LE One handed bows

[tjhm4]

I had a go at doing this myself, but got absolutely nowhere, so I'll post my thoughts here!

 

I like playing as an archer/mage and would love a mod that allowed me to carry my bow in my left hand as well as a spell in my right. This would allow me to quickly barrage enemies with a series of arrows and spells (I'm thinking spells that stun/slow enemies so I can out maneuver them), which is currently only possible by repeatedly sheathing/unsheathing my bow which is pretty slow/frustrating.

 

I've spent some time thinking about how this could be achieved and I think the best way would be to get bows to behave like shields. So, with bow in left hand and spell in right, L-click fires your spell and R-click brings your bow up to block. Whilst blocking, L-click nocks and fires an arrow.

 

A potential problem with this is that the spell would still be visibly equipped as you fired an arrow... this doesn't strike me as game breaking, but if you had equipped a one-handed weapon (like an axe) in your right hand it would obviously look pretty ridiculous. Personally I would happily put up with this and just make sure to not use a one-handed weapon with a bow, but a solution would be to un-equip the right handed spell/weapon when you try to nock an arrow and re-equip it once you stop blocking.

 

Another problem is that hotkeying spells equips to your left hand first. So if you had bow in left hand spell in right, trying to change the spell via a hotkey would replace the bow, not the original spell. Again, I don't think this would ruin my fun, and it could be got round with use of the favorites menu. Actually, I think moreHotkeysPlease allows you to equip spells to a specific hand which would solve this problem.

 

What do you guys think? If anyone knew of a way to do this, or was willing to look into doing it, I'd be extremely grateful!

[notmyhome]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but the Witchhunter Spells and Prayers Package adds plenty of spells to your "powers" list. Balanced in terms of magicka cost vs. no chargetime.

Disclaimer: Haven't yet tried myself.

[tjhm4]

Thanks for the suggestion notmyhome, but you're right, it's not quite what I'm looking for. Witchhunter essentially adds powers that cost magicka and level schools of magic, but being powers they're pretty much all buffs (though some do have an area of effect around you) as opposed to targeted spells. Ideally I would like to use the full range of Skyrim's spells (as well as those added by other mods) alongside a bow.

 

Thanks again for your suggestion though, I'll spend some time with it.