bigsinky

OMG i have just re read my previous post. I am such a pure geek now.

Ant

Noob question, but if I enchant them what does it do?

How do I collect souls?

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

you've gone a similar path as me except I did LIGHT armour and one handed. I think your sneak rating is dependent on the armour you are
wearing...

and a Daedric dagger does stupid amounts of damage when sneaking (x2 damage) and you have the x15 damage sneak perk. not much can live after a sneak attack (x30 damage in total), plus you get loads of attacks with such a fast weapon.... and I dual enchanted it with Fire and Ice damage, eats soul gems but they're easily available to refill it

The best Soul Gems are Grand ones btw -the Black Soul gems can be filled to Grand level from people, but grand is the highest you can get (Azuras Star is useful as a refillable gem btw, and the quest is a good one)

As above though - I used the enchanters philters to boost my stats and you need to enchant REALLY quickly, so you must know what you want to and have the items readily available (the pc version helps as you click much more quickly with the mouse controls)

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

2 ways:

there are weapons which soul trap on death, or you learn the soul trap spell and cast it on something just before you kill them. Most enemies will stumble when almost dead. Cast it then, and deliver the coup de gras.

Just make sure you are carrying a selection of empty soul gems at all times.

Weaker enemies like crabs you cast the spell then kill 'em - have your favourites / hot keys set up accordingly so you can swap quickly.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

and how do you think I feel after typing my reply?

Ant

When I do get these soul traps of spells? Ony lvl 2 ATM

HPLovecraft

Lol

To enchant an item you will need a filled soul gem and to have learned an effect that can be applied to the item in question.

You learn effects by destroying (disenchanting) items at the arcane enchanter. Once you have learned an effect eg. resist fire, the knowledge of applying that effect to any item becomes permanent, and will be added to your list of appliable effects.

The filled soul gem you select is consumed during the process and the bigger the soul gem used the more powerful the enchanted item. Soul gems increase in power in the order petty, lesser, common, greater and grand.

You can buy (or find) both empty and full soul gems. To fill an empty soul gem in your inventory you must cast 'soul trap' on a creature and then kill it. If successful you will get a sound like lightning and an animation of the soul being sucked in. Note that you must have a soul gem large enough to accommodate the soul you are trying to trap otherwise it will be lost.

The more powerful the creature the more powerful and bigger the soul eg. Mudcrab = petty, daedra/draugr lord = grand. It is best to carry quite a few of each type of empty soul gem so you know the right soul goes into the right gem. What I mean by this is that if you are carrying, say, only 2 empty grand soul gems and you cast 'soul trap' on a mud crab and kill it that piddly underpowered 'petty' soul will end up filling your nice shiny and expensive grand soul gem. On the other hand if you kill a daedra lord, and are carrying anything less than an empty grand soul gem, you will not get the soul etc.

Your enchanting skill (and any perks from the enchanting tree) also determine to the power of the item. The best way to increase your skill is to knock out as many weak items as you can and sell them. Use cheap daggers, boots, helmets,rings etc and petty or lesser soul gems and keep churning items out.

You will notice that when you select a weapon for enchantment you get a sliding bar where basically you can elect to give the item more charges (hits) but at the cost of less damage per hit. Here bigger soul gems will give you more charges. When a weapon becomes depleted of charges you will need to use a filled soul gem to recharge it (select the item in inventory and left or right bumper to recharge it). This only applies to weapons.

Hope that helps !

bigsinky

looks like i will be killing a load of mud crabs and enchanting a load of iron daggers with petty soul gems then . I am determined not to cheat. I will exploit weaknesses in the game though. I did this with blocking using a mud crab. I did it with sneak using the blind man in the cave, did it with destruction on the Companion trainer, did it with archery at the end of the Companion Quests, i did it with speech in the wine shop.

GlesgaKiss

I seem to remember being slagged as a geek for playing modern warfare! But your secret's out now.

bigsinky

but modern warfare is just running a round in a frenzy of killing and maiming..........oh hang on a minute.....

HPLovecraft

I am hoping they will somehow raise the level cap for the DLC and allow you to fill up your perk trees.

In fallout 3 etc the leveling was an experience point based system, so raising the cap was relatively easy for them to do.

Here we have a system based on skills, which have traditionally maxed out at 100 in previous games in the series. But I did notice that once you max a skill here it shows a 101 still on the skill bar.

I'm wondering if they are going to allow skills to go above 100 ? Maybe grandmaster 125 ?

It's not as much fun to me once my character stops gaining power so I do hope they raise the cap.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

So who has beaten Hamelyn and at what level?

I have met him at level 10 - yeah right!!!!

I am now backing out of that idea!

bigsinky

Yes I would like to be able to max out all the perks in all trees. Been busy looking for grand soul and black soul gems. filling them and then enchanting cheap iron armour pieces with fortify smithing. My problem is when I fortify them it is only 8% using the black soul gems. I have a ring of smithing which is 17% and i can do only 2 pieces of armour with fortify smithing. i can also do a necklace.

ring = 17%
Necklace = 8%
Iron armour = 8%
Iron Gauntlets = 8%

Is there any potions i can take to make these % even higher or is that the limit. I don't have 100 enchantment either, will this make a difference? do i sound desperate?

