Morrowind style. No offense OP, but your system punishes players for making unique characters that follow different paths of development. Bad idea.

I like the mana drain idea. Sending magic through a stick should be the same as through your hands.

You obviously know nothing about TES lore. The whole idea of enchanting is that you AVOID the need to use your own magicka by using someone else's soul as the power source. Without this concept, enchanting becomes meaningless.

OK, OK, i got it , my idea svcks , but the point of this post is to figure out an idea how to make enchanting fun and not annoying , so far i like the
"getting rid of charge all together" idea the best , its simple and it would work

anyway oblivion did remove cast type enchants ( and with a good reason , they effectively replace a mage )

If things recharge over time it will likely be far far slower then mw and require quite an investment in enchant perks to get to it and fair level of skill or even just level to get it.

Have you played Morrowind? The system was almost perfect. All they have to do is use the MW system, but put restrictions on which spells can be enchanted. Done.

I wouldn't mind this:

-Initially you start out with OB style recharge requiring soul gems.
-As a perk in enchanting allows you to use some mana to recharge. (could be point for point depending how they work the enchant charge/numbers. Spend 50 points of mana, recharge 50 points of charge. Whether that gives you 5 hits or 50 hits from your sword would depend on your enchantment and enchant skill. Higher enchant skill uses less points for a given enchantment. If your weapon has a charge of 500 and a low damage enchantment it might only use 5 points per hit. But a powerful damage enchantment might use 20 points per hit.
-As a slightly higher perk in enchanting you get the recharge over time, like MW.

If you are not the enchanting type you just might have to deal with soul gems. But if you focus on enchanting you should reap some benefits in this area.

Edit: Or maybe having both perks would be redundant unless the mana perk was limited, not sure. I just think it should be handled via perks since they are in the game.

Edit #2: Or swap the perks so you can start early with a very slow recharge and then as a higher level perk you can recharge quicker via mana.

This idea is less stupid than the OP. At least we know that any player who's maxing enchanting is probably a caster, so they will have lots of mana.

The problem with the original idea is that it basically forces all players, including fighters, to pump up their magicka reserves as if they were casters. And it hugely contradicts lore.

No such thing will exist in Skyrim because when you level up you choose if you want to increase magicka, fatigue or health. So you could still invest points into strength like normal.

Morrowind's enchanting was extremely broken. It allowed warrior extreme power in magic but didn't allow mages to get boosts in combat. The Oblivion system was very tedious and annoying but I feel like it could be fixed easily by making soul gems really rare but the gem doesn't disappear when you use the soul. So all gems to be like Azura's Star. If you could make it so that the grand and greater soul gems are rare kinda like the master alchemy sets and have some souls to big to be captured by any gem (like Oblivion). Then I think that the enchanting system would be more balanced.

I haven't played Morrowind. Your idea sounds better than the Oblivion system, but too punishing for characters who dabble in both magic and combat.

I wouldn't mind soul trap restoring charge to the active weapon on death, but that seems a bit boring and pointless. Maybe weapons could recharge over time, it might be fun to carry around 3 enchanted weapons just in case you run into a dragon. Or maybe charge could run out in a few uses and only be restored with a killing blow. Absorb could be reworked to do less damage than the primary 3 destruction types but absorb both health and charge in a spray, projectile, or trap. Healing spells could do the same. Enchantments could have only 1 very powerful charge that returns to the weapon only when the target dies or the player sleeps, waits, or fast travels.

Yeah I really wan't to know as well. I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight if it isn't answered.

My ego thanks you.

Personally I don't have a problem if non-mage/non-enchanters have a slight disadvantage in recharging their weapons as long as they can do it. I tried a non-magic using Redguard in OB who would only use enchanted items if he found/bought them. Didn't even use the healing spell that you start with, only potions as he saw alchemy as using healing herbs etc.... But I willingly excepted the challenges because I imposed the restrictions on myself.

I don't begrudge a stealth character who can sneak thru a dungeon and take out the main badguy at the end with an assassination strike (like in the trailer) because my warrior has to slug his way thru in his clunky armor. I chose that character so I deal.

My idea, which you thought wasn't as stupid as the other guys, just tries to differentiate an enchanter from everybody else thru perks. Which I think is the reason to have perks, to broaden customizability. Every playstyle has it's advantages and disadvantages. And if you don't wish to dabble in enchanting for RP reasons then you just have to face up the this particular disadvantage.

I'm fine with MW style recharging and if this is how Skyrim works I will be happy. Just thowing out ideas as the OP suggested.