Constant Effect Items, where does soul strength come into it? Options

[RobRendell]

So, we have information that all enchantments on clothing, armour and jewellery will be constant effect. Also, like in MW, there's no "exhausting" of constant-effect items; they don't discharge over time.

So, that leads me to wonder: what effect will different-strength souls have on enchanting constant-effect items, then?

In MW, you needed to have a soul at or above the 400 point threshold to create an CE item, and anything higher than 400 was wasted. At the time, I thought it would be cool if you could trade off the points in the soul with the level of enchantablility of the item (its quality), and vice versa.

So, in one direction you could have made weak constant-effect items with lesser souls, because you could take an exquisite amulet (say) with its 120 levels of enchantment, use a soul of (say) 350, and move 50 points from quality to charge to get 400 soul (for CE) and 70 enchantment levels/quality.

In the other direction, it would have helped explain why there were so many cheap amulets and other items with enchantments you just couldn't fit into one if you were enchanting them yourself - the enchanter must have used a very powerful soul, and reduced the item's "charges" to effectively increase its quality.

And it would have also allowed you to do something useful with Almalaxia's soul

Anyway, looking forwards to Oblivion. We no longer appear to have the 400 point soul threshold to make CE items - any clothing, armour or jewellery that's enchanted is CE, even if enchanted with a feeble soul. So, maybe something like what I envisaged is going to happen... maybe the maximum enchantment level of an item is going to be a function of both the quality of the item and the strength of the soul involved.

Any thoughts? Have I missed any developer quotes that answers this one specifically?

Edit: BTW, yes, I know the enchant skill has been removed, and there are the sigil stones and all. However, enchantment is available to advanced members of the Mages' Guild (presumably through official guild enchanters), and it requires the player to provide soul gems to do it. So I'm assuming that it be something akin to MW's system, with the change that worn items are all Constant Effect, and weapons are all Cast On Strike.


This post has been edited by RobRendell: Oct 21 2005, 08:01 AM

[Neela]

My guess. .. (and it is only a guess...)

A) Soul strength is the power of the spell and the quality of the item determines how powerful of a soul can be held. EX: a ring of regeneration might be enchanted with a 400 soul to give say 4 hps/sec regeneration while a 200 soul might only give 2hp/sec regen. Quality of the ring determines whether or not the soul would fit. ie. common ring holds a max of 100 soul and exquisite holds 400.

I am not sure if CE items will require recharging... but I am guess that recharging might be handled in a different way... perhaps with those elven crystals, or perhaps the inital enchantment determines the items max charge and multiple souls can be supplied to recharge it to max.

Just my guess..