Scroll of enchant armour

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Scroll
Name	Scroll of enchant armour
Icon

A scroll that places an enchantment on a piece of armour chosen by the reader. Body armour and bardings can be enchanted up to the same value as their base AC. Bucklers, kite shields and tower shields can be enchanted up to +3, +5 or +8 respectively, and other armour can be enchanted up to +2. Magical artefacts cannot be enchanted at all.

Reading a scroll of enchant armour will immediately add +1 to the enchantment level of selected piece of armour in your inventory, increasing its AC or SH by 1.

Usage

These scrolls can affect any kind of armour, be it hats or helmets, gloves, cloaks, boots, shields, or body armour. However, scarves and orbs are unable to be enchanted.

Artefacts cannot be enchanted by this scroll.

The enchantment cannot be increased once maximum enchant level (see below) is reached.

Maximum Enchantment Levels
Body armour	+(Armour's base AC)
Barding	+4
Shields	+3 for Bucklers, +5 for Kite shields, +8 for Tower shields
All other armour	+2

Strategy

• It is useful to consider the rarity of egos appearing on other pieces of armour. Cloaks are most likely to generate with an extra ego such as poison resistance or willpower, followed by gloves, boots, and hats or helmets.
  • More specifically, consider how likely you are to replace the armour; it might not be wise to upgrade a replacable piece to its maximum. If you enchanted to a +2 helmet and then find a +2 helmet of intelligence, you'd "waste" one more scroll compared to having a +1 helmet and +1 cloak.
  • Body armour can also be replaced quite easily (by a better base type), especially for characters preferring lighter armour.
• It might be tempting to save scrolls of enchant armour for when you've found a set of dragon scales that you'd like to fully enchant and use for the rest of the game, but be aware that surviving that long is much more difficult if your defenses are miserably low. Don't be too stingy with these scrolls in the early- and mid-game if you're having difficulty progressing.
• If you don't have an obvious use for these scrolls, consider saving them for potentially satisfying the requirements of a treasure trove portal.

History

• Prior to 0.19, scrolls of enchant armour would convert dragon hides into their respective dragon armours.
• Prior to 0.18, scrolls of enchant armour could remove curses on armour.
• Prior to 0.8, increasing the enchantment level could fail if it was already high.