Maximum Possible Enchant, Forging, and Metals
There is a problem with enchant and how it relates to forging, namely, thanks to the change with enchant to allow wizard enchanted weapons to be blessable, it is now cheaper and easier to forge perfect steel weapons and enchant them to 4x than to forge a perfect vultite weapon.
It makes no sense that more common metals should be more desirable, but they are, and that is a problem.
Some would say this is a forging problem and should have a solution found within that system. I think however that since an enchant change caused this issue, maybe another enchant change could fix this. Futhermore, the idea I have come up with I feel helps the enchant system in many other ways as well.
The concept is the same that is found in almost all other magical item manipulation based spells or abilities in the game, namely that materials have a quality and that that quality determines how much magic they can hold. You find this with scrolls, and all imbeddables. You find this system in place in the Scroll Infusion, Imbue, and Recharge Item spells. However, this is not the case with metals for the enchant system. All metals, no matter of base quality, can be enchanted to the same 10x limit by players (with the right, rare, potions of course).
Why is it, that this system alone, the system that perhaps generates the most benefit, places so little importance on the base material quality? It goes against the grain of all other magical systems, and it should be changed.
I propose that all metals should be given a maximum possible enchant, not unlike their current minimum enchant (aka starting enchant aka natural bonus). This enchant being the maximum possible level a player would be able to enchant the item to.
The easiest formula I can think of for this would be a +20 or 2x(base enchant) whichever is higher. So Golvern & Veil Iron would have a max of +50. Vultite, Rolaren, etc would have a max of +40. Glaes, Mithglin, etc would have a max of + 30. Imflass +24, Mithril, Steel, Ora, and anything else +10 or lower would have a max of +20.
Or, it could be a set amount + the initial enchant. Say metals under +20 base enchant would have a max enchant of +20 over their base. So imflass at +32, mithril at +25, Ora at +30, steel still at +20. Then metals above 4x would have +25 added to their base (so that a theoretical 10x is still possible).
The third option would be for GMs to just go through and assign maximum enchant values for each metal and wood type, so they would be able to make unique considerations for each.
Some may see this is a nerf to enchant, it is not. This doesn’t change the power of enchant, the demand of enchant, or the value of enchant. All this does, really, is change which metals a customer is likely to hire a wizard to enchant with.
Some may see this as “unfair” because they have a say mithril themed outfit and now they won’t be able to use mithril without taking a loss on the enchant value. Firstly, this system would of course grandfather in all existing gear, secondly, you can always use your “rp metal” as the hilt, as embellishments, as spikes, cross guards, trim, edging, and all the other nifty ways you can add secondary materials to your item’s description. It just will not be the base metal.
In addition to fixing the little forging problem I think this would also help enchant in that it would create an additional restriction on high level (8x+) enchants. The creation of a new restriction, metal types, should logically lead to a lessening of the existing restriction, potion availability. In other words, I feel that this change would result in more high level enchanting potions being released.
Finally, this would also help the game and enchant by likely lessening restrictions on other metal types or enchant methods. GMs may not want players to be able to enchant razern to 7x or 10x, but if razern had a maximum possible enchant of +25 maybe GMs would allow it to be enchanted, in spite of the natural crit weighting it has. The same goes for Rhimar, Drakar, Coraesine, Zorchar, Gornar, and all the other special property metals. All these metals that are currently not enchantable might be made enchantable so long as they have a maximum enchant built in.
If you do not want to simply outright put a hard limit on enchanting certain metals beyond a theoretical maximum amount, then a compromise could be those metals simply gaining exponential increases in failure rates beyond a certain point, so that they are still possible, if very risky, to enchant further.
Irregardless, metal (and wood I guess) quality should play a larger role in enchant, and perhaps other magical systems. It adds more depth to the game, and supports the official documentation on material rarity and desirability.