GCO - Guard Class Overhaul [WIP]

[Indigoblade]

I need a change of pace. Making bandits for OBIS is fun and all, but I would like to make other stuff too sometimes. I recently noticed that guards in general are not getting a whole lot of love. So... I'd like to introduce my newest project:

 

Guard Classes Overhaul - GCO

GCO is a modification that diversifies guards into specific types that will allow them to defend their holds better (or if your feeling a bit evil, guards fighting you better)

What I hope to include:

-Vanilla guards will have a general stats and level buffs, nothing too op however, just enough to match the new guard types.

-All guards will use weapons that local blacksmiths are making and armors will be a bit more diverse.

-Guards will keep their Hold specific outfits AFTER they are conquered during the civil war (that always bothered me).

-A total of 16 guard types so far, 7 of them will be spread across all of Skyrim while 9 of them will be Hold specific that shows off the Hold’s personality. So in each Hold you will see only 8 types of guards (7 generic and the 1 Hold specific).

-Renames the guards to match the Hold instead of the town they are protecting. Guards should be protecting the Hold, not just the town.

Generic guard types:

Guard - Your typical average guard from vanilla Skyrim, GCO updated

Berserkers - Dual wielding masters of axes

Archers - Guards more suited for ranged combat

Scouts - Much better at chasing down criminals

Mages - Very rare type of guards who uses their skills in magic to defend the town

Bruisers - Guards who can take a hit as well as deal damage

Defenders - Guards who specializes at blocking and taking damage

Hold Specific Types:

Eastmarch, Stormaxes - Guards that use massive axes that symbolizes the strength and glory of the Nords. They wear thick furs and stand taller than the other guards.

Falkreath, Rangers - Guards who use the skills they learned in the forest to hunt down criminals with both blade and blade. Opponents that run would be quickly tracked down.

Haafingar, Legionnaires - The best soldiers of the Imperial Legion who are sworn to protect the rulers of the Hold. Wears better armor and weapons than the other guards of that hold.

Hjaalmarch, Poisoners - Due to commodity of poisonous plants and the poverty of the hold, several guards uses cheap or homemade poisons to quickly deal with threats efficiently.

Pale, Giantslayers - Guards that are used to combat the giants that are very common in the Pale. To deal with giants, these slayers need to deal as much damage as possible in one swing.

Reach, Sentinels - Guards trained to deal with the many Forsworn attacks. Trained in heavy armor to counter the stick and bone weapons that the Forsworn commonly use.

Rift, Rogues - Guards that are used to dealing with the underbelly of society. They find that daggers are very useful against most threats that Riften encounters every day

Whiterun, Guardians - Whiterun is famous for their smiths and warrior heritage, the Hold's best guards reflect this. They are some of the best equipped and trained fighters in all of Skyrim.

Winterhold, Battlemages - The College of Winterhold extends its protection by giving the Hold some of the best mages that they can train. Since then, little crime was committed in Winterhold

Probably make two versions:

1. Core - With everything as I intended.

2. No Mages - Since Skyrim does have a prejudice with mages, this version removes the mage guard types from the lvl lists.

Have more guard type ideas? Have a better idea for a Hold specific guard type? Want to just give me your opinion? Go nuts

Ideas I got from you guys that I would like to implement:

- Female guards - need to do testing, there has to be some reason why Bethesda has voices for female guards, BUT not use them for every town.

- Mercenary guards - aw mai gaaaawd it makes so much sense to have mercenaries to bolster your numbers... How diverse it will be depends on the limitations of the engine

Edited March 15, 2015 by Indigoblade

[avallanche]

That's a great idea.

 

It would be cool to add a Hound Master... a guard accompanied by 2-3 dogs / wolves to hunt down runners and fugitives. Also, since each hold will have its own style, maybe it would be interesting to overhaul the Bounty Hunters as well... I dont know how they are scripted, but if it's possible, it's definitely worth.

