[WIP] Resplendent Racials

[EnaiSiaion]

So I took down Excellent due to the actions of an [insert stars to taste], but I can't leave you guys without a racials mod, can I? I'm giving Excellent a large update and bugfixes and releasing it anew as Resplendent Racials.

 

I'm currently about to start testing and bugfixing before the release, which should come next week.

 

What's new?

 

http://www.techadvice.com/apps/netscape3/images/Navigator-icon.gif

 

• Racial stat changes! (Speeds, responsiveness etc).
• Cleaned up tons of code.
• Several new abilities and powers.
• NPCs can also use powers with some degree of intelligence! (Configurable, can be rage disabled using the console)
• Your second racial power is now an unlockable that requires completion of a certain skill based task.
• Perhaps a way to put on your orc hat and learn racials from other races...

 

Racials

 

Altmer

Please edit ASAP: Arcane Superiority. -Elenwen

 

Arcane Superiority -- When in combat and above 75% health, 1/4 of the difference per second is moved to stamina and magicka instead.

High Barrier -- Bonus armor at high stamina, slightly less so at high magicka.

Wellspring -- When below 25% health, taps half of your stamina and magicka to heal you. This can happen every 15 seconds.

 

(At will) Contingency -- Specify a spell and a condition, the spell is autocast for free when the condition is met. And you thought your dog was faithful.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Feyfire -- Steals 75% stamina and magicka from nearby targets for yourself and dispels them.

 

 

Argonians

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water again.

 

Chameleon -- Standing still with weapons out grants invisibility. Never underestimate the power of the scout's code!

Histborn -- When in combat and below 25% health, 1/2 of the difference per second is healed. Trololol.

Marsh Dweller -- 50% poison resistance, waterbreathing, and increased agility and rapid regeneration while swimming.

 

(1/day) Bile Spit -- A continuous stream of acid for 8 seconds, debuffing enemy armor and magic resist and blinding them.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Overgrowth - Nearby targets are rooted to the spot while taking poison damage.

 

 

Bosmer

I have dibs on the name "Bossmer" in TESO. Thanks.

 

Cannibalism -- Regens very slowly, but can ritually eat the corpse of an animal or human and gain rapid regen for a day.

Harrier -- A bird points out animals to hunt for a special drop or your combat target, lowering its armor and magic resist.

Wild Senses -- While sneaking and stationary, detects nearby moving targets.

 

(At will) Observe -- Reveals stats and other information about the target.

(Unlockable, at will) Beast Tongue -- Turns a random nearby predator into a follower (now with improved AI!).

 

 

Breton

Dealing bretons of damage.

.

Manmer Blood -- Tripled stamina regen when below half magicka, tripled magicka regen when below half stamina.

Spell Mantle -- 25% magic resistance, gain 50% spell absorb when dropping below 10% magicka.

Zap -- Once a day, damages or breaks a lock with a jolt of druidry.

 

(At will) Harmonize -- Reveals the nearest container when out of combat, in combat it silences nearby hostiles and if they are casting a spell it knocks them around stealing magicka.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Shield Dome -- Raises a bubble of magic on the ground, you take 80% less damage from any attack passing through the wall of the bubble.

 

 

Dunmer

Anyone spelling it as "dummer" will get dunked.

 

Ancestral Guardians -- You're never alone with a clone. When entering battle and not sneaking, spawns 2 ancestral ghosts (now much less intrusive than in Excellent!).

Ashborn -- 50% fire resistance, items are 25% more expensive buying from non-allied non-dunmer but 25% cheaper from dunmer.

Whispers -- Periodically points out nearby NPCs carrying valuable l00t you may want to separate them from.

 

(1/day) Spirit Walk -- When out of combat, grants a long duration invis and muffle, in combat it summons 2 more ancestral ghosts.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Balefire -- Destroys targets below 30% health and heavily damages survivors.

 

 

Imperial

The Dutch word "Imperiaal" is a roof rack for a car.

 

Cosmopolitan -- Bribes are 50% cheaper, can spend money (2000 +1000 per convert) to turn neutral NPCs into allies.

Discipline -- Greatly increased armor above 75% health.

Turnaround -- When dropped below 25% health in combat, any damage you take within the next 6 seconds is converted into healing at the end. Once per battle.

 

(At will) Intel -- Peek through the eyes of the nearest NPC for 10 seconds.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Colovian Star -- Fully restores the two out of three stats with the highest percentage (!= Excellent effect).

 

 

Khajiit

This one can haz racials?

 

Prowl -- Regenerates health, stamina and magicka while sneaking.

Rawlith Khaj -- Claws deal bonus damage based on the target's level and health. Because I am awesome, this doesn't need an unarmed weapon or persistent script. Eheheh.

