Enchanting items

Members of the Mages Guild and Temple Julianos have access to an item-maker upon reaching the required rank. In order to use the item-maker you need to have a couple of things. First, you've got to have an item in which to embed a spell or spell effect. Second, you've got to have the money to pay for the enchantment. Enchanting isn't cheap. Plan on spending several thousand gold for minor enchantments and a small fortune for major enchantments.

Not all items can be enchanted and some items are more suitable for enchanting than others. What you're trying to do is get the most bang (powers you want) for your bucks (money and harmful side effects). Items have a certain "Enchantment Potential" (or EP). Iron and steel items have the lowest EP while Daedric generally has the highest. You can increase the EP of the item by adding side effects (disadvantages) to the item, but the total cannot be exceeded.

Armor 1 (Table)

	Leather +1	Chain +3	Iron +3	Steel +4	Elven +5	Dwarven 6
Cuirass	400	400	300	400	500	600
Pauldron	40	40	40	40	50	60
Gauntlet	400	400	300	400	500	600
Greaves	50	50	37	50	62	130
Boots	175	175	131	175	218	262
Helmets	900	900	675	900	1125	1350

Armor 2 (Table)

	Mithril +7	Adamantium +7	Ebony +8	Ocrish +9	Daedric +10	Silver +4
Cuirass	500	700	800/1400	1000	1200	1225
Pauldron	50	70	80	100	120	122
Gauntlet	500	700	1000	1000	1200	1225
Greaves	62	87	100	125	150
Boots	218	306	350	437	525	535
Helmets	1125	1575	1800	2250	2700	1575

NOTE: All non-special material helmets have the same number of enchantment points regardless of design (there are about 5 or 6 different styles) or protection provided (+1, +3, +4). Once you reach +5 or better, the helmets have the same EP's as the helmets that are obviously made of special materials. Some +4 helmets will be made of silver, but unless you have taken silver as a forbidden material, you will not be able to tell the difference. Silver armor is extremely rare. Unless you have extraordinary patience or luck, you will probably not find a single piece (helmets excepted). Try as I might, I have not been able to acquire a silver Greaves, and so I do not know what the EP of this item is.

There seems to be a discrepancy in the numbers I get for Cuirasses. I first noticed this with an embossed, skirted Ebony Cuirass that came out at 1400 EP's while a simple Ebony breastplate came out at 800. I have not checked to see if this holds true across materials, but I would not be surprised if fancier cuirasses had more EP's than plain ones. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if this was just a hiccup.

The pluses that go with the various materials do not add up to the armor class shown on the inventory screen. As best I can make out, you receive +1 to your armor class for wearing armor plus twice the armor bonus for the material. Thus, a leather cuirass would provide +1 for wearing armor plus +2 for the material of the armor, giving you an armor class of 3 in the area protected by your cuirass. By the same token, a daedric cuirass would provide +1 for wearing armor and +20 for the material, giving you an armor class of 21.