I was just looking at Umbra and was inspired to say some changes I would like to see to Enchanting and Enchanted Gear.

1. Recharging Enchantments over time

Due to Enchanting being a skill again, this probably won't be in. But I always thought it really svcked to have to dungeon dive for a Varla Stone or keep some filled Soul Gems on hand to keep a weapons charge up. If you don't do that, you pay out the ass to get it recharged. I'm not saying it would recharge fast, Maybe 1 point a second (which is about 1 point every 2 in game minutes). That means that for Oblivion's Umbra you would need to wait 20 seconds to have gained enough charge to use the effect again. That is a pretty long time, but if you aren't constantly seeing enemies it won't be so bad. Of course Waiting or Resting would recharge the gear faster, as would fast travel.

2. Not Wasting Charge with Attacks

Let's use Umbra again as an example. Say you do 10 damage per attack to a foe, and the foe has 200 health. That means it takes 20 hits. How fast can you hit an opponent 20 times? In 30, 40, maybe 50 seconds tops? Umbra's enchantment is Soul Trap for 120 seconds. Which means in the time it took you to kill the enemy, the effect wasn't even halfway done. Yet, you hit them 20 times. This means you used it once at the beginning, then wasted 19 attacks worth of charge on your foe, which amounts to 380 points of charge. That is almost 1/5 of the total charge completely wasted. My idea is that if an effect from your weapon is still on an enemy, than it won't use the charge up for that effect. So with Umbra you would have killed him and only used 20 charge, as the effect didn't keep being reapplied.

Another example is for Chillrend (Level 25 Version):
Frost Damage 20 Points = 34 Charge Points
Weakness to Frost 35% for 20 seconds = 18 Charge Points
Total Cost per swing = 52 (With a full charge of 4160 you get 80 strikes)

Ok same rules as above, it will take you 20 hits to kill the enemy, and it will take you 40 seconds. In Oblivion, this would cost you 1040 ((34*20)+(18*20)=1040) charge, or 1/4 of the total uses for the effect.
With my idea, Weakness to Frost would only be used twice as it lasts 20 seconds and it took you 40 seconds to kill the enemy. This means that it took you 716 charge instead of 1040 ((34*20)+(18*2)=716). That is a huge savings, making the weapon last much longer.

3. Changing how Enchanting Applies to Clothing

Ok, in Oblivion, playing as a Mage kind of svcked, as you got to wear a fraction of the clothing a warrior got to wear, as a Robe covered the Chest and Legs. People who liked the snazzy Mythic Dawn Robes were at a larger disadvantage as it covered feet and hands too. This mean that while a mage only got 20% chameleon from enchanting their Robe a warrior could get 40% (if comparing armor to a normal robe) or 80% (comparing to the Mythic Dawn Robe). That is anywhere from 2-4 times better enchantments just for not wearing the staple of mage clothing. Why was the magical enchanting process more beneficial to everyone who wasn't a mage?

Anyone who is familiar with the additional scripting of the OBSE or just making armor in the CS knows about Equipment Slots. Basically, it tells the game where an item is equipped so you can't wear multiple pairs of pants and whatnot. There are Pants, Shirt, Gloves, Boots, Head, Ring1, Ring2, Amulet, and Shield. Any of those can get a clothing enchantment on it. Using Chameleon from above it means a non robe wearer can get 180% chameleon, while a robe wearer can only get 160%, a Mythic Dawn robe wearer can only get 120% (I know it isn't the best example, but it makes my point, NOT wearing a robe makes you a better mage as far as enchantments).

How do you fix this? You make the enchantment based off of what slots are used. So a regular robe would get a maxed 40% chameleon instead of 20%. Of course to make it fair, you would still need 2 filled Grand souls to get the maximum, the same you would need to enchant a shirt and shoes. And MD robe would max at 80% but still need 4 grand souls to do (Chest, pants, gloves, boots). It's only fair right?

