Question on Enchanting

[inscenique]

Hello,

sorry, mayby that's a stupid question: after having started a new playthrough, I noticed that my enchanting skill only affects the number of charges of an enchanted weapon, but not the enchantment power, i.e. the elemental damage dealt. Same with using Fortify Enchanting potions: only the number of charges is increased. I'm not sure, but I think this has been different in my older playthroughs (some time ago), where I could increase the elemental damage dealt with an enchanted weapon by using a Fortify Enchanting potion just before enchanting the weapon. I also noticed that the damage dealt by an enchanted weapon is increased if I drink a Fortify Destruction potion (which makes sense somehow, but I never noticed that before).

Is the enchantment supposed to be like this, although on UESP there is written "Fortify Enchanting increases the strength of your Enchanting."? Did any Mod or Patch change this, or is it a bug of one of my numerous newer mods? And what about NPCs? Is the power of an enchantment dependent on their own destruction skill then? But this would make enchantments for followers almost useless... I'm confused... Could someone enlighten me, please? :huh:

Edited June 11, 2022 by inscenique

[anjenthedog]

As one's skill level increases, (and/or also affected by player level I believe), the strength of an enchantment *should, afaik, increase too, until some final threshold is reached at level 100. That's how it works for me. (although I don't know the *exact mechanism.

 

ex: enchanting a dagger at level 10 enchanting with Fire, and using the most powerful crystal, might result in a dagger of fire damage +10

 

At skill level 40 enchanting, the same dagger, enchanted with fire, might result in a fire damage value +12 or +15 or more.

 

This isn't authoritative. It's messy since getting to a skill level of 40 usually means a bump or two (at least) of your player level. I'd guess someone has figured out or extracted some formula, but I'm dumb to any such recipe for determining exactly how it all works.

 

In my personal experience (again not an authority, just a lowly player), you generally won't see a substantive bump in the strength of the enchantment unless you increase skill level (like when grinding out stuff to increase your skill) , and afaik you exit and reenter the station (goes for all skills), or apply a potion or elixir and/or wear an enhancement item

it also seems to kick in one certain increases in skill . I think it happens on the tens or maybe on the fives (skill 10, skill 15 skill 20, so forth, or skill 10 20 30...) < or something like that. In fact, I think it's a bit more odd than that but not sure. sometimes I see changes after what appears to be a gain of five, sometimes it appears to take over ten points of increase to get an increase in applied buff

 

But I can say with some degree of authoritas, that with skill and level increases, you *should* see an increase in the strength of you enchantments (or other crafting, in concert with their own skill levels). The specific thresholds of crafting skill and or player level at which those increases happen is a bit fuzzier.

 

As I level up (in all respect, crafting and player level) I routinely sell off my buffed weapons, armors, potions, etc and replace them with new ones which I can make stronger. (the only exception is smithing, after I've achieved the "can improve enchanted weapons and armors" skill point)

[inscenique]

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. So, my memory is ok... :laugh: I'm already at an enchanting skill level 40+ and only get +10 elemental damage for weapons. With Fortify Enchanting potions I can reach 50+ in enchanting, however, no change in the elemental damage of the enchanted weapons...
I guess, I broke it and need to find out, what mod did it... :confused:

[anjenthedog]

Suggestion:

 

Post your load order in a spoiler tag (see the striped icon to the left of the font selector in the editor, scroll through dropdown and find "spoiler, paste load order text into it). I personally suck at analyzing load orders, but there are some around here who seem to be very good at it, and someone may post back with more on that aspect (some mod that might be causing it).

 

Oh and fyi in case you don't know where it's located, check your /AppData/ Local/Skyrim Special edition/ folder

[inscenique]

Oh, I didn't know the loadorder is saved to a file. But I found it.
I'll try to fix it myself first, at least it's easy to uninstall the latest additions with Vortex and see if the problem is fixed...

Edited June 11, 2022 by inscenique

[anjenthedog]

Yeah, something's not right with your game. I have one game vector (one play through) that's at player level 41 right now and around 60 (maybe more, haven't played in over a week) on the enchantment skill level. With a black or Grand soul gem, she gets around +25 for fire, lighting, and ice on weapons with no assists (enchanter's potions, a special "Crafter's" circlet mod I downloaded from Nexus, and or any other armor with enchanter's buffs on them).

 

Of course, some applied enchantments are a bit more, some a bit less, but definitely not the same across the board for a given weapon and all the enchantments I have unlocked for enchantments, and I suspect you know what I'm talking about there.

 

one more thing. My characters (3 fem, one male) are all Nords. You may get different results from crafting workstations depending on race as well, but tbh, on that I really don't know... just idle speculation...

 

good luck

 

OH, PS> the main difference in charges, at least for weapons, (and for strength of enchantment for armors), should be the soul gem used. For a weapon, the best return will be with a black soul gem and a "black" soul. The worst is for a petty soul gem with a "petty" soul.

 

for armor the +N value is often (although not always) tied to the soul gem and contained soul, again black/black is way more powerful than petty/petty

 

Further, a black can still hold a petty soul, (same for grand, great, common, and lesser), so scroll through your gems, as the gem itself is not a guarantee that it will produce the most "Oomph"

 

I usually use cheaper gems for the stuff I'm crafting to up my skill level, and which I'll be dumping on vendors later to up my profit and reduce personal inventory. The good ones I use for my own benefit, or for followers (although I have no followers this time around)

[inscenique]

OK, I think I found the answer to my original question in the mod description of "Enchanting Adjustments".
It's no bug. It's just the way the enchantment power is calculated. The elemental damage has a basic damage value of 10, however, the enchantment skill only affects this value by a factor of 1.25 at maximum skill level (100). So, the difference in the damge will be only 3 points between a novice enchanter (level 15) and a master enchanter (level 100). The master would get a weapon with 13 elemental damage (without any perks), the novice gets the base value of 10. That means, at low levels and without using any perks you will always get 10 points of damage because the factor of 1.25 is relatively low, and the base damage of 10 is relatively high. (I'm not sure if this base value of 10 is vanilla or set by any of the mods I have installed).
Things get a bit different, if you already have some perks which increase your enchanting power. For instance, if you have the perk "Enchanter" with 60% more powerful enchantments, you will get 10*1.6 = 16 damage with novice enchanting skill and 10*1.6*1.25 = 20 as master enchanter. Still the difference ist not big (about +1 damage per 20 points skill level).

The mod "Enchanting Adjustments" adresses this problem (and others) making the enchantment skill more important.
So, nothing is broken, I just need some perks or a mod to make the skill level more important. :happy: