aaroc

I've searched through the magic mods and haven't found quite what I'm looking for, and I can't quite figure out how to do this on my own, just by looking through the Creation Kit. I want to make the player's magic spells to scale directly with player level and/or player's school of magic skill. My goal is to make it so that each spell is useful, but with it's time of use being dictated by strategy involved. For example, I want Fire Ball, Fire Bolt, and Flames to all do roughly the same amount of damage for different amounts of magic, but each spell to be useful for different situations. For example, Flames would be your "close combat" spell, Fire Bolt would be your ranged option against a single enemy, and Fire Ball would be more useful against a group of enemies. Basically, I want to take the player spells and change their magnitude from being a static number into a formula. Is this even possible?

Installing a new face pack makes a huge difference in how the NPCs look. I don't remember exactly which one, but I installed one and Sven looks a bit like a model, so I have him following me around. Also I've noticed that a lot more of the male NPCs are better looking than with the default faces.

I personally would look at other four legged creatures, like wolves and cats and such

I agree that this would be an awesome idea, however it would be a HUGE undertaking. Westeros is a HUGE landmass, so far as I can tell. The wall of the north has what.. 13 castles? 16? something like hat and they're all a few days travel between them. If I recall correctly, Deepwood Motte, one of the northwesternmost Castles of the North, not part of the Watch, is 300 miles from Winterfel, which is roughly halfway between the eastern and western coasts of Westeros. Granted, you could scale it down a bit, but you'd still have to design each of the 13 or so holds along the wall, some villages, probably a dozen or so Castles/holds in the North and then the huge lands north of the wall. Granted, the assets already in the game could easily be used to build the castles and holds, as well as a few caves and such, so there wouldn't be much need for modellers and the like. Draugrs could easily be Wights with Dragon Priests as the Others (though they would have to be modified to only be active at night, possibly burying themselves in the snow during the day or something), and I could see the Wildlings wearing Forsworn armor/weapons, fur armor, iron and steel armor and weapons. Plus the wildlife, such as bears, sabre cats, wolves and the like could be recycled here as well. Honestly, I think the creators of Skyrim took a lot of inspiration from Song of Ice and Fire (Giants + Mammoths anyone?). I think if you wanted to go this route, you could start with the north and the wall, perhaps in an alternate timeline/universe or something where magic is a bit more commonplace, and the different races coudl be represented by different areas. For instance, I could see Nords being the Northmen, Redguards being the Dornish (Curved. Swords.) Altmer from Highgarden, and so on. (perhaps even remove any elven races from the game, or make them much smaller to server as Children of the Forest, but be unplayable) The one race I really can't see as being in the conversion at all would be Orcs, though. You would need World Designers, Voice Actors, Quest Designers, Writers for how the Main Quest is laid out and what your purpose in the world is. For some specialty objects, like the Wall and the lifts and stairs to get to the top of the wall, you might need a modeler or two, maybe some new/alternate weapon types that fit more in with the world of Westeros. Also some black armor/clothes to suit the Watch theme. I'm not much of a Modder myself; I made a mod in Morrowind long long ago that involved a haunted house in that one central city, the name of which escapes me, and I've made a few balance changing mods for Morrowind and Oblivion, and attempted to create another city in Morrowind, that didn't work out too well, as well as a few simple mods for The Sims 2 and 3, but if you manage to get this project off the ground, I would be willing to try and help out how I can. I think the biggest thing would be first getting the entirety of Westeros mapped out in the world, with designated spots for each of the major Castles/holds, some of the well known Landmarks, and a few villages/towns.

I just thought of another one Actor Name: Don't remember off the top of my head, the merchant at Bits and Pieces Actor Location: Bits and Pieces in Solitude Speech in question: "Beirand said you got here just before the execution" or some such. Suggested Alternative Speech: Anything else at all after she says it the first time. It's always bugged me that, almost a year after said Execution, she continues to go on about it like it was recent news. Yes, I got here, for the first time, right before the execution, and yes we discussed it MONTHS AGO, thank you. I also agree with the other merchants as others have pointed out, though I'd rather have a nice short "Take a look" for most vendors when you ask to see what they have.

There are several ways to improve your bow damage: Invest in Augmented Flames perks in the Destruction skill tree, along with the Improved Flames Enchanting perk, and enchant your bow with a fire damage enchant. Invest as many points as possible in the first perk in the archery skill tree. Enchant your ring, amulat, gloves, and helmet with the Fortify Archy enchant. Improve your bow with smithing. Increase your Alchemy skill and use high damage poisons on your bow.

