So I've been reading the enchant folder and it seems like some suggestions could be helpful with development. I'm going to start with sigil harvesting and how I'd like to see that working. Then, I'll go over a what I'd like to see with artificing. Of course many of my suggestion my not be able to be used because of design decisions or system limitation but I hope that at least it will serve as inspiration and provoke a healthy discussion. If all goes well I'll post more suggestions along the same vein.

What's been put out for harvesting sigils has seemed rather strange to me. Enchanting is a skill that screams magic and yet it needs to include NMU's. There was a recent post that described magic users cast outside their mana types as having stubby arms and NMU having no arms. With a situation like that how do we get NMU invovled in a magic based crafting system? Give them arms! Or more specifically magical devices that approximate the attunement of a magic user.

I see sigil harvesting as a three step process. First you sense the location of it or seek it out. Next you manipulate it to make it stronger. Finally, you scribe the sigil to a scroll. The first step to me says attunement skill if in your native magic type. For NMU or anyone trying to sense outside their mana type a device is used. I would put these as sensing foci. Using a sensing focus will instead use your arcana skill to sense the mana flows perhaps better than a natural magic user. I'd like to see gage flow play a roll here possibly. Then, when manipulating the sigil to get higher precision we'd test primary magic for native users and sorcery for none native magic users which would increase odds of disaster. The safer route is to use a simple wand. It does not cast spells but manipulates the mana streams to converge to better see the sigil and will instead test arcana. Finally, scribing would be easy for everyone and would involve either scholarship or arcana. Other skills like perception and outdoorsmanship can be included with the test where it makes sense. Any backlash caused by collecting sigils in a justice zone will result in forbiden practices charge.

So for the three disciplines we have Invoking, binding and artificing. I suggest we change the current artificing to invoking. Invoking will be about the manipulation of mana for spell effects. Covered here will be foci, fonts, wands, runestones, rods, staves, and scrolls. From DnD terms it's craft wands, craft staves, craft rods and scribe scrolls with some other bits added in to help creation in dragon realms. One of the main limits of things created here is that it needs to be held in the hands to be used.

foci will include anything that helps see mana and focuses mana:Sensing foci, ritual foci, tm foci and sorcery foci. Crafting could progress in that order. Lowest skill would only manipulate AP sigils and spells. Then, you'd haved to spell book foci. Followed, by mana type. Then mixed mana type. Foci would have a durability that would limit how much you could use them before they need to be re-tuned. Have different speeds you could focus them.

Wands start with harvesting helpers and maybe advance to help with sorcery a bit and give NMU a buy in to cast spells and use arcana instead of other magic skills. More advanced wands would cast cantrip level spells. Followed by wands that cast intro spells. I would follow the design philosophy of dnd and cap wands at only being able to cast basic spells at the most. I see wands and runestones kinda as the same type of item. except a runestone enables you to prepare the spell. The wand will facilitate the whole cast. Wands will only have charges and will not be able to be recharged(maybe with a tech) and can only be made from a stick(maybe a tech here will allow weapon 'wands') I think balance wise the wand would still need a preperation time as well as take up hand slot maybe your primary hand. It would also test against your arcana skill at least for any mana types outside your own. Sure, you can use a fire shards wand but you will have to forgo a weapon at most or shield at least, not be able to choose the mana level and forgo a tm foci and instead of mana as your limits your wand charge act as your 'arrows'. For extra fun add in wand failure that causes nerve damage.

Rods are your metamagics. In dnd you hold the rod and it affects your spells as if you had a feat. Lots of meta magic in dragon realms. for spell casting you use a wand for metamagic you hold a rod. The basic rods could be easy as duration, potency and integrity buffs. Requires being held and could double as a blunt object. More advanced rods would act as all the different metamagic spells. Magic feats could also be used as rods. So for instance you could have a rod of utility mastery or a rod of raw channeling. A rod would have any ability that augments how a spell is cast. These again would have to be held to be used so would take up one of two hand slots. I'm not sure about charges or how long they would last. I'll leave that up to balance consideration. I believe dnd had them as permanate items but they were very pricey and not something you'd get out of the gate. It's also possible to limit spell the rods by spell tier as dnd did which would mean you'd have a rod of utility mastery but only for intro and basic spells. A more advanced rod would cover all spells. They can also be broken up by mana type and spell book. So at the lowest level you can have a rod of utility mastery for intro and basic fire manipulation spells.

Staves will be similar to wands but go up to advanced and esoteric spells, have fewer charges, multiple spells and require two hands to use. Could function pretty much like a moonblade for spells you know. Just hold the spell till you're ready to cast it and your recharge it when you have down time. Spell nodes can have a minimum burn out duration.

In dnd scrolls are a one off spell and dragon realms has room for this I think. It would basically act as an unleash spell that destroyed the scroll every time. Whether we add a new item or expand the functionality is up for debate. You can again add backlash components maybe consuming the scroll with no effect. No sure how often it'd be used. For a Moon mage with unleash probably never. But a NMU may see value in scroll they cast when they need to with the help of a wand(or focus) of course. The availability of scrolls would have to go up though and whether that's wanted is a different matter.

For fonts I think you should control what could be applied where. Wands would take very specific fonts for instance and wouldn't really be the place you play with those features. Maybe a better font could give a wand more charges or cast spells at a higher potency but the functionality of a wand should stay the same.

I think these things would be very desirable for a enchanter to make and give a niche to invoking. I would as a general rule(there could be exceptions) keep tm spells and metamagic as invoking only. Most of the font and sigil play would come with the other sub disciplines. Binding will be craft magical arms and armor. focusing on just enchants for weapons and armor which comes with it's own limitations. and artificing will be craft wondrous items and craft magic rings. artificing is where you will find your stat/skill buffs and most of your general enchantments like self playing instruments and ring/cloak of invisibility. I think right now the design goal is having a clear vision sigil and depending on the sigil and font it would have different effects and would be limited on the 'enchant size' of the item you were trying to put it on. I would say that the enchantment for a wand(or runestone) is different than an item with a permanate or semi permante use and should there for have different restrictions and advantages. So in invoking you might have a wand of clear vision and buff your perception but with artificing you'd have goggles or glasses of clear vision and buff your perception that way. That's enough rambling for now. Hopefully it's coherent. If you've made it through all that, thanks for reading.