Author’s Note 4/28/2023: This was originally written during Amtgard v8.4 Sunny. As of 7/18/2022 and the release of v8.5 Spicy, this is no longer completely accurate, following the clarification that extraordinary enchantments of the same name cannot be stacked. You can, however, still cast a very large number of Sleight of Mind on someone, as it is magic.

In a full class game of Amtgard, what’s most enchantments I could have at once?

Every now and then, someone asks, “What’s the most enchantments I could have at once?” Technically, this is a request for a clarification of the bounds of the rules, so I don’t get too annoyed when it’s posted on Official Amtgard Rules Clarifications for the fifth time this month.

Normally, of course, you have a maximum of one magical enchantment. Extraordinary enchantments (usually martial classes’ self-only abilities) don’t count towards this limit, so you could have a Warrior with her own Harden (ex) and Ancestral Armor (ex) up at the same time, in addition to an Imbue Armor (m). Scout even has Evolution, which just gives her a whole extra enchantment slot.

Certain enchantments behave specially with regards to the enchantment limit. Blessing Against Wounds doesn’t count towards the limit, but you can’t have any other Protection school spells with it (probably to keep you from stacking ridiculous numbers of Blessings on top of each other). Phoenix Tears does count towards the limit, and gives you one extra enchantment, but only from the Protection school. Most commonly, Druid’s Attuned and Essence Graft increase the enchantment limit altogether.

Usually, it’s an Essence Graft build that gets crowned most-enchantments-at-once. In fact, that’s even my most common build at a Kingdom level event: Essence Graft, Golem, Lycanthropy, Ironskin, Imbue Weapon. If I look annoyed at you after you ask me to declare enchantments, it’s not because I don’t want to tell you. It’s because in the time it took me to say them all, I could’ve killed you already.

The Cancel/Sleight of Mind Trick

Sometimes, people get very clever and propose casting Cancel on the Essence Graft then applying Sleight of Mind on top of the stack. This combination works because Sleight of Mind doesn’t take an enchantment slot, and enchantments only check conditions when they’re first cast, not continually.

Common Misconceptions, 27 (p. 74)

The +3 enchantments don’t get retroactively removed (because the slots were available when they were cast), and Essence Graft is now gone, so anyone can cast enchantments on this person. It’s also actually a seriously effective build, because the Sleight of Mind will now protect your extremely valuable enchantment stack from Dispel Magic. On the other hand, however, this combination doesn’t work, because of Rule 0: “Yeah, I understand that the RoP says that, but also a real human person with a modicum of cleverness is in charge of the game, so no, you can’t do that.”

Common Misconceptions, 15 (p. 73)

So, usually, which is to say, feasibly, if not commonly, the maximum number of enchantments someone wears is 5. Theoretically, you could put this all on a Scout with Evolution, and get one more enchantment. Realistically, though, why would you give all that to a Scout?

What’s the most enchantment strips I could wear at once?

Sometimes, people mix up the question and change it to “What’s the most enchantment strips I could wear at once?” My {EG, Golem, IS, Lycan, IW} combo is 7 spell strips. Since Ironskin and Imbue Weapon are only 1 each, we can replace them with Gift of Fire and Troll Blood (2 and 3) for 10 total strips. Put it on a Scout, give her Gift of Water, too, that makes it 12. Since we’re counting spell strips, you might be tempted to throw in the big “put on 5 spell strips and do something with each of them” spells (Naturalize Magic, Battlefield Triage, etc.). Phoenix Tears + Troll Blood only gets you 5. Add Attuned (6) and Corrosive Mist and we’re only back to 11. Well, let’s give that Scout Corrosive Mist, too. Essence Graft (1), Golem (2), Gift of Fire (2), Lycanthropy (2), Troll Blood (3), and Corrosive Mist (5), make for 15 total spell strips.

May thy power remain, may thy power remain, may thy power remain. May thy power remain, may thy power remain, may thy power remain. May thy power remain, may thy power…

Here’s the other thing, though. Remember that Sleight of Mind trick from earlier?

Magic and Abilities, Sleight of Mind (p. 64)

Does not count towards the bearer’s enchantment limits. That doesn’t just mean we can slap a Sleight of Mind on top of other enchantments. That means we can slap Sleight of Mind on top of itself. Of course, they don’t actually do anything extra – all of them are removed by the first Dispel Magic. We don’t care about practicalities, though. We gave that up as soon as we put Essence Graft on a Scout. All we care about is maximal magic – total enchantments, total strips, it doesn’t matter. They’re both the same. The answer is infinite Sleight of Minds.

