as far as enchanting goes, oblivion was terrible. now i have a hard time thinking of a way that enchanting would not destroy the balance that nehrim has created. one idea that comes to mind is using smithing to create enchanted weapons or armor. you can create a steel longsword, however if you have say a fire damage stone, and a frost damage stone (crystal etc.), you can create a steel longsword that has fire & frost damage enchantments. or adding combinations of ore and gems to armor could create a cuirass, pauldrons, gauntlets etc. with varying buff effects. well assuming you have the smith skills to do so.Sounds like a really cool idea, if you ask me. For instance, since many people love playing with magics(and game itself points out your character is mage, even if you don't learn it), smithing skill is somewhat interesting, but unnesessary for staff-bearers. And for me in person, because I like being a staff-bearer.
So, smithing is somewhat out of touch for me.Now here is a plan: adding new activator craftbench, name it some kind of "enchant machine\bench", make it runinng on magic crystals just like special skills, that allows player with high enough smithing skill to weave crystals with items. And disabling sigil mechanics for all crystals, making them ingridients to enchant process instead. Wait, but now something dings in my head: crystals are fine, and all, but what if succesfull enchant not only adds some bonus magic effect, but in addition change texture of(default) weapon, or armour, adding visual representation of enchanted one(runes on blade, for instance, each rune - each effect, multiple effects = multiple runes on blade). This could be explained like that: enchanter grinds crystal into dust on workbench and with some acid and a bit of magics use this dust as water\damageproof abrasive for rune egraving. Number and magnitude of effects player can insert into item could be highly dependent of his\her smithing skill and material of item. And soulstones, don't forget about them. They are still like "Well, last night i caught up that lich in that little gem and fed my Sword of Impending Fiery Doom with poor bastard's(pardon) soul. Pity, but this is only thing why i hunt them, normally i stand for equal rights for undeads and daedra.". Now, here could daggerfall's soulstones really shine. I really don't know how to recognise what was caught in soulstone yet, but if this could be done, soulstones could be used as capacity expanders - and add some harrasing side-effects.
Retex of weapon\armour like this itself sounds pretty easy, but getting what one want in the end of the road is somewhat tricky to me. Got an idea of replacing default item with retexed, when script dings and adding(if this is possible) relevant enchantment on it. Perhaps, MenuQue could help with actual enchanting process, or one could always turn to good ol' sunder and keening OnHitWith mechanics(for process of enchanting, ofc). That "OnHitWith" statement was for bringing up some more immersion and, okay, more lags. Or one could use already present Oblivion vanilla anims with some minor changes, disable player controls(because running and smithing simultaneously would look silly) and force 3rd person camera to emulate smithing process(if this isn't like it is now - haven't even tried smithing, so can't say for sure
) - just like in Gothic except for 1st person camera. This could even be optional, not everyone likes to stand and watch for ages.Sounds clumsy, apologises for my poor english, but this could possibly add some point to default Nehrim smithing skill. As for pure mages, one who felt in love with brilliant Magewind set, well, this idea could bring on some scroll writing and weave it with smithing(okay, now that was stupid suggestion, how in nine hells paperwork could possibly interact with hammerworkers, except for taxes. But, perhaps, you grind a crystal into dust and use that dust to fill up inkwell... nah, still don't get how that could possibly not conflict with smithing and banned magic in middle kingdom).
I'm ready to work on this issue. But i haven't really modified something for a millenia or so, except from occasional spontaneous retexes for myself and(from now on) some ports from Oblivion to Nehrim.