A new system: How spells are acquired (new mod)

[stars2heaven]

Those of you who have played warrior types know that part of the thrill of your treasure hunting is finding various armor and weapons that you can use/upgrade. Will this dungeon have a new bow? A new sword or axe? Maybe some new boots even?

 

How about you mage types out there? What is a dungeon to you but another gold run? I love mage characters but I NEVER play a pure mage in Oblivion because it is just so BORING. The problem is that there is hardly any treasure to be had in any dungeon that is as useful to me as a mage as it would be to me as a warior. There are a few exceptions, but they are just as useful to the warrior as they are to me!

 

I dont like this system and I havent since I started playing. I've complained about it before hoping someone might take up the cause because I didnt know how to even open the CS. But now I have the skills necessary to make this a reality, and I plan to.

I have nothing so far but some ideas. Here i wish to share them and get feedback. What are things that YOU think should be improved or changed? Are there potential problems with some of my ideas? Can you think of a better way to solve a particular issue? Im looking to make a new system that will work well and add a great more challenge and fun to any magic using player.

This is just the idea stage for now. Any and all criticisms/Brain storming is welcome.

 

This is a very basic outline for the kinds of things that I want:

 

1. Spells are found in much greater variety and strength in the depths of dungeons, either guarded by those who wish to keep the knowledge to themselves, or it is forgotten, waiting to be rediscovered.

 

2. Spell making must be overhauled or eliminated entirely. It's continued existence as it is now would defeat the purpose of what Im trying to achieve. I have some minor ideas on how I might achieve this, others are welcome:

 

2a. Spell making requires the collection of particular components. Certain components can be used to make certain types of spells of varying strengths.

 

2b. Only scrolls can be made and not permanent spells.

 

2c. Player made spells are always inferior to the same level equivalents found in dungeons or made by master wizards who teach them to you.

 

3. Most Spell Vendors sell only the most basic magical spells usefull only to the common layman or hedge wizard if they have any at all. Spells must be taught, therefore only spell casters can sell their tutoring. Vendors are more likely to sell scrolls. Even the members of the mages guild can teach you only slightly better spells, and those few who can teach you the best arent interested in just your coin.

 

4. More quests involving the acquisition of spells.

 

5. Heavier focus on the acquisition of scrolls. Permanent spells are very valuable, far more rare, and much more likely to be acquired by an actual student of magic.

 

6. This should be a mod aimed at how magic is acquired, not how magic functions. Therefore my goal is to make it as compatible as possible with all other magic overhaul mods. I recognize some patching may be required to "fix" certain things in those mods that may run contrary to the ideas expressed in this one. (vendors selling spells, etc.)

 

7. Enchanting is too easy in my view also, I havent thought up any ideas inparticular for making this more difficult. Given the plethora of enchanted items available during normal play, this may be something beyond the scope of this mod.

 

These are some basic ideas for what I have in mind. If you share my view about magic and think something can be improved then let us know what it is. If everyone thinks this is just a terrible idea, let me know. If you think its great and have ideas of your own, let me know. Just let me know wat you think about it all, lol. :biggrin:

[stars2heaven]

In addition, and this is something I forgot to mention, I dont like mages being restricted to either heavy or light armor. Going witha robe like all other Oblivion mages do is more of a roleplay choice than anything else as it offers little compared to the potential benefits of armor. This is something I want to change by:

 

1. Reinforcing the idea that heavy and light armors limit ones agility/mobility thereby hindering spell casting

 

2. By providing incentives for going without armor. Certain types of clothing increase spell casting ability, etc. Need ideas here.

[DragonRose11]

I like the idea, barring two things listed below

 

2b. Only scrolls can be made and not permanent spells.

 

2c. Player made spells are always inferior to the same level equivalents found in dungeons or made by master wizards who teach them to you.

 

I think that perhaps these may be a bit overboard. Perhaps something based on the mage quests. Once you become the Arch Mage, why couldn't you be able to create grand spells? If you're the top of the totem pole in the way of magics, I don't think that you should be limited to scrolls and lower quality spells. Instead, I would theorize requiring items hidden deep in dungeons as a requirement to build these magnificent spells, from the mundane to near overpowered with the requirement of more rare ingredients, but not limit them to lower quality. I love the idea overall though.

[David Brasher]

It sort of sounds like some of the suggestions would really push the limits of the Oblivion Game engine and be hard to implement. There are easy alternatives to do similar things though.

 

2. Spell making must be overhauled or eliminated entirely. It's continued existence as it is now would defeat the purpose of what Im trying to achieve. I have some minor ideas on how I might achieve this, others are welcome:

 

2a. Spell making requires the collection of particular components. Certain components can be used to make certain types of spells of varying strengths.

