Enchanting Guide!
Recent update: Enchant now has a higher success rate than Perm, and can be used wherever you would use Perm, so use it when chanting anything valuable.
The spells! There are four schools of spells used in enchanting. These are Thaum, Sorcery, Necromancy, and Elemental.
Thaum provides the shield spells, strength, dexterity, and regeneration.
Each character should have all six shield spells on their gear. Each item except weapons should have both strength and dexterity. Five items should have regeneration.
Enchanting uses two basic spells to provide effect. Permanency, and Enchant Item. Permanency costs 500mana and only affects the item. Enchant Item costs 1000mana and affects both the item and the character.
When enchanting weapons, you 'perm':
Fire - flame blade
Ice - Cold Steel
Lightning - Electric Charge
Poison - Venom *under necro*
For the fifth chant on weapons, swords get strength and throwers get dexterity ENCHANTED -NOT- PERMANENCY.
For enchanting other items, there are two categories. The first category is armor. Armor, specifically, consists of the items that show up when you look at yourself, and go to the equipment tag. This excludes the weapon, of course. Notice that each item there provides a number in the rating column. The rating column is for armor rating. These items all receive Improved Armor, with the sole exception of cloth items. Cloth items include wizard hats, cloth hoods, bandannas, and the like. Casting Improved Armor (IA) provides no benefit to the armor rating.
Every item should be enchanted with strength and dexterity. You can choose to cast regeneration if you need it on the item. It's generally a good call if you're going to be selling it. You can also cast a shield of one type on an item. It's a good idea to create a list for yourself of which item slots get shields, and which get regeneration, so that you can easily and quickly chant items up. You can mail this list to yourself, so you don't have to worry about ever losing it.
Now, I'm going to break down the schools, and what spells they include.
Thaum:
Empower - always gets enchanted, provides strength.
Nimbility - always gets enchanted, provides dexterity.
Missile Resistance - always gets enchanted, provides Shield vs ranged
Regeneration - always enchanted, provides a chance to regenerate. Regeneration functions off of a calculation of /5, so by wearing 5 pieces with regeneration, you're guarenteed to regenerate each round.
Shield Acid - always enchanted, provides Shield vs Acid
Shield Cold - always enchanted, provides Shield vs Cold
Shield Fire - always enchanted, provides Shield vs fire
Shield Lightning - always enchanted, provides Shield vs lightning
Shield Poison - always enchanted, provides Shield vs poison
Sorcery:
Enchant Item - used to enchant items, affects item and wearer
Improve Armor - used to increase the armor rating of armor
Permanency - used to permanency items, affects item only
Elementalism:
Cold Steel - always permed, used to add cold damage to a weapon
Electric Charge - always permed, used to add electric damage to a weapon
Flame Blade - always permed, used to add fire damage to a weapon
Immolation - always enchanted, deals a small amount of fire damage when you're hit. Also burns the fingers of those pesky thieves!
Necromancy:
Venom - always permed, used to add poison damage to a weapon
These are the only spells that can be enchanted on an item to improve it.
Now, lets get down to the method. There is a lot of superstition about what affects chanting and what doesn't affect it. Some people believe that eating between chants improves your chances. Some believe that the first time a chant doesn't go through, you need to dispel and then str/dex yourself. Some believe you improve your chances by destroying an item first. Some think the key to success lies in moving from one side of the screen to the other, and casting the enchant while moving. Personally, I stand in one spot and keep casting until I succeed or the item blows.
The point is that everyone has their own way of chanting, and none of them are wrong. Find the way that works best for you.
Step 1:
To enchant an item, first you place that item in your inventory, or on the ground in the room you're in. Then you click cast enchant item (or permanency). Now you have a target cursor. Click the item you want to enchant (or perm), and one of three things will happen. If the item glows and is ready for enchantment, you can move on to step 2. If the item glows dimly, and you sense it didn't work, repeat step 1. The third option, the item disintegrates, leaves you looking for another item to enchant.
Step 2:
Pick the spell you want to put on the item. Str(Empower) or Dex(Nimbility) are good choices for everything but weapons. Click the spell you want to cast, and then target the item with the spell. You should see a message about this spell being absorbed. Congratulations, you've completed your first enchant!
Now lets talk about repairs. Each enchant you put on an item increases the repair cost by about 10%. So, for those expensive items, it might be a better idea to skip some of the enchants in favor of having a wizzy just cast the spell on the weapon. It's not permanent, but it can significantly reduce your repair costs.
Alternatively, there is a spell called indestruction which prevents the item it's cast on from taking damage. Just another way to save a few more gold pieces.