Oblivion:Feather

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	Feather
School	Alteration
Type	Defensive
Effect ID	FTHR
Base Cost	0.01
Barter Factor	25
Availability (Click on any item for details)
Spells Custom Potions Built-In Potions Scrolls Sigil Stones Apparel

Feather M points for D seconds

Feather increases the amount of weight you can carry. Your allowed weight (encumbrance) is increased by M pts; the spell lasts for D seconds and the effect disappears after that time.

[edit] Notes

• Feather is one of the few spells that you can create a maximum permissible custom spell and still be able to cast it in-game. In fact, creating a Feather with an M of 100 pts and a D of 120 seconds (maximum allowed in the spell creation altars) is only an Apprentice level spell. Since feather spells stack you could create multiple versions of the same spell and give them different names doing this multiple times. In other words, if you create one 100 point spell named "Feather 1" and a second 100 point spell named "Feather 2", you can cast them both and get 200 points of Feather. Add "Feather 3" and get 300 points, etc.

• Using Feather has the benefit of making you run faster because it lowers your equipment weight (WornWeight in the movement Encumbrance Modifier): the higher your equipment weight, the slower you run. When wearing Heavy Armor and/or using two-handed weapons, the speed increase can be over 30%.

[edit] Fortify Strength

Another way of obtaining one of the benefits of Feather is with Fortify Strength. Fortify Strength spells allow you to carry 5lbs more per point of Fortify Strength and have additional bonuses, such as increasing your melee damage and speed-of-attack (for Blade and Blunt).

• As a spell Fortify Strength is significantly more expensive than Feather, even if your Restoration skill is better than your Alteration skill.
• When creating an enchanted item, Fortify Strength can provide much more carrying capacity than Feather at low levels.
  • Petty Soul Gems provide 14 points of Feather vs 6 points (equivalent to 30lbs more carrying capacity) of Fortify Strength
  • For Grand Soul Gems the comparison is 50 points of Feather vs 10 points (equivalent to 50lbs more carrying capacity) of Fortify Strength
  • For Transcendent Sigil Stones Feather is much better: 125 points of Feather vs 12 points (equivalent to 60lbs more carrying capacity) of Fortify Strength.
• The benefit of running faster due to reduced equipment weight is only available by using Feather, and not Fortify Strength.

[edit] Bug

On your screen, Feather appears to increase your maximum encumbrance (e.g., when you cast a 100 point Feather spell, your inventory changes from saying that your encumbrance is 250/225 pounds to saying 250/325 pounds, in other words that you are carrying 250 pounds of an allowed 325). However, behind the scenes, the game actually implements Feather by reducing the weight of the items that you are carrying (so in fact your encumbrance becomes 150/225). Although the difference is often semantic, at other times it leads to a glitch: the magnitudes of active Feather spells, potions, or enchanted items are less than expected, possibly even zero.

A typical scenario is that you are trying to bolster up your encumbrance to carry a dungeon's worth of loot, and start casting spells before picking up all of the loot — then realize that your maximum encumbrance is smaller than expected and you can't pick up the loot. If you look in the Active Effects page, all the spells will be listed under Feather, but the magnitude next to many of them will be zero. What has happened is that internally the game has reduced the weight of the items you are currently carrying to zero; casting further spells can not reduce the weight past zero. The same happens for potions or enchanted items. In all cases, the magnitude shown on the Active Effects page is less than it should be and remains fixed at that low magnitude even if you subsequently pick up more loot. For enchanted items, the effective magnitude is set when you equip the item; to reset Feather magnitudes from enchantments, simply unequip and re-equip the item.

Some implications of this are:

• If you want to carry a lot of loot, you must first pick it all up, become over-encumbered, and then add your Feather effects (cast spells, drink potions, or equip enchanted items).
  • If you subsequently reduce the amount you are carrying, you will still have the same maximum encumbrance number until you alter (or lose) one of your active Feather effects.
• It is impossible, even in the Construction Set, to add permanent Feather effects to characters using abilities. Regardless of the effect's specified magnitude, in game its magnitude always ends up being zero, presumably since the abilities are resolved before encumbrance.
• Feather effects increase your character's movement rate (see notes above).

This bug does not apply to Fortify Strength effects, which do genuinely increase your character's maximum encumbrance.

[edit] See also

Related effects:

• Burden
• Fortify Strength

[edit] Alchemy Ingredients

The following alchemy ingredients can be used to make a potion of Feather:

Apprentice Flax Seeds Smoked Baliwog LegSI Sweetcake Venison

Journeyman Sacred Lotus Seeds Expert Lady's Mantle Leaves Somnalius Frond

[edit] Apparel with Feather

Gray Cowl of Nocturnal 200pts
Cursed Boots of the Thrall^SI 105pts
Cursed Pack Horse Boots^SI 105pts
Morag Tong Greaves^MR 100pts
Talisman of Abetment^SI 75pts
Ring of Happiness^SI 70pts