The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Enchanter Build Guide

Morrowind has a somewhat strange but special way of handling this particular skill. Normally it’s used to create magic items or cast spells from items, such as rings, amulets, cintos, or any other piece of gear. Effects can be the same as with most spells from different schools of magic, but there is one small detail, that makes it all more worth it in the long run: recharging and faster casting time (without animation).

While mages can regenerate Magicka either by waiting, drinking potions, or absorbing incoming spells, none of those options allow regeneration over time, during travels without using anything (that can be improved with manual recharging, mas não é necessário). On the other note, spells require animation to be used, so casting time is increased. Sometimes that time is essential to survival during the fight.

Neste guia, I’ll try to show you how to make a character that uses mostly enchanting to deal with most kinds of situations. Então, vamos começar.

Criação de personagem – Corrida

One of the most important things in the game is to create a character we are going to play. In this early stage, it can be hard to have a clear idea, and build made around enchanting is extra hard to do, simply because there are only a few items that allow casting spells (scrolls are a different matter).

Então, let’s start with the Corrida:

There are some races that play well thanks to their bonuses and we’ll focus on those first. Those races are Dunmer, Norte, bretão, and potentially Altmer. Here is why:

• Dunmer has a natural resistance to fire, from the very beginning, whole 75%. Além disso, they have the racial ability of Sanctuary, which is really helpful throughout the entire playthrough. There is an easy way to obtain 100% resistance to fire and thus making that character immune to this kind of damage (lava can still hurt).
• Nord has natural immunity to frost (100%), resistance to shock (50%), and two somewhat decent powers that might help the early game. Além disso, they have high starting Strength and Endurance, so they have higher base health, which is always helpful, and can carry more loot. One bad thing is they start with low Intelligence, which makes it harder to be a successful enchanter early on (matters mostly when trying to create enchanting items).
• Breton has a natural resistance to magic (50%) and has daily power that is really good early game: Escudo (60 pontos). This is also one of the races that start with high Intelligence. Thanks to that they have an easier time when trying to create enchanted items.
• Altmer is here only because they start with higher Enchant skill value and have high Intelligence. That race is better as a regular spellcaster, thanks to having the highest Magicka multiplier, but can work well as an enchanter as well. Observação: that race has several weaknesses to elements and it’s not advised to play as such during the first playthrough.

Other races have some special abilities, but generally are not that well suited to be enchanters. Claro, it is possible to create Orc that will be a great Enchanter, but it will be a more painful process.

Observação: beast races (Argonian and Khajiit) can’t wear foot gear (sapato, botas, all of that) and have limited ability to wear helmets or hats.

Criação de personagem – Aula

Here things start to be interesting. Enchanter class is a custom class. I really don’t recommend playing with premade classes or generating one. It’s easy enough to create one and allows for much more flexibility.

Vamos começar com o básico. There are only two skills that we need to take (Enchant and Restoration), but I’ll fill the gaps with suggested skills we could use to have better control when trying to level up.

• Especialização – Magia (+5 to Enchanting and other Magic skills)
• Favourite Attributes – Endurance and Luck; while Intelligence is tempting, Endurance health bonuses are not retroactive and it’s important to increase it all the way to 100 rapidamente, no matter the character and class; Luck is a part of the formula that is related to almost everything in the game (sim, enchanting too) and thus is really good to start with that attribute. Também, can only be increased by 1 per level up, so starting with 50 em vez de 40 helps get this attribute faster to 100.
• Habilidades Principais:
  • Enchant – we start with it, so the higher value, melhor.
  • Restauração – useful to heal early on and later to make custom spells with really cool effects
  • Atirador
  • Bloquear
  • Mão a mão
• Minor Skills:
  • Lança
  • Speechcraft
  • Mercantile
  • Short Blade
  • Sneak

Como você pode ver, we really only need two skills. Other skills are there mostly so we can control levelling process, which is important. Feel free to change them as you see fit, just remember that we focus mostly on Enchant skill.

Criação de personagem – Birthsign

After we create a class we need to choose birthsign. There are some to consider and all depend on what exactly we want right from the start and what will be good in the long run.

