Saturday, August 18, 2012

Skyrim Crafting Guide Part 2: Enchanting and Soul Gems

Along with Smithing and Alchemy, Enchanting is one of the most critical skills to level up and use to create the best equipment in all of Skyrim.

So what is Enchanting? Enchanting is when you imbue normal, mundane equipment with magic properties. In order to do this you must first have the item you wish to enchant. It must be an item that does not already have any magical properties.

Second, you must be at an Enchanting table. These can be found all over Skyrim, but are common inside the keeps of Jarls, usually not too far away from a court wizard. These tables are the only places where you are able to put new enchantments into items.

Third, you will have to have soul gems that contain souls. Think of soul gems as the batteries that power enchantments. The souls inside the soul gems are the energy that is used for powering your magic. Empty soul gems won't work. That's like using a dead battery to try and power something. The gems must contain a soul.

Soul gems can be found all over Skyrim, but they can also be bought at general vendors and through court wizards. You can get them with souls already in them, but the most abundant are empty ones. Empty soul gems cannot be used for anything until they are given a soul. Here are the ways to do that:

The first way is to use the spell Soul Trap. You can get this spell from a tome which can be purchased through court wizards. The first wizard you come to in the story is Farenger Secret-Fire who is located in Dragonsreach in Whiterun. If he doesn't have the tome wait two days in-game and check again. His inventory will refresh, and he may have the tome available then. (This refresh trick works on all NPC's that sell items.)

In order to capture souls you cast Soul Trap on your enemies during combat. If you kill them before the soul trap spell runs out their soul will be transferred into the appropriate soul gem. The type of enemy you face determines how powerful the soul is. More powerful souls make for more powerful enchantments, but require larger soul gems to house them. 

Here's a break down of soul gem sizes from smallest to largest: Petty, Lesser, Common, Greater, and Grand. The smaller the soul gem, the less powerful of an enchantment it will produce. The larger the soul gem, the more powerful of a enchantment it can produce. The trick is knowing how to fit the right soul to the right gem.

You see, the smallest gem, a Petty Soul Gem, can only fit a petty soul. The small gem can only hold so much. However, a Grand Soul gem can hold any size soul because it is the largest gem. The bigger the space, the more it can hold, but it goes without saying that a gem may only ever hold one soul at a time.

So the trick is to know what soul gems you have and when to cast soul trap on an enemy. For example: if you only have a grand soul gem that is empty in your inventory you don't want to waste your soul trap spell on a wolf which has a petty soul. That means you wasted the largest and most expensive soul gem on a petty soul. You want grand souls in grand gems. The same goes for all the gem sizes. Max soul size possible in each gem.

So how do you know what type of enemy gives what kind of soul? A good rule of thumb is smaller, weaker enemies, like animals, will give you Petty Souls. As the difficulty of monsters and enemies increase, the stronger the soul. Dragon Priests, Draugr Death Overlords, Draugr Deathlords, Falmer Shadowmasters, and Mammoths all give you Grand Souls. Make sure you have some empty grand soul gems in your inventory when you face these foes.

All humanoid races (all of the races you can choose for your character at the start of the game) will have grand souls as well. However, you CANNOT put those souls into normal grand soul gems. In order to capture these souls you will need Black Soul Gems which can be found in dungeons and crypts, but also through merchants occasionally. 

On a side note, from time to time you'll find objects called Soul Gem Fragments, but they are worthless and should just be sold off at vendors.

Once you use a soul gem for enchanting it is destroyed in the creation process. The soul goes into powering your new magic item, and the gem itself is gone forever.

However, there is one item in the game that acts as a rechargeable soul gem. It's a Daedra artifact called Azura's Star. The quest for this item can be given from the very beginning of the game, so feel free to get started on that as soon as you like. The second you get to Riverwood for the first time head into the Inn and talk to the Barkeep. Ask him about rumors, work, etc., and he'll give you some information about the Shrine to Azura. You'll get a Miscellaneous objective to visit the Shrine, and this will start the quest. The barkeep will not only give you the start of that quest, but also the beginning of the Dark Brotherhood quest line if you're interested. 

I should warn you, the quest for Azura's Star can actually go two different ways. The artifact has the potential to become two different things entirely. One is the Azura's Star which acts as a refillable grand soul gem. The other, The Black Star, acts as a reusable black soul gem - meaning it can house humanoid souls. You'll realize just how important this is when you see how many freakin' bandits there are all over Skyrim - it's a grand soul buffet when you have The Black Star. This item is a boon for enchanting.

Without spoiling much, here's how to get The Black Star instead of Azura's Star: Do everything the NPC Nelacar tells you to. Do NOT under any circumstances return the star to the Shrine to Azura. If you want a walkthrough just do a google search for "The Black Star skyrim". I'm gonna leave a walkthrough out of this guide for the sake of space and spoilers. 

Another way you can capture the souls of your enemies and trap them into soul gems is by using weapons that have Soul Trap built right in, making the spell no longer necessary to cast. These weapons can be found as random loot throughout Skyrim, and when you strike an enemy with a Soul Trap weapon it will do the casting of the Soul Trap spell for you. It won't even deplete your Magicka.

So now let's say you have the mundane equipment you wish to enchant. You have soul gems that contain souls, and you are standing in front of an enchanting table. The final thing you need is for your character to know the magical enchantments you'll want to put on your equipment.

How does your character gain such knowledge? Quite simple. As you explore Skyrim you'll come across magical items already enchanted with different powers. They can be bought or simply found as random loot. If you take these items to an Enchanting table you can break them down using the "Disenchant" option. The knowledge of the enchantment is then passed to your character, and from that point on your character can put those enchantments into new items. The original item will be lost however.

Every time you break down an item it will increase your Enchanting skill, so I recommend doing this for every new magic item you run across. You can only learn a specific enchantment once however, so if you can not break an item down it means you already know its enchantment. If that's the case, the only thing left to do is sell that item and make a profit from it.

There are other ways to increase your Enchanting skill besides these two. At character creation the race you choose can give you a starting +5 to your Enchanting. These races are Altmer (High Elves), Imperial, and Orc. 

There are also several books in Skyrim that will increase your Enchanting skill. I recommend waiting to read them until you are close to the skill level 90 mark in Enchanting. Getting the last levels of any skill can be agonizing, and reading skill books helps alleviate some of that sting.

The following is a list of books that raise the Enchanting skill and the best places to find them:

A Tragedy in Black: Easiest place to get this is in Ilinalta's Deep on a table at the northeast corner. Room contains Arcane Enchanter and Alchemy Lab. The Black Star quest will take you to this location.

Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments:  Inside The White Hall in Dawnstar. In the room on the left on the ground floor with the training dummy inside. Look in between the barrels right by the door.

Complete Catalogue of Enchantments for Armor: There are two fairly easy ways to get this book. The first is inside Falion's House in Morthal, on a bookshelf. He's a non-hostile NPC. The second easiest way is in Steamscorch Mine on a table at the end of the first tunnel. The mine has no enemies inside. A mage works inside that is a skill trainer and quest giver to boot.

Enchanter's Primer: Found in between the bed and the end table in Carlotta Valentia's house in Whiterun.

Twin Secrets: Inside the Jarl's Longhouse in the town of Winterhold. The book is located in the ground floor room on the right, inside of a basket on top of a barrel.

There is also a quest that will reward you with a permanent increase to your Enchanting skill. This quest is called "Find Pantea's Flute". In order to get this quest you must first complete another quest called "Tending the Flames". Go to Solitude and visit The Bard's College. Speak with Viarmo and ask him about admission into the college. This will start the quest. Once completed you'll be an official member of the Bard's college and will be given The Gift of Gab perk. This is a permanent bonus to your character that makes Speech skill increases 15% faster. You can complete this quest at any level.