It's even difficult to build an attractive Player character >_>

I really dislike that the merchants have so little money. I think the first thing I'm gonig to do when the CK is released will be to either drastically increase the amount of money merchants have, or drastically decrease the price at which they will buy things from you. or both. I often find myself buying the most expensive thing a merchant has before attampting to sell anything to them. I might buy and resell this same item a few times, just to empty out my inventory some. My primary character has 60,000 or so gold, and all houses except the one in Windhelm, which I can't buy because I can't get Blood in the Ice to trigger for him, so money isn't really an issue at this point. Never really has been, in all honesty. I find that aside from that first 5000 to get Breezehome, money is mostly useless. I think the only time I actually buy anything from a merchant is when I need a few Ebony ingots for crafting a new Daedric weapon.

I like Hrongar, I think his name is, Balgruuf's brother (Especially that whole "just unsheath me" line he says *swoon*), but yeah, for the most part the men aren't all that attractive in the game. I really find that, as far as faces are concerned, Altmer men seem to have the best. Maybe it's just because of the hood covering most of his face, but I find Calcelmo somewhat attractive, and Onmond (?) the Nord guy at the college isn't too bad (there are certainly worse, anyway). I definitely disagree with whatsername though that Ancano is attractive at all. It could just be the voice, but I think the dark elf from the Vaermina quest is pretty decent as well (again, could be the hood covering half his face). Typically, with my male followers, however, I just put a helmet on them to cover their faces, and then stick them in Falmer Armor. Edit: Hrm, on second thought, upon reviewing pictures of Erandur, scratch him from that list, I just like the voice.

I personally have foun that your traditional Sword and Board with heavy armor is pretty much the easiest way to play the game, especially when used in tandem with enchanting and smithing. Good balance between damage and survivability. For after-battle recovery, I would suggest Restoration or Alchemy.

I do see your point, however, I don't think scaling the looks of the spell effect is possible with scaling the damage. Another issue would be, of course, if someone's rig couldn't handle it and getting to X skill in destruction made them unable to cast Y spell anymore because it would explode their computer. Also, I don't think it's that big of a deal. As your weapon skill increases and your steel sword starts doing more and more damage, your weapon doesn't get bigger, your weapon swings don't get flashier, and you don't see any more blood splatter effects. I don't really see the need to do as such with magic. If it was possible, however, it didn't get to the point where it would explode lower end rigs, and this mod, once complete, actually had any sort of popularity, I'd be all for finding someone who cold do that for me. ETA: and for the one spell to rule them all thing, I have a feeling I will probably add one more spell to the arsenal (much like the Novice spell but with a shorter range, higher damage, and higher magicka cost), and edit the Novice Spells so that they do significantly less damage than the others, so as to encourage players to move on to the Apprentice Level and above spells once they are able. ETA2: Also, since there will be no way to make the casting cost free, you wouldn't want to spam Fireball, for instance, when you are fighting only one enemy, because the spell cost ratio would be much higher. Great for downing multiple enemies at once, but not so great for a single tough enemy, where Firebolt or Incinerate would be much more to your benefit.

Actor Name: Random Encounter "Three Imperial Guards" Actor Location: Random Encounter, various, usually on the road Speech in Question: "If you want to join the Imperial Guard, speak to General Tulius in Solitude" or some such Related Triggers: Becomming Legate in the Imperial Army Suggested Alternative Speech: "Legate" Other Information: I'm already in the Imperial Army. I don't need to join up.. again. Actor Name: Random Encounter "Three Imperial guards escorting a Stormcloak Prisoner" Actor Location: Random Encounter, various, usually on the road Speech in Question: "Move along Citizen, this has nothing to do with you" or some such Related Triggers: Becomming Legate in the Imperial Army Suggested Alternative Speech: "Legate" Other Information: I am not just some frakking citizen, I am a Legate in the Imperial Army, and yes, this probably does have something to do with me. (Or maybe not, but show me the proper respect I deserve, after all I did just about singlehandedly win your war) Both of these instances can easily be replaced with "dialogue" that already exists in the game.

Ok, so, A preliminary look at the Master Destruction Line of perks and I have come up with something like this: Novice Destruction: Decreases the cost of Novice Destruction Level Spells by 50%, Apprentice Level Spells by 25% and Increases Destruction damage by 5% Apprentice Destruction: Decreases the cost of Apprentice and Adept Level Spells by 25%, and increases Destruction damage by 5% Adept Destruction: Decreases the cost of Adept, Expert, and Master Level Spells by 25% and increases Destruction damage by 5% Expert Destruction: Decreases the cost of Expert and Master Level Spells by 25% and increases Destruction damage by 5% Master Destruction: Decreases the cost of MAster level spells by 25% and increases Destruction damage by 5% I'll have to do some tweaking with the base costs of spells, but fully perked, I want each spell to do roughly 75-100 damage and cost 30-50 magicka. With spell costs in those ranges, I think using Magicka will be more feasible for a pure mage, and hopefully having a spell in one hand and a weapon in the other will be competitive to dual wielding.