Two-Moons-Dance -- Movement speed +15% in combat, +30% out of combat.

 

(1/day) Ravage -- Further increases claw damage, and a killmove fully heals you and makes your claws one hit kill targets for the remaining duration of the spell.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Just A Cat -- You immediately leave combat (enemies remain hostile, but they stop searching for you if you are not in sight).

 

 

Nord

What's the difference between a Skyrim mod user and his character? One's a nord, the other's a nerd. This was Redguard humour.

 

Child of the Sky -- Cold resist +50%, and combat damage and magic power increased by 25% below half health, 50% below a quarter health.

Kinship -- Can trade with any non-hostile Nord.

Kyne's Breath -- Movement speed +60% for 10 seconds after entering combat.

 

(1/day) Challenge -- Marks a target, and when you kill the target within its duration, you gain health/magicka/stamina based on the health it had when you cast this.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Avatar -- For 20 seconds, all your attributes are 100% stronger, but only in combat (so you can do some X-TREME BATTLE SMITHING).

 

 

Orc

Shamans OP, nerf plz.

 

Code of Strength -- Stamina and magicka regen 50% faster above 75% health.

Goblin-Ken -- Shock resist +50%, items you sell are worth 25% less unless you sell them to another orc or an ally, 25% more when you do sell them to an orc because only orcs appreciate the fine intricacies of orcish craftsorcship.

Shockwave -- In combat, jump up and down to stun and damage nearby enemies and other people who bring up Boethiah. Once per battle.

 

(1/day) Berserk -- Doubles damage dealt. Also, if not on cooldown, this will randomly trigger in combat (without putting it on cooldown).

(Unlockable, 1/day) Blood of Malacath -- Sets a target's health percentage to twice your health percentage, for good or evil.

 

 

Redguard

The Ra Gada! A great wave that will sweep all before them like... a great wave! A great Warrior Wave!

(Okay, the gimmick wasn't working in Excellent and, in fact, made them useless. Take two)

 

Battle Tactics -- Periodically marks an enemy in combat, giving the sucker negative armor and magic resist and causing them to stagger when hit.

Blood of the Ra Gada -- Excellent's big QQ MAGNET reworked. Cannot regen stamina and magicka above 75 in combat, but gain +150 to both stats and bonus armor above 100.

Second Wind -- When dropping below 25% stamina or magicka, transfers 75% of the other stat across to replenish it. Once per battle.

 

(At will) Sandstorm -- When a nearby enemy in a large radius is below 50% health or staggered, summons a sandstorm that steals stamina and magicka from nearby enemies.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Whirling Defense -- For 20 seconds, stagger attackers and steal 25% of their stamina and magicka when they hit you.

 

 

Yes, these are a nerf compared to Excellent. They probably deserved it though. :tongue:

 

 

When?

 

Soooon.

After this, I'll divide my time between Spectraverse and a surprise. It's got to do with Druidverse and Warlockverse, but not really... :D

[TWarrior]

sounds awesome! might replace the skyre races esm in my playtrough soon :)

[Silantro]

The Imperial's Turnaround seems highly questionable...you need to take damage and survive it for six seconds before being healed? Combat seems way too fast paced for that in Skyrim, and most mods are designed to make it even more so. If it actually makes you invincible for six seconds per battle before healing you, that would make it overpowered.

 

Also, I mentioned this in the other thread but I'm concerned that only one or two passives would be visibly active for NPCs, which got repetitive when every single Nord in the world would sprint into battle, mage or thief or random citizen. Any plans to improve on this?

[EnaiSiaion]

Turnaround does reward Imperials for building tanky and surviving for 6 seconds. Perhaps I should make it also refund magicka and stamina so building tank is more feasible. Or I might move the effect elsewhere.

 

--

 

As for the repetition, this has a lot to do with Excellent racials being too "visible". There is no problem with every Breton having magic resistance because it doesn't really jump out at you.

 

The culprit are abilities that aren't racially obvious, so it seems unrealistic that everyone has them. There's a good chance I'll ditch some of them (Redguard Battle Tactics in particular, it is very similar to Harrier AND overly annoying when both end up on you at once).

 

I might even go to 2 abilities/2 actives to combat power creep.

[Tykiii]

Yay! I knew you won't abandon your child! :3 Can't wait! :)

[Silantro]

I personally loved the idea that you needed to think about the races of your enemies, particularly when sneaking around. Taking the Redguard and Wood Elf out first was a staple strategy while I had Excellent on, and I loved the extra variety in my battles. That's why I'd really like to see passives that are more or less visible depending on character class. Say, if a Nord's first frost spell in a battle would cause its target to stagger.

 

Looking again at Turnaround...Maybe shift the activation point to 50%, and prevent it from healing you to more than you had? The main difference is that you're less likely to need Restoration magic this way, which could make playing a Tank Imperial considerably different than other races.

