I think I understand the new system. But one thing I don't like about it is that there appears to be less options. (e.g. making your weapons inflict holy damage or damage on chaotic creatures, making your weapons keen edged, etc.)

Are there any recipes for these? And if you have to give spoilers, don't worry about it. ;)

From what I tried the old receipes still work, but i simply used the ones I had written down. Thus far I didn't find any books listing the old receipes.

I created a holy sword and a flaming sword with massice criticals. Worked.

Where did you get the essences?

Or do the new essences map somehow to the old ones? From what I recall, there were four levels in the old essences (faint, weak, glowing and radiant)and only three now (volatile, brilliant and pristine).

I assume you can get the gems... I already have a blue diamond acouple rubies and a star sapphire... though I'm not sure where I got them :)

This is what I came up with:

The new MotB essences are dropped by monsters.

You might find distillable bodyparts at merchants however.

Gems are not required for MotB recipes.

And as Ragusa says at least some of the OC recipes should still work.

And there isn't less options than the OC, Beren. On the contrary.

An item can hold 4 enchantments now, if you are an Epic Level crafter, and I.E. weapons can now be enchanted with Dispel, Haste, Stat drains and various mind effects besides the usual damage enchantments.

There is a couple of good MotB crafting guides out there.

If you guys thinks it is appropriate, I'll link them here?

[ October 30, 2007, 10:44: Message edited by: Ironhawk Skylord ]

I'll end up linking at least one of them when I write a walkthrough for MotB anyway. :p ;)

Here you go then:

http://www.thieves-guild.net/index.php?pid=294

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/939027/50274

Ha! Second time through and I was able to get TWO Shadow of the Void essences by running around for five minutes :lol:

Now, what will I do with the second one I wonder...

I haven't really spent much time crafting, but I did notice that the odd monster from the OC will now drop essences from MotB, as I got a number of volatile essences while I was playing through my evil campaign.

I finally got around to making and enchanting a pair of kukris for my finesse fighter last night and all I can say is Yikes! There may not be anywhere near the variety of choices as there were for OC recipes but the elemental damage amounts are huge! The minute I enchanted those kukris the difficulty of the game fell through the floor. 12 attacks/round unhasted with that much bonus elemental damage is sick and wrong.

Using the Shadow of the Void or Shape of Fire essences to enchant a weapon is amazing: 6D6 Cold or Fire damage; only negative you get is some fire or cold vulnerability along with it.

This time through I have been using mainly suppress so I have not been getting spirit essences or the unique essences - maybe next time (when I will be playing an evil character) I will be able to try that.

My kukris are currently both +6 with 3D6 Fire and Electrical and 3D6 Cold and Electrical damage respectively. I will see how the essence supply goes but I am hoping to end up with both kukris being +8 with 5D6 fire, cold, and electrical damage. I don't know if the additional hits of the +8 would make up for the lesser damage from not being able to take another elemental damage type but given that Safiya can't cast the acid spells it isn't really an issue.

I would advise that Suppress is not the way to go. IMO, using Devour Spirit once per day or Eternal Rest multiple times is better. Using Devour Spirit is a neutral act according to the game, and Eternal Rest is a Good act; you do not have to be evil to use either of them.

The Shadow of the Void essence(s) can be obtained by using Eternal Rest, so you should be able to get one or two of those at least even if you don't want to use Devour Spirit. I can understand if you don't want to take the Spirit of Fire essence (but I did both runs so far :) ), or some of the other unique essences (I didn't get any of the others).

I promised this silly glowing bear that I am travelling with that I wouldn't go around eating spirits and I am trying to keep my word on that. My craving level is as low as it can be so I have not really been having too much trouble with hunger. I don't have eternal rest which probably means that I missed it somehow.

Don't eat the telthors then; eat the multiple elementals you run across. Besides: Why is it better to kill a spirit that's attacking you vs. devouring it? I interpreted Okku's desire as not to eat any that weren't directly threatening.

