You can use crafting skills and feats to create or enchant items to either sell or to use. Item crafting in Mask of the Betrayer does not involve any randomness: either you can craft an item or you can’t. The five types of crafting are: smithing, alchemy, enchanting, disposable item creation, and wondrous item creation. Enchanting and wondrous item creation function differently in Mask of the Betrayer than in the Original campaign while smithing, alchemy and disposable item creation are unchanged. Details on thecrafting system in the original campaign can be found here.
How is crafting different in Mask of the Betrayer?
• Benches are no longer required. They have been replaced by a single new item called the Enchanter's Satchel. The Enchanter's Satchel, which you'll find in Safiya's inventory, is portable - allowing for "crafting on the fly". • The MotB essences do not require the use of the mortar and pestle. It's been replaced by a new item: the Shaper's Alembic. The Alembic can be used in a variety of ways: to combine or split essences (converting them from one power level to another), or to alter essences of one type and change them to another (air to power for example). • No distillable body parts. Monsters now drop "volatile essences" instead. Some distillable body parts may be found at various merchants however. • No recipe Tomes. All standard recipes are explained in the item descriptions of the essences themselves. (hint, hint) • Gems are no longer a standard component of enchantment recipes. The new recipes are also simpler. • Fewer restrictions on which types of equippable items can be enchanted. Any equippable item (helmets, rings, amulets. etc.) can be enchanted in Mask of the Betrayer with the exception of metal bracers (gloves can be enchanted). Ranged weapons (long bows, short bows and crossbows) can be enchanted but the list of available enchantments is restricted (see below). • Items can now have four enchantments for Epic Level crafters.
Tip: Safiya, your first companion, has all the appropriate crafting skills and crafting feats that you'll need. Her craft armor and craft weapon skills will need to be enhanced if you plan on farbicating your own armor, shields or weapons out of exotic materials. She also has the Enchanter's Satchel and Shaper's Alembic in her inventory when you meet.
Smithing
Smithing is used to create unenchanted weapons and armor. The system in Mask of the Betrayer is unchanged from the Original Campaign. If you are familiar with it already simply skip this section. If you need a refresher course or are unfamiliar with smithing, simply click here. (A link at the bottom of that page will return you to this page when you are done.)
To smith an item, simply open the blacksmith bench and place the mold and raw materials inside. The mold description will tell you how much raw material you need to use. Use the smith hammer on the bench and your item will be crafted if you have used the proper quantity of materials and if you have the necessary skill.
Using non-standard raw materials (anything other than iron ingot, wooden plank, and leather hide) requires greater skill for success. For more details, check out the exotic materials properties guide and the crafting with exotic materials sections. The skill levels required for crafting weapons or armors are unchanged from the Original campaign.
Essences
Essences remain the lynch-pin of magical item creation. Typically, you’ll find volatile essences. Though this grade of essence is not powerful enough to enchant items, they can be combined to create brilliant essences, which are. Brilliant essences in turn can be combined into pristine essences, which can be used to create even greater enchantments. The primary types of essences you’ll find are Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Power.
These five types of essences can be combined, divided and converted by using the Shaper’s Alembic, which is in Safiya’s inventory.
The Alembic has the following capabilities:
Combine Essences: Upgrade a stack of volatile essences into a brilliant essence or a stack of brilliant essences into a pristine one. The full value of the essences is retained.
8 Volatile essences (all of the same type) -> 1 Brilliant essence (of the same type)
8 Brilliant essences (all of the same type) -> 1 Pristine essence (of the same type)
Divide Essences: Breaks down a pristine essence into many brilliant essences or a brilliant essence into volatile ones. The full value is retained.
1 Brilliant essence (of any type) -> 8 Volatile essences (all of the same type)
1 Pristine essence (of any type) -> 8 Brilliant essences (all of the same type)
Convert Air, Earth, Fire, or Water Essences into Power Essences. Some value is lost in this conversion, however.
Convert one Power Essence into many weaker Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Essences. Some value is lost in this conversion as well.
1 Brilliant Power essence -> 8 Volatile non-power essences (all of the same type)
1 Pristine Power essence -> 8 Brilliant non-power essences (all of the same type)
Spirit Essences
A sixth type of essence is the Spirit essence. Spirit essences can be divided and combined like other essences using the the Shapers Alembic. They can not be converted into other types of essences however. Using Spirit Essences in enchanting requires one of the following two feats:
Mold Spirit: • Description: You gain the ability to use spirit-based crafting essences gained from Devour Spirit in special new crafting recipes. • Required for recipes with volatile and brilliant spirit essences - Where: When returning to the veil you will receive a key from Magda opening another door in the Shadow of the Veil. In the Teleporter Room on the Shadowplane (in the theatre) you will find a golem. You can pull out his core and automatically will gain mold spirit.
