Suggestions Requested: AoE disable/fear from Dragons

[Aluminumfoil]

Once Creation Kit gets released, I plan on making what I expect to be a fairly small mod. What it should do is simple: prevent NPCs from willingly engaging in melee combat with dragons, so that the player character can be the heroic defender of Skyrim, not the hungry hungry hippo who eats dragon souls after everybody else does the hard work. My ideas:

 

The Effect: area of effect Fear affecting up to a certain level, out to a certain distance. As I understand, Fear spells do not work on the player - which I think is appropriate, the character's mixed heroism and dragon blood protecting him or her from the dragon's fear effect. This /absolutely must/ be able to work on Companions. If Fear spells don't work on Companions, I'd have to scrap the idea and work out something else.

 

Specifics - advice wanted!

Max Level affected: 20? It would need to be high enough that mammoths and giants flee from dragons. Do we know what level those are?

NPC types affected: needs to include Animals and Characters, but not necessarily undead. Regular Fear accomplishes this, correct?

Range: 30 feet?

Duration: 3 seconds should be sufficient to clear a space without being excessively debilitating for people shooting at the dragon with arrows and magic, I think.

 

Triggering Mechanism

Getting the ability to actually deploy might be difficult. A couple ideas for how to manage it.

 

1: The best would be a continuous effect centered on the dragon. If this is possible, fantastic - was something like this possible in Oblivion? I don't think it was, so I don't have very high hopes for it.

 

2: Failing that, one might attach it to the list of effects of the things the dragon already does. Ideas for how to do this effectively would be welcome.

 

3: Other ideas?

 

Alternatives

If the above doesn't work, possibly I might accomplish this by altering frequently used AI packages to include a command to run away if a dragon is within a certain distance. I'm not sure if this is even possible, but I could attempt it.

[BlackCompany]

I too agree this needs to happen. Perfect idea. And I think I might know how you can go about it:

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Once the player acquires a certain...power...from a certain group they meet early in the game, they are able under certain circumstances to use a 'fear spell' that makes people run away and cower. This ability would be perfect to 'attach' to any dragon roar/fire breath ability. Once you 'attach' this fear ability to the dragon breath weapons, any time it uses one, people will run in fear and cower.

 

Another possible way to do this might be the Cast Immediate on Self (CIOS) from Fallout, if they kept it. Have the dragon constantly cast a fear aura on himself, with an AOE. This might, or might not, work to 'touch' others with this aura. Just add a condition to this that it does not affect Creature Type - Dragon.

 

Hopefully one of these will pan out. You are not alone in thinking that people need to run from, not engage in battle with, Dragons. Though I would also think Giants and maybe city guards should be immune to the fear effect. If a high power dragon spawns outside a city, without guard help, too many needed NPC's could bite the big one.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited November 16, 2011 by BlackCompany

[Aluminumfoil]

CIOS is a great idea for an option, I will look into that, thanks!

[BlackCompany]

CIOS is a great idea for an option, I will look into that, thanks!

 

 

Like I said, not sure if this will work, since it is effectively targeting the Dragon itself and the Dragon creature type would necessarily be immune from casting Fear on itself. Hopefully, however, this will work. It means the dragon would effectively radiate an aura of fear, and "cast" this both invisibly and depending on your scripting, constantly.

 

Thinking:

 

Begin scripteffectstart

end

 

Begin scripteffectupdate

CIOS Myfearspell

end

 

Begin scripteffectfinish

end

 

Of course, you give this effect a duration so long it never runs out. Should work, though it might be a little performance heavy on older rigs since the dragon now effectively has a script effect running every frame on him.

 

Nonetheless, I hope this option works. I would, however, recommend adding 'Fear' effects to all breath weapons for the dragons. Should be as easy as taking on a high lvl fear to their extant fire/frost breath.

[Aluminumfoil]

AoE Spells in oblivion would still trigger, even if the target they hit was immune, so I think your pessimism on the CIOS might be unwarranted.

 

One behavior that I'm a bit worried about is NPCs going silly along the edges of the fear effect. If it's a short duration, NPCs might run away, stop, turn around, bravely charge, stop, turn around, run away... Maybe a longer duration wouldn't be so bad, though. A long duration (say, 20 seconds) with a smallish radius to discourage melee attacks, and a short duration on the breath attack might provide the set of behaviors we want.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Aluminumfoil

[ZomBBoognish]

I think having the AoE Spell trigger with the dragon's breath would avoid having the NPC's look crazy. A handful of would be village hero's would charge in but flee when ever the dragon swoops in for an attack. Having the effect last 5 or so seconds would make it look as if everyone was running to a safe distance when the pressure's on, but you would remain to fight as the lone hero. Would be a funny bug if the dragon chose to engage the fleeing NPC though, instead of you. I picture a guard or someone just running all over Skyrim chased by a dragon.

[Aluminumfoil]

Dragons are pretty good at targeting fleeing characters with their breath attacks. I can only evade if I sprint under them or hide behind something, so I think that they would die in pretty short order.

 

I'm beginning to think that you're right. Attaching it to the breath attacks should be easy to do and generate the best result.

 

Summary of current idea:

 

• 
   
  
• Add myFearEffect to all dragon breath attacks (hopefully these are not the same as the players shouts, or I'd have to script an exception for "caster is player" one way or another)
  
• myFearEffect
  on target, Fear up to level 30 in 100 feet for 5 seconds
   
  

[Mansh00ter]

I think fear effects work on companions. I know I accidentally scared my own companion with that fear power mentioned above. So basically an expanded AOE spell based on that effects should work. Also, I don't think NPC's run away forever, they have some sort of minimum distance to run, then they just cower in fear.

 

I also don't think there should be a continuous fear effect, that is very likely to produce weird behavior. Make it a standard AOE spell effect with a duration. That way the dragon roars, people get scared, run away, and you stay alone to fight it. After a while, some soldiers may work up the courage to get back into the fight, until they get scared again. I think that would work well.

 

There is however, a more annoying feature of dragons, and that is they seem to be more interesting in going after mountain goats than the player. On several occasions I had the dragon proceed to attack every wild animal, including rabbits, before going after me. So it kinda feels like the dragon saying "yeah, yeah, I'll get to you, gotta take out this nasty rabbit first" - in other words not very epic. :) If possible, make the dragon prioritize the player a bit more. So that if anyone gets in the way it feels just like that - they got in the way and get slapped away from the fight.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Mansh00ter

[Aluminumfoil]

It should be easy to set dragons and prey animals neutral to one another. I prefer to keep mods small and focused so that people can pick and choose, so I'll omit that from this one. But if it's as easy as I expect it to be you can definitely expect me to make a mod that does just that, because it's a good idea!

 

They'd still sometimes prioritize burninating all the peasants to fighting the player, but... isn't that what they ought to be doing?

[BlackCompany]

Good points here. Especially about constant AOE fear causing weird issues. Could happen.

 

As far as Dragons going after prey creatures...well, they have to eat, too. And I would propose that mutton is more appealing than human-clad-in-steel. But I do see where this gets to be an issue.

 

Doubtless Dragons have their own Faction. Similarities to Oblivion being what they are and all, I would posit that we can simple adjust relationships between Dragon Faction and the factions of other animals. Maybe have Dragon Faction "like" prey animals so as not to attack them. Should be one simple adjustment.

 

Hopefully it will be more robust, like in Fallout, where you have a neutral as well as a like/dislike. That might lead to more spontaneous relations between dragons and prey. You know, sometimes they focus on prey, sometimes on you.

 

Just throwing out ideas, until we get the toolset. Hope these help.