Crafting and Enchanting

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Hi, I've decided to pick up my other Necromancer character again. I've just hit lvl 6 and am eligible to take those item creation feats.

Now, I know that to craft something, you place the ingredients in the bench and cast spells on it. However, I have a lot of questions which are not addressed in the manual (which is VERY vague about everything ) as well as the FAQs up on GameFAQs.com...

So without further ado:

1) What is the difference between Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magical Arms & Armor? What are the EXACT items/enchantments you can make with each feat respectively??

2) What is Craft Alchemy skill used for, with relation to these two feats?? What is Craft Weapon and Craft Armor used for in relation with these two feats?

3) If you don't have the recipe in-game, but have the ingredients and know how to create it (previous play through, online guide etc), is it possible to create the item??

4) How reliable is enchanting in the game?? How powerful is it?? Is it worth burning 2 slots on Craft XYZ feats in the game?? The reason I'm even considering it is that the DC boosting feats have been nerfed completely...+2 for burning 2 feats? No thanks! Instead of school focii, I'm taking metamagic and general feats...If its worth it, I'll take the item creation feats instead!!

 

1. craft wonderous item creates items that are not armor/weapons (ie: amulets, belts, bracers, rings,cloaks,...)
many enchantments are possible for each item type, like cloaks of resistance +1 to +5, nymphs cloaks +2 to +8, headband of intellect +2 to +8 , belt of str +2 to +8 etc, depending on recipe used

usually having one recipe for a certain item is enough to figure out the rest, since you just upgrade essences and gems to a higher level for the stronger item recipe

example, belt of str +4 needs:
weak fire essence + leather hide + blue diamond

a belf of str +8 needs:
radiant fire essence + leather hide + king's tear

the two highest grade gems are beljurils and king's tears, followed by star sapphires, rogue stones and blue diamonds
gems like ruby/emerald/diamond also have uses in weapon crafting (fire/acid/holy damage) but otherwise they're not that useful

if this all sounds confusing, there is a list of all crafting recipes on gamefaqs.com

2. brew potion skill is used to make explosive potions and poisons (also helps in making stronger essences from weaker ones), brew potion feat is used to make potions that can hold spell effects (3rd level or lower iirc)

equally, craft weapon/armor skills are used to make base armor types (iron, mithral, adamantine etc), while feat of the same type is used to enchant magical effects upon them (as per recipe)

craft wands allows you to make wands of 4th spells or lower, and is also a very powerful feat, particularly if you use neeshka or grobnar in your party since they can use these wands due to UMD
wands so creater have 50 charges, 1charge/use and come with a powerful spell charge, i like to use fireball wand (lvl 10 fireball) and ILMS wand (lvl 13 ILMS)
how ever, crafting wands does cost a lot of money, usually 20k per wand but it's worth it
if you want to use it, give this feat to sand or some other NPC you don't use

to conclude: craft skills and craft feats are two separate things, you don't need to have a craft armor skill to enchant effectively with craft armor feat - you can use one character (khelgar) as weapon crafter, and the other one (sand) as weapon enchanter

3. you don't need a recipe to create an item
it is entirely possible to run around early chapter one with nymphs cloaks +8, if you find all ingredients for them (container loot is often randomized) and have appropriate feats
there does seem to be a great lack of crafting resources, especially gems and metal ingots, so don't get your hopes up too high

4. as said above, enchanting can net you the best items in the game so it's definitely worth it, however i wouldn't recommend crafting feats for your main character simply because you can have other NPC's do it for you (particularly the ones you don't use much in your party, in my case sand and grobnar)

 

1) Weapons and armor has, as Blackthorne said, 3 slots for enhancements. Iron, Alchemical silver, and cold iron doesn't take any of the enhancement slots. Mithril doesn't take a enhancement slot for armor but one for weapons, Darksteel and adamantine takes a enhancement slot, the enhancement is different from weapon to armor.

I.E. a adamantine weapon gets +2 magic damage bypassing stoneskin and iron golem damage resistance, and a adamantine armor gives 1/- to 3/- damage reduction depending on armor type.

2) Sand and Qara are both good candidates for both feats, Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Woundrous Items. Sand lacks some spells since he is a mage specialized in transmutation. Elanee is a good candidate for Craft Magic Arms and Armor since she have divine spells the other two are lacking. Zhjaeve is a good candidate for Craft Woundrous Items since a lot of her divine spells are used in that kind of crafting.