 

As for the other racials...As a spellsword player, I loved the Bretons' Manmer Blood. I was actually trying to find ways to block my stamina or magicka regen at times to suit my strategy as required. I think this passive is amazing, and made Bretons my favourite race. That's why I personally love the idea of Spell Mantle, which would make playing an Atronach Breton even more interesting. Zap, on the other hand, is difficult to understand thematically. I don't really get why Bretons are magically better lockpicks than other races. I also didn't like that you absolutely had to zap the first lock you try to pick each day, without any option to cancel.

 

Also, the fiddliness of Sandstorm and Harmonize were tricky with Excellent. I pretty much kept Sandstorm equipped all the time at first because of how easy it was to activate, and wished it was a passive. I gave up once I got some good shouts, and never used it again. Harmonize had a low combat stagger time and a quick cooldown, so I suppose a more skilled player could have stunlocked mages. I lost interest in it because arrows and other pointy things were far easier and more effective than timing it perfectly.

 

Finally, the Bosmer's Cannibalism seems really gimmicky. Essentially, I just need to kill something, anything, once per day and interact with its corpse to have enhanced regen? The condition is so easy to meet, and lasts for so long, I don't really understand why this isn't a straight-up regen boost.

 

I love all the passives I didn't comment on, but either didn't play enough with them to have a strong opinion (Altmer) or didn't feel they changed my strategies significantly (Bosmer). Except Ancestral Guardian, but you've heard way more than enough about it ^_^ I hope this helps, your works are all must-haves in my game!

[Strigvir]

So I took down Excellent due to the actions of an [insert stars to taste]

Except I didn't do much, it was mostly you who sperged out.

Also, nice scapegoating in apocalypse comments section and disabling PM along the way, but I won't follow. And no, I am not whist, in case you meant a certain user.

I'm currently about to start testing and bugfixing before the release, which should come next week.

Better make sort of open beta-test first, so you could fix unexpected bugs before release, not after.

(At will) Contingency -- Specify a spell and a condition, the spell is autocast for free when the condition is met.

This idea won't be fresh already, because http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/43123 basically adds contingencies but for all races and requires a way less hassle.

(Unlockable, 1/day) Feyfire -- Steals 75% stamina and magicka from nearby targets for yourself and dispels them.

The main problem with "1/day" powers is that all of them fall into http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AwesomeButImpractical or http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CoolButInefficient categories. Thus, I used altmer racial once and forgot about it for the rest of ~40 hours of gameplay.

Also, you said that there is no way for lesser powers' cooldowns to be other than 5 seconds or 1/day, but I saw this http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/845/47wr.jpg in SPERG, so maybe it's not impossible to make custom cooldown.

Argonians

I'd say their NPC racials are meh, along with the cat ones. While I can certainly recognize other races the second a fight begins, the beasts aren't recognizable at all.

The only thing I remember about lizards is that I took damage whilst trying to feed on them as a vampire. Don't know if it's bug or feature.

Cannibalism -- Regens very slowly, but can ritually eat the corpse of an animal or human and gain rapid regen for a day.

Useful only at low levels. While magicka/stamina regen grows stronger with character level, health regen diminishes, so regen fluctuations won't do anything.

Harrier -- A bird points out animals to hunt for a special drop or your combat target, lowering its armor and magic resist.

Too OP, NURF PLS. Seriously, -75% magic resist is an overkill, especially if combo'ed with Arcane Helix from Thunderchild. Reduce it to reasonable numbers like -25%, so it won't be a cakewalk for players nor instakill tool (paired with Battle Tactics) for NPCs.

Also, disable "hunting" part of it in dungeons, because that bird targets animals behind a closed doors, which looks ridiculous. And exclude horses from viable targets, because it marks carriage horses, which are invincible.

Wild Senses -- While sneaking and stationary, detects nearby moving targets.

One word for it: A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I didn't know that a simple passive can improve gameplay this much.

Redguard

The biggest problem with redguards is that their racials force certain playstyle on to player without actually rewarding him for following it, unlike the other races.

 

btw, MCM support when? At least put "troubleshooting" section for now, so players won't have to alt+tab for console commands in order to reset racials.

[EnaiSiaion]

I personally loved the idea that you needed to think about the races of your enemies, particularly when sneaking around. Taking the Redguard and Wood Elf out first was a staple strategy while I had Excellent on, and I loved the extra variety in my battles. That's why I'd really like to see passives that are more or less visible depending on character class. Say, if a Nord's first frost spell in a battle would cause its target to stagger.

You'd need separate passives for fighters, archers and mages (and summoners). Also, you are very limited in what you can do with bow attacks in particular without resorting to perks (which don't work on NPCs).