The other thing I would think would make the enchanting of clothing a little bit fairer is basing how much of an enchantment you can get on specific spots. Like a Chest item gets 20% chameleon, but as a pair of gloves is smaller it would only get 10%. It might keep people from being able to stack super godly enchantments without having to enchant EVERYTHING (You could get 100% chameleon with 5 items, leaving 4 items left to be enchanted. I would never try and take away 100% chameleon from people, but I would like them to not be able to get it without enchanting all their gear. This is my proposed chart:

Shirt: 20%
Pants: 20%
Shoes: 10%
Gloves: 10%
Helm: 10%
Ring1: 5%
Ring2: 5%
Amulet: 15%
Shield: 5%
Total: 100%

As I said before, it doesn't stop you from getting god enchants, just makes it harder. Anyways post what you think, or any other ideas, standard discussion and all that.

Those are some excellent points. I definitely agree that slow recharging of weapons would be great. Though, to make it more fair, I'd probably put it on an even slower recharge rate if you're in or have recently been in combat. But then faster if you're not in combat but are in a town/city or something.
It has always bugged me that each strike of Umbra used up charge and was essentially wasted. However, for other effects, it was always a good thing (like staggering elemental effects, more fire strikes = more damage being done). So I don't know how you could change it so you could have it both ways where soul-trap effects aren't wasted after consecutive strikes but you still get elemental effects to stack up.
And, I do think that mage-type clothing ought to have more/stronger enchantments. Either stronger effects or maybe being able to add multiple enchantments yourself to a single item (if you're a mage with a significantly high enchant skill).

The enchant power rating would be very complicated, robe over clothes and armor would be far simpler.
You could do it as in Morrowind where the item itself decided the enchantment quality, but without grading enchantment power with item price as it made most items useless for enchanting.

Some kind of a short delay like 1 minute out of combat or something? Makes sense. And that is one thing I overlooked. Some weapons have a DoT damage spell like 5 Fire Damage for 4 seconds (20 total Damage). My system would significantly lower the effectiveness of that type of weapon. From there we have a few options. Do we keep it the same as Oblivion on damage enchantments where it does the base damage and then resets the duration? Do we stack the effects? Or does it not add on the duration until the previous duration ends but still does the base fire damage?
The 1st option would work, as it has worked before. The second would be extremely overpowered imo. The 3rd option would be kind of nice though. You hit them once and it does the 5 damage for 4 seconds (20 damage) If you hit them again while the effect was on them it would only do the base 5 damage, but cost less than resetting the duration. Any other ideas on this front?

Yeah that's what I didn't like about MW, many of the items just svcked for enchanting. Maybe there is some kind of middleground, I'm not sure what exactly though.

Maybe to prevent this the stacking effect could cost more of your weapons charge (like it costs more charge to increase the effect already there than it would for hitting someone with no effect damaging them).

There must be also some perks for disenchant item completely, transfer enchant to another item, create soul gem (black one with special perk trained by some shady person) slow enchantment regeneration, slow repair Items when they are hold in inventory (since now repairing item need to be done in smithy not by magical repair hammers), Soul bond enchant where specific souls had specific abilities tied to them as well but if item breaks its release trapped soul that will attack player as ghost,
alter damage to better of lesser value to specific creature group like undeads daedra or beasts, alter weight of item, constant slow lose of enchanted charge or degrade durability of item.
There will be some enchanted weapons which don't tell you what they do just like in Daggerfall thats awesome.
Well thats what I expect, hidden magic effect of item until it will be used or Identified by skill or attribute check of player (enchanting and intelligence) or NPC service (cost money and cost more if item ancient or powerful like artifact),
no need create an UI button just simple dialogue topic with scripts, NPC can also explain some properties of item at last for artifacts or valuable magic item reward.
Without knowledge of enchanting player cant by self define power of enchant, number of left charges, can see only first primary enchants.
If disadvantages and advantages will be implemented thats will work well with unknown enchants on items, artifacts can become even more unique,
Its greatly improve game experience by allowing whole new exploration.


Customize enchants with effects or with known spells
With chance of failure when enchanting an item
Enchant service provided by NPC (high cost but with no failures) can have requirements like guild membership.
Fast recharge with Soul Gems
Permanent enchants
Enchants on strike for melee weapons, magical rods and staffs for example
Enchants on target for bows and staffs
Bows can summon bound arrows or use magicka for attack with some spell

Spell channeling trough an item just like in this mods for Oblivion
Arcane Infusion
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14229
Arcane Archery
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10238
Spellsword Magic
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27571

Staffs can have unique effects thats player cant found as normal spell.
Staffs enchanted on strike or staffs without charge can be used like polearms weapons
Staffs can have different range of cast, so there can be long middle short ranged staffs

Spell adding enchants like in Morrowind and Daggerfall
Cast when Used when player can use spell by equipping an enchanted item, Oblivion devaluate constatnt enchant before they was rare and have high cost.
If different ways of enchant item will return this type of enchant can be used to add spells into player spellbook thats player cant learn right now from other source or don't have skills to use this spell, on unequip of that item spell will be removed from spellbook.