3) Qara and Sand has default a high Craft Alchemy skill, so use them to convert monster parts to essences.

4) Grobnar and Sand has a high Craft Armor skill which can improved by a Headband of Intellect, the spell Greater Heroism and Grobnars song Inspire Competence.

5) Don't be afraid that Sand, Qara, Elanee or Zhjaeve will miss out other important Feats when you choose Crafting Feats for them. They are all four powerful enough as is.

[ February 09, 2007, 02:48: Message edited by: Ironhawk Skylord ]

 

Nya in Port Llast sells Gloves of the Greater Artificer. +6 to all Crafting skills.

 

Awesome...I'm thinking of investing in these crafting feats with the NPCs as suggested.

Just wanted to ask, at about what time is it worthwhile to start enchanting?? If, for instance, you are at lvl 13-15 in the game, can you buy some powerful enough weapons in shops such that enchanting is redundant?? Or are custom enchanted weapons overpowered compared with standard OC weapons??

Also, is it necessary for the person casting the spells to be the one with all the skill ranks in the respective crafting skill?

 

as i have already said above, you don't have to have crafting skill and feat on the same character

crafting skill requires an appropriate number of points invested before you can craft a certain armor/weapon (as per ingame description)

crafting feat requires a spellcaster or at least a character with high UMD (to be able to cast from scrolls, although scrolls only work at caster level 10, so many recipes can't be used that way)
items made with the feat just require appropriate ingredients before they can be made

as also said above, you can make the best items in the game by enchanting, and furthermore, enchanting costs nothing in terms of gold

at levels 13-15, shops can sell items with +2/+3 enchamtments, but you can make +5 holy adamantine weapons at that time, and they rock
similarly, you can craft a mithral full plate, which is considered medium armor , has 8 AC and +3 dex bonus - no other armor bought in a shop or found comes close to that

 

With regards to crafting you may want to save "Blue Diamonds" as much as possible and use them for crafting +5 weapons and armour. They are extremely rare and I would not advise using them for other recipes, even Ammon Jerros Infernal focus recipes, which has 2 other alternatives listed.

 

here's a pretty useful list of what gems are required to craft more powerful items (i skipped the weaker ones since gems for them are in abundance); number to the left is caster level required

so basically, if you have the gem, the appropriate caster level/crafting feat/essences you can go make the item right away


Beljuril
=====
8 - Boots Con+8
8 - Cloak Cha +8
8 - Belt Dex +8
8 - Belt Str +6
8 - Helm Int +8
8 - Amulet Wis +8
14 - Bracers AC+7
15 - Amulet AC +5
15 - Armor SR 22
15 - Weapon Vamp Regen +5

Blue Diamond
==========
7 - Armor Haste
8 - Belt Str+4
10 - Bracers AC+5
13 - Armor Immune to Crit
15 - Armor SR 18
15 - Armor AC+5
15 - Weapon +5
18 - Armor DR magic/10
18 - Amulet Immune Death Magic / LvlDrain / SR 20 (Greater Scarab of Protection)

Canary Diamond
===========
7 - Bracers AC+3
10 - Weapon 1d6 Electrical
11 - Weapon Vamp Regen+3

Diamond
======
7 - Weapon 2d6 vs Evil

Emerald
======
9 - Armor AC+3
10 - Weapon 1d6 Acid

Fire Opal
======
Uninteresting; all too weak to care.

Jacinth
=====
3 - Armor DR elemental/10
8 - Boots Con +4
8 - Bracers AC+4

King's Tear
========
8 - Belt Str+8
9 - Cloak SR 20
10 - Gem of True Seeing
11 - Armor DR elemental/30
14 - Robe of the Archmagi (Sorc/Wiz) AC+5,+3saves, SR20, Bonus Spell 5,6,7
16 - Bracers AC+8

Rogue Stone
=========
7 - Armor DR elemental/20
8 - Boots Con+6
8 - Cloak Cha +6
8 - Belt Dex +6
8 - Helm Int +6
8 - Amulet Wis +6
12 - Bracers AC+6

Ruby
====
6 - Gauntlets of Ogre Power (Str+2)
10 - Weapon 1d6 Fire
10 - Weapon Keen

Star Sapphire
=========
7 - Boots Haste 3/day
8 - Amulet Wis+4
8 - Cloak Cha+4
8 - Belt Dex+4
8 - Helm Int+4
10 - Weapon 1d6 Cold
12 - Armor AC+4
12 - Weapon +4

 

Nice list Master Leo!

