Playable Monster Mod - Update/Rebuilt, Add Features

[vh724]

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13108?tab=posts&BH=11

One of the best mods in my opinion, long abandoned, could use a fresh coat of paint. It's a mod that allows you to transform into a large collection of Skyrim's creatures. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since 2018, its not compatible with new versions of Skyrim SE/AE, it has various balancing issues, bugs and the method to get your transformations is like a cheat mod.

I'm not only looking to see this mod get an update, but new features would be cool too! I'm sure you'll have to go through asking for permission to directly modify the mod, which is fine - I think this mod is worth the effort!

Below is a post I made, with some of the current behaviors and potential future updates.

Mod Behavior:
Revert Form: The player must directly transform back into their normal form utilizing "Revert Form" to avoid potential issues and CTD with later transformations.

Powers: As a rule of thumb, you should not use any shouts and abilities that do not belong to the monster transformation whilst transformed to avoid potential issues, such as shouts. Spells are generally fine, but powers are hit or miss. You can test these individually yourself, but shouts in particular are quite unstable.

Hostility: Much like transformations into the vanilla Werewolf and Vampire Lord, transformations as whole will typically cause NPCs to become hostile with the player. Docile animals [Deer, Fox, Rabbit] will typically cause no hostility. Dangerous monsters and animals will cause hostility.

Bounty: If a player transforms and causes hostile behavior from NPCs, this does not cause a bounty on the player. Additionally, crime whilst transformed also does not cause the player to receive a bounty, and NPCs will go back to a non-hostile state when the player transforms back.

Size and Navigation: All transformations and forms, whether hovering or on the ground, must follow the normal rules of obstacle clearance as any NPC. For example, a netch must still be able to fit through the obstacles beneath it in order to move forward. Transformations much larger or much smaller than the player will typically be much harder to navigate around the terrain.

Size and Speed: Larger monsters generally move faster than smaller monsters. Additionally, if the player's base speed is not equal to the vanilla speed, the creature's movement will be impacted, and it's movement animation may not play normally.

CTD: This mod in general is quite unstable, and any transformation, especially when script load is heavier may cause a CTD. Additionally, these CTD may occur outside of transformations.



Future Improvements to Make:
If a mod author were to pick up this mod, or remake a more stable version in the future, some real room for improvement:

Favorites Only: Unequip all player weapons, armor, spells and powers. Remove access to inventory. Assign only creature abilities and powers, and select spells to favorites menu for use. This change would greatly reduce player chances of inadvertently causing a CTD. 

Crime: Ensure the crime works as normal. Hostility should be maintained and bounty should increase for illegal activity (if an NPC noticed your transformation).

Unified Transformation Power: Create one power to open a menu to choose from available transformations.

Custom Skills Menu: Add monster perk menu that affects all forms, such as armor rating, damage increase, etc (Generalized - Not a menu for each monster).

Balancing: Add a cooldown timer between transformations. Add a timer to the transformations that limits the time you can maintain the new form. This could be disabled if player is Role-Playing as a specific monster for a playthrough. Obviously, a MCM would be critical here. 

Unlocking: Unlocking transformations could be done via a large variety of methods. One that comes to mind is slaying a number of those monsters to learn their essence, or maybe capturing enough of their souls to unlock them. Could also be a general quest line, etc.