Different visuals for enchanted items
Daggerfall enchanting glow was also good, in Morrowind thats plastic look was bad, oblivion was better but shaders need some tweaks from mods
I believe developers can make visuals even better
Enchantment and Hit Shaders
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22147
Visual_Enchantments
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19396
Soolies Better Enchantment Effects
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30489

I like the idea of disenchanting and transferring enchantments. If you have a boss iron dagger with cool enchantments and stumble on an ebony longsword you may want to use that instead, even though the effects wouldn't be on it. If they do the perks for reaching the 25 level marks (25,50,75,100) that would be an awesome bonus. I have used a few of the mods listed as well and it definitely looks a lot better when you have a flaming sword or a mace with electricity surging on it.

Very good! Bethesda should really take this in for considuration.

I like the idea of disenchanting an item. If you find a cool weapon but with a weak enchantment, then I think that you should be able to remove it. Though to make it fair, I don't think you should be able to transfer the enchantment. Unless they do it in a manner like Torchlight where you can destroy the enchantment (or socketed gems) and keep the weapon/item or destroy the item/weapon and keep the enchantment. Otherwise you could take the enchantment from legendary/unique items and put it on others and re-enchant the bad-a** weapon.
As far as having unidentified enchantments, that could be cool. It'd change the way you dungeon-crawl if you'd have to either be a mage to identify an item to see if it's worth carrying around or gambling on it and taking it back to town to have someone else identify it. Though I'm not sure if this will be included in Skyrim. It's common in other fantasy style RPG's but hasn't ever been the style of TES.

Oh I missed the unidentified enchantment part. That would be cool, although what would happen if you tried to equip it? Would it just be like Diablo where you can't? Honestly though, If I found a magic sword and didn't know what it did I would just attack a rat because the odds of someone making a blade that hurts the wielder is slim to none unless some enchanter is a total jerk.

If you could equip something with an unidentified enchantment, I'd imagine that the enchantment wouldn't be manifest. Because if you could find out what it did without either casting a spell or paying someone to identify it, then you could enjoy the benefits of the enchantment without paying the cost of knowing what it is.

Yes thats it different perks have different levels, high levels in all skills now much less reachable, number perks thats player can take is less then player can choose so there can be specialist enchanters not just Jack of all trades so its class system but without predefined classes.

You still can equip item but cant define power of enchant, number of left charges, can see only first primary enchants or train enchanting skill or give item to expertise for a price to know this information, some things like most powerful enchants can be visual aura on item so if sword strike with fire its burning but we don't know if sword lose it charge or durability when equipped in first time need some time to actually use thats sword to define it enchants without enchanting skill but we still cant see power of it enchant, level our enchant skill or give it skilled enchanter to expertise.


Transfer enchant can be middle or high level perk, there can be failures in transfer it can cost much as service, there many ways to make it balanced, for example powerful enchants hard transfer more failures when trying to do it, there still need room for enchant so quality materials have more room for enchant, artifacts cant transfer their enchant and protected from that they are powerful item and even have own will, it will be hard to brake them.
Identification of items was in Daggerfall before
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Item_Identification

Thanks to you.

I would like to see mentioned in the OP, but also a return of the enchanting abilities of the older elder scrolls games. Constant effect on weapons, cast-on-use, cast-on-strike, etc. At least we are seeing a return of the age-old magic shield spell. If it works like in daggerfall, it acts as an armor rating against magic damage. If its remodeled, I hope it acts as a sort of "barrier" or shield that draws straight from your mana.

I just want the whole thing to be simplified 'constant effects' with no recharging, just based on your enchanting skill, your item quality and your soulgem.

Why?

Yes the idea is good, but it would be more useful to remove the drain speechcraft enchantment from a good sword and add an useful one.