Malleate Spirit • Description: You refine your ability to work with spirit-based crafting essences, and are now able to use recipes that feature any grade of spirit essence. • Required for recipes with pristine spirit essences • Prerequisits: Mold Spirit • Where: Use the strange box from the Thayan Academy on a brilliant spirit essence.
Recipes which require either of these feats are not dependant on your characters caster level.
Note: There are brilliant spirit essences available for sale in the Academy. These essences need to be broken down and recombined before they can be used.
Enchantment Recipes
Enchantment recipes are nothing more than a set of instructions which details the number, type and combination of essences that are required to produce a certain magical enchantment on an item. In Mask of the Betrayer, basic recipes are found in the item descriptions of the essences themselves.
Special recipes and special essences can also be discovered through play. These recipes may provide more exotic properties or even create powerful artifacts. For recipes involving spirit essences the Mold Spirit feat (gained through play) is used instead of casting a spell.
For a full list of Recipes, jump to the appropriate page from the list below.
WARNING: The armor, weapon and special recipe pages contain spoilers. Use them at your own risk.
Enchanting Items
To enchant an item, just place the item and one or more brilliant (or pristine) essences into the Enchanter’s Satchel. Then cast the appropriate spell on the satchel. No gems, no eye of newt, no tongue of frog. Item, essence, and spell are all you need. This a mjaor departure from the OC. Wondrous Item crafting no longer uses raw materials but completed items instead. A complete list of all spells used in the Mask of the Betrayer for crafting can be found in the crafting spell list.
Warlocks can use their Imbue Item ability on the satchel to mimic the spell. (Note: Unfortunately, Obsidian forgot to allow the required Feats "Craft Magical Arms and Armour" and "Craft Wonderous Items" for Warlocks. To fix this, simply open the Console, type 'DebugMode 1', type 'givefeat 1093', type 'givefeat 1092', type 'DebugMode 0' and then close the the Console.) Note: Should be fixed in patch 1.12.
Unfortunately, Safiya can't cast any acid based spells as they are in her prohibited school. To enchant items requiring those spell, either your own character will have to do the enchanting or you'll have to utilize scrolls and the UMD skill on another character.
Your character’s level determines how many and how powerful of essences you can use in crafting. If your character doesn’t have the appropriate Item Creation feats, then you can use Safiya’s abilities to create it. The higher the enchanter’s caster level, the more essences they can use in recipes:
Maximum Essences by Caster Level
Caster Level Max # of Brilliant Essences Max # of Pristine Essences 12 1 0 15 2 0 18 3 0 21 4 0 24 4 1 27 4 2 30 4 3
Note: The term caster level in MotB actually refers to the CHARACTER level for multi-classed characters. For example, a wizard 10 / rogue 10 would actually have a caster level of 20 not 10.
Enchanting Limitations
Items are restricted to a maximum of three enchantments as in the original campaign. If the enchanter is of an epic level (21 or higher), the maximum number of enchantments is increased to four. Existing enchantments may be upgraded. Some exotic materials have special magical properties. These special properties count against both the three and four enchantment limit. See the exotic materials property guide for more details. Weight reductions and reduced Arcane Spell Failure on *armour* do not count as enchantments, but they do on Shields. NOTE: Although the manual claims it is possible to upgrade existing enchantments once the enchantment limit is reached, it apparently does NOT function that way in the game. If you plan on upgrading an enchantment later on, KEEP A SLOT OPEN!
If a similar enchantment is already on the item, then your new enchantment will replace it. Enchanting an item with a property it already has will replace the item's existing property, whether or not the new property is better than the existing one.
You can enchant any equippable item except for metal bracers. Ranged weapons can be enchanted (as of v 1.11) but are restricted to the following types of enchantments:
Enhancement_Bonus,
Enhancement_Bonus_ vs_Alignment_Group,
Enchancement_Bonus_ vs_Racial_Group,
Enhancement_Bonus_ vs_Specific_Alignment,
Special Note on Enchantments
It is still possible to utilize the enchantment recipes from the original campaign in the Mask of the Betrayer expansion. The enchantment process is fully detailed in the OC Crafting Guide. Although limited in number, gems can be purchased or found by adventuring (there is a Blue Diamond in the Barrows), and recipe tomes are also available from merchants should you need them. One of the merchants in Mulsantir (Azim Qo'Toth) will also sell Fairy Dust. Fairy Dust can be distilled by using the mortal and pestle (which Azim also sells) to create random essences of weak, faint, glowing or radiant power. These types of essences are the only ones that can be used in the OC enchantment recipes. The volatile, brilliant and pristine essences found normally in MotB can NOT be substituted in the OC recipes. In addition, the OC recipes require access to a magician's workbench which can be found in the Veil in Mulsantir or at the Thaymount Academy.
Acknowledgements:
A very special thanks to JaegerBane of the Bioware forums for testing a number of the weapon recipes.
