Painbringer's post on Blessing and Enchanting
I finished the game with a level 21 warlock who had a skill of 8 in enchanting and 9 in blessing. I made some mistakes playing it this way, but I did end up with a couple of items that were much more powerful than anything found in the game. I wanted to share my findings here so maybe you could avoid making the same mistakes, and seriously consider the costs and rewards of enchanting/blessing items in the game. If Jinxter or someone wants to add this post to their FAQ, they have my permission. I share this information freely with the W&W community.
First, consider the cost. The base cost for one enchantment (I'll refer to both blessing and enchantment here as just "enchantment") is 1,000 gold. Then for every skill point over one you can add another enchantment for double the price of the previous one. This means the 4th enchantment will cost you 8,000 gold and the total for 4 enchantments will be 15,000 gold. Each damage blessing will add 1 to 2 points of damage. Each armor blessing does the same for AC. Depending on the spells your warlock/wizard has, you get a mid-level spell choice to add to a weapon, such as Zap or Flamestrike. And yes, the spells are rechargeable but you must pay the cost of enchantment again.
Last week someone was posting here about their sword they'd put 12 Enchantments on. It was a godlike weapon, but the grim reality is that this player hacked their game and cheated to get it that high. Twelve enchantments would total over 4,000,000 gold in cost, and require an incredible devotion of skill points to reach a total of 12 ... (as you may know, the higher your skill level, the more points it takes to raise it again).
Now, about the skill points. Trying to divide your skills between both blessing and enchantment on one character is a waste of effort. It's better to have your Priest or Monk or Paladin focus on the Blessings and a warlock (or other wizard guild member) focus on the Enchantments. That way you can achieve higher skill levels more quickly. There are several prerequisites to the process:
1. High guild level. This means doing ALL the guild quests you can get in order to raise your guild level to a minimum of 5 as fast as possible (maximum is 7). I don't believe you'll see the Enchantment or Blessing skills offered before guild level 5. (Same happens with the Artifact and Ancient Lore skills for ID'ing things).
2. Artifact spells. Without the artifact spells, you cannot enchant or bless. These are level 4 for Stone, 5 for Moon and Fire, 7 for Spirit, 3 for Vines (adds toughness blessing), and 6 for Fiend. Each spell allows a different option when you enchant or bless. Vine adds toughness to armor (Durability). Stone adds AC bless to armor or Zap enchant to weapons. Fire adds Flamestrike for weapons or Resist Fire to armor. I assume Fiend adds the Pain spell, though I hadn't acquired that spell by the end of the game (too busy with other spells). I don't know what Artifact of Spirit adds, maybe someone can fill in the blanks.
3. Traits. BEFORE you can use the Enchant or Bless skills you must ALSO have the Cabalist Trait (temple, precursor trait to Bless skill) or the Occultist Trait (wiz guild, precursor to Enchant skill).
4. Skills. Once you have Cabalist and/or Occultist, you are offered the Blessing and/or Enchant skill, respectively. Here's where the drudgery comes in. By now your characters have broken into the teens in level and are fairly powerful in their own right. You are probably faced with painful choices at every level over where to stick your skill points. 2nd Weapon? Deathstrike? Higher Sun or Moon spells? More Sorcery for more mana? Now you have to decide how important enchantment is going to be. With a full party of 6 characters, it's easier because you can split the duties. If I did this over again I would have my priest focus on all the blessing skills while my Warlock worried only about the Enchantment. That means the Priest would not be able to add some of the enchantments allowed with Sun, Moon, etc., spell schools but this is a slow, expensive process anyway. If you make it to the end of the game and still want to see where it all leads, switch him to Samurai or Assassin to get other spell schools. Or turn him into a Zenmaster and get them all
One last point to be made. Pick the item you enchant very carefully. The better the item, of course, the more noticeable your enchantments will be. Starting with a rusty dagger isn't going to do much for you
I never could make much sense out of which items were enchantable and which not -- if it said "+1 Enchant" or "+2 Enchant" then I knew it was enchantable. My monk had a Trident of Tides that was a decent weapon (for a Pole/Staff) but it was not enchantable. Jewelry is not enchantable. The Mavin is not enchantable
The sword you can get from the Djinn *IS* enchantable, however. So is the Robinsblade, Nightblade, etc. These all make good enchanted weapons. I used the Sword of Argus from the Djinn, and by the end of the game it was topping out at about 44 base points of damage
Enchantments and Blessings seem to count against each other. So if you have an enchant skill of 4 and a Bless skill of 8, ALWAYS add enchantments first. If you stick 8 blessings on the weapon, you need an enchant skill of 9 to add just 1 enchantment. So if you want that sword to proc Flamestrike, get it enchanted before you go to the temple and add more base damage. If you want the armor to protect from Fire or Magic, enchant it first before you go get it blessed.
That's the meat of the issue here. Hopefully enough folks will read this that we won't see as many "how do I enchant?" posts here. Hey, I can wish can't I?
Painbringer