Here is a list of birthsigns that I personally find the most useful:

• The Lady – increase Endurance and Personality by 25 pontos cada
• The Steed – increase Speed by 25 pontos
• The Atronach – grants Spell Absorption (50%), grants extra Magicka multiplier x2 INT and removes way to regain Magicka by resting
• The Lover – increase Agility by 25 pontos, allow to paralyze the target for 60 segundos

Dito isso, I find birthsigns that increase attributes somewhat lacking. They are good for the early game, but later it still is possible to max out all attributes. The Steed is perhaps the most useless because we can easily get special boots that will forever solve movement problems. The Lover is… decent, but we don’t use weapons and we try to avoid melee either way (at least early). The Lady is decent thanks to the extra Endurance we get, we get more health pool at the beginning. Personality can be easily modified if needed though.

Dito isso, I believe Atronach is the best birthsign in the game. 50% spell absorption is useful for everyone (half the spells just vanish when hit us, can help regenerate Magicka), extra Magicka thanks to multiplier is always nice to have and as we don’t really use Magicka itself, inability to regenerate it by waiting is nothing.

Leveling Process

The preferred way to increase attributes is 5/5/1. If you don’t know what that means, here is the explanation:

When we level up we can increase 3 attributes. Attributes are:

• Força
• Inteligência
• Força de vontade
• Agilidade
• Velocidade
• Resistência
• Personality
• Sorte

Each attribute – with exception of Luck – can be increased by up to 5 pontos. To do that we need to increase the skill we use by 10 pontos. Então, obter 5 Intelligence we need to increase our Enchant skill by 10 pontos, to get Endurance we need to increase Spear by 10 pontos, etc. Here however comes an important part: don’t overlevel.

Major and minor skills contribute towards leveling up, so increasing any of those will get us closer to the next level. To avoid over leveling we need to increase some of our miscellaneous skills. When leveling we want to focus on Enchant first and foremost, so avoid using any other major or minor skill if it’s not needed.

Então, here goes my proposition to leveling up, claro, it can be changed during playthrough as not always it’s possible to not level up any other major or minor skills.

• Enchant by 10 points each level
• Medium Armor or Heavy Armor by 10 pontos (or some combination, como 4 médio 6 pesado, etc)

Thanks to that we get 5 points of Intelligence, 5 points of Endurance, e 1 point of Luck at every level. After maxing out Intelligence or Endurance other worth noting attributes are: Força, Velocidade, Agilidade, e força de vontade. In that order.

Strength helps to carry more loot, Speed allows us to run faster, Agility makes us harder to hit in melee or by archers and Willpower adds to our paralyze resistance. Each level should have increased Luck by 1 apontar, no matter if Intelligence or/and Endurance is maxed out.

Primeiros passos – Seyda Neen

After creating our character we will soon find that Enchant skill is… inútil. We don’t have any magic items, so it’s natural to think this way. No entanto, there are some things we can do, and while we won’t create our own magical equipment for some time, we still can get some decent magical trinkets and use them as we see fit.

In the first location in the game, existem sobre 4 quests that we can do right away. Seyda Neen also has a merchant where we can sell our junk for some money. Make sure to get the magic ring from the barrel in the tutorial area and give it back to Fargoth. That will give us better prices for our items in the store. Não se preocupe, it might not be the best ring, but it will be ours soon. Healing is useful early, and having a ring that can do that will also slowly improve our Enchant skill. A limited amount of charges can be somewhat bad, but we don’t really gonna need that for long.

Doing all of the quests will give us some gold to get started, as we will need some of it. No entanto, there is no rush. If you find yourself in trouble with the murderer’s quest, remember that you can buy scrolls from the shop and use them to dispatch that dunmer with ease.

Observação: quests are not the only thing we can do. Running along the coast will most likely get us to the tomb, where we can find Mentor’s Ring. I don’t recommend going there now, even if the reward is really great. We don’t have a way to defeat guardians there yet.

