Greetings fellow dragonborn;

Probably a stupid question but I would rather ask and be corrected than continue to assume I know how things work.

On the subject of enchanted weapons, I have a bow that does 95 straight damage, and then says "Does 50 points of magicka damage".

Does that mean that it does 50 points of non-elemental damage on top of the 95? Or that it does 95 points of damage then drains 50 points of the target's magicka?

Thanks!

It does not drain, it just makes 50 magicka damage. That means if you hit a target with 100 magicka it will have 50 afterwards

If you want to "drain" the look for "absorb"

It's like 95 straight to armor of the mage (which is 0, so 95 damage) and the 50 damage from the magick pool of the mage (which may or may not be large, and cause the mage to attack you with a weapon)

sweet weapon BTW! My best weapon has 46 damage and 10 fire damage with my Phoenix aura. Here's like a nerd guy talking about how to defeat magicians : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPWGNCs7VTI

Drain reduces the targets Health or Mana or whatever, however it can recover over time like ours does.

Damage reduces the target's Health or whatever for the duration of the battle or until they restore it.

Absorb takes away whatever from the enemy and gives it to you. Not sure if it is a Drain or Damage as far as the enemy is concerned.

In the OP's case, the extra damage from the enchantment is going to reduce the enemies ability to cast spells, in other words useless against a Melee enemy, but helpful against a mage.

Thanks, very helpful info from everybody.