I noticed this with another ring, but now it's definite; I put on the Ring Of Wizardry (+10 to all forms of magic, I think.), and it takes my Alchemy from 90 to 100, yet I cannot make a potion from just one item, as a 100 in Alchemy should. What's going on here? When I go to the Alchemy table at Frostcrag Spire, I can make 1 item potions, but not with a ring doing the same thing? I have the Cuirass from the Knights of the NIne quest, and with another ring, got my Restoration up to 50, yet I couldn't perform a 50-level "Restore Health" on myself, either, so it's not just with the rings that this failure occurs. Kinda svcks being stuck with lower-level magic when I'm getting pounded @level 22.

You don't get the perks until you earn them, but you should be able to use a higher level spell, cast spells at a lower magicka cost etc. It all depends on whether the base or boosted level is the one being checked, and there are situations for each.

You do benefit the other way round. If an enemy casts a spell on you to drain an attribute, it doesn't take away any perks you've earned.

I checked again to make sure, and when I don enough magic items to boost my Restoration to above 50, I am still unable to cast that level spell that I purchased just for that occasion. I have enough magicka, but the message comes up "you are not high-enough level to perform that spell", or similar.

It's frustrating, especially in Oblivion instances, because once I've finished a fight with a few high-level enemies, my health is so low that it takes me a long time to refill, and I usually have to wait for my magicka to refill just to finish. I could use potions, since I'm maxxing my Alchemy just for that, but the fact remains that, using only my low-level Restoration spells to level up will take a loooong time. I guess I'll have to forego more important fighting instruction-levelups, just to use them for Restoration, which seems silly.

I really hope that I'm not understanding the results, otherwise, I'm fearing a broken game event later.

EDIT: Now I have yet another problem; when I use the Alchemy table at Battlecrag, no matter what ingredients I use, the health potion ends up weighing 2 lbs! Even if I only use 1 ingredient that weighs 0.1, the resulting potion is 2 lbs. I have another health potion I made earlier, with only 1 sec. difference ( due to being a lower level at Alchemy at the time) and it only weighs 0.2 lbs. I feel that something has gone wrong with my game, unless someone can point out where I'm missing something. Highly frustrating.

All of this works as intended.

Fortifications don't give you the perks. But with Magic fortifications will lower casting costs. This was mentioned in post 2.

The Frostcrag alchemy stations does not technically "fortify" instead it adds a temporary "ability". So in Frostcrag you do get the perks with alchemy.

The one bug appears to be with alchemy. Fortifications to alchemy are useless, unfortunately.

As far as the weight of the potions, that is set when you first mix the potion with a certain set of alchemy equipment or skill level. Then all other potions of the same type use that weight until the equipment/skill level changes. If you name the potion something different it should show up with the new weight.

You created a Restore Health potion using Boar Meat and/or Venison, right? And it just happened that, at that moment, your skill improved enough to improve the resulting potion...

The weight of any new potion is determined as the average of the ingredients, at the time when that version of the potion is first brewed. My suggestion would be to never use those heavy ingredients as the basis for a potion, unless you are absolutely sure that your skill isn't about to advance. Instead, you could eat those ingredients directly. (I'd also suggest that Venison's fourth effect (chameleon) is a lot more valuable than its first effect. I'd save that ingredient for that purpose.)

Savlion: Thank you for the help. I was getting a bit frantic, worrying about possible glitching, even though everything else about the game is working as expected, so I'll continue on as before.

Glargg: I'm well aware of the "Meats" resulting in much heavier potions, so I don't even use them, even for the second purpose-chameleon-since I can get that without the heavy ingredients. Thanks for the help, anyway, as it needed to be asked. hehe. As to why the potions are now weighing more, I'm not gonna worry about it; I must have done something different to obtain the lower-weight potions. I'll keep experimenting!

The weight of potions is always the average of the ingredients the first time you make that particular strength of potion. That's how it works. When you gain a skill level, or use better equipment, the new potion will be recalculated the same way.

If your first potion of "Restore Health X for Y Seconds" was made with ingredients averaging 2 pounds, then every other potion you make of that same strength will also weigh 2 pounds, no matter what ingredients you use, and that will continue until your skill or equipment results in a different strength of that potion effect.

Edit: ...or until you rename the potion when you make it...

Glargg, I know that you're right, and now, for whatever reason, the potions are working normally again. I did just read about an item that had Fortify Alchemy as one of the attributes, and the Wiki says that the Alchemy skill relies only on your base level, so that probably explains some of my confusion.

BTW, how do you "rename" potions? I'd like to be able to do that, so that I don't have any more "Restore Fatigue" that's actually Restore Magicka/Shield or similar.

After you select the ingredients the game will give it a default name (basically the effect or one of the effects, like Restore Health, or Chameleon). You can just change that and then make the potion. It will have the new name in your inventory. And the weight will be reset to whatever the average of the ingredients where for that name (unless you change equipment or skill levels).

Thank you, Savlian. I confess that right now, I've been re-assigned to Skyrim duty, but I imagine I'll be back to playing Obliv. soon enough. I really love the look and play of this new-fangled game, but The big O is still a hit in my book. heh.