So, in my other thread, someone raised the point that TESIV's enchantment system is way different from TESIII's (which I forgot because I haven't played TESIV in years, and I've been immersed in modding Morrowind).

If you had to choose between these two types of systems, which would you pick? Should an item's quality restrict the power of the enchantment?

Style 1 (implemented in TESIII)
Each item has an enchantment capacity, represented numerically as points. When you enchant an item, a formula converts your inputted spell effects into a "cost" (like when you spellmake and it generates a magicka cost). The cost of your enchantment cannot exceed the enchantment capacity of the weapon/armor/clothing/jewelry.

Example 1:

• Iron longsword enchantment capacity = 20 points
  
• Enchantment: Frost Damage 5pts on Strike
  
• Enchantment "cost" = 15 points of enchantment capacity
  
• You can enchant your Iron Longsword with this spell!

Example 2:

• Iron longsword enchantment capacity = 20
  
• Enchantment: Frost Damage 30pts on Strike
  
• Enchantment "cost" = 60
  
• You cannot enchant your Iron Longsword with this spell!

Style 2 (implemented in TESIV)
The item does not have an enchantment capacity. The only thing restricting how powerful your enchantment can be is the gold cost (i.e. can you afford it?)

You can enchant both an Iron Longsword and a Daedric Longsword with Frost Damage 40pts on Strike, as long as you have the gold to pay the enchantment maker.

I preferred the enchanting system in MW to that of OB.

I want every type of material to have an enchantability rating, with Mithril being the highest and leather the lowest. I definitely don't want things to be highly enchantable just because it's more expensive to buy, like high quality cotton clothing or whatever. Don't make daedric or glass the most enchantable either.

I'd also say there should be more temporary enchantments, they don't always need to last forever.

definitely the morrowind style as it adds more immersion and being able to add more then just one effect, depending on the size of soul was always a neat feature that allowed for some excellent combination's. ie: a flame damage enchantment also with soul trap on a single sword. or being able to cast spells threw enchanted items, not just persistent constant effect this item now does this all the time. as i noticed with oblivion, if you enchanted a piece of apparel with a petty soul gem it had a constant effect, where as in morrowind, you had to have a grand soulgem to make anything constant effect

I think that enchanting items shouldn't be limited by armour type directly.
Instead you should be given a certain 'charge' of some sort that you can use up by applying enchantments.

Higher amounts of charge come with better armours, and the more charge you are given the more you can spend on enchantments.
Whether it's having more or morepowerful enchantments.

It would also be kinda' cool if the higher your heavy/light armour skills are; the more charge you get to spend on enchantments.

Obviously this system is unlikley to be put in place, but I would like the likes of leather armour to be more limited than that of daedric.
^_^

I wouldn't quite do either. While Morrowind's enchanting was more fun than Oblivion's, it also stifled your options, forcing even magical characters to stick with the "best" items and armor to use enchantments of any major effect, adding up to be another thing that led all characters to eventually become the same. I'd give different materials some different capacities for enchanting (perhaps going as far as making different materials more easily enchanted with different spell effects, and NOT just making it better item = better capacity), bring back the enchanting skill, and make capacity heavily tied to that. The higher your skill, the more the difference is reduced, i.e. a low-skill enchanter can more easily enchant mithril than iron, but with high skill the same amount can be applied to either. Appropriately, the ones who would benefit most from the use and creation of magic items would be master enchanters, who would also have full freedom on what they want to enchant.

I think getting rid of enchantment points on the item was a good decision. An item's enchantment and physical stats are two different things, and keeping them separate adds more variety to your choices. Enchantment can be an alternative to wizards not being able to or wanting to wear the best armor, but not so much if suits of rare, heavy armor have the best enchantment capability. And by the time you could make a decent enchantment, you could afford dozens of suits of exquisite clothes, so enchantment ratings on those just made everyone look the same if they want a good enchantment.

Maybe item could contribute a little. I like Rhekarid's idea of having some items give a bonus to certain effects, but I'd prefer enchantment to be mostly based on the wizard's skill. It seems more interesting that an ordinary looking item could be hiding great magic.

Neither. Your enchantment value should be based on an enchantment level.
The oblivion system penalised mages for wearing a cloak and hood because of the cap on enchantments at 50 per item, when really a Mage should benefit the most from enchanting there own gear.
I know it's easy to get changed into standard trousers, shirt etc to keep you 100 % spell effectiveness but for me it just disn't feel right.