Or is it?

Infinite Sleight of Mind was my go-to answer for a while, mainly because it came naturally from the “what if we Cancelled Essence Graft and put Sleight of Mind over it?” build. Sleight of Mind, unlike, for example, Blessing Against Wounds, which also does not count towards the enchantment limit, Sleight of Mind does not have “cannot be worn with” restriction. As long as we have Sleight of Minds available, we can keep putting them on. Sleight of Mind is limited, however, by the number of Bards you have. With Look-the-Part and all points spent, each Bard can only cast 16 Sleight Of Minds per refresh.

The real question, therefore, isn’t “How many enchantments can I wear?”. It’s “How many enchantments can I give?”

Infinite Enchantment Stacks

There are 3 ways to cast infinite enchantments without a refresh.

The first method is Assassin’s or Antipaladin’s Poison (self-only) charge x3 (ex). Since enchantments cannot be Experienced, we need an ability which is already chargeable. Additionally, since these are (ex), they automatically do not count towards the enchantment limit, meaning we can stack them infinitely.

Magic and Ability Mechanics Defined, Ability, 2 (p. 48)

The second method is with Druid’s otherwise little-used Poison Glands spell. Poison Glands grants the bearer Poison, self-only (ex) charge x3. Essentially, this method mimics Assassin’s and Antipaladin’s class ability, allowing infinite stacks of Poison on anyone (except for Barbarians, who cannot receive enchantments).

Magic and Abilities, Poison Glands (62)

The third method is a combination of Warrior’s Harden and Druid’s Golem. Warrior’s Harden is (ex), per life, and, unlike Poison, not chargeable. This does not stop the precocious Warrior, however – instead of charging, she just needs to die a lot. Normally, the enchantment would be lost upon death and respawn, but Golem makes all enchantments worn persistent.

Magic and Abilities, Golem (p. 58)

Not one other, not other (m)agical enchantments, all. She needs only to cast Harden, die, respawn with her persistent Hardens, cast Harden and die again, and repeat infinitely.

Infiniter Enchantment Stacks

At first, we might think, infinite enchantments is infinite enchantments, how does it matter which one? Strictly speaking, any of these applications only gives Aleph-Null infinite enchantments, and are therefore the same number. However, we can give more infinite enchantments per player depending on the method used.

We might think Assassin/Antipaladin is the best plan. An Assassin can just cast Poison and charge by himself forever – a 1:1 infinite enchantment stack to player ratio, whereas both other methods require an entire Druid in addition to the enchantee.

What we do is combine methods 2 and 3.

Out of every 5 players, we need 4 Warriors and 1 Druid. The Druid needs Summoner, 2 purchases each of Attuned, Poison Glands, and Golem. Because of Summoner, each of those enchants have 4 uses per refresh. Cast Poison Glands, Attuned, and Golem on a Warrior, who can now infinitely cast Poison and Harden on herself. Each Warrior now has two infinite enchantment stacks on her – an efficiency ratio of 8:5, 60% higher than the Assassin plan.

You may be considering two objections to this plan: Poison is Death school, and Golem confers Immunity to Death; and a Druid can only have 1 active Golem at a time.

The first objection, however, does not work, because we know that enchantments do not interact with immunities.

States Defined, Immune (p. 51)

We see that a player can still benefit from the Poison from Poison Glands, even if they are Immune to Death.

The second objection also does not work, because of the same Cancel trick from before. Because enchantments only check conditions when they’re first cast, we are free to move Golem around. Enchant Warrior 1, let her create an infinite stack of Hardens. Then cancel Golem and cast it on Warrior 2. Warrior 1’s Hardens are no longer persistent, but they remain active even after Golem is removed.

So now, whenever someone asks you, “What’s the most enchantments I could have?” you can tell them: 8 infinite enchantment stacks for every 5 players, or, if no one is cooperative, 1 infinite enchantment stack for yourself.

All Rules of Play citations refer to v8 – Snowy. Thanks to Heron, Paragon Warrior of the Northern Lights for introducing the Infinite Harden-Golem trick to me.