Question: Adding New Abilities/Powers to Birthsigns

[Rodman49]

I'm trying to make a small personal mod that results in slightly edited Birthsigns, nothing huge, just adding a few abilities/powers to some and changing/removing abilities/powers on others. Anyway when I bring up Birthsigns via "Character -> Birthsigns" in the TES Construction Kit, I am unable to add abilties or powers to a Birthsign (I get the option to delete current ones but I can't add any). This of course, represents a huge problem as it makes it seemingly impossible to add a new ability or power to a Birthsign that lacks a current ability or power.

 

I searched the forums and could not find an answer, and the CS Wiki site has been down the past four or so hours, I also viewed another mod which added a ton of powers to the Birthsigns and noticed that all the added powers/abilities have the prefix "dan" before there Editor ID; is there some reason for this (or is this just some kind of nomenclature used by a specific modder to signify an added field).

 

Can anyone explain the process of adding abilities/powers to the existing birthsigns or provide me a link (it needs to be fairly n00b proof as I have done almost no Oblivion modding). Thanks in advance.

[lilleku]

Hi

 

it seems your problem i fairly simple. when you are adding anything anywhere (meaning objects, spells(including abillities and powers), items, and so forth) you need to drag it from the "Object Window" in the CSEditor and to where ever you are going to have it......

 

so in your case you need to go to the magic-->spell section and drag whatever spell you want from there and into the birthsign window....

 

to complicated?

 

PS: the prefix "dan" is probably the name of or a short form of the authors name. I encourage everyone making mods to make such a prefix to everything they add, such as scripts, items, magic++++

because it makes everything so much simpler to find and edit....

[Povuholo]

PS: the prefix "dan" is probably the name of or a short form of the authors name. I encourage everyone making mods to make such a prefix to everything they add, such as scripts, items, magic++++

because it makes everything so much simpler to find and edit....

 

Exactly, and it makes sure there are no conflicts. If there are two mods that add an npc called Pete with the ID Pete, one of them won't work properly. I always do it like this: NameModNameObject: povssKey01

 

And I hope the wiki is back up soon too... I need it right now ;)

[GBHis]

Yep, you have to drag them. I didn't find it documented anywhere. Very disappointing. Accidentaly found out when playing with AI packages. Still don't get the AI, but now I know how to add things ;)

 

----

At last, a fellow in these gruesome times... The WIKI, our source of eternal knowledge, is down :(

 

I usually name them

g or GBHis as a prefix, then a 3-letter abbreviation of the project, an obscure name of the object, an explanation of the object and at last a number.

That way I ended up with names like these for my shader-pack:

GBHisSTAshaderEffectCrackedStone1

GBHisSTAshaderEffectCamouflageGreen1

:)

 

Oups, afraid the last part got a little off-topic?

[Abramul]

@Povu: Actually, due to the FormID system, the problem MW had with identical names is not present in Oblivion.

[Povuholo]

@Povu: Actually, due to the FormID system, the problem MW had with identical names is not present in Oblivion.

Oh. Well I'll keep doing it anyway... Handy though. :happy:

[Rodman49]

Thanks for the help, but now I have run into another snag. After having edited all the spells and added the birthsigns, I went ahead and ran the mod, to test it out (not thinking correctly here I didn't run the mod standalone, but I ran it with two other mods - which I don't think affect birthsigns but might - Ren's Hair and +5 attribute modifier on level up).

 

Anyway the problem I ran into is that the descriptions for the birthsigns are as I had changed them but pretty much everything else failed to work. For example I tried to make the Apprentice give a constant +25 Willpower like the Thief sign attribute gains, but when I play the game it still has the old Apprentice effects (like weakened to magic and 100 point magika fortify). And when I went back to open the plugin to take a look it looks like most of the birthsigns reverted back to their original condition! Ack! The new effects I added are still in the Object window but they are not added to their appropiate Birthsign effect listing (IE I tried to give Shadow a new ability which fortified agility 10 and then added it to the Shadow effect list - where moonshadow was, but it disappeared from the Shadow effect list even though it is still in the Spells master list).

 

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? It's kind of odd that some things stayed and appeared modded but many other things reverted back to their original state. Thanks in advance.

[Abramul]

Did you try starting with a new character? It seems likely that birthsign spells are only granted when you change/set your birthsign. There's a command that brings up the birthsign menu, although I don't remember it, I know it's used in the sewer exit script, which is named something like CGSewerExit, IIRC.

 

YAY, the wiki is back up! The command is ShowBirthsignMenu.

[Rodman49]

Yes, I tried creating a new character, it gave me the old abilities but new descriptions and when I looked at the plugin again the abilities had reverted back to their default/normal state and no longer had modded values (although new abilities were still in the spells list, they were no longer added to the appropiate birthsign list).

[Abramul]

I know of 3 possible causes for that type of problem:

1) You didn't set your plugin as the active file

2) You didn't save after adding the spells to the birthsign

3) A plugin that was created at a later date modifies the same birthsign. Since you've just created your plugin, this would only happen if someone post-dated their plugin.