Any way to get NPCs to only Cast Spells

[jamochawoke]

What I'm specifically asking is if there is any way to get enemy NPC's to only cast spells and never try to use weapons or Hand to Hand.

 

Working on my Mannimarco mod and I've given him a dummy Staff of Worms with 0 health so the graphic simply shows up on his back ( tried to use the real staff of worms but he keeps trying to cast Reanimate during the fight lol...) instead of his dagger. However the AI keeps trying to use the staff even though it's broken. This results in him casting 1 or 2 spells then stand around as he tries to access the broken staff.

 

The other problem I've noticed in how the AI prefers Melee is if I remove all weapons from his inventory he'll actually just stay in idle stance for a long time and cast spells. He'll dodge your attacks and strafe and makes him kind of a dynamic spell caster. But eventually he'll stop casting spells and go into Hand to Hand fighting. It's extremely annoying. None of his spells have costs but eventually he'll prefer hand to hand fighting over the spells...

 

I tried changing the dummy staff to have a combat enchantment but he'll prefer to attack with the staff over and over instead of his spells. Then once the staff is out of charges he'll put it away and go into hand to hand combat again.

 

This is the only mod I'm running as I work on it so there's nothing conflicting, it's just the Vanilla AI.

 

How would I go about making a spellcaster that never goes into a hand to hand attack stance, stays in a decent range, and just slings spells?

Edited April 3, 2011 by jamochawoke

[Hickory]

You can reduce the tendancy to use melee but all ranged combat styles will resort to melee when the enemy is within a certain distance. You should start by creating a custom class that uses Magic, Intelligence, Willpower, Destruction, Restoration, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration. You should give him custom stats high in Destruction, Restoration, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration and very low in everything else. Do not make him too confident and he won't wade in so much. Lastly, his combat style needs to be similar to Bandit Mage.