I have a large mod pack I'm testing vigorously that turns Skyrim into a true hardcore rpg, similar in style to the older gothic games. One part I feel mostly finished with is the magic, so I will give a quick run down (on mobile atm) of how magic will work in this setup. First off the core of this idea is centered around the fact that magic is well, magical. It's not something any character should be able to do like a pro. Your level 75 Nord 2 hander with all points into stamina should not be able to blast fire out of his hands for several seconds with the same efficiency as a level 100 destruction skill mage just for a shorter time. [Part One: Spells] Using the mod remove spell tomes, you can no longer buy 100% of your power. Your alternative will be statically placed spell tomes, and 4 mods. Spell Research is a mod that allows you to learn magic in a realistic way. You can find magical artifacts as loot to study and learn new magic effects, study known spell effects by using them during a study session, among other ways. This makes spells themselves a rarity, with an element of random wildness you'd expect from magic. Both Spell Research and remove spell tomes have patches for the magic mods Apocalypse and Lost grimoire so those 2 are the main spell sources for Spell Research. Ordinator is the next source of spells. I couldn't imagine playing Skyrim without these perks anymore and they play very well with mod added spells. Different perks of certain spell schools will add spells as you hit certain skill levels, this can open up new research for you. Third is the most reliable way to get useful spells. College Days let's you pay for your classes by semester, each semester unlocking more of the college's main questline. Each semester you complete gives you a few spells according to the level of the class completed, and which skill you chose to level up and complete the class with. Also you'll be given a book for each magic school that can be used once each semester to raise all your skills. It will be 6000 gold and you'll have to complete the first quest but after that you'll be given your books and a few usefull starter spells, not to mention the ward you learn from Tolfdir. You can also get tutored from the higher ranked mages and learn free skills that way too. (these free skills are important as skill leveling is halved in my game) Finally is Midas magic of course. For now I just run into the arch mages room and delete the NPC that sells the tomes and forget it ever even happened. Then your just left with the Midas reactor. May seem easy since you can look at the book to find all the ingredients but without fast travel finding these items then bringing them back to such a remote locations with few things to do outside the mage quests slows the process down a lot. [Part 2: Magicka] Magicka is probably a bigger deal than taking out spell tomes. Using Dynamic Magicka Growth, you no longer use points upon leveling to gain Magicka you simply use spells and it builds over time based upon the cost of the spells you cast. Set the growth rate of this to 0.01. it may seem really low but it's a steady growth over time when you get more powerful spells. Skytweak is also heavily used in this. You'll set your Magicka to 0 upon starting, making you need to find a potion, or robe, or some effect that increases Magicka to begin your magic training. Next youd set your magicka regen to maybe 5% of it's original value, powsibly lower. Magicka regen should be extremely slow so your move pool is very limited per battle, but magic is much much more powerful. Using Simple Actions, you can use the meditate ability to restore your magicka in between battles. Personally I use the UIextensions wheel menu add-on for simple actions so I have it with a lot of other wheel menu stuff but it isn't needed. [Part 3: Gameplay] The idea for all this is that magic is something a person has to train hard for. Using Arcane Magicka mod , along with ordinator perks your spells will scale directly with skill level and max magicka. With a hard to start, slow growing magicka pool, and half speed leveling skills it takes time to get spells to full potential. This gives the feeling of ACTUALLY learning magic. You also don't have to be a mage immediately. Magicka is gained over time as it's used so other points can be spent on health and play other ways first. Just like an 22 year old man with zero training wouldn't be able to walk into a bandit cave and slaughter 9 people single handedly, a mage ain't s#*! early on. You set skytweak magic cost to 2.0 for you and 3.5 for npcs( set npc magicka regen to half) so early on you can only cast novice spells for a second or two and you're done. Early mage gameplay is centered around learning and training. Spell Research study mode has you cast a spell over and over to study it's effects and gain research xp in it's effect. This goes hand in hand with using magicka to raise it's cap. [How to start] Find a +magicka hood/ring/potion and make a research journal and find a spell. I use an uncapper so my skill levels cap at 200 with skytweak legendary bonus settings giving a 5% bonus every time I reset a skill. There's no magicka cap and basically no skill level cap so your potential power is limitless. Magic can be learned at any time. You can spend all your points on everything else and still level magicka with the same efficiency. A huge shortcut of course is money. Buying training makes the spells cost less and you can afford better magicka gear which let's you use stronger spells early on. If you're alrdy a level 25 archer, you've probably saved up money for or found magicka items or can make a potion. Buy your way into the college, you need 6k gold total. Pay 1k and do the first quest and come back and pay 5k and get some starter spells and your books. If your low level and broke there are a bunch of companions to help you out. Beat uthgerds ass and have her follow you around and save up 1k at least. Get into the college and start the first quest. You'll want to give your companion your best stuff and try to let them do the work. Tolfdir will be with you a lot and you get some enchanted items before you fight anything. I try to buy or find courage or healing scroll early on they tend to be the most helpful. Beating the dungeon will give you jyrack whatever's staff. I use unique items redone and it gives the staff a passive bonus to magicka and magicka regen. This with the college robes you got give you enough to really start raising magicka up. Next step is to save up 5k gold. If you're a pure mage just use the staff and whatever spell faralda gave you to help your companion. Fear and firebolt are preferred but you'll also have the ward either way. Once you get 5k you can get the first spells and the books. Read them all and talk to everyone for tutoring and you'll level every magic skill twice as well as a few other skills. You'll get firebolt and fire rune among a couple of other random spells. From here it's a matter of putting in the work to level up your magicka to a useable point. Enchants and perks will make it a lot easier to start out by cutting costs. Enter study mode and cast stuff non stop whole running place to place using meditate to fill back up. Eventually you build up a useable amount and ordinator gives so many different build paths for a mage. Enchanting has a staff line that gives you enchanting xp for having a staff in combat, a power that let's you take charge from your staff to refill magicka. Restoration gives a line for divine spells to damage undead and diseases line for damage over time spells. Experiment and study artifacts and get new effects and create new spells at this point and you go in whatever direction you want to go. Study a special type and you'll learn spells related to it. Study artifacts or break down alchemy ingredients to learn new spells effects to study and learn spells through the Midas magic reactor. Long post but here ya go Skyrim modders what do you think of how overly complicated I've made magic? Small part of a larger set of mods I put together to make every aspect of the game more rewarding. Most hardcore mods like requiem and such make the game waayy harder by making everything hit you harder and everything more expensive and harder to do for the same rewards as vanilla and I've kind of gotten bored of that over time
