Dominions 3: The Awakening/Magic/Magic Items & Forging

In the mysterious and magical world of Dominions hundreds of different magic items exist. Mages with sufficient skill can produce marvelous items of the forge if they have researched the recipes or blueprints for thoese items with the Construction school of magic. These items can then be equipped by all Commander units be it mages, warriors, Pretender Gods or void summons as long as they have approriate item slots.

Construction, Paths of Magic & Forging
The Construction school of magic is a special one as the even levels (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8) provide a new set of magic items for your mages to forge while the odd levels provide the usual ritual and combat spells. These levels correspond to the five tiers of magic items ranging from level 0 trinkets (no research needed) to level 8 unique artifacts (only one of these items can exist at once).

These tiers do not affect the cost or skill needed to build an item, even if higher tiers offer more expensive items. For example, attaining Level 6 in Construction provides blueprints for some very expensive items but also for inexpensive items that do not require much magic skill.

All items have one or two Path requirements. These Paths affect three things: The type and power of mage needed and the gem cost of the item. For example, a mage with two levels in the Death path can forge items that require 2 levels in the Death Path to be forged.

Items require gems according to the formula:

Gems = 5*2^(x-1)

where x is the path level required.

For example, an item that has a path requirement of 3 Death and 1 Fire costs twenty Death gems and five fire gems. The powerful Ring of Wizardry has an Astral path requirement of 5, so it costs 80 gems.


 * You need a mage of sufficient power to see what items you can forge. If you enter the construction menu with a Death 2 mage you can't see items requiring other Paths or of Death beyond level 2. Be sure to check with all your mages to ensure you can construct the most powerful item possible.


 * Some mages get a Forge Bonus that appears as a hammer icon. These mages get a gem discount when forging an item. There is also a Global Enchantment that provides a gem discount.  These discounts also apply to forging involving blood slaves.


 * Forging an item always takes 1 turn of time, whether it is a Sword of Fire trinket or the artifact Forbidden Light. Keep this in mind when planning jobs for your mages; don't waste your Pretender's time making marginally useful trinkets.


 * All forged items count as magic items. This is important considering there are spells that destroy non-magic armor, and Ethereal creatures are hard to hit without magic items. Some troop equipment such as ice weapons and armor also counts as magic.


 * There are magic items which cannot be forged. These are typically unique items belonging to particular monsters.  Sometimes, the random number generator assigns forces much more powerful than an ordinary set of knights and longbowmen as the defenders of a province...

Spoils of war
There is a chance, but not a certainty, of the victor recovering magic items from commanders of either side that fall in combat. If an item is not recovered, it is forever lost; if it was a unique artifact, it can now be constructed again.

Equipping magic items
Commanders with appropriate item slots can equip a magic item. For example, a void summon with no humanoid head cannot equip a helmet while an Ettin has two head slots and can equip two. Some commanders such as Devatas have four hand slots and can wield four single handed weapons or two two-handed weapons.

Any commander can equip a magic item from the item pool as long as he, she or it is in a province with a laboratory. You can also switch items between commanders in the same province. Using fast, sneaky commanders as item "mules" can be good way to get items to commanders on the front. The items worn by a commander show up as small tokens in the strategic view.

In addition, there are items that passively benefit an army merely by being carried by a friendly commander in the province. Supply-generating feed as many troops when carried by a scout as when by carried by your best battle commander, for instance.

Be warned that some items, once equipped, can never be moved. In addition, some magic items may have dangerous side effects, such as attracting the notice of hostile, otherworldly beings...