Playing as a pure mage in vanilla skyrim is, well, boring. Early in the game you don't have enough magicka to cast spells and in the later stages, your spells doesn't do enough damage. Some of the first mods made for Skyrim introduced spell scaling, a system that fixed the lack of late game damage and has been adapted by many other mods. The magicka issues early on still remained however. This is my attempt at fixing this. What this mod does: The mod reduces all spell costs by 75%. Each time you cast a spell, spell cost for all spells go up. The effect stacks, and each stack has a separate duration. This is called Instability. Spells with a high magicka cost generates more instability than spells with a low magicka cost. Casting spells too rapidly causes subsequent spells to generate more instability than it usually would. This is the Global Cooldown multiplier. This value increases exponentially every time you cast a spell, but is reset after a short period if you haven't cast any spells. Concentration spells generates more instability that lasts longer. Spells with a long duration generates half as much instability, but lasts twice as long. Most of these values can be modified in an MCM menu. Aside from the instability system, spell scaling will be introduced. Magicka reduction on gear will improve damage or duration instead of reducing magicka cost. Default Values: What does all of this mean? The formula for instability generation is as follows:
StackBaseInstability + StackBaseManaCostMultiplier * GlobalCooldownValueA normal firebolt has a base cost of 41. Assume we were to cast 5 in a rapid succession. This is the result before perk and skill reductions: The first Firebolt would cost 10 magicka and generate 18 instability. The second Firebolt would cost 17 magicka and generate 19 instability. The third Firebolt would cost 25 magicka and generate 20 instability. The fourth Firebolt would cost 34 magicka and generate 21 instability. The fifth Firebolt would cost 42 magica and generate 23 instability. Total magicka that would have been spent in vanilla: 205 Total magica spent here: 127 Step it up to the Incinerate spell, with a base magicka cost of 298: The first Incinerate would cost 74 magicka and generate 38 instability. The second Incinerate would cost 190 magicka and generate 44 instability. The third Incinerate would cost 323 magicka and generate 52 instability. The fourth Incinerate would cost 479 magicka and generate 61 instability. The fifth Incinerate would cost 662 magica and generate 73 instability. Total magicka that would have been spent in vanilla: 1490 Total magica spent here: 1616 As you can see, the early game is cheaper, while the late game is more expensive. Keep in mind that higher damage spells benefits more from enchants and damage gained through spell scaling. Calculation spreadsheet Synergy with other mods and conflicts: Any mod that introduces spell scaling will need a compatibility patch. Spell packs that introduces concentration spells might need a compatibility patch, but probably not. Current status: - Main script: Done. - Spell scaling: Not made. - MCM: Not made. - Compatibility patches: None yet. - Spell packs integrations: None yet. Thoughts on this? Should anything be added, removed or tweaked?