 

2b. Only scrolls can be made and not permanent spells.

 

2c. Player made spells are always inferior to the same level equivalents found in dungeons or made by master wizards who teach them to you.

 

It would be very easy to remove every altar of spellmaking in Cyrodiil, but it might really strain your brain trying to find powerful enough OBSE commands to change the spellmaking engine. I would suggest just eliminating spellmaking and concentrating your efforts on the other parts of your mod.

 

It would be very easy to change what spells which vendors sell, and it would be easy to scatter spell books which each teach one new spell all over Cyrodiil, but it would take a lot of time and brainpower to make the scripting or dialog with result scripts to manufacture enchanted scrolls in all the many varieties.

 

Perhaps an alternative to having spellmaking would be to have the vendors sell one type of spell in 16 varieties. So then I could buy one of 16 fireball spells from one vendor that specializes in it. I could buy the one that matches my style and magicka reserves best, since I can't make a custom one.

 

I have thought it would be nice to be able to remove your old spells like you could in Morrowind. The ones you never cast anymore because you have learned better ones. But that might be ridiculously time-consuming to do. I have thought that as an alternative, I could just put a book in the game which lists all the console codes to remove all the vanilla spells. It would be immersion-breaking, but not as immersion-breaking as opening the CS or going to the wiki.

 

Quests to acquire spells would be really fun to play, but very time-consuming to make.

 

If your mod were available today I would rush to download it. I think it would be really fun to try out, but after awhile I would probably deactivate it because I really enjoy making custom spells with the altar of spellmaking.

[stars2heaven]

@David Brasher

 

I know there are currently mods that allow you to remove delete spells from your spell book, I use one myself. The mod I currently use even allows you to create a new spell witht he same name even after the old one was deleted. i dont remember what mod it is, but if you are very interested I could figure it out and let you know.

 

Also, I would agree that the most difficult part of this would be to create a new spell creation system. I think it is entirely doable, but what form this system would have in the end, I have no idea. I do have ideas on how it might be accomplished though. For one, I could use something similar to the system for creation of items in the mod "Otherworld" and combine that with the spell making of "Midas Magic". Additionaly, I could still allow some freedom in the creation of the spell by allowing the player to choose the power of the spell limited within the range that the components allow him to. This last part is highly theoretical, I havent given any thought as to how that might be accomplished.

 

Vendors selling more spells is a possibility, though one I would try to avoid since it is one of my issues with Oblivion as it is. As far as quests go, you are right. I may only include a few, maybe none at all, and make independant mods that do this. It is primarily the system that i want to accomplish. Though quests could, and probably should, play a large role in that system...

 

What sort of limitations do you think you would allow on the alter? For instance, as in 2c I could still allow the spell creation system as it is now, though making the resulting spells always be inferior to those found elsewhere. That way if you needed an upgrade badly enough, you could still make it. Though you would still have the expectation of a possible reward when entering a dungeon.

[David Brasher]

I am not too terribly concerned about my own personal spell removal because I am a modder and can just gather information in the CS and use the resulting console codes to get rid of spells. But many light gamers who can't mod would really appreciate such a thing. Thanks for the offer though.

 

We have great freedom to mod and we love it. But now and then we run into hard-coding and are utterly defeated. There are some things that are part of the game engine that we cannot change. We sometimes cannot figure out workarounds or at least cannot figure out workarounds that can be made to cover all the possible situations we would like them to.

 

What I am saying, is that I don't think the hard-coding will let you change much of anything concerning the altar. You either have it vanilla, or take it away so no one can use it. I don't think you can change it to alter the prices and powers of spells it will make. I don't think you can change the spells offered to be different than what the game wants the altar to offer i.e. the spell types you know and have in your spell list upon activation of the altar.

 

It may be that I do not know what I am talking about and there are ways to do these things. But I suggest that they are not easy things to do and no wiki will be able to tell you how to do them.

 

Here is the script on ICSpellmakingingStation:

 

ScriptName SpellmakingStationScript

Begin OnActivate
if isActionRef player == 1
	showSpellmaking
endif
End

 

It is untouchable. What you could do is add messagebox options or other things to restrict access. You could charge a fee in this script to use the altar. You could require the player to be at a certain quest stage or to have certain magical items collected. You could put all sorts of limits on getting "showSpellmaking" to execute, but once it executes, I think you are out of luck.

 

I guess you could script a really really elaborate messagebox option thing to make a faux spellmaking minigame, but scripts can only be about 200 lines long depending on density, and you may not be able to do everything you want in those 200 lines. I guess you could have multiple 200 line long scripts for multiple spellmaking altars that can do different jobs, but this part of your mod is sounding intimidating to construct.

 

I suggest just deleting all the spellmaking altars.