The place you get Eternal Rest is in the Death God's Vault in the crematorium. You didn't necessarily have to encounter it until near the end, but there's nothing preventing you either. It's not that big of a deal since there aren't that many undead around other than in the Death God's Vault or the shadow plane, but it comes in handy occasionally.

From the way that they were talking it seemed to me that killing the spirits just sends them off from the prime material plane on to wherever the spirits go next while devouring them means that they completely cease to exist. I suppose I could eat a few elementals.

For the most part it seems like too much work to eat spirits. Well over half of the time when I have tried to eat something one of my followers has killed it before the devour fully activated. I suppose I could just go for them when they are at full health but I gather that you don't get spirit/special essences from doing that so that wouldn't help with crafting.

Right; you don't get a spirit essence unless you kill them with it. I would usually take on something the other's weren't and then use Devour Spirit or Eternal Rest when it reached Near Death. Occasionally, I would just disengage them from the fight when the monster was getting low on health and issue a quick "Hold Your Ground" broadcast command to keep them out.

I got eternal rest last night and proceeded to chow down on a bunch of the undead critters in the Dead God's Vault. I am up to two pristine spirit essences so it looks like I may be able to use a spirit essence recipe by the time Safiya hits level 30. I also picked up a ton and a hal of other essences down there so I am already most of the way towards having what I will need to make my maxed out weapons.

The thieves-guild crafting guide that Ironhawk linked to has a lot of options that were missing from the guide that I downloaded. I think I will stick with elemental damage for my weapons though.

You won't be able to use Pristine Spirit essences until you get Malleate Spirit (which you can get in the academy). You can however use up to four Brilliant Spirit essences with Mold Spirit (if you got that).

Actually I have been assuming you got Mold Spirit. I hope you did, otherwise the Spirit essences are useless I think...

Did you get one or two Shadow of the Void essences right after you got Eternal Rest? Very powerful essences that you only need Mold Spirit to craft with.

Oh, and Safiya didn't get as high as 30 in my first game. Probably because I started with a 20th level character (who did reach 30th level)

I didn't get any Shadow of the Void essences and I took out at least one of each type of undead that I ran into down there with eternal rest. So far the only unique essence that I have got is Myrkul's essence and the only recipe that I see for it is for a scythe that gives a hideous penalty to AC so I am not interested.

I had mold spirit and I got malleate spirit tonight. I just finished my chat with the Founder and my character is at level 28 (would be 30 if I wasn't playing as a drow). Safiya is level 26 I think so I suspect that she will not hit level 30. Oh well, when she hits level 27 I guess I will finish enchanting my kukris. 12d6 elemental damage per hit should be nasty enough anyway.

Ah! Good opportunity to use the spoiler tags: Here's how you get the Shadow of the Void essences:

If you use the dialog choice to use Eternal Rest on the furnace, two Shadow of the Void monsters appear and attack you (they look like wraiths). You can use Eternal Rest on one of them easily, but since there's a 5 minute rest on the ability, in order to get the second, you need to run around for a while :)

Ah, I will definitely try that next time through. I just finished the game so I should be starting my planned evil soul devouring monster character over the weekend. I hit level 30 with the XP from killing the final boss . Talk about not being able to put the level to use.

Safiya ended up at level 29 so she wasn't able to do the final upgrades that I wanted. What a tease.

Sorry it's a little late, but I'm going through MotB right now for the first time. (got it for Christmas).

Safira should be able to do all upgrades if you take the Practiced Spellcaster Feat for her.

Oh, and if someone wants to use some of the OC recipes, then gems is still dropped or found as loot, and Azim Qo’toth at the Mulsantir Bazaar is selling Fairy Dust.

That Fairy Dust can be destilled with a mortar and pestle, which you also can buy from him, and gives OC essences of random type and quality.

I've noticed that using Air Essences reduces the weight of armor. Does this have the added benefit of reducing the Arcane Spell Failure percentage?