About the Sentinels in the Reach, if you are aiming for heavy dwarven armor it could be interesting to add spear-like weapons and dwarven crossbows as well.

Anyway, really nice idea.

Edited March 13, 2015 by avallanche

[Iriodus]

Well, I comeback to see if anyone else had replied to my guard mod question, and was surprised to see this. I'm glad to see that you are making a guard overhaul Indigo, and if it is you doing it, then I know that it will be of good quality, and that will be properly maintained.

 

This sounds like what I am looking for and then some! Kind of reminds me of how Francesco's mod in Oblivion overhauled guards (Well, could be any of the overhauls really). I think guards had a fixed base level of 20, and each guard type scaled depending on where they were stationed. E.g. City Guards were the weakest (still beefed up by the mod though), then there were the Imperial Soldiers posted in cities and settlements, and then those that patrolled the roads and wilderness were the strongest of the bunch. Strength was also determined by their rank as well.

 

I do like that each Hold has specialized guard types, guards have received little love in this respect, and it is nice to see. A suggestion I can think of is that something like the "Guards Attack Hostiles" optional mod for Combat Evolved by Crushboss should be integrated into the guard overhaul, as guards are kind of lazy by default when it comes to defending citizens.

[ZZZ02]

Looks great but please tell me there will be female guards in each hold like the diverse guards mod. that is my biggest pet peeve in skyrim because both sides may be a bit racist but they are far from sexist, especially tullius. Plus all guard dialogue is recorded for females as well (even yelling at the alikir in whiterun) Also will it be compatible with guard dialogue overhaul?

 

other suggestions, add a few orc guards for markarth (they had the same voice as nords in oblivion and are valued in markarth by both jarls), elves and argonians in riften and all but beast races in whiterun (or better yet make them very rare as whiterun is the least racist spot)

[Iriodus]

I second that ZZZ02, female guards would be a nice addition.

[Jebbalon]

Awesome to see this Indigoblade. The guards definitely need some love. Here are some of my thoughts on this...

 

- Dragonborn - Redoran Guard - could even add to some Skyrim holds, token representatives from Solstheim. Maybe to help track fugitives / political reasons etc.

 

- Compatibility with mods like Guard Dialogue Overhaul - like mentioned above, it's popular enough you want to keep this in mind from beginning I'd think.

 

- Will the guards level with player? ... I'm thinking they should not. - With bandits this makes more sense. - With guards I think it makes sense to always have grunt type cannon fodder, as well as the elite trained upper level leader types. At low level there should be some guards you just know to yield to cause you have no hope of defeating. At higher level it just makes sense to have the pushover peons that you can get away with crimes - yet the elite guards provide a real challenge.

 

Looking forward to this mod, will be fun to test the guards against OBIS Bandits :)

[Corpsehatch]

Looking forward to this. Will this also include guards that travel the entirety of the hold and not just the city or town?

[Indigoblade]

Looking forward to this. Will this also include guards that travel the entirety of the hold and not just the city or town?

 

It should, like stated before guard should be protcting the entire hold, it should effect guards from smaller towns and villages as well

Awesome to see this Indigoblade. The guards definitely need some love. Here are some of my thoughts on this...

 

- Dragonborn - Redoran Guard - could even add to some Skyrim holds, token representatives from Solstheim. Maybe to help track fugitives / political reasons etc.

 

- Compatibility with mods like Guard Dialogue Overhaul - like mentioned above, it's popular enough you want to keep this in mind from beginning I'd think.

 

- Will the guards level with player? ... I'm thinking they should not. - With bandits this makes more sense. - With guards I think it makes sense to always have grunt type cannon fodder, as well as the elite trained upper level leader types. At low level there should be some guards you just know to yield to cause you have no hope of defeating. At higher level it just makes sense to have the pushover peons that you can get away with crimes - yet the elite guards provide a real challenge.

