Notanon81

Might be immersive armours.

A rangers guild, pretty much, with a full quest and storyline that could easily slot into Skyrim as though it were meant to be included as part of the main game release from day one. I care not for the 5 million and a half anime models and followers that get chucked up on here nearly every day, I just want something that could easily fit into the lore without looking too out of place. Apart from that, maybe some little tweaks here and there, such as the use of an alembic to distil weak potions and poisons into higher-level more potent ones, dependent on your alchemy skill (i.e. at a low alchemy skill, can only distill minor potions into normal potions or need more such as 3 or 4 instead of 2 that could be possible at a higher level and so forth), or to be able to reinforce existing enchantments on items with higher enchanting skills instead of needing to enchant new items for the same effect. Even learn unique crafting recipes for smithing, like a leather-reinforced hide or wooden shield, or even more composite armours and weapons that would require a smithing skill of 100 or close with the relative perks needed, but would provide additional benefits like lighter weight for the same damage protection or inflicted damage as a heavier armour or weapon or additional passive bonuses like increased resistance to being staggered.

Yeah, could see this working well as you described. Cheetaurs, mantarays and the saurii could prove trickier to implement, though. Was looking at doing something similar, but set a fair bit after the events of QFG1, though I've got other stuff to attend to at the moment and other projects on my mind. With the cheetaurs, perhaps modifying the sabre cat model to add an additional torso and adjusting the animations to suit could work. Mantarays could be remodelled ice wraiths with a shock attack, and perhaps the saurii could be a modified werewolf or werebear model with a different running animation, sort of like an argonian grafted onto a werewolf in a way. Meeps could be modified chicken models, with the opening and closing of the rocks as a scripted event. The ogre guarding the cave could be a modified troll model with some creative reskinning. The Mage's Maze could be like the Sheogorath part where you need to use the wabberjack for a certain duel (perhaps using a set of custom wabberjack effect spells for the trigger, fetch and so forth spells needed). Stretching my memory a bit now, but hopefully what I wrote will help in some way.

Well, I've roughly sketched a floor plan for the guild building, and will have a go at creating it in the Creation Kit based off either the Riften fishery building or one of the longer farmhouses and place it in the docks area of Morthal coming off the exisiting walkway that practically leads straight into the water. Want to arrange it so that the indoor archery range and crafting tables are located on the ground floor with a vendor for supplies, and the upstairs section to include the bunks, kitchen and guild leaders office, or even swap them around depending on what can be done. The blacksmith will be close to or just outside the main entrance, so a forge and so forth won't really be necessary, but might use duplicated workbenches as place-holders for proper guild-exclusive crafting tables (one for arrow upgrades exclusively, the other for other guild-crafting purposes such as ranger armour and clothing). I already plan to incorporate my previously mentioned arrow refining mod into this as I want to have a proper place to carry out the upgrades without cluttering up the forge as it currently does. Anyway, will have a play with the Creation Kit and see what I can come up with.

I have a mod I'm still working on that allows for the upgrading of arrows and bolts (see http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51899/? ), would love to incorporate it into something like this. With the guilds themselves, the one in Whiterun could be based in a basement level of the Drunken Huntsmen with an archery range, bunks, storage, supplies and fletching tables for upgrading arrows, the latter of which is something I want to eventually incorporate into my own mod instead of relying on the forge as is the case at present. Same with the fletchers in Solitude. Not sure about the rest of the cities and towns, maybe just outside them with an outdoor range and hut for supplies and fletching tables, or have them just outside for all (including Whiterun and Solitude). Main thing I'm wondering about is compatibility with other mods that expand or change towns and cities. Another perk of being with the guild would be being able to upgrade the bows with gears and perhaps stronger string to make compound variants of the bows which allow the arrows to be loaded faster and fly at a greater speed (approximately 40-50% faster) with greater damage (equivalent to the speed increase, in keeping with momentum increases from the increased arrow speed), which would involve a radiant quest to <drumroll> obtain schematics from a dwemer ruin, as cliche as it might sound. This would allow for the guild to build their own better bows, though, as a further benefit of joining the guild, as it would be a tool of elite archers instead of common non-guild members. Not sure if crossbows should be involved in any way, whatsover, might leave that for the Dawnguard only to give them something purely distinctive to their own faction. Perhaps though, if the player is a member of both, mutual benefits such as the incorporation of fire, frost and shock arrows into the guilds arrow upgrades and being able to upgrade the Dawnguard crossbows in a similar manner as the compound bows along with damage upgrades of the bolts would work. Would be nice to see a few more cross-factional benefits from being members of different guilds.

Now up on the Nexus at: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51899/? Mods, in light of this now being on the Nexus, please relocate this topic to the Skyrim Mod Talk forum.