 

Looking again at Turnaround...Maybe shift the activation point to 50%, and prevent it from healing you to more than you had? The main difference is that you're less likely to need Restoration magic this way, which could make playing a Tank Imperial considerably different than other races.

I already removed it again in favour of "Rise and Fall" which modifies stamina and magicka regen based on the time of day. Imperials are potentially the most common opponent you fight, after Nords, so their racials shouldn't be that obvious (it's okay to have Argonians blind you or Dunmer dunk you with Balefire because you don't see them all that often).

 

Also, this was the most annoying thing ever to actually fight against. Oh look, I dropped him to somewhere in the ballpark of 1/4 health (but it's not obvious with that health bar) so now I need to either kill him in 6 seconds or else not even bother attacking or I'm helping him instead. STUPID ATRONACH STOP SHOOTING HIM.

 

I might throw it in as an alternate racial for some other race, just like I'm providing Overgrowth as an alternative to Delirium. (What? Delirium is a new Argonian racial that causes enemies who hit you in melee to suffer from random mind altering conditions)

 

As for the other racials...As a spellsword player, I loved the Bretons' Manmer Blood. I was actually trying to find ways to block my stamina or magicka regen at times to suit my strategy as required. I think this passive is amazing, and made Bretons my favourite race. That's why I personally love the idea of Spell Mantle, which would make playing an Atronach Breton even more interesting. Zap, on the other hand, is difficult to understand thematically. I don't really get why Bretons are magically better lockpicks than other races. I also didn't like that you absolutely had to zap the first lock you try to pick each day, without any option to cancel.

You sure there was no option to cancel? Are you using some lockpicking mod?

 

Also, they're not "picking locks". It's faerie fire. They supposedly all have some magical talent, but it doesn't manifest in the regular game. Here it is.

 

Also, the fiddliness of Sandstorm and Harmonize were tricky with Excellent. I pretty much kept Sandstorm equipped all the time at first because of how easy it was to activate, and wished it was a passive. I gave up once I got some good shouts, and never used it again. Harmonize had a low combat stagger time and a quick cooldown, so I suppose a more skilled player could have stunlocked mages. I lost interest in it because arrows and other pointy things were far easier and more effective than timing it perfectly.

Sandstorm and the entire annoying Redguard theme are thrown out. See below.

 

Finally, the Bosmer's Cannibalism seems really gimmicky. Essentially, I just need to kill something, anything, once per day and interact with its corpse to have enhanced regen? The condition is so easy to meet, and lasts for so long, I don't really understand why this isn't a straight-up regen boost.

It's an immersion passive. Bosmer are ritually cannibalistic.

 

Except Ancestral Guardian, but you've heard way more than enough about it ^_^

It's far more subtle now. It doesn't have the big portal and repetitive voices anymore, just two faint and silent ghosts.

 

 

This idea won't be fresh already, because http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/43123 basically adds contingencies but for all races and requires a way less hassle.

Except I implemented it first in Apocalypse a year ago and then again in Thunderchild. :facepalm:

 

The main problem with "1/day" powers is that all of them fall into http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AwesomeButImpractical or http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CoolButInefficient categories. Thus, I used altmer racial once and forgot about it for the rest of ~40 hours of gameplay.

That would be your problem.

 

Also, you said that there is no way for lesser powers' cooldowns to be other than 5 seconds or 1/day, but I saw this http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/845/47wr.jpg in SPERG, so maybe it's not impossible to make custom cooldown.

It does this by removing the power and then adding it again after a certain time, which 1/ looks duct taped and 2/ doesn't work with racials because they aren't character spells.

 

Useful only at low levels. While magicka/stamina regen grows stronger with character level, health regen diminishes, so regen fluctuations won't do anything.

All three are actually based on a percentage.

[EnaiSiaion]

The new new Redguard

• Battle Tactics - Every 15 seconds, marks an enemy for 5 seconds. That enemy has -100 armor and -25% magic resistance and staggers when struck. Also, when you attack the marked enemy, you gain 50 stamina and magicka +5 per level of the target.
• Blood of the Ra Gada - Max stamina and magicka +150 but cannot regenerate in combat. You gain +75 armor when either stat is above 100.
• Desert Wind - Sprint speed +40% and can strafe.
• (1/day) Whirling Defense - For 15 seconds, anyone attacking you is staggered and you gain +250 armor.
• (1/day) Unlockable: Fata Morgana - Gain invisibility and silence for 30 seconds, becoming virtually undetectable. When broken, you immediately regain it.

Sandstorm is removed entirely (you miiiight be able to get back a modified version...).

[ryanshowseason2]

• Desert Wind - Sprint speed +40% and can strafe.

 

 

Meaning I can be pressing the sprint key and a direction other than forward and move at sprint speed?