LE immersion: Poaching and Looted Armor Doesn't Fit

[Sereganor]

A couple of ideas I had on the drive home today... I'd like to make them myself, but I have too many other things taking up my time that I have to finish before I can start learning how to mod.

 

1. Poaching

This is probably the easier one, since I think it would only involve crime faction/gold and the stolen tag?

The idea is that if your character kills certain types of animals, it's considered poaching, there's a bounty if you are seen killing the animals or cooking the meat, and only fences will buy the meat.

 

The animals protected by poaching laws would be (looking at the Anglo-Norman Forest Law of William the Conqueror as a starting point):

Deer

Elk

Wolf

Rabbit

Fox

(Not sure about vale deer - the meat would be indistinguishable from other venison, but the hides are distinct.)

Boars were protected, but they seem to only exist as bristlebacks on Solstheim and thus not subject to any laws particular to the Skyrim province. Also since they aren't native to Skyrim there probably wouldn't be a law about them.

Historically, the right to hunt these beasts was often granted to nobility for a fee, so if you're a Thane of the hold you could pay the jarl or steward. If you want to RP as actually being a thane.

I don't think bears and saber cats would be protected, since the jarls would have an interest in keeping their roads safe, as shown by the bounties they often put out on bandit leaders.

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2. Looted armor doesn't fit

I actually don't have a clue how you'd code this one. But the idea is that looted armor would either not be wearable at all, or have a lower armor rating if you can put it on. Depending on the armor type of course.

From personal experience (SCA), it's not fun trying to wear a steel helm that's the wrong size. Too small and you can't put it on your head, too big and you run the risk of having the helm itself slam into your face when hit.

Boots, of course, if badly fit would cause blisters (could be a constant low-grade drain on hitpoints and/or a penalty to movement speed, and blisters can get infected after a while.)

Leather and chainmail are obviously more flexible than plate, especially on body pieces. Gauntlets could blister or cut off circulation if they're the wrong size, you could lose your grip on your weapon especially if one handed (penalty to damage, possibly more vulnerability to being disarmed).

Only armor that you craft for yourself, or that you buy from a merchant (who would presumably help you find a piece that fits and could maybe tailor it and fix the straps etc) would fit properly and have its full armor rating.

Magic items would also presumably have the ability to adjust themselves to you.

As far as I know, though, the game doesn't distinguish between looted and crafted items, so there's nothing to hang all this on. Unless you applied the stolen tag to all looted items somehow? But then you coudn't sell them except to a fence.

2b. You have to knock someone unconscious to pickpocket their equipped weapon, clothes, jewelry, or anything else that you can't literally remove from their pocket/purse/pack with one hand while they're distracted. (I think there's a sneak tools mod with a sap option, but haven't looked into that one much.)

[Doomtaker200K]

Despite my sarcasm and passive/aggressiveness back in my thread, I actually really love these Ideas. Would really love to see them become viable, would add barrels of fun to the game

[Serithi]

Adding on to #2, you could also perhaps take the armor to a smith and get it tempered (or do it yourself if you have the skill) depending on what kind of armor it is, getting a somewhat better fit though not as good as if you'd forged it yourself. For the more complex armors (Glass, Ebony, etc.) you'd definitely have to forge one yourself to get proper protection.

[faffman]

Another thought for the armor thing, what about armor for followers? Sometimes you craft your armor for your followers, say if you're a big bulky male orc, and you're bringing Lydia with you. If you wanted to craft some fine ebony armor for her, how would that work?

 

I'm in favor of both ideas, just letting you know that.

[Sereganor]

Any armor you craft could have a "Fits" marker, so if you put it on then it fits, and if you put it on a follower it fits. You'd just have to resist the temptation to take it back from Lydia and wear it yourself. (it would still fit you, but could mess up RP thinking.)

 

Either that, or maybe some kind of name tag coding? That could get complicated.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Sereganor

[techprince]

#2 is an interesting and unique idea, i will try :)

Edited March 25, 2014 by techprince

[1355970]

#1 is basically what I came here for to open a new thread.

 

Make the animals illegal to hunt down, add a bounty and mark their loot as stolen. If you become thane, you are allowed to hunt and sell loot in the hold. I find the fee a little bit excessive though.

Edited December 27, 2014 by 1355970

[Boombro]

But why make animal poaching illegal? The hunters say that they do it all the time, but they don't refer to it as a crime, but as an okay bad thing, but it a welcoming idea. But not for wolves, they are hostile and attack npcs and the player, the effect of the crime will wear and will be almost non noticeable since they mostly attack first anyways. If it was a crime to also attack them then it will a very idea.

[SkurgeDrakken]

As for poaching ,why not just have different hunting seasons for each type of game?This could bring up a quest to either join a group of noble rangers or vile poachers.

[1355970]

But why make animal poaching illegal? The hunters say that they do it all the time, but they don't refer to it as a crime, but as an okay bad thing

 

The hunters themselves refer to it as "poaching", and poaching in itself is illegal, so they acknowledge, that what they are doing is illegal, they are just justifying it by reasoning that the Jarl couldn't possibly need all those animals.

 

And like Sereganor mentioned in the opening post, only hunting "game" would be considered poaching. Wolves, Bears, Sabrecats are dangerous beasts you wouldn't get in trouble to kill.

 

 

As for poaching ,why not just have different hunting seasons for each type of game?This could bring up a quest to either join a group of noble rangers or vile poachers.

 

Hunting seasons would be a bad idea for multiple reasons:

 

- They require extra scripting.

- You would be limited in a large portion of your game time to killing just one type of game (legally).

- Random encounters are totally random. You can't just go somewhere to deliberately hunt only elk, then only deer, then foxes, then rabbits. It's random. If you would modify spawners so they aren't random, those would cause conflicts with mods, that do the same thing, and when you create new spawners that's even more scripting.

 

If you are requesting something you're better off asking for something simple, there will be more chance that someone picks it up and actually creates the mod, without features that would be a nuisance to code.