LE Bringing Back Spell Customization in Skyrim

[Greensbr]

This is an attempt to synthesize the old Oblivion style magic Spellcrafting system with the new (absent) system found in Skyrim. First let’s review the differences found in both games:

 

In Oblivion, each magic school (and any skill) had five ranks: Novice, Apprentice, Journeymen, Expert and Master. Some spells were only available to certain ranks, and they did not level up with you. In other words, there were about ten different fireball spells, the one you got in the beginning of the game doing 5 damage, and the one you got towards the end of the game doing 100 damage.

 

In Skyrim, the five ranks still exist for each skill (including schools of magic): Novice, Apprentice, Journeymen (now called Adept), Expert and Master. However there is only one kind of spell in the game for each spell “type.” For instance, there is one and only one fireball spell in the entire game. It’s effectiveness is not based on its objective stats, but is now relative to your degree of skill in the school of destruction… thus there is no need to buy a new fireball spell every 5 levels since one and only one kind of spell “grows” with you. Furthermore; instead of having all types of spells included in each skill rank, some types of spells are inherently “Novice” (such as the flames spell) or “Apprentice” (such as transmutation).You can even see that some of the “perks” in the game allow you to unlock say “Apprentice” level spells; which essentially means you get to use a new “type” of spell, out of the only 85 types of spells.

 

Many people want spell customization back in the game. Some people just want variations on the same spell, instead of having only one in the game… like a weaker lightning bolt for use in parlor tricks. So here is what I thought up:

 

Firstly, bring back the Oblivion system of buying different variations of spells, and spellcrafting (bear with me for a second). But instead, each spell, no matter what type, will have four different “forms” thanks to the source code already found in Skyrim.

 

The four forms are:

 

-“DPS (Damage per second” form – It’s what you see when you use flames or shock, the pure “damage per second” style of any conceivable spell, where the effects are spread out over time. For example, draining 8 life points per second. (For as long as your mana bar)

 

-“Charge” form – This form is like fireball/lightning bolt. The effects of the spell are used in a single blast. For example, draining 8 life times the amount of time in seconds it took you to charge it (8 life x 3 seconds = 24 life drained).

 

-“Trap” form – It’s the same thing as the fire/ice/shock trap you see in Skyrim. The “power” of the trap is also dependent based on how long you charged it. How many you can lay at a time depends on your mana bar (just like in Skyrim).

 

-“AOE” (area of effect) form – Just like spells such as “blizzard” AOE is as it implies, and is the fourth and final form of any given spell.

 

 

Okay so say your playing a modded Skyrim and you create a spell (just like in Oblivion) that does 10 ice, 10 fire, and 10 drain life damage. You encounter an enemy and equip the spell in your hand. You decide to “switch” the spell the “DPS” form (a little icon at the bottom of the screen flashes showing that you did this). You shoot the spell and it begins to do 3 fire and 3 ice damage per second, while also draining 3 life per second. Pretty interesting huh?

 

But that’s not good enough so you switch the spell over to “Charge” form. You begin charging a blast… to full power, you shoot it – it does 10 ice, 10 fire, and 10 drain life damage exactly as you crafted it. But that’s not good enough. You charge it again, consuming all your mana. It does 15 ice, 15 fire, and 15 drain life damage… which is good considering your only an apprentice of destruction ;)

 

You sort of catch my drift now? Say you wanna lay some traps with your custom spell. Switch it on over to “Trap” form. An enemy steps over it. Boom. 10 ice, 10 fire, and 10 drain life damage.

 

Or maybe your surrounded by enemies and want to do some damage. You switch to “AOE” form, charge and release doing 8 ice, 8 fire, and 8 drain life damage, 10 ft in all directions.

 

 

Basically the gist of this is that the magic adjusts its strength according to the different forms it takes. It’s still equally powerful in each form – it just has different strengths and weaknesses.

 

Todd Howard wanted to bring back the “mystery of magic,” and he has… he just over did it a little to much in my opinion. There is still room for spell customization in Skyrim, and I hope my thoughts inspire some mods.

 

Please post if you have any questions. Thanks.

Edited November 23, 2011 by Greensbr

[shittakaburi]

I like the idea but Skyrim is so far away from this it may not even be possible to implement it. We'll have to see when the CS comes out. Even if possible, you are talking about a s*** ton of work. Might be worth it for some, though.

[mrboneguy]

Being able to create your own spells is a defining aspect of TES games. Was really disappointed when I couldn't do it in Skyrim. Would love to be able to create a much beefier spell that shoots flames... more along the lines of dragon fire breath. This should be possible as a high level mage.

 

Even without the ability to switch your spell type around on the fly, just being able to create custom spells would be nice.

[Greensbr]

Basically I'd like to see Oblivion style customization, with the ability of using each unique spell in 4 different ways (as seen in Skyrim)

[nandchan]

What about the ingame “cloak” spells? Are those just AOE form? (My mage isn't high level enough to cast the AOE destruction spells yet, so I haven't seen them) If so, what would define the radius of effect? Maybe as long as you charge it, the larger the radius is? (If so, what determines the duration?)

 

Ps. Journeyman is called Adept in Skyrim, you may wish to fix that

Edited November 20, 2011 by nandchan

[Greensbr]

What about the ingame “cloak” spells? Are those just AOE form? (My mage isn't high level enough to cast the AOE destruction spells yet, so I haven't seen them) If so, what would define the radius of effect? Maybe as long as you charge it, the larger the radius is? (If so, what determines the duration?)

 

Ps. Journeyman is called Adept in Skyrim, you may wish to fix that

 

Well first of all I wanted to remove the notion that all AOE spells are "master" level spells. It shouldn't be the type of the spell, but how powerful it is that determines its rank and whether you can use it (like in Oblivion). So for instance an AOE spell that does 10 damage is "apprentice" level, and an AOE spell that does 20 damage is "adept" level.

 

That said, no a cloak spell or any spell can have 4 different forms.

 

In your case:

 

"DPS form" - Shoot a continuous stream of magic that cloaks a target (this is confusing I know) 3 seconds per second.

 

"Charge form" - Shoot a bolt of magic that cloaks a target 6 seconds with an explosion radius of 0 (and 8 seconds with an explosion radius of 2 when max charged).

 

"AOE form" - Unleash a burst of magic targeting yourself and those around you that cloaks for 6 seconds with a radius of 0 (and 8 seconds with a radius of 2 when max charged).

 

"Trap form" - Lay a magical trap that cloaks target 6 seconds when activated, with a radius of 0. (And 8 seconds, with a radius of 2 when max charged).

 

Pretty much all forms of any spell can be charged expect for DPS form.

 

Yes cloak spell is inherently a self-targeting spell, so it would originally fall under the categoery "AOE spell" with a radius of 0. The main idea is that when you charge a spell, it increases all its crafted conditions by a small margin, so this could work for any kind of spell - even a spell that for example, cloaked 5 seconds and did 10 fire damage.

 

P.S. Thanks I fixed that.

Edited November 23, 2011 by Greensbr