So, bring in a levelled system in line with everything else in the game.

I would like to see this go down more so with a enchantment skill level then not. The higher your skill the more powerful enchantments you can put on things.

Sandal "Enchantment"

With Enchantment I'd keep it the way it was in Oblivion.

I definitely think that an enchanting skill needs to be brought back to provide that extra variable that would give BGS a chance to make a decent enchanting system. Hell, the 'enchanting' skill could even just be tied to mysticism or conjuration. As long as the extra variable is there I'm sure something suitably balanced can be made.

I'd vote for a simple "The higher your Enchanting skill, the more powerful the stuff that you can put on your items. Higher quality items and more powerful souls could give a %bonus in effectiveness while lower quality items could give a %penalty"

So let's say the Enchanting skill of Patsy is 10. He wants to be very strong, but due to his low skill and Petty Soulgem (no bonus). He can only enchant his low quality coconuts with +2 Strength (Skill/10x2-5%Penalty). Tim the Enchanter however has 100 Enchanting skill and a very powerful Grand Soulgem. He can enchant his high quality coconuts with +22 Strength (Skill/10x2+5%Bonus+5%Soul). So Tim could make coconuts even an european Swallow could carry while Patsy has to make do with african Swallows carrying his.

(just an example here; so disregard the actual gains in Strength)

A) I think each character should have a personal enchantment capacity -- that way we don't lose clothing options for balance reasons. If they exceed that capacity, all enchantments blackout until they remove some items.

B) I think objects should have enchantment capacity, but this should be orthagonal to the physical utility of the object -- the most protective or durable armor does not also need to be the most enchantable, and it would make things more interesting if there were several "bests" to choose from.

C) Some sort of generic stone (welkynd type of thing) should be the main resource for enchantment -- either that, or just money, as in OB. Soul gems should be more like sigil stones and provide predetermined enchantments that reflect the nature of the soul (possibly with a mix of pros and cons, since those creatures have weaknesses as well!). Or, you could allow an object to have both a bound soul and a normal enchantment, and the soul could increase the enchantment capacity of the object to allow a more powerful normal enchantment.

I dont agree with the best materials make better enchantments I think any item should be able to hold the same enchantment (each with its special needs to be enchanted with the same spell, but say steel would need less materials collected or no special time needed to enchant it), but I also belive that some items should take an enchantment much easier then other items, say for instance that steel could hold cold spells easier then ebony just because its relationship to it, ( not saying it has a relationship to it, this is a example only), I also think it should be much more difficult to enchant anything, like need to bring many things together for an enchantment, and only at certain times, and at certain places of power, this would make each enchantment a mini quest every time you did it and it would make much more sense to me anyway then just having the money or a soulgem and a handy spell to drop on any item.

[quote name='perilisk' timestamp='1293655182' post='16888031']
A) I think each character should have a personal enchantment capacity -- that way we don't lose clothing options for balance reasons. If they exceed that capacity, all enchantments blackout until they remove some items.

I dont like the idea of a personal enchantment capacity as enchantments have nothing to do with the person wearing them at all, there is no connection with the person, it is the item that is enchanted not the person if this was the case a pure warrior type shouldnt be able to weld a sword of fire/freezing whatever, yet a mighty mage could weld said sword with aplomb, just plain silly in my opinion.

As my characters tend to be oriented towards social and survival based skills (nature), they don't "believe" in magic (except healing restoration and alchemy which I don't see as magic). So enchanting is out of their league. They only use unique items they find or can buy. So if the power armors can be made truly ugly and make most people hate you (big negative in disposition, clothing they can relate to would be best), that would be a nice counter for wearing those enchantments associated with heavies. Needlessly to say, I'm ok with limiting to one effect, other than unique items (that's part of being unique). Coupling it to gold is ridiculous, as you can get filthy rich with ease. Coupling it to common clothes (unless unique and associated with that clothing), also smells bad.

Maybe limit to only special materials. Glass and daedric would have negative impact on disposition with any humans. Gold and silver would have positive impact on disposition. I want everything to have a purpose, both negative and positive, instead of everything being positive. Any negatives today is listed as spell effects which I find a bit weird.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that. I never did well in my courses on completely made up magical metaphysics. Thanks for setting me straight, man. I guess even if it's good for balance, that option is too unrealistic to be on the table.