Brainstorming Ideas for Magic Research Mod

[IronDusk33]

I am currently in the (very early) process of a mod which would bring magical research to Skyrim, and I want to ask the community if they have any ideas to improve the process.

 

I'm currently going to have the player gain "research knowledge" by casting spells and reading Shalidor's writings. They would then attempt to discover spells by choosing certain aspects of spells that they are competent in (like novice fire damage, expert aimed attacks, adept alteration spells, etc) with a chance to fail and strike the player with debilitating and/or debilitation effects.

 

If anyone has ideas to improve the process of research and/or discovering I would love to hear it.

[jodidovahkiin]

I'm thinking about ancient dungeons, where you can find all kinds of scrolls/spell tomes etc. You only get an old map from a book indicating the locations of the dungeons. They contain (magical) traps which you can avoid by using certain ward spells or something like that. (Ghostly) powerful wizards protect the knowledge. The player can learn specific spells in those ruins. There is a bigger chance to get cursed in the process, but smaller chance to be affected by learning that spell. If the player wants to learn those spells outside the dungeon, there will be smaller chances to get cursed, but he could be affected much easier by those specific spells (like you mentioned, the chance to strike the player).

 

I hope I helped. :smile:

[lofgren]

Are you going to add new spells or will this be an alternate way of discovering spells that are already in the game?

[IronDusk33]

Thanks for the ideas, so I'm thinking of adding Ancient Grimoires as an alternate form to research. These tomes would be found on enemy spellcasters and in spellcaster dungeons. The player would attempt to either: Study the Notes or Search for a Complete Spell. After either attempt there would be a chance for a enchantment ingrained in the tome to destroy the tome, so the researchers notes wouldn't be stolen, and possibly curse the player.

 

Another possible way to research is to read textbooks, the player would read a textbook sold by court wizards or at the College of Winterhold, a script would make the player play the book reading animation, and then the player would wait (irl or with the ingame wait menu) while the player character studies the textbook. The amount of research the player would learn from these textbooks would decrease with time (there is only so much you can learn from reading one book). Eventually that textbook would become unusable as the player has learned all they can from it.

 

I also forgot the most important part of this mod. The spells that are used to research can also be discovered by researching spells of the same type. Additionally, the entire thing would work through form lists. Which means that any spell mod could easily put their spells into my mod, and the player could research with their spells, or discover them.