Hey guys, so far I didn't take enchant as a major or minor. Now I chose it as minor, and at level 7 i have 15 enchanting (my character's default, didn't level yet) and 48 intelligence. The thing is I don't know how am I suposed to raise enchanting if every single try to enchant something fails and the gem vanishes. With alchemy it all seems much easier.

I stole all the gems from the lady in Balmora's mages guild :blush: and they are expensive and I thought they would help me level enchanting, but I fail every attempt and reload. I found a guide on the net, it says to enchant my gear in small steps to increase my intelligence first, because big intelligence will improve my chance to succeed. I tried to do very low enchants, such as "fortify intelligence by 1 for 10 sec" but it still fails. I even drank intelligence potions. I am aware that my skill of 15 is low, but is it supposed to fail all the attempts? Should I let the gems vanish and insist until I raise the skill from hundreds of failed attempts or is there a better and less expensive way?

If you have the Fortify Skill spell and about 40k, then get an exquisite ring enchanted to fortify enchant (1x 48 and 4x100 levels) for 2 seconds. You can then cast this spell from the ring and switch to your menu and enchant just about anything with success. To raise your own enchant skill just buy a lot of common items. You can buy common soul gems in Tel Branora in unlimited quantity. Soul trap something easy like ancestral ghosts. Now make lots of items that restore 7 points of health for 1 second, which only takes one charge. You can spam cast these spells from the items and raise your skill pretty quick. With 100 charges they will recharge about every day, too.
P.S. You really do not have to steal anything in this game unless it is a quest goal. Stealing usually causes you more problems than it is worth. Good luck!

Thank you for the fast answer :thumbsup: I'll apply your suggestion right away :thumbsup:

Enchanting is very difficult to increase at the start. Other than paid training, about the only alternatives are to (A) use soulgems to recharge items, which always gives you experience even if it doesn't increase the charge in the item, or (B) try making VERY weak enchantments as follows:

Open up the enchantment menu by dropping the soulgem on your portrait, and edge up the strength and/or duration so that the casting cost just hits 1, then back the sliders down to less than half that value. As a Minor skill, if you make about a 0.25-0.5 enchantment point item, it should have at least a 50-50 chance to succeed. Problem is, the menu only reads in whole points, so you have to estimate. That's still enough power to make a slightly more charge-efficient healing ring than the one you find at the start (although not really any stronger): 1 point for 3 seconds on Self) should stay within reasonable failure rates. My current character also took it as a Minor, and made 2 weak items in a total of 3 attempts. Another good starting item is a Soultrap weapon, for about 2-3 seconds, On Touch, On Strike. It's useful for "finishing moves" to keep up your supply of filled soulgems, but uses up charges too much for routine combat. That and a couple of Petty Soulgems from Caldera (the one merchant restocks overnight if you leave the area) are enough to get you rolling. Other gems are available in Vivec (Foreign Quarter, Redoran canton, and Telvanni canton), in Suran, Tel Branora, etc.

The bigger souls will give you more charges before the item runs dry, so they're nice on weapons, but when you're limited to 0.5 enchantment points, why waste a high-value soul on an "occasional use" item? Don't even bother attempting your own Constant Effect enchantments, unless you're willing to exploit either Alchemy or Enchanting to the ridiculous point and massively fortify your skills and attributes. 200 Intelligence or Enchanting Skill would be considered "lightly fortified" in this case.

Enchanting can be enormously powerful, with a lot of effort at the start until it "gets going". It's "exploitable", but so many other things in the game are too, so why complain?

Well, you need souls, soul gems, and enchantable items. Get souls by soultrap glitching a good deal of Golden Saints into existence in an unpopulated area, casting an area effect soul trap, then firing cheap arrows into the crowd and have fun watching them kill each other. Grand soul gems, purchasable in Mournhold. For enchantable items, I like going to Sadrith Mora and murdering a few guards for their helms. 100 points, very nice.

For the actual enchanting, you should either alchemy abuse your way up with fortify intelligence potions or have a large deal of money, go to an enchanter who also barters, and make your first enchantment on that helm, 4x Fortify Merchantile 100pts on Self. Then you can buy anything he sells and sell it back for the reasonable price of all of his money.

One way to raise Enchant that most people ignore is to just use enchanted items. If you get enchanted items that have a decent charge and a very low cost, you can raise your Enchant skill in a single charge early on. Not sure if it works for on-strike variants, but cast on use enchantments will work for it.

For example, if you make an item with 100 charge and make some low-cost enchantment--say, Restore Fatigue 1 point on self, on cast--you will be able to repeatedly cast it and it will raise your Enchant. It requires getting an enchanted item like that, but usually it will be relatively easy to make, especially if you use Fortify Intelligence to some degree (or get one of those rings that fortifies Enchant). You can also then use soul gems to attempt to recharge the item, which will further help your skill. If it does not work, or it still needs more charge, then you can rest for a few hours and that will give you some charge to play with again.

Keep in mind that this method is not particularly fast if done over time, which is why most people forget about it. At higher levels, the experience gained from using enchanted items is virtually negligible--it is even pretty low at lower levels--but it is a way to start. However, making such a simple enchantment should be much easier and/or cheaper than trying immediately to make really powerful items. Also, a simple Restore Health enchantment that you can cast a hundred times before recharging it is just as useful in some situations as an item that restores a lot of health, but can only be used once or twice before being recharged. Save those powerful enchantments for battle when you need them most; weaker, but less demanding, enchantments can be excellent to regenerate health when you are not being attacked.

One more thing. In order to gather soul gems, you can kill bonewalkers/bonelords. They often carry soul gems of the lower grades (petty through common), which are fine, as you will be using a lot of them. They also have relatively low soul values that you can use to charge the gems that they are helping to provide to you. The tomb along the Odai west of Balmora (keep forgetting the name) sometimes spawns bonewalkers and, as you level up, bonelords. There are definitely others, but you may need to find them yourself.

No experience for On Strike enchantments, unless you alter the .ini file or mod the game. Using enchanted items occasionally, like the starting healing ring, will give you some experience, but takes between forever and longer to level the skill.

I've always found the fastest way for me to level up Enchanting is to soultrap something into Azura's Star, then use it to recharge a magical item. This works beautifully if you have an item like the Soultrap Dagger: stab something, fill the Star, recharge the dagger, rinse, repeat, watch your Enchant go up up up.

As GS has already stated you can get 40k and ask an enchanter to make the ring for you. You will of course have to go to Mournhold to get a fortify skill spell to accomplish this end.

Or just keep the familiar route of using alchemy but limit how you make your fortify intelligence potions.