So, we have information that all enchantments on clothing, armour and jewellery will be constant effect. Also, like in MW, there's no "exhausting" of constant-effect items; they don't discharge over time.

So, that leads me to wonder: what effect will different-strength souls have on enchanting constant-effect items, then?

In MW, you needed to have a soul at or above the 400 point threshold to create an CE item, and anything higher than 400 was wasted. At the time, I thought it would be cool if you could trade off the points in the soul with the level of enchantablility of the item (its quality), and vice versa.

So, in one direction you could have made weak constant-effect items with lesser souls, because you could take an exquisite amulet (say) with its 120 levels of enchantment, use a soul of (say) 350, and move 50 points from quality to charge to get 400 soul (for CE) and 70 enchantment levels/quality.

In the other direction, it would have helped explain why there were so many cheap amulets and other items with enchantments you just couldn't fit into one if you were enchanting them yourself - the enchanter must have used a very powerful soul, and reduced the item's "charges" to effectively increase its quality.

And it would have also allowed you to do something useful with Almalaxia's soul

Anyway, looking forwards to Oblivion. We no longer appear to have the 400 point soul threshold to make CE items - any clothing, armour or jewellery that's enchanted is CE, even if enchanted with a feeble soul. So, maybe something like what I envisaged is going to happen... maybe the maximum enchantment level of an item is going to be a function of both the quality of the item and the strength of the soul involved.

Any thoughts? Have I missed any developer quotes that answers this one specifically?

Edit: BTW, yes, I know the enchant skill has been removed, and there are the sigil stones and all. However, enchantment is available to advanced members of the Mages' Guild (presumably through official guild enchanters), and it requires the player to provide soul gems to do it. So I'm assuming that it be something akin to MW's system, with the change that worn items are all Constant Effect, and weapons are all Cast On Strike.

I haven't seen any interviews in which the enchanting system was discussed in detail; Bethesda has been remarkably tight-lipped about anything related to magic. I would guess that your suggestion is correct: the power of the enchantment will be directly related to the power of the soul, with maximum enchantment being determined by both soul and item.

constant effect invisibility items on morrowind, thats my favorite. you have to make it youself though. soultrap a goldensaint, have a high enchanment skill, and get an exqusite ring.

But in Oblivion, you won't have to soultrap a Golden Saint (or equivalent). All enchanted rings (and other jewellery, armour and clothing) will be Constant Effect, and (like in Morrowind) will last forever. So, I'm wondering what the difference will be between an exquisite ring enchanted with the soul of a rat, and an exquisite ring enchanted with the soul of a Golden Saint.

I suspect that they'll make the difference by changing the maximum enchant level so that it's not 100% a function of the object's quality (as it was in Morrowind), but also factor in the strength of the soul used.

I'm sorry, but what makes you think you CAN enchant it with a feeble soul, that the 400-point threshold is removed? Maybe you just can't do anything but enchant/recharge weapons and recharge staves with weak souls.

Heck, maybe you need a strong soul to even enchant weapons. You have to advance up through the Mages Guild to have access to the ability to enchant in the first place. By then you'd probably be collecting souls from daedra, not rats. It's possible that you'd need a 400-point soulgem to even enchant weapons, and anything below that is only useful for recharging or money.

My guess. .. (and it is only a guess...)

A) Soul strength is the power of the spell and the quality of the item determines how powerful of a soul can be held. EX: a ring of regeneration might be enchanted with a 400 soul to give say 4 hps/sec regeneration while a 200 soul might only give 2hp/sec regen. Quality of the ring determines whether or not the soul would fit. ie. common ring holds a max of 100 soul and exquisite holds 400.

I am not sure if CE items will require recharging... but I am guess that recharging might be handled in a different way... perhaps with those elven crystals, or perhaps the inital enchantment determines the items max charge and multiple souls can be supplied to recharge it to max.

Just my guess..

Ok, good point. My arrival at my assumption was influenced by two things: how I had already thought you might improve (or at least, change) the Morrowind system by trading off quality with soul strength, outlined above, and imagining the current enchantment interface with the cast-type locked to the value appropriate to the item in question.

So, indeed, my assumption is unwarrented, and it might indeed work as you say.




There's a developer's quote from MSFD about them originally having CE items that discharged over time, and then later deciding it didn't make for fun gameplay and taking it out. So, from that I'd say they're like they were in MW, and work for ever (well, as long as you wear them).

That's kinda what I was thinking.

Okay.

That said, I would definately prefer Neela's or RobRendell's hypothetical system over what I was saying. The inability to properly scale some effects was something that bugged me in Morrowind and other games.