Deste ponto em diante, make sure to collect jewelry of at least expensive quality. Qualities go on like this:

• Comum
• Expensive
• Extravagant
• Exquisite

The higher the quality, the more enchantment capacity they have. Também, quanto mais, melhor. Some shops have them, but most likely you’ll have to find them. Some are within homes, so make sure you are not seen when trying to pick them up.

Primeiros passos – Balmora and Caldera

When leaving Seyda Neen I recommend using Silt Strider, it’s cheap enough to use and fast too. Let’s go to the city of Balmora.

Balmora:

I found out some interesting things regarding this city. When starting out with high Enchant value it’s possible to find some magical trinkets in various crates and barrels within the town. Search every single barrel and crate that you can see outside the buildings. If you get lucky you might get a belt that can summon Scamp to help you in your journeys. Se não, in the worst-case scenario you’ll get some petty soul gems and gold.

Try to not get more loot than you can carry. De outra forma, it might be really painful to walk around. Try to keep it at a somewhat low value, at least until we get the special boots that will help us with movement speed.

You can visit shops, various guild halls, join some. Get some extra gold from those items you find in crates, go to Caius to get some more gold, visit Blade Trainers… em outras palavras, do what you want. One important thing to do though is to join Mages and Fighters Guild so we can loot their supply chests for gold. Potions of healing can be somewhat useful if you feel like you need them, de outra forma, just sell all of that. Gold will be mostly used to buy skill training and some items later when needed, but it can’t hurt to gather as much as it’s possible. Save some scrolls of Almsivi and Divine Intervention, they might come in handy.

Mages Guild also offers a way to travel around the map and we will use that in a second. When you are sure you got everything done, go to the bottom of Balmora’s Mages Guild and find a person that can teleport you to Caldera. This is our next important stop.

Caldera:

This town is not that big, but there are few things for us to do and get. Em primeiro lugar, our first way to defend ourselves. Exit Mages Guild building and go to the trader in town. He has several good enchanted items:

• Ring of Lightning Bolts
• Ring of Fireball
• Amulet of Opening
• Ring of Aversion
• Amulet of Recall

Amulet of opening allows us to finally open some locked chests, even if only those that are locked by simple locks. Rings of Lightning Bolt and Ring of Fireball are going to be our offensive for some time, while Ring of Aversion grants temporary invisibility. Amulet of Recall will come in handy later when we learn how to Mark locations to teleport back to.

Então, our little arsenal of magic items starts to grow. If you were lucky and got the belt of scamp, bom. Se não, it’s also good, but be more careful and don’t just go and use all the charges at once during fights. Try to take your time to dispatch enemies, no need to rush.

Speaking of Scamps, there is one in town and as it happens, it’s a trader. Unique one to that. His name is Creeper and can be found in Ghorak’s Manor, upstairs. Ele tem 5000 gold and will buy weapons, poções, scrolls for the maximum price. So if you happen to have some valuable stuff to cash, he is the guy to go to.

General note: Enchanters in Mages Guild Hall may happen to have some decent enchanted items, but it’s not guaranteed. You may want to run around and check some of them, but it’s entirely up to you. Remember to check crates in places like Plaza’s in Vivec city, they may also have something of value there. When lacking gold check Guild Supply Chests, they resupply after some time, and stuff from there is as good as yours.

Tribunal: Dark Brotherhood Assassin, Ebonheart, Mournhold

You may have already encountered that guy. If you didn’t rest in the wilderness or rest at all, he should not spawn. If you rest and he did spawn, and you didn’t have a way to defeat him, you most likely died.

After Caldera you should be able to defend yourself, se não, buy some scrolls to help with that. Dispatch him, take his stuff (really valuable stuff, can get close to 5000 gold from Creeper for his gear alone), and go tell the guard that you were attacked. You will be pointed to go to Ebonheart, where you will find a man who “pode” help you. You can easily go there if you first go to Vivec city through the Mages Guild teleport service. Once in Vivec simply use Divine Intervention Scroll and you will be transported to Ebonheart’s Chapel. (There are also quest to do for Imperial Cult)

To find a man you are looking for, speak to him, tell him about Dark Brotherhood Assassin. He will point you to his friend, who can transport you to Mournhold, Tribunal Expansion place. Vá lá. Once there turn back to the door, Abra -os. Look to your right and find the Imperial Cult chapel. Here is possibly the most important spell effect you need to learn in order to be a good enchanter. Talk to people and get spells that can Fortify Restoration, Alternation, or any other skill. Depois de ter isso, go back to Ebonheart, as there is no more need to stay in Mournhold for now.