My basic idea is to, if I can, make spells do a certain percentage of your destruction skill, for example, at skill level 15, firebolt would do 15 damage and cost 10 mana or something, but at skill level 100 your firebolt would do 100 damage and still cost 10 mana, preferably more. The thing is, I want you to invest in the perks, so someone with an unperked destruction skill would do much less damage with their spells than someone with a perked Destruction Skill. Balanced Magicka by mysty does this already, in a way, but as far as I can tell, without the natural increase in damage through destruction skill. It's all through perks. Someone with a Destruction Skill of 100 with no perks should definitely do less damage with worse mana efficiency than someone with 100 destruction fully perked. I want all spells to be viable at 'end-game' because they all have different functions and situational uses, but at the same time, I don't want to trivialize the cost of the spells. You should still want to invest your level-up stat into Magicka most of the time. Also, I want the higher level spells to be not feasibly cast by low skill players. For example, since Fire Cloak is an Adept Level spell, you shouldn't be able to just travel to the north coast where Yisra's burnt corpse is and take the Fire Cloak Spell book there and be able to cast it effectively at skill level 15, with no perks. I think to combat this, I could make the Apprentice through Master Level spell cost a whole lot, but investing into the perks leading up to Master Destruction will reduce the cost of them to something manageable. Maybe instead of decreasing the cost of spells, raising your destruction skill will not only increase the potency, but the spell cost as well, but by a smaller margin or something, and spendig points in the Master Destruction line of perks will reduce the cost of spells, thereby increasing a Pure Mage's resource efficiency. Maybe something like this: Flames, skill level 15, no perks: 7 damage per second, 12 mana per second Flames, skill level 100, no perks: 50 damage per second, 30 mana per second Flames, skill level 100, master Destruction: 50 damage per second, 15 mana per second IN this case, the base mana cost of Flames would be 10, and that cost would increase by 2% per Destruction skill (for a total of 200% increased cost at skill level 100) and it would deal half your destruction skill per second. Investing in the Master Destruction line of perks would ultimately reduce the cost of flames by 50% (base 5, plus 2% per level, or 5+10=15 at skill level 100). This, of course, is just a possible model. Basically, I want to increase Damage, mana cost, and mana efficiency as skill level increases, and then improve mana efficiency further with perks. IN addition, I think either increasing the mana cost or decreasing the damage done while wearing armor is a good idea. For Illusion Spells, since they also have different functions, Like Fury is long range single target, Frenzy is Long range Area of Effect, and Mayhem is Area of Effect around the player, I want to scale the levels that they affect, rather than their duration or magicka cost based on Illusion skill. I'm not sure how easy/difficult this would be. Alteration, I think, would remain largely unchanged. I actually really like mysty's model for Destruction spells in her(?) Balanced Magicka Mod

One of the things I intend to do with this mod is change the Destruction Enchants to improve damage rather than reduce magicka costs. The only things that will reduce magicka costs will be the mainline perks, to bring all the costs to roughly the same cost, barring special cases like the Master, Rune, and Cloak spells. The intent there is to make Staves more appealing, because as they are now, they're basically vendor trash or something you just give to your followers to improve their arsenal. Much like a Warrior might carry around a few different enchanted weapons, you would carry around a few different staves to save yourself some mana. And your suggestion doesn't really address the main problem I see with Mages. Fireball does more damage than Firebolt, so as soon as you get Fireball, Firebolt becomes mostly useless. Why should I shoot a spell that does 30 damage to one enemy when I can shoot my Area Effect spell that does 50 damage instead? As far as I'm concerned, Fireball should do less damage than Firebolt, simply because it does damage to multiple enemies at once. In order for that to be feasible, however, all my spells must gradually improve in power as my Destruction Skill improves. And I'm not talking about through perks. I'm talking about through my actual Destruction Skill. Perks should improve them further, yes, but just as your One Handed Skill increases and you do more damage with One Handed weapons, without even having to spend perks to do so, so should my magic. I'm actually thinking of doing something similar with a few other shcools of magic, for example Illusion and, if it can be done, Conjuration. The reduction in magicka cost to cast a spell made sense in the older TES games (even though I didn't like it then either), because you could go out and create a new spell with balanced damage and magicka cost, but since you are stuck with the predefined spells of Skyrim, it just doesn't make sense anymore.