LE Spells require a perk to be learned

[AndrealphusVIII]

Hi there

 

I have been thinking about this for a while and I might want to give a suggestion for a mod.

 

I have found that in Vanilla Skyrim it's far too easy to learn spells. You just read a spell tome and voila, you have the spell.

 

I would like to see a perk requirement to learn spells.

 

However, to do this, I can assume there will be heavy scripting involved. Which isn't my field of expertise at all...

 

Or is this possible to achieve without using any scripts?

 

In any case, it would be awesome to see such a mod being made.

 

I know of one mod that comes relatively close: http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/43057/?

However, it's still a beta version and seems to be abandonned.

 

Can someone shed some light on this?

 

Thanks in advance

Andre

[lofgren]

I can't think of any method of implementing this that would also work for mod-added spells. However you could make it so that learnt spells cannot be cast without the proper perk easily enough.

 

But you should elaborate on your idea somewhat. Even if you require a perk to learn the spells, you would still "read a spell tome and voila, you have the spell." Are you saying you would prefer if the player has to perform some task or quest in order to acquire the perk?

 

It is not clear to me from the OP how this would make learning spells more difficult.

[AndrealphusVIII]

Lore-wise, you'll need to have enough knowledge of a magic school, in order to be able to learn the spell. This will make it more difficult for lower level players, so they can't learn every spell from tomes they can buy at the very start. They'll have to invest time and perks into a magic school, in order to be able to learn spells.

 

So for instance, you'll need to reach level 50 Restoration and get the Adept perk, before you can learn Adept Restoration spells from tomes.

 

I was thinking of a single script which does the following: (keep in mind, I'm very new at scripting)

 

2 properties:

• A Perk (e.g.: Apprentice Restoration)
• A Spell (e.g.: Fast Healing)

 

When you read a spelltome: (OnRead?)

• If player has Perk (Apprentice Restoration) -> add Spell (Fast Healing) + play sound (the Vanilla sound you get when you normally read a tome.)
• Else -> display message "You have insufficient knowledge to learn this spell." + play sound (the sound you hear when you try to cast a spell, but you're out of magicka.)

 

Then, add this script to ALL spellbooks and adjust the properties accordingly.

 

Afterwards, remove the Vanilla entries (which normally teaches the spell) by setting it to NONE.

 

http://i.imgur.com/elVDfpa.png

 

I was also thinking of of renaming all spelltomes into: "Spelltome: <perk> - <name spell>" so for instance: Spelltome: Apprentice Restoration - Fast Healing.

 

In order to make this work for modded spells, it might be a good idea to use a SkyProc Patcher. (However, I know even less about how they work.)

 

The patcher will need to do the following:

• Look for Spelltomes
• Add the Papyrus script to each spelltome and add the correct Spell and Perk to the properties.
• Remove all old "Learn Spell" entries
• Change the name of the spelltome.

With the help of an ini file, you should be able to determine that each Book is associate with Spell and Perk.

Edited May 29, 2014 by AndrealphusVIII

[lofgren]

That seems like about the most complicated possible way of making it but that's your prerogative.

 

I would have gone with a perk that just makes the spells with casting perks you don't have cost too much magicka and sets the duration and magnitude to 0. You can still buy and learn the spell, just not cast it. Same effect but it requires no scripts, no external tools, no special installation instructions, and takes about five minutes rather than however long it will take you to learn how to script in Java in order to make your reproccer.

 

Also I don't believe OnRead() fires for spell tomes. But I may be wrong.

 

In the Vanilla game adept and above spells don't become available for sale until you get to the right skill level anyway, so this really only affects spells you find in loot and apprentice level spells. Personally I find that apprentice level spells are not really affordable early on anyway but that may be the result of my own loaded mods. Plus they cost so much magicka compared to a starting character's stats that you can only really pull off one until you get the perk to halve it.

 

 

What I'm saying is maybe the problem is your combination of mods, and just tweaking those will alleviate it without having to add another one.

[AndrealphusVIII]

Well, at the moment, I'm using SkyRe and Frostfall, amongst others. I'm only level 14, but I already have found several adept spelltomes (Cure Disease, Vapor Blast, Close Wounds and a high conjure spell, can't remember the name)

 

At my level, I think they're a little overpowered. I chose the Atronach Standing Stone (for the first fight with Mirmulnir, to resist fire dmg) which raises spell resist and max magicka but completely removes all magicka regen. With the Magicka buff, I'm able to already cast these spells and just drink a potion afterwards.

 

Also, when I visit Farengar just after Helgen (lvl 3-4ish), I can already buy most kinds of Apprentice Spells from him, which make the Novice Spells obselete in my opinion.

 

I was looking for a way to train a magic school, by first using Novice Level Spells, then after a while Apprentice ones, and so on.

 

Could be just me, but it's a little unbalanced at the moment. Hopefully PerMa (which will be released soon) will adress this.

[lofgren]

SkyRe changes so much that it's hard to know what the source of the problem is. If I do the Helgen open and go straight to Farengar I can usually afford one apprentice spell and that's my whole wad. This was before I added mods to increase prices. So I would guess that is the result of SkyRe or some other mod affecting the price of spells, the amount of gold found, or both. (I never played as an Imperial though so if you are using that race maybe their perk increases the gold sufficiently to make purchasing spells trivial?)

 

As for the spells that you've found in loot, it could be an utter fluke. I recently played a game where I had three pieces of Dragonplate before level 50, and others where I never found a single piece. Sometimes the odds are just in your favor.

 

If you are using SkyRe then I would definitely recommend the smaller footprint route. One perk, twenty entries. Affects every spell, even those added by mods, and never conflicts with anything. It's not pretty looking at Close Wounds and seeing "heals the caster for 0 points" but sure saves you a lot of work and headache.

 

Edit: Actually if you just make the spell cost 999 or something like that there's no way you can cast them anyway, unless you're of sufficiently high level it doesn't matter. Then you don't have to worry about the descriptions being weird.

Edited May 29, 2014 by lofgren

[AndrealphusVIII]

SkyRe changes so much that it's hard to know what the source of the problem is. If I do the Helgen open and go straight to Farengar I can usually afford one apprentice spell and that's my whole wad. This was before I added mods to increase prices. So I would guess that is the result of SkyRe or some other mod affecting the price of spells, the amount of gold found, or both. (I never played as an Imperial though so if you are using that race maybe their perk increases the gold sufficiently to make purchasing spells trivial?)

 

Do you perhaps use Trade and Barter? If so, what do you have your prices set at?

 

I'm thinking of removing the Standing Stones module of SkyRe, which will make the effect of the Atronach Stone a little less overpowered.

[lofgren]

I do use Trade & Barter but I only just installed it for my current game which did not start at Helgen. I have buy prices set +20% and sell prices to -20%. This keeps things little bit more interesting to me. Purchasing the Adept level Conjuration spells set me back to less than 200 gp and recently I bought a Master Alteration robe that also nearly wiped me out. I haven't done the Thieves' Guild quests yet, though. I find that once I do that questline I'm pretty much set for the rest of the game.