Scroll of enchant weapon

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Scroll
Name	Scroll of enchant weapon
Icon

A scroll that places an enchantment on a weapon chosen by the reader, increasing both accuracy and damage. Weapons can be enchanted up to +9. Magical artefacts cannot be enchanted at all.

Reading a scroll of enchant weapon will allow you to permanently improve the enchantment value of a single non-artefact weapon by +1, up to the maximum of +9. This improves the damage and to-hit of the affected weapon by 1.

Strategy

• Although it's tempting to save these scrolls up until you find the perfect weapon, you shouldn't be too stingy with them. Giving a weapon even a middling enchantment bonus greatly improves your ability to survive. It's not a bad idea to enchant whatever weapon you're currently using up to +5 or so, only going past that when you find an end-game quality weapon.
  • Enchantment is a flat +X bonus to damage, after rolling for weapon damage. Low skill, low strength characters might prefer their (already) highly enchanted, weaker base type. But as you gain skill, base damage becomes more important.
• Some treasure troves require you give them a weapon with a certain enchantment level to gain access. While these weapons may occur naturally, it's often easier to find an appropriate weapon and enchant it yourself. Usually, if you save the majority of your scrolls for an endgame-quality weapon, you'll know whether or not you're dealing with a weapon-demanding trove by the time you want to use your scrolls. The contents of a trove are usually worth the investment, though this is by no means guaranteed.

History

• Prior to 0.18, scrolls of enchant weapon could remove curses on weapons.
• Prior to 0.15, weapons had separate enchantment values for both accuracy and damage. As such, there were three different scrolls of enchant weapon (named I, II, and III). I improved accuracy, II improved damage, and III improved both twice. As a weapon's enchantment value improved beyond +3, however, the chance of the scroll succeeding would drop dramatically. Getting a weapon all the way up to +9, +9 would often require dozens of scrolls, most of which were wasted in the process.