You may wonder what just happened. Why the hell goes there, run around like a headless chicken. Bem, it’s about that spell effect I pointed before.

Having a spell that can Fortify Skill allows you to create items with this effect. Em outras palavras, you can create a Spell or item with this effect and pick which skill you want to have improved.

Go to any spell trainer that allows the service of creating custom spells and open the window. Pick fortify Skill and pick Enchant. Then create something like, Fortify Enchant 100 pontos para 1 segundo. Por que? Because game time stops when you enter your inventory window. So a spell that lasts one second is good enough to fortify your skill by 100 points and with that, you can already start the enchanting process.

Observação: if you want to enchant an item with this effect so that you don’t need to use Magicka, make sure that you set the time to at least 2 segundos. For whatever reason game doesn’t seem to get it if this value is lower.

Com isso dito, you can go on and start collecting spell effects for enchanting purposes. Experiment. Make sure you have good enough soul gems and chance is decent too. You will be a good enchanter in no time.

Boots of Blinding Speed

Agora, as mentioned before, there are special boots that allow us to retire all our movement speed problems. They are called Boots of Blinding Speed.

Obtaining them is quite simple. After visiting Caldera you should be able to handle any danger that might come your way, so you may as well go on this quest. After leaving Caldera northwest, you will soon find a merchant on the road. She will ask you to escort her to Gnaar Mok and will give you them as a reward. So now you have two options: simply kill her and get the boots or do that quest.

Here’s a link to this quest because the road isn’t all that hard to follow, just check signposts.

When you obtain the boots you might notice something weird. The screen turns black! It’s the blind effect. You will move way faster than before but blindly. Claro, there is no need to be upset, as there is a trick for Enchanters and mages, em geral, to avoid getting blind.

The trick is to create a custom spell/item with resisting Magicka effect with the following values: 100 pontos para 1 segundo (2 seconds for the item) ou 150 pontos para 1 segundo (2 seconds for an item) – for alters because of the 50% weakness to Magicka.

Having restoration as a major skill gives us a pretty good chance to cast this spell or if you enchanted an item, you can use that without problems. Quando você faz isso, quickly open inventory and equip boots. You should get a notification that the effect was resisted, the screen will be normal and you will run crazy fast!

Custom Enchantments and Skill Increase

After obtaining fortify skill effect and creating a spell or item with it, you can try to experiment with it. Save before you try to enchant, make sure you have everything you need and the chance to create an item is good enough, and go on.

One thing to notice though, and you may have noticed that already is that enchant skill is improved somewhat… slowly. That would be true if we were to use only magic items. Using item grants 0.1 level progress. So how to speed it up? Bem, there are two other ways to gain exp and gain it fast.

One is creating custom enchanted items. This method grants 5.0 exp for the skill. This method is quick and is simple: get any ring you can get, get any piece of paper you can get, and go to work. Enchant all the way. This is somewhat tedious but gets the job done.

The second method is recharging magic items with filled soul gems. This effect also grants 5.0 exp for the skill, but you’ll burn through your soul gems pretty quickly this way.

Então, which one to choose? Você decide. However in the game, there is a unique soul gem, that does not expire when used. Azura’s Star.

If you want more information about the process, here is a useful link that will help clear up all the problems:

• Enchanting in Morrowind

One thing to understand is, Enchanting has its limits. Be it soul gems, item capacity, or chance. That’s why sometimes items you’ll find will be way better than anything you can enchant with your skills. This relates mostly to Constant Effects spells you can put on items, but Cast on Use items share a similar problem.

If you want to get good enchanted items, Mages Guild, Imperial Cult, and House Telvanni are the places where you’ll get missions. Rewards for them are decent and sometimes can net you item with really great enchantment on it, such as Special Ring.