It would be cool to see weapons with constant effect enchantments (such as a smart sword that increases your blade skill). I think that it'd be cool to have more variety in enchantment types.

One benefit with this, simple to use and you don't run out of charges. However I call it dumbing down as it remove a very useful option, you can not have a powerful weapon with few charges, very nice as a fallback weapon like the archers shortsword or the mages dagger.
I found this usefull in both Morrowind and Oblivion.

A slow recharging as in Morrowind would be a better solution. If you don't want to use a soulgems to recharge use a weapon with lower effect.
Scaling enchant effect only with skill level will give enchanted items very low effect at low level. it can not be much effect in the start as it would be overpowering.

I would like to see a return to the Morrowind style of Enchanting. That would address most of the OP's concerns. Items recharged over time, it took a game day. There were many more articles of clothing so that you could add more effects, but each item usually did not hold much of an echantment. Of course some things you could really load up

IMO, Oblivion took a huge step backwards with Enchanting.

As for Umbra or any other weapon that has an enchantment that you want to use at the end of the battle, just switch out to that weapon for your last strike. However one should be able to "turn off" the enchantment until it is desired.

There can be caps on custom enchanted effects for example only 50-80 magnitude of chameleon, reflect damage or elemental protection
There can be forbidden from enchanting effects like fortify enchant skill protecting player from creating enchant suits
But there can Artifacts thats have more powerful enchants thats player can create or with forbidden from custom enchanting spell effects, like reanimate from oblivion
Thats will make artifact even more unique, Artifacts can have disadvantages also like Umbra for example can lose charges but can restore them when player kill some one, Umbra can become really cursed black blade thats force owner to kill other to satisfy its hunger.

A lot of stories, myths and fables as well as RPG's made use of this.
The idea is that not every enchanter is a nice person or making an enchantment for someone they like.
So they make a cursed item, these tend to be both powerful but also destructive to the user.

Two examples off my head.
The Berserker sword a +3 two handed great sword, one of the most powerful blades in the game.
However due to being cursed the wielder would go into a frenzy, boosting his combat powers a bit, but making him uncontrolable.
Causing him to attack anyone nearby, friend or foe.

In warhammer the fellblade turned the wielder into a god, capable of killing a greater daemon even.
In exchange it would kill him, draining him of all health over time.

In games like baldurs gate, these cursed items could not be unequiped without removing the curse by spell.
As you did not always know if an item was cursed it was quite common to equip them before you identified that they were cursed.

So I like the ideas here, but honestly if Beth implements them I'd like to see the cursed unequipable items as well like BG.

Edit: another example is the spear that would damage yourself as well as the enemy.
It was powerful but its enchantment effect would deal 3 - 10 points to you as well.
I know there was one in BG:2, but I thought a similar one was included in Morrowind.

Id say a few simple limits would help tons.

1 The more effective your armor the lower the cap on any one cumlulative enchant effect.. thus wear heavy armkor and blamo your max chameleon effect is 25% from enchanted items.

2 Forgoing a weapon or shield should open more ring slots on that hand.

3 The less armor you have the more amulets rings and clothing you should be able to wear.

4 all magic skills should come with a perk that raises either enchantment limits or number of enchanted items you can use..

Agree here, they nerfed enchanting to make it less powerful, the good thing they did was unlinking enchant strength and item quality.

I have thought a bit about the turn enchanting on and off a bit, and it brings me to another weapon to turn, take a waraxe, many had an axe blade on one side and a hammerhead on the back for use against armor. simply by changing how you hold it you change weapon type. Halberd usually have something similar.
Wonder if it's a way to implement this? I could probably do it in Oblivion with a script and an custom key by switching between two weapons, only issue would be that condition would change but it should be possible to fix to

I didn't read any of this really, I just wanted to throw one idea out there. I think summoned creature's souls should be knocked down a level from wild creature's souls. So an enemy you find in the wild ( well say golden saint) is a grand soul, a summoned golden saint would be greater. Greater would be common. Common would be lesser. Lesser is petty, and petty stays petty lol. I just think it would add some level of work needed to obtain high level souls for enchanting. Which would make those enchantments that much more rewarding, knowing you didn't just summon a storm atronach and beat the piss out of it

I love your points but one last thing comes to minds: Spell making and enchanting shouldn't be limited on soul charge, but the players skills or attributes or level.