The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Hints

Do you have any tips on enchanting items?

• 1 of 11: Most definitely. Read page 39 of the manual for the basics about enchanting, then read on in these hints for some advanced facts and tips.
• 2 of 11: If you want to do a lot of soultrapping, then you should go to an enchanter and have him turn a cheap weapon and soul gem into an enchanted weapon that casts the Soultrap spell for 2 seconds every time it strikes. That nicely automates the soultrapping process. Just ready your new enchanted weapon and whack a monster with it until it dies. If the soul gem you used to make the weapon wasn't too cheap, then the weapon can be used a bunch of times before it has to recharge. (Note that with tougher monsters, you can knock their hit points way down with a more powerful weapon, then switch to your cheap Soultrap weapon to finish them off.)
• 3 of 11: Once you save up a fair pile of money (and train your Mercantile skill way up high), you should go to an enchanter (you can always find one in any Mages Guild) and have every nonmagical item you regularly wear enchanted with something, even if it's only a cheap little enchantment that adds 1 to an attribute or gives a few points of Night Eye for seeing better in dark areas. (I don't personally recommend that you bother training your Enchant skill and enchanting items yourself, but you can try it if you want to.)
  • What items are the very best for enchanting?
• 4 of 11: Once you're able to trap the souls of the two most powerful monsters (Golden Saints and Ascended Sleepers), you should start making items that have constant effects on them. For instance, you can enchant exquisite-quality rings and amulets to have constant Fortify Attribute effects of up to +24. Also, these effects stack, so you could make two exquisite rings of Strength +24 and ready both of them, increasing your Strength by 48 as long as the rings are worn.
  • How can I get started early with the constant effect enchantments?
• 5 of 11: A bad feature you need to watch out for when you're trying to put more than one effect on a constant effect enchanted item is that adding a second effect will double the enchantment point cost of the first one. This means that you should put the cheaper enchantment on first. For instance, if you're enchanting an equisite ring to have constant effects of Restore Health 4 points and Restore Fatigue 2 points, you have to put the Restore Fatigue effect on first. It only costs 10 points (20 when doubled), but the Restore Health effect costs 100 points (200 if doubled). So the total is 10*2+100 = 120 points if you put the Restore Fatigue on first, and 100*2+10 = 210 points if you put it on second. Weird, but true!
• 6 of 11: If you run short of grand soul gems and don't know where to get any more, the best thing to do is the Daedric Shrine Quest for Azura. The reward for finishing that quest is a reusable grand soul gem called Azura's Star. You can trap a soul in it, use it to enchant or recharge an item, trap another soul in it, and so on. (Also note that most bandit caves will have grand soul gems as random treasure once you're level 11.)
• 7 of 11: Another note about soul gems is that the amount of charge your finished item will have (if it's a "Cast When Used" or "Cast When Strikes" item) is equal to the charge in the soul gem you used to create the item. So even if you don't *need* a Golden Saint or Ascended Sleeper soul gem to create an item, it's still a good idea to use one so your item will have a charge of 400 instead of some lesser number.
• 8 of 11: Remember that the list of magic effects you can put on an enchanted item depends on what spells you've learned. See the Spell Finding hint section for a list of where to get hard-to-find spell types.
• 9 of 11: BUG NOTE: In the unpatched version of the game, you can cast Soultrap on a dead body to trap its soul in soul gems over and over. This is a great trick for building up Golden Saint soul gems, but unfortunately it won't work on summoned Golden Saints since their bodies disappear when they die. (If you're interested in trying this, you can buy the Soultrap spell from Masalinie Merian, the guild guide in the Balmora Mages Guild. Then go hunting for saints in and around old Daedric ruins.)
• 10 of 11: BUG NOTE: Another bug in the unpatched version of the game allows you to select a Golden Saint or Ascended Sleeper soul gem while enchanting, change the Range field to "Constant Effect," and then switch to using a cheaper soul gem without resetting the Range field. That way you can get a constant effect with a lesser soul.
• 11 of 11: Here's a list of some of the most useful enchanted items I've been able to make.
  • Useful Enchanted Items

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