ScoobyWon't

Started playing at 16:00 yesterday. Suddenly realised it was 00:30 and went to bed. Might turn it on now and see if I can find some crabs.

bigsinky

another one sucked in. enjoy.

HPLovecraft

Those percentages will rise quite a bit when your enchantment skill gets higher. Just what is your skill at the moment ? The perks make a big difference too - if your enchantment is at 50 take the 'insightful enchanter' perk and it will make your 'fortify skill' enchantments 25% stronger if you haven't done so already.

I think when I first enchanted my plate mail with fortify magika regen it was only 8% added to the regen rate, due to my low skill and lack of perks. With a 100 skill and the relevant perk my current plate mail now does 62% fortify magika regen.

BTW there is no difference in power between a black soul gem filled with a grand soul and a grand soul gem filled with a grand soul. Black soul gems are useful though as they allow you to capture human souls and will always give you a grand soul when you do so, even if it's only a peasant you kill. Sorry if you already knew this

Trout

iTrader: (1)

No one sorted out Hamelyn yet then?!

HPLovecraft

Aye, killed Hamelyn. Can't remember what level I was when I did it but he certainly took me by surprise and killed me on the first encounter.

Apparently, if you change into a werewolf your growl will send him into the 'fear' state and then you will have a chance to kill him.

bigsinky

ok then. out to kill some peasants then

seriously though. only 2 perks for enchantment. enchantment at about 70 atm. damn at least another 5 levels to go before "insightful enchanter" and at level 50 and above the level ups come a lot slower now

InvisibleMan

was going to get this but held off due to all bugged patches. so its all playing well im guessing. may get it now or see what dlc they come up with

bigsinky

was this on a quest? I have only completed act 1. still to do the embassy. completed the Companion side of the story and exterminated a load of animals. level bonuses suck big time (only 300 gold) but the pest control gigs are a lot easier than the rescue missions which only pay the same amount.

Converting iron ore in to gold, making necklaces and enchanting them. also making a crap load of iorn daggers and enchanting them as well. my problem is the availabilty of soul gems. enchanted daggers sell for about 250. slow but hey it's all money. when i have a few coins gathered I pop up to the mages' college in Winterhold and speak to the elven fence who sells all kinds of spell books and enchanted items. I learn the spells and disenchant to items to learn their secrets. got quite a collection of destruction spells now. Flame/Frost cloak is fun especially with arrows that do fire/frost damage as well

bigsinky

the xbox360 version is still a PITA in my opinion. freezes more often than not during gameplay. wait for 10 or 20 seconds and your back again. I find it happens more when you are running somewhere.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Hamelyn is on the quest from Brynhoff in Rifken when you join the Guild of Thieves. You need to go and de-pest the Honingbrew Meadery.

He suddenly pops up in a cavern in the long tunnel - fires muckly big icicles at you. Hit three times and you are toast (well, more like frozen fish finger!!!)

Trout

iTrader: (1)

PS3 version is pretty good - no freezing now I have turned off autosave.

Load times between scenes are pretty long though.

BTW where do you find all the mudcrabs?

Ant

People recommend doing side quests before the main?

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Mudcrabs can be found on most river banks, a lot of them are disguised as rocks though so are easy to miss.

HPLovecraft

Bigsinky -

If you are having trouble with supply of soul gems have you tried waiting 48 hrs at the merchant stall then trying again? Think most restock every 2 days or so. Same trick can be used to get the merchants money back up too if they run out when you are selling. Or is it that you are running out of money ?

Dwemer ruins are a good source for soul gems too - the spiders and guardians seem to carry them quite often.

Mudcrabs are very easy to spot if you walk the riverbank and are casting 'detect life' as you go along.

Detect life and detect dead very useful in general especially in dungeons - lets you know whats around the corner and in picking out targets for sniping in the dark. You gotta use detect dead to pick up draugr etc.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I went to a river where I was overwhelmed with Mudcrabs earlier. Went back and not a single one!!!

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

I would say: get to the top of the mountain and shout a lot then completely ignore the main quest until you've got nothing better to do.

You need those plot lines to unlock a couple of goodies and then you can get on and do your own thing

bigsinky

Money is never a problem, more would be nice but i can always afford soul gems. I always manage to make enough transmuting iron ore into gold, making necklaces and enchanting them. It's just grand soul and black souls gems dont come up that often. I will now buythem when available and store them in the house for when i have the right enchanting perks.

only done one dwemer ruin, where i had to take a book back. yes they produced some nice stuff and a load of dwarven scrap.

will have to see if that spell is available in Winterhold, it might prove useful later on. I am finding random mauraders and bandits in the various locations I explore are now a lot tougher at level 50. The double damage with sneak and a Daedric bow helps a lot. You can snipe from range and as long as you remain undetected a couple of arrows does the job. In some of the tighter caves and dungeons it might be handy to know what's around the corner. What sort of level are these spells anyway. i take it they dont require much to cast?