Enchanting Guidelines

Managing Failure Scores

Both enchant armor and enchant weapon start from a 25% failure score before applying modifiers, and the final chance is clamped between 5% and 95%.

Success becomes more likely at the highest caster levels. Enchant armor can subtract up to fifty points from failure based on caster level, and enchant weapon removes as many as seventy-five points when the target is a weapon. Blessing the item removes fifteen failure points for either spell.

Glow and hum flags push the failure score higher by four and three points, respectively, so strip them when possible and avoid the exceptional results that apply hum in the first place. Extra affects that are not the acid breath safeguard add twenty points for armor or twenty-five for weapons, so remove anything the item does not need before casting. Existing AC, hit, or damage bonuses apply a quadratic penalty, making successes rare beyond +3 or +4. Charms suffer an extra fifty failure points and are best left untouched.

Failure Outcomes

The system enforces the five to ninety-five percent window, but the worst roll no longer destroys the item. Instead of exploding, an item that hits the lowest failure band loses a single step of its strongest enchant bonus, and only if it was already at +1 or better.

The second failure band still strips magical affects, but it now stops one stage short of wiping every modifier to zero unless the player knowingly pushes past a warning prompt. Each successful cast raises item level toward hero tier: armor ends one level beneath hero rank, and non-weapon targets of enchant weapon jump to level fifty-five or higher when the cast succeeds.

When a non-weapon already has +2 hit or damage bonuses, the spell tacks on one hundred failure points per stat, leaving almost no room to grow. Exceptional results add glow and possibly hum, raising the failure score on subsequent attempts.

Preparation and Adjustments

Stay within those guardrails to keep enchanting strong without loopholes: prioritize high caster level, blessings, the removal of excess affects, and clear stopping points.

Equitable adjustments can reduce frustration without removing risk. Incremental investments such as scroll ink, rare dust, or faction favor can trim failure in small chunks, helping players push toward the five percent floor through effort rather than luck.

A pity counter that shaves a few failure points after each dud (resetting on success) curbs long failure streaks without guaranteeing success. Near misses default to the safer downgrade path, so blessings or recent successes protect major investments, and only an explicit opt-in lets the system drop every modifier.

Optional catalysts can tie exceptional results to conscious choices, letting players opt into glow, hum, or double bonuses while everyone else pursues steadier +1 improvements with lower variance.

Soft Caps and Risk

Maximum power remains governed by soft caps rather than hard stops. Weapons gain one or two points of hit and damage per success, and armor gains one or two points of AC reduction. The quadratic penalty on existing bonuses and the ninety-five percent failure cap make values beyond +5 hit or damage, or −5 AC, extremely risky while still technically attainable.

Ancient Tier Synergy

Ancient, Runic, and Elite loot tiers apply after standard enchanting, so stripping excess affects before rolling remains vital. Tier bonuses come from the ancients command pipeline—see ancients_overview.html for details—and they never stack with additional enchant attempts. Treat each ancient drop as complete and re-enchant only if you accept the higher failure odds on already exceptional gear.