Allow me to add a little:

Jacinth
=====
7 - +2d6 against chaotic
14 - undead must make a DC 14 Will save or be destroyed (Weapon of Disruption)

Canary Diamond
============
7 - +2d6 damage against lawful
8 - Amulet - Immunity to mind affecting spells and effects (Medallion of Thought)

Star Sapphire
==========
7 - +2d6 against beasts

Blue Diamond
==========
5 - Amulet - Immunity to Ability/Level Drain, Disease, and Poison, Regeneration +1 (Greater Amulet of Health)

 

@ Master Leo and Ironhawk Skylord. Thanks for the gems list. Very useful.

Another thing to note. If you find or craft a weapon with a maximum of 3 properties (properties include weight reduction Z%, +X enhancement, keen, +2 magic damage, +1d6 Elemental damage etc) then it is still possible to upgrade the enhancement of your weapon. So if you were weilding a adamantine greatsword +1 with +2 magic damage, and say 1d6 acid damage, then it is possible to change the enhancement of the sword to +5 providing you use the correct recipe ("blue diamond" in this case) for +5 weapon enhancements. You even get the chance to rename your weapon if you want to.

 

thanks for the update ironhawk, i've updated the list

i usually stay away from damage vs lawful/chaotic since i can't tell which creatures are of this type, i guess orcs would be chaotic, but which are lawful (??)

i prefer to use the enchantment slot for holy since many creatures are evil in the campaign (since i prefer adamantine weapons i only have two slots for enchanting, and the other one is used up by the +x enchantment)

 

@Deadman:

AFAIK it is not possible to upgrade the enhancement of a weapon if all 3 enhancement slots is taken. If you only have taken 1 or 2 enhancement slots, then the upgrade works fine. Otherwise you are correct. You can rename armors too.

@Master Leo:

I agree, I don't think damage vs lawful/chaotic is useful, but I thought I would mention it. You can enhance a weapon with damage vs good also, but it is of no use in the OC except for the last battle if you take the evil path.

The enhancement for holy on the other hand is so useful, that it is almost cheese. I prefer Cold Iron weapons since there is quite some demons in the game. There is a lot of undeads in the game also, so I prefer to make a Cold Iron weapon with +x enhancement, Holy and Disruption.

IMHO adamantine weapons in the OC is for special occasions, when you run into an Iron Golem. And those weapons doesn't need a large +x enchancement.

Blue Diamonds and Star Sapphires can be put to better use in other areas.

I have seen some threads on Biowares official forums regarding Armor of Haste still is bugged, you don't get Haste but Delayed Blast Fireball, but I haven't confirmed it since Potions of Speed and spellcasters do the same. Is it something any of you have noticed?

[ February 16, 2007, 11:01: Message edited by: Ironhawk Skylord ]

 

there's a few bugged recipes, i believe invulnerable armor gives -10% to spellcasting penalty instead of DR 10/magic but i haven't tested the recipes recently

also, adamantine weapons can bypass spell protections so it's also very effective against spellcasters, and dragons no likey khelgar's adamantine warhammer either (100 dmg per crit)

 

I agree. Adamantine magic damage bypass stoneskin. But I tend to take care of those protections with my own spellcasters, with Greater Dispel and Spell Breach. With Iron Golems I don't bother. It is quicker to let them taste some adamantine.

But my point is that the adamantine weapon doesn't have to be a +5 weapon, +2 or +3 do nicely. But it is a matter of taste.

And Khelgar sure is effective with his warhammer. With that and the belt and the gloves, he is unstoppable whether he is monk or fighter.

 

Maybe I've left this post a bit late, but I thought that Umber Hulk plate was ridiculously powerful especially if you upgrade it to +5 and add the Immunity to Crtical Hits/Sneak Attack properties. This plate already provides Immunity to Mind Affecting Spells. So it can be extremely protective and looks good too. Unless someone knows where I can find the Golden Circlet (Helm that give immunity to mind affecting spells) ?

 

why bother with protection from mind at all ?

protection from evil (a level 1 spell) makes you immune to mind spells from evil creatures (which is most enemies in the singleplayer)