/39 for everybody else). Similarly, illusion enchantments are increased by Vampirism's 25% to illusion magic. This also stacks with the destruction perks if you make a Fire/Fear or similar weapon.

• A potion that increases destruction magic by X% will increase fire, shock and frost enchantments by the same percent.

• Other destruction perks that activate on elemental damage (such as Intense Flames) do not activate from elemental damage enchants on weapons.

• Enchanting a stolen item does not remove the stolen flag. Unlike in Oblivion and Morrowind, creating an enchanted item does not actually create a new copy of the weapon.

• For an easy way to level Enchanting, get Azura's Star and an enchanted weapon. Recharge your weapon after every enemy and you can gain a level every other kill.

• If your enchanting skill is somewhat high, some guards will say, "Don't suppose you'd enchant my sword? Dull old blade can barely cut butter."

• Unlike in Oblivion, one is unable to apply a harmful enchantment to a piece of armor; therefore, a player cannot kill themselves or in-game NPCs via that method.

• You cannot place an enchantment over an existing enchantment on an item, although with the Extra Effect perk you can apply two enchantments to the same item, but the two effects must be applied at the same time. For instance, the Blade of Whiterun cannot be enchanted with a second effect because it is already enchanted.

• Dual-enchanting an item with the Extra Effect perk only requires a single soul gem, and both enchantments are as powerful as either one would be on its own (i.e, the strength of the soul is not split between the two enchantments).

• The Firey Souls enchantment, obtained by disenchanting the Steel Battleaxe of Firey Souls found only in Ironbind Barrow, includes two enchantment effects, Fire Damage and Soul Trap. Using this enchantment as one of the two applied with the Extra Effect perk is the only way for a player to create a weapon that has three enchantment effects (Fire Damage, Soul Trap, and one of your choice).

• The soul gem is destroyed unless you use The Black Star or Azura's Star

• If the enchanted weapon has two enchantments, it is only necessary to have cost reduction in the more powerful/expensive enchantment of two. For example, if you have Paralysis (Alteration) and Fire (Destruction), you only need to have 100% cost reduction in Alteration in order to get infinite charge.

• The highest value enchantments for increasing the value of unenchanted items for resale when using Petty souls are Banish for weapons, Fortify Block for shield, Fortify Destruction for armor and clothing, Waterbreathing for headgear and jewelry and Fortify sneak for footwear. (This may change depending on perks.^{[verification needed — see talk page]})

• If enchanting for profit, keep in mind the actual value of the increase is additive and not multiplicative, so the value (in gold) that enchanting adds is same regardless of the value of the item being enchanted. For example, enchanting an Iron Sword with Turn Undead using a Grand Soul and all perks will result in a sword with the value of 513 (vs. the base price of 25), while an Orcish Bow enchanted with the exact same enchantment and under the same conditions will yield a new value of 638 (vs. the base price of 150). The price increases by 488 gold in both cases. Due to the way barter works in the game, it is more beneficial to enchant lower-value items for the purpose of resale.

• Use of the Staff Enchanter^DB is unrelated to the Enchanting skill.

• Frost Damage, Resist Frost, and Chaos Damage^DB enchantments placed on Stalhrim^DB weapons or armor are 25% stronger than the corresponding enchantments on other materials. 174.6.51.17 09:50, 7 May 2013 (GMT)

Bugs

• Renamed enchanted weapons (of the same type) that share the same effects but with different names will be named the same if you un-equip both.
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.2 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
• The game may not recognize keystrokes from your keyboard when renaming an item you intend to enchant. It appears to occur when using the mouse during the process, so try to use only the arrow keys and [enter] to name your items.
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.4.26 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
• Sometimes you will get stuck when trying to exit from using an arcane enchanter. You are unable to move or use HUD. The problem may fix itself in a minute or two. If not, it's best to save (if you can) and restart the game.
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.4.26 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
  • If you find yourself suddenly in first-person view while using an arcane enchanter, zoom out to third person and then exit the arcane enchanter.
• If you enchant improved armor, it may appear to lose any improved rating you may have applied through smithing (the UI will show it revert to its base specs). However, after enchanting the item - the item will in fact retain any improved rating.
• The following items can be disenchanted, but their enchantments cannot be applied to any item:
  • Linwe's Armor - Shadowthrive (Increases your stamina by 15 points)
  • Linwe's Boots - Shadowstrength (Sneaking is 15% better)
  • Linwe's Hood - Shadowsight (Bows do 15% more damage)
  • Linwe's Gloves - Shadowstrike (One-handed attacks do 15% more damage)
  • The Bond of Matrimony - Blessing of Mara (Restoration spells cost 10% less)
  • This bug is fixed by version 1.0 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
• Sometimes enchanting a new item that shares the effects with an enchanted item in your inventory will cause the item just enchanted to duplicate itself. This means you get two items. ^?
• When enchanting items, the value of each item decreases as your enchanting level rises (as stated above). It is unknown whether this is a bug or an intended game mechanic. There are two fixes:

1. Save, quit, and then reload your game after mass enchanting. The item value should rise and now reflect their true value. ^{[verification needed — Conflicting reports.]}
2. Go to the enchanter, select any soul gem, and select the same enchantment (if it's a weapon enchantment select the same strength/number of charges). There is no need to actually craft an item - just exit enchanting and the value is restored. ^?

• Disenchanting Necromancer Robes gives the Fortify Magicka effect instead of Fortify Magicka Regen effect.
• The Fortify 'Magic School' plus Magicka Regeneration enchant always gives 10% regeneration, instead of scaling with level or soul gem. ^?
• If an enchanted shield is automatically reequipped to the character by equipping a one-handed weapon after switching to a two-handed weapon or spell, the enchantments on the shield may not be applied to the character. ^?