 

Looking forward to this mod, will be fun to test the guards against OBIS Bandits :smile:

Since this mod will only effect the combat capability of the guards, all other guard related mods that does not effect their inventories should be fine. Dialogue, behavior, and scripts effecting guards will not be touched

 

I haven't even though about the Redoran guards... Not sure if I want to do that yet.

 

I want guards to be at least on par with OBIS bandits in a different way. Less diversity, more power. Unfortunately this means I have to make them level with the player to an extent. If I figure out a way to make them strong enough to face bandits without just buffing up their levels then I will experiment

 

Looks great but please tell me there will be female guards in each hold like the diverse guards mod. that is my biggest pet peeve in skyrim because both sides may be a bit racist but they are far from sexist, especially tullius. Plus all guard dialogue is recorded for females as well (even yelling at the alikir in whiterun) Also will it be compatible with guard dialogue overhaul?

 

other suggestions, add a few orc guards for markarth (they had the same voice as nords in oblivion and are valued in markarth by both jarls), elves and argonians in riften and all but beast races in whiterun (or better yet make them very rare as whiterun is the least racist spot)

 

I am hesitant to try female guards because Bethdesda probably took them out for a reason gameplaywise, but if I am 100% sure that it is okay I will add them in. Guard dialogues, ai changes, and just about anything that is not inventory or combat related should be compatible with this mod

Well, I comeback to see if anyone else had replied to my guard mod question, and was surprised to see this. I'm glad to see that you are making a guard overhaul Indigo, and if it is you doing it, then I know that it will be of good quality, and that will be properly maintained.

 

This sounds like what I am looking for and then some! Kind of reminds me of how Francesco's mod in Oblivion overhauled guards (Well, could be any of the overhauls really). I think guards had a fixed base level of 20, and each guard type scaled depending on where they were stationed. E.g. City Guards were the weakest (still beefed up by the mod though), then there were the Imperial Soldiers posted in cities and settlements, and then those that patrolled the roads and wilderness were the strongest of the bunch. Strength was also determined by their rank as well.

 

I do like that each Hold has specialized guard types, guards have received little love in this respect, and it is nice to see. A suggestion I can think of is that something like the "Guards Attack Hostiles" optional mod for Combat Evolved by Crushboss should be integrated into the guard overhaul, as guards are kind of lazy by default when it comes to defending citizens.

Its more like MMM did with critters, but I like the compliment. Again, the guards were already clocked at lvl 20 in vanilla skyrim to begin with, OBIS bandits have the advantage of hitting lvl 60. So to even it out I need get the guards to at least lvl 40. Maybe i'll tier it like OBIS or like the guards from Fable.

 

That's a great idea.

 

It would be cool to add a Hound Master... a guard accompanied by 2-3 dogs / wolves to hunt down runners and fugitives. Also, since each hold will have its own style, maybe it would be interesting to overhaul the Bounty Hunters as well... I dont know how they are scripted, but if it's possible, it's definitely worth.

 

About the Sentinels in the Reach, if you are aiming for heavy dwarven armor it could be interesting to add spear-like weapons and dwarven crossbows as well.

 

Anyway, really nice idea.

A hound master type would be pretty cool, but how skyrim generates actors may be an issue. Ill see what I can do though

 

Sentinels I was just hoping to be a heavy armor version of guards that can take lots of hits. Dwemer gear may be too powerful to give guards at player lvl 1 though, will have to do tests

Edited March 14, 2015 by Indigoblade

[BigBizkit]

Makes me wonder what kind of mod I am using that is adding the female guards in my game. I thought that was vanilla ~~

 

As for the ideas, I can only think of counterarguments to some ideas that have been uttered but not of an actually useful new idea. So, I'll pass for the time being.

 

What made you contemplate upgrading the guards? Do you use them as followers in your playthroughs? Did you find it too easy to combat them when there's a bounty on your head? Is there a reason other than diversity behind this? Just curious.

[Corpsehatch]

There are Vanilla Skyrim female guards in the Rift guarding Ivarstead and Riften. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Guards