Idea to overhaul Oblivion's magic system

[tinylampe]

1. The complaint:

 

I never understood why in Oblivion you can't block spells. I mean, if your character is a warrior or an assassin with 0 magic affinity, ok, in this context it makes sense. However, imagine now that you play as a pure, all-mighty mage. Why should you dodge spells by running away and hiding? Why can't you extend your hand and block that insolent fireball that a lesser wizard has thrown at you? And, similarly, why can't enemy mages do the same?

 

And, YES, I know that the game offers two possibilities to nulify incoming spells: absorb spell and reflect spell. My problem with these two abillities is that they are passive, that is, you don't have to do anything special for them to work. And in my opinion, there is a lot of fun and immersion that is killed by turning absorb and reflect into passive abilities. Let me elaborate on an alternative:

 

2. The idea

 

When an on-target spell (fireball etc) is approaching you or a NPC, both of you would have 1 of these 3 options: block the spell, absorb it and reflect it.

 

To make things simple, these three actions will be performed by doing the same thing: pressing the block button when the spell is about to hit you (so, yes, timing is important). Now, a very valid question: if all 3 actions are performed the same, what do I do to absorb and not to block for instance? The explanation is simple:

 

If you (or a NPC) are attacked by, say, a journeyman-level fireball and you (he) are apprentices in destruction or lower, you (he) will automatically block the fireball.

If you (or a NPC) are attacked by, say, a journeyman-level fireball and you (he) are journeymen in destruction, you (he) will atuomatically absorb the fireball

If you (or a NPC) are attacked by, say, a journeyman-level fireball and you (he) are experts in destruction or higher, you (he) will atuomatically reflect the fireball

 

The main idea behind this system is then the following: the game would compare two things: 1) the level of the spell 2) how good you are at the magic school the spell belongs to. If you are not as good you will simply block (and this will punish your health and magicka a little), if you are equally good you will absorb the spell (and there will be no penalities in your health). Finally, if you are better, you will reflect the spell.

 

Notice that this system prevents things like having a '25% chance of reflecting spells'. Now you will ALWAYS absorb and reflect IF your timing is right AND you have the school the incoming spell belongs to at the right level.

 

One last but very important thing: by reflect a spell I actually mean "blocking it and sending it back to the original caster" (so that he can block it/absorb it/ or even reflect it back). Compared to the vanilla reflect spell in which you immediately receive the spell damage no matter what you do, this alternative reflect would make duels much more engaging and fun.

 

And that was it!

Let's see if you guys like it and, who knows, if some modder attempts to turn this idea into reality ;)

 

Tiny Lampe.

Edited February 19, 2011 by tiny lampe

[IgnorantBeast101]

your idea could go into action, but it would take awhile. Oblivion doesn't have any resource or specifications for "blocking" magic. People would have to mess around with the mechanics of the game to make a blocking-type animation and make it do what it's supposed to do.

[documn]

I made a spell blocking mod once, but for whatever reason my testers and I got random crashes. Never figured it why. It did work whenever it didn't crash though. It would be easy to adapt for absorbing and reflecting spells too if I used the kinds of scripts from my magic and spellshields mods. But alas, I am not into Oblivion modding right now.

 

FYI, if anybody wants to know how the blocking mod worked:

I used OBSE's reference walking functions in a quest script to continually find spell projectiles. If the projectile was close to the player and facing the player, and the player is blocking, then I moved that projectile to a different cell. I put an invisible activator in its place and made that activator cast a modified spell (same spell effects, reduced magnitude) at the player.

[tinylampe]

Ah, thank you for replying documn.

 

It's a pity you are not into oblivion modding right now but hey, this opens up an even more interesting possibility: if you get interested in skyrim and decide to make some mods for it, this one of blocking spells could be one of them assuming that the new bethesda game doesn't already include this feature.

 

Actually, I believe that it may even be easier with the new magic system skyrim features; since we'll be able to equip spells in our hands as if they were weapons, perhaps one could mod a defensive spell that could consist, essentially, on some sort of 'barrier' between your character and any incoming spells. If the spell's level surpasses your expertise in the magic school the spell belongs to, the barrier would block it. If your expertise is just as good, the barrier would absorb it, and if your expertise is greater, the barrier would reflect it.

 

I know it's maybe too soon to talk about skyrim mods but hey, I'm very fond of the idea of blocking spells, and seeing it in skyrim would be even better than seeing it in oblivion.

[Skevitj]

The base of it shouldn't actually be too hard, although there are certain parts which probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

 

1) NPCs won't block against magic unless they are forced to by a script, which is a really messy and intensive way of doing it, ie, It's not going to be worth the effort to apply this to NPCs.

 

2) It should be dead easy to apply the basic aspects of the idea to the PC: Have an ability which gives the PC a 0-100% chance to reflect/absorb/magicresist ability as soon as they block, and the ability is remove whenever they stop blocking, or after a timer expires, to give it the timing critical function.

 

3) There is no simple way to identify the ID of a trivial magic projectile and its source without needing a whole heap of scripting and bug squashing. Honestly, I doubt having the idea apply to individual projectiles will be worth the effort.

 

Adding all that together, here's a possible implementation I've come up with which will be very easy to writeup, and contains the majority of the functionality you were after:

 

 

From the start of the game, the PC has an ability, like a birth sign, which will govern the magic blocking. What this ability does is add a particular ability to the PC whenever they block and it updates/manages that ability over time, finally removing it altogether when they stop blocking.

 

The added ability would consist of a number of different smaller abilities which would be applied one at a time, to give the effect of a changing ability over time. (This could be achieved in a much simpler fashion with the use of OBSE, but it depends if you want an OBSE free mod). The idea is to make the timing the most critical part: The first ability added is Reflect spell, after x seconds (x being based on the player's mysticism skill, ie 0.5s at 25 skill, 1.5s at 100 skill?) it is removed and replaced with a high power Resist magic, after y seconds (y being based on the player's alteration skill) it is removed and replaced with a low power Resist Magic which is left on the PC until they stop blocking.

 

It wouldn't be too hard to adjust the main ability to allow switching between a Reflect spell and Absorb spell variant of the ability with a lesser power. Or to even have the main ability not permanent, but added by a spell (two spells for either version).

 

 

The one point I haven't addressed is the expanded reflect spell mechanic. The main reason for this is an extension of points 1) and 3). Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but to identify the projectile, it's source and the send it back at them is more likely than not going to be way too much effort. ie, Unless you're fighting toe to toe, you will need to implement your own version of spell leading, and that is no easy feat to do properly. Without it, reflect spell will be next to useless as it will miss at the slightest enemy movement. The spells will also not recognize the reflector as the caster, and anyone hit will just ignore the spell completely, as if they have been hit by a trap.

 

All that said, it's been a very long time since I've scripted for Oblivion, so I'm not too sure what resources, code blocks or functions, are out there which may make certain parts easier.

Edited February 27, 2011 by Skevitj

[tinylampe]

Ah the irony!

 

First thank you for your long and detailed reply Skevitj. I was about to redesign my idea to make it more simple when I run across this topic: My link

 

It seems that a modder thought of overhauling the magic system too and, judging by the videos I've seen, he has accomplished what I only managed to imagine. In fact, he has done even more. Watch it and enjoy it ;)

 

Tiny Lampe.

 

PS: I believe this topic can be closed now.

[Nealus]

Maybe this will fit partly?

http://www.tesnexus....le.php?id=37358

Edited March 3, 2011 by Nealus