It'll come soon. I'm currently working on V0.2 with the additional crafting recipes for fine to exquisite, superior to flawless, etc. Once that's done and I've created a zip file to chuck it into, I'll whack it up here. :)

Ok, finally created my own mod and have it up on the Steam Community for the time-being at http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=229700140&searchtext= Took the approach of using billets and fragments of the tempering materials normally used for the other weapons and armour of the same type, though using the stock models of the ingots and other materials for the time being, until I can possibly get around to creating the individual arrow and bolt heads. This one requires both Dawnguard and Dragonborn, but may make Dawnguard only and Dragonborn only versions if demand is sufficient, but nearly have a vanilla only edition ready to go up as well. Currently have it so that individual arrows are upgraded sequentially, but will add additional crafting recipes to bypass this if the player has the sufficient skill to do so and possibly allow for the upgrading of arrows and bolts in batches using the ingots and other materials.

Have had a bit more of a think about this during a short holiday and the idea of creating batches of 24 arrowheads to mirror the crafting of 24 arrows at a forge seems more like the way to go, as trying to improve arrows using ingots would be way too wasteful and unrealistic and improving batches of arrows in one go would be daft. Given quite a few arrows are noncraftable, such as the Dwarven Sphere Centurion Arrow and the Ancient Nord Arrow, as examples, this I've roughly worked out the types of arrowheads that would need to be created and the arrows they would improve. Falmer (Chitin): Falmer Iron: Ancient Nord, Forsworn, Iron, Rusty Steel: Steel, Riekling Spear Elven (Moonstone): Elven, Bloodcursed Elven, Sunhallowed Elven Orcish (Orichalcum): Orcish Dwarven: Dwarven, Dwarven Sphere Centurion Glass (Malachite): Glass Ebony: Ebony Daedric (Ebony and Daedra Heart): Daedric Dragonbone: Dragonbone Nordic (Steel and Quicksilver): Nordic Stahlrim: Stahlrim Bolts would be slightly different, only creating 10 per ingot. Would only be for a Dawnguard version, understandably. Steel: Steel, Exploding Steel Bolts of Fire, Ice and Shock Dwarven: Dwarven, Exploding Dwarven Bolts of Fire, Ice and Shock Another idea I had was to enhance arrows using the hawk feathers to create improved arrow fletches (maybe in batches of 48 or 72 depending on if 2 or 3 are required to improve each arrow) to improve how far an arrow could travel when shot. The argument from a lore-friendly perspective is that an expert archer would be to craft the feathers as such to be able to improve the aerodynamics of an arrow. That said, it could become a quest reward in its own right, where finding a book or completing a task enables the player to learn how to craft an enhanced arrow of each type. Would be too easy otherwise. ;) Anyway, so it looks like I'd have to create individual models for the arrowheads of each type (perhaps just taking the model of the main base arrow and removing the arrow shaft and feathers). I noticed a couple of other mods have the ability to craft arrow feathers already, so maybe I might not go with this path straightaway. I could perhaps try and make a compatiblity version for this to minimise conflicts. Again, more to think about. Another approach could be being able to refine the arrowheads at a grindstone using other arrowheads of the same type and then combining the improved arrowheads with the firewood to create the improved arrows directly. Got a few more thoughts but will post later.

Was having a think about a mod like this over the past couple of days. Just seems a bit strange to me that you can improve the bow itself, but not be able to refine the arrows at all on the grindstone, or bolts for that in the case of the crossbow. The way I see it, to be able to improve an arrows damage capability, you'd have to have an average of both the smithing and the archery skills to determine if you can make a fine arrow, exquisite arrow and so on. The reasoning being from a lore friendly perspective is this: A skilled archer would have a better knowledge as to what would be required to refine their arrows, but would need the appropriate smithing skill to be able to carry out the refinements in question. It'd level in a similar scale to other weapons that can be refined on the grindstone, so the arrows themselves wouldn't be overly powerful. How this would be carried would depend on what can be executed with scripts and the limitations of the Creation Kit. If the ammo types can be refined, then improving them at a grindstone with an ingot or individual arrowheads of the same material used for the arrow would be feasible (maybe in batches of 20 or so for the ingot, individual ones with the arrowheads route). Failing that, the other option would be to create the individual arrowheads that can be crafted at the forge, refined at the grindstone themselves (maybe using other arrowheads for relative simplicity's sake), and then combined with the base arrow or firewood and crafting feathers to create the improved arrow at way. Obviously the first method would be preferred, but got a feeling the second route might the way to go, which would necessitate creating custom arrows for each type in the editors, as well as the arrowheads and so on. Was thinking about having a go at making this myself, but as I've barely scratched the surface of the Creation Kit, it might be a bit beyond my abilities at this stage. That said, will see if anyone else more capable might be willing to give it a shot first before I even consider attempting it. Aside from that, any reason why it might not be able to be carried out at all?