I have to say, if you accurately roleplay a good character in MotB you miss a lot of these things. I never got the shadow of the void essences of oneofmany, and I'd imagine there's a good few others I missed too. I'm going evil :flaming:

Using Eternal Rest on the Shadow of the Void in the Furnace is considered good and gives you +2 to good.

Eternal Rest does that every time, and is by patch 1.11 the only spirit feat who does anything to alignment.

I've noticed that using Air Essences reduces the weight of armor. Does this have the added benefit of reducing the Arcane Spell Failure percentage?

I would imagine so, but not having tried it myself, I have no direct experience.

I never got the shadow of the void essences of oneofmany, and I'd imagine there's a good few others I missed too.Yes there are several essences that you don't get unless you devour powerful spirits which you wouldn't do if you were good. However, the two that I like (Shadow of the Void and Shape of Fire), you don't have to be evil.

Furthermore, for some of those essences you need to acquire the 'Devour Soul' feat from U'juk in the Wells of Lurue instead of simply the 'Devour Spirit' ability.

True. And for Coven essenses Spirit Gorge would be required to. Otherwise the 5 minutes cool down of Devour Soul would make it very difficult to get Coven essenses.

And even futhermore 2 of the special essenses are useless in the campaign, since the items required to make something out of them are nowhere to be found in the campaign.

Myrkul's essense requires a broken scythe.

The Founder's essense requires a broken ring.

Those are not in the campaign, but can be cheated in by Debug Console.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm researching crafting in MoTB :)

I didn't craft in the OC, but I'm considering it in the sequel. From what I can figure out you can add 4 things. Does this include things that are already on the item. For instance if I have a +5 weapon is that one of the enchantments or can you not enchant magicial items.

Also, can you upgrade an enchantment. If I make a sword do 1d6 of cold can I later upgrade it to 2d6 of cold when I gain enough levels? Does this count as two enchantments or just one.

I'm guessing for a weapon the ultimate is +8, 5d6 of elemental 1, 5d6 of elemental 2, and 5d6 of elemental 3. Is this correct or am I not understanding this correctly.

It's been a while, but as I recall:

A +5 is one enchantment, yes.

If you apply the same type of enchantment (whether lesser or greater) the new enchantment replaces the old one (so you could for example make that +5 a +1). I can't remember if there was a problem replacing an enchantment if all the slots were already full; I'm pretty sure it was a problem in the OC.

As Blackthorne TA says +5 is one of the enchantments.

There is a limit at 3 enchantments on items in the OC and 4 in MotB since MotB is an epic campaign.

And both in the OC and MotB you can upgrade an enchantment as long as all enchantment slots isn't used. That goes for both crafted items and items bought or got as loot.

So you can upgrade I.E. 1d6 cold to 2d6 cold in MotB, and that only counts as 1 enchantment, as long as you have at least 1 enchantment slot free.

There is other enchantments than elemental damage that you can put on weapons.

And just so you know, some creatures are immune to certain kind of elemental damages. I.E. a fire elemental is naturally immune to fire, meaning that using fire damage against it will actually heal it.

But yeah, you get a really good weapon with an +8 enchantment and 3 kinds of 5d6 elemental damage.

Personally I prefer to make one of the enchantments Vorpal, but that's a matter of taste.

Haste is nice too, since it is permanent Haste.

That is good to know. So while crafting items, I should leave one of the enchantment slots open until I get to max level so I can continue to upgrade them as I go.

I would say you don't want to waste components on enchantments you're going to replace. The components are rare and you don't get them back when you replace an enchantment with a more (or less) powerful one.

While you can certainly do it a few times, I wouldn't use the capability often.

I would say you don't want to waste components on enchantments you're going to replace. The components are rare and you don't get them back when you replace an enchantment with a more (or less) powerful one.

While you can certainly do it a few times, I wouldn't use the capability often.

I plan on cheating and consoling in whatever I need :D