 

I do not know the Otherworld system but the Midas system is really good and workable. you could conceivably not have any vendors selling any spells and have it so they were all constructed through a Midas-like set-up, but it has the same problem of "one size fits all" as buying nothing but vanilla spells has. The spells available may not work well for your particular character at a particular time.

 

I did something challenging and informative once. I started a new character and went straight to the Shivering Isles. I never left until I had beat the Shivering Isles. I struggled and suffered. You should try that sometime for kicks. No good weapons. No good spells. My greatest problem was lack of light. No one sells light spells or nighteye spells, and there are very few torches. I was exploring dungeons by the byproduct light from restoration spells if you can imagine that. (The healing spells and destruction spells also stink, but a high alchemy level and skill with a blade can get you past those obstacles.) My example is rather extreme, but if your mod was balanced wrong, it could be nightmarishly hard for mages and they would give it up and act like warriors.

 

Maybe you could just make the spellmaking altar charge a ridiculous fee to activate. Like 10,000 Septims. That way you could make any spell you wanted, but you would have to work awfully hard at it, and it would be more economical to use your cool new system.

 

But I really like the idea of your mod. I said that I might try it and the turn it off after awhile, but if it was really really cool, I might never turn it off.

[stars2heaven]

@David Brasher

 

Hmm, I assumed certain things in the spell making menu would be adjustable. I know that I can increase the magnitude, duration, and Area slider bars. Im not sure if I can decrease them though. I had also hoped that I might be able to adjust the mana to magnitude/duration/area ratio so that player made spells will always cost slightly more to cast than one found in a dungeon. If these things arent possible I may have to settle for something else.

 

I agree that removing the spell altars AND removing spells from so many vendors creates a dilemma for mage characters. The only way I can think to solve this is through the addition of many more scrolls. These could be sold by vendors at a reduced cost and greater variety so that a player could carry/afford more of them. They could also be more common in dungeon loot. I may also be able to implement a system to allow the player to make their own.

 

I would hope that the increased availability of scrolls would provide the player with enough of a buffer inbetween upgrades for his/her spells that this system of reduced availability of spells would still work for a mage. After all, that is the goal here. To provide mages with more reasons to venture into dungeons and more excitement when finding their new spells. No more, "I need a new spell, lets go make/buy one." Warriors dont usually have that luxury, I dont like it that mages do.

 

Thanks for the input so far, this will help me to figure out what will work and what wont both in terms of what is practical and what people will accept and actaully play with.

[Master Marksman]

An interesting and unique idea. .-.

 

I suggest instead of altering spell-making alters, you just nerf their ability to make quality spells, equivalent to the players strongest spell of that catagory.

 

However, you'd have to make dungeon acquired spells worth the effort to take, as well as some use to non-magical classes, like the ability for either:

a) The spell can be fragmented to provide lesser version(s) of the spell as well as some spell-making/enchanting ingrediants,

b) The spell can be converted into an equal and usable enchantment, similar to a sigil stone,

c) The spell can be sold to a SPECIFIC vendor for a reasonable sum, equal to moderate loot of the level.

 

This mod would have to have versatility so it doesn't need to be removed for non-mage characters.

However, versatility on this level is probably a late priority, as satisfying the spell-casters is the first.

[stars2heaven]

@Master Marksman

 

I would like to do as you suggested and alter the alters ability to make quality spells. I havent had a chance to look into this and see to what degree this is possible.

 

 

I was thinking that the increased number of scrolls and continued availability of lesser spells from vendors would keep the non mage class characters happy. I dont see someone whose main damage dealing skill is through swords or blunt weapons placing a high priority on obtaining a better flame touch spell than one that could be bought. But even if they did, the same spells should be available to them in the smae ways as with mages.

 

Im thinking that most utility spells can still be found in a decent quantity from some vendors. Healing spells for instance could be found in greater variety and strengths from preasts. This makes sence from a role play view. Of course, the best healing spells will be hidden away in dungeons.

 

I could set the system up like this:

 

Dungeon spells: Best mana to magnitude/area/duration ratios. You will get more bang for your buck with these

 

Vendor Spells: Not as good a ratio as Dungeon spells. Some can still be quite good depending on who you buy them from. Im thinking that the quality of a vendors spells should be dependant upon their knowledge of whatever school of magic they are selliing spells from.

 

Player made spells: For the most part these are lower quality. Depending on how the alters work out, I may try to find a system that allows the quality to be increased based on certain conditions. But no matter what, player made spells will never be as good a quality as the best of the spells found in dungeions.

[braidedsin]

here is, I think, a random suggestion. Area based magic abilities or spells. I really dunno if it's remotely possible without adding some kind of area trigger but for instance:

 

Drows get +2 to blablabla in darkness and -2 in light areas.