Now that you've completed "Tending the Flames" you can now talk to Pantea Ateia and get the quest to find her flute. Once you have completed this quest you will get the following permanent skill increases:

+1 Alteration
+1 Conjuration
+1 Destruction
+1 Illusion
+1 Restoration
+1 Enchanting

Another way to increase your Enchanting skill is to use Trainers. There are only two trainers available: Sergius Turrianus, an Expert trainer, in the College of Winterhold and Hamal, a Master Trainer, in the Temple of Dibella, Markarth. In order to use Hamal you must first complete The Heart of Dibella quest. This quest is actually really good to complete if you are playing a female character. You get a permanent increase to damage you deal to the opposite sex. Given that most enemies are male, this is more useful to female characters than to males.

Now before you start breaking down equipment and building new stuff to level up your Enchanting skill I recommend visiting the Guardian Stones outside of Riverwood and accepting the blessing of the Mage stone. This will increase the level up of your Enchanting by 20%. This helps out a great deal so don't skip out on it.

When you are just starting out in making new equipment you're going to want to make "practice pieces". In other words, things you'll just sell to get rid of. Because at the beginning of enchanting everything will be next to useless to you. Remember all those hide bracers you are making for Smithing? They make the perfect beginner pieces for enchanting.

With the Mage stone's blessing, leveling up your Enchanting skill seems to fly by for me. I had level 100 before I knew it, just by breaking down items and enchanting practice pieces.

But what are all the different kinds of enchantments? Just how many magical properties are out there?

There are 17 weapon enchantments out there, and there are even more for the equipment that you wear. Armor/Clothes/Robes, Bracers/Gloves/Gauntlets, Helmets/Hats, Necklaces/Amulets, Rings, Circlets, Hoods/Cowls, Shoes/Boots, and Shields can all be enchanted. 

When equipping your character you can wear one item for each equipment slot on your character's person. Those slots are as follows: 

Body: Armor, Clothes, or Robes
Hands: Bracers, Gauntlets, or Gloves
Feet: Shoes or Boots
Neck: Necklace or Amulet
Fingers: One Ring (to rule them all...) You can only ever have one ring on.
Shield: You can only ever have one shield equipped at a time.
Head: Circlet, Hood, Cowl, Hat, Mask, or Helmet

Under normal circumstances you can only have one head piece equipped at a time, but there is a glitch in the Xbox 360 version that allows you to wear a Falmer Helmet along with other head pieces. I'm not sure if the same is true with the other versions of Skyrim. I'll cover more about using the Falmer Helmet's glitch to your advantage in a later post.

Now let's talk about Enchantment perks. 

In the Enchantment perk constellation I find the most important path is the one that goes up the middle path. For the very best crafted items you'll want the very first perk, Enchanter, maxed out at 5. This will mean all your new enchantments will be 100% stronger. Going up the center path in the constellation will allow you to make skill, health, magicka, and stamina based enhancements 25% stronger. 

The path on the left side of the constellation makes your elemental resistances on worn equipment and the elemental damage on your weapons stronger. Making resistances stronger is not really an issue. At the end of this tutorial series you'll know how to give yourself 95% magic resistance without these perks. You'll also be able to kill most things in one or two hits. So personally I find this path to be fairly useless at end game.

The path on the right side of the constellation has two perks: Soul Squeezer and Soul Siphon. Because it is so easy to get ahold of soul gems I find these two perks to also be a waste of your precious perk points. You only get so many, after all.
The most important perk in the Enchantment constellation is the last one at level 100: Extra Effect. You can put two magical effects on one item. Can you say "double the potential"? In another post I'll give you some ways to maximize your character's potential by balancing out your enchantments across all of your equipment.

That does it for the Enchanting and Soul Gem portion of my Crafting Guide series. Next up will be Alchemy!

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