Thanks for the advice on recharging - soul gems. I presume I have to buy the soul trap spell in addition to having the gem to hold it. I also presume that this is the preferred way of recharging items, rather than paying some bozo 1000g.
As for enchanting items / spell crafting, exactly how do I go about that? I’m in the mages guild. Do I need to talk to a specific person, buy a specific spell? Sorry for the noobish questions.
You can often buy pre-charged soul gems as well as empty ones. To find out if a gem is charged, hover the cursor over it and read what it says about the current soul level. Empty gems will say ‘None’, while charged ones will say the size of the soul.
Of course, there’s rarely much point in buying pre-charged gems. They cost more than empty ones, the Soul Trap spell doesn’t cost that much, and you’re gonna be killing more that enough creatures to fill your gems.
I think you’ll get access to spell creation and enchanting once you get into the Arcane University. To do that, you need to get a recommendation from each town’s guild (which involves completing a small quest for each guildmaster). I haven’t done all those quests yet, so I might be wrong, but I’m sure I’ve heard it mentioned in the game a few times.
Oh yeah, there may be another way to create magical items. After I closed my first (and, as of yet, only) Oblivion gate (the one in that city on the way to Anvil – can’t remember its name), I got a magical doohickey that I could use to create one of two types of magical item. If I remember rightly, I could give a weapon some extra power against undead, or I could give an item permanent Detect Life power. I opted for a Detect Life amulet, and it’s serving me well. It’s nice to be able to tell when a creature will be around the next corner.
I suspect that you get similar doohickeys for each gate you close (someone further in the game can confirm or deny this).
I’ve closed two gates and this is the first I’ve heard of magic doohickeys.
By the way, has anybody found a mage who’ll sell copies of “Fortify Intelligence”?
Hmmm…have you closed the one in Kvatch yet? (just remembered the name). Maybe it’s unique to that gate. Or maybe it was from some unrelated quest that I completed around the same time.
Oh yeah, it wasn’t actually called a ‘doohickey’ in the game. I think it was some variety of stone or something.
Omg, I’m still shaking. Happy Birthday to me next month! (Shipping mid-April):
**Aurora™ 7500 **
Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4400+ with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System: Windows® XP Professional with SP2
Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service / AlienAutopsy / Respawn
Power Supply: Alienware® 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply
Chassis: Alienware® Full-Tower Case - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® Liquid Cooling with AlienIce™ 2.0 Video Cooling - Blue Light
Motherboard: Alienware® NVidia nForce™4 SLI™ X16 Motherboard
Graphics Processor: 512MB PCI-Express x16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7900 GTX
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel Low-Latency DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: High Performance - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
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Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 930BF 19" 4ms LCD - Black
Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech® G5 Laser Gaming Mouse
Plus several various and sundry accessories.
On the subject of gates (another dumb question alert!) how are you supposed to close them anyway?
I did close the one in Kvatch through the use of…well I can’t actually remember how I did it, something or another up at the top of a tower I think.
But, I’ve been into a couple more random ones and I’ve been all over the entire place and didn’t find any way to close them. I just assumed you couldn’t since the main storyline is about closeing the gates by relighting the dragonfires yadda yadda yadda. Are you meant to be able to close each of the random wilderness gates?
brightpenny, I suspect you made one mistake when you ordered that. You probably put your own address as the shipping destination, and you should have put mine.
I just hit my first random gate, and you close it the same way. The problem is that you don’t have a red marker leading the way, and that they can be mazes not unlike Bethesda’s Daggerfall dungeons. I had to leap down a ledge (dying twice) to get to a different set of doors which then allowed me to get to the top of the main tower. Probably could have gone around outside, but I wanted to try out my Athletics.
Wuwu Brightpenny! Boy, you have good taste in computers, considering it’s almost the same as my new setup 
Regarding the doohickeys: I do have 'em. Didn’t examine them, though, and didn’t realize they could be used to add enchantments to items. I have 2 of 'em!
More basic questions since y’all are doing such a great job of bringing me up to speed. If you want me to stop, just tell me to buzz off and start a new thread:
Is weapon magic damage cumulative? That is, if I have my Sufferthorn blade which says that it damages strength 5pts on strength, this baddie should be a 90lb weakling after I’ve landed 7 or 8 hits, right? Doesn’t seem to be the case. Similar for spells like “Burden”, etc. If I cast it 10 times on someone (as I’ve been known to do), logically they shouldn’t be able to move at all after several hits, no?
Continuing on this line of questioning, what’s the deal with fatigue. I guess it’s really mislabeled Stamina. But if I drain 20 points of an opponent’s fatigue, what does that mean practically? They’re less likely to block? They move slower? What does that do for me?
Continued thanks. I’m slowly in wrapping my head around the world of the Elder Scrolls as opposed to the Forgotten Realms.
Ah, but which version of the mod did you link to? If it’s the one I’m thinking of, there are 4 versions depending on whether you want to get rid of compass markers, etc.
It does not go down with mercantile or disposition. However, you’ll find later in the game that you can pull in 25,000+ from a single dungeon, so having to pay for recharging isn’t really that much.
That’s a good question, and I’d be interested in hearing the straight dope about that (anyone?). I have discovered something interesting with “Feather” effect, which is pretty much the opposite of “Burden”. When I cast it as the Ease Burden spell, the effects don’t accumulate – recasting it just resets the timer to its full duration. But when I drink Potions of Feather, the effects do accumulate.
I recently encountered a couple of will-o-the-wisps (or should that be wills-o-the-wisp???). I was getting consistently slaughtered until I realised that they only attack with magic. So I tried attacking with a dagger I found earlier whose name I can’t remember but which drains intelligence and willpower. It worked! The will-o-the-wisp would just sit there helplessly while I’d hack away at it like a psycho and hope like hell that it would die before my dagger runs out of charge.
I can’t remember if it stopped casting spells after one hit or if I had to hit it a few times first. But I do suspect that it had more innate intelligence and willpower than my dagger would drain with just one hit, which leads me to believe its draining effect was cumulative.
As for your strength-draining sword, how long does it say the effects last? How does that compare to the gaps between your blows? Whenever I’d pause for a breath during my attacks on ol’ Willy, it would only take a few seconds before it started casting spells again.
They are better refered to as “Sigil Stones”, and yes you need them if you’ve closed a game.
gaTe! :smack:
I’m not really playing yet, just looking around a little and trying out mods. I’ve only gotten to Imperial Market after escaping prison. But I was wondering…is it better to sell things to shopkeepers or are there freelance NPC’s in each town who give you better deals? Same question with buying.
Also, how do you use “touch” spells? How do you just touch someone in a battle? Unequip the weapon and punch him with your hand?
Jayrot, here’s the link to the Stamina Mod that relabels Fatigue.
How much you will make depends on the merchant’s disposition towards you and your mercantile skills. You can bribe the merchant to get his disposition up, or if you do a task for them (if they offer you a quest) their disposition will be high.
Keep bumping up your “haggle” every time you sell something. It helps you get merctantile points.
Sorta. You’ll see your hand reach out and tap them. I prefer “blast” spells myself that let you kill enemies at safe distances.
Thanks for the good info.