Rune Enchanting

Rune Enchanting

Bodahn's son, Sandal, enchants weapons for you at party camp. Any time you find or buy a rune, check back with Sandal to see about slotting the rune in your present equipment. You can use a rune if your weapon has an open slot (most lower-tier weapons do not have rune slots; many higher-tier weapons do). When you speak to Sandal, the rune interface will show you which weapons have rune slots in your inventory, who wields the weapon, and the available runes with which to enchant. Simply drag the rune into the open weapon slot to add its ability to the weapon. If you want to make a change, drag the active rune back to the rune inventory section and add a new rune to the weapon.

Runes

There are five rune categories, which increase in potency with each level: novice, journeyman, expert, master, and grandmaster. A novice flame rune, for example, grants +1 fire damage, while a grandmaster flame rune gives +5. There are nine different rune abilities as well: cold iron (damage vs. undead), dweomer (spell resistance), flame (added fire damage), frost (added cold damage), hale (added physical resistance), lightning (added electrical damage), paralyze (chance to root target), silverite (damage vs. darkspawn), and slow (reduce movement speed).

As you collect runes and add them to your weapons, parcel them out based on party needs and class specialties. The damage-based runes generally go to DPS characters or the tank. Hale, of course, goes to a tank, while dweomer tends to go on mage weapons or ranged DPSers (they tend to draw the return fire from enemy spellcasters in the rear). Paralyze and slow runes are excellent on a tank or DPSer weapon to keep the enemy in place while they wallop on them. As with everything, play to your party's strengths and mind their weaknesses. If your tank keeps getting hurt by enemy spellcasters, naturally give him the dweomer rune.