LE Resurrection Spell?

[Terralventhe]

Well, wasn't the discussion exactly that Resurrection wasn't a low-level thing to do? If any low-level character can easily pull off resurrecting characters then why even bother making it a Master-level spell with high Magicka cost?

[Drytor]

What about a prerequisite to ressurection? People have been mentioning Soul Gems, what if you had to do a quest to recieve a soul gem that targeted followers or (my preference) a spell/power that could target one actor at a time that transfered the soul to a soul gem on death. It would give it a bit more sense. Either that or they could return as a ghost or you could have to visit Sovngarde to retrieve their soul with a mini-quest.

 

I think the soul gem idea would be pretty fun actually and then the resurrect spell puts the soul into any body. Obviously it would have to be a humanoid body but you could go and find and kill a strong enemy and then put their soul in there. Dialogue would be the same but it would essentially just be a change in skin and some attributes

[cooltrickle]

Well, wasn't the discussion exactly that Resurrection wasn't a low-level thing to do? If any low-level character can easily pull off resurrecting characters then why even bother making it a Master-level spell with high Magicka cost?

 

I hope it doesn't look like I just destroyed your idea, and replaced it with my own. It's such a good idea, that it captured my imagination. If all you want is a simple resurrection spell to aid your mage character, I don't have a problem with that. I'm just offering you my input. And my input is, after fleshing out the idea, it doesn't seem fair to only allow mages to be able to resurrect fallen NPCs. It's clear that this resurrect ability is useful for any character and at any level. So limiting it to only mages and high-level characters seems like a bad design choice.

 

The problem is, our solution to allowing warriors access to this ability, involves paying gold. So yes, low-level characters can pull it off, but only if they have a considerable amount of gold to pay for a resurrection scroll. Low-level mages will also have to pay gold, since they won't have the ability to cast it. But later on, they can just use the spell, whereas warriors will always have to pay gold. So, there is still some advantage for a mage.

 

I think the idea of making it a Master-level spell, is probably a mistake. By placing such high requirements for use of the spell, by the time a mage can pull it off, most important quests have likely been done anyway. So it's main use will be to resurrect fallen companions.

 

 

An alternative to paying gold for scrolls, could be forcing the warrior to carry the body to a healer who can perform the resurrect spell. If you put in a health and/or stamina requirement, to lift the body, then this would limit the option to fairly high-level warriors. This does seem like a hack, though. But still, I think pushing resurrect to the very end of the perk tree, would be leaving it too late to be that useful.

 

The only thing I can think of right now to preserve the master-level status is to just let the corpses sit there for an unlimited amount of time. The player, mage or warrior, will just have to wait and come back when they have the necessary level to complete the resurrect. As long as we can place quest markers on each corpse, and the game engine doesn't clear the body, this should work.

[Terralventhe]

There's also another alternative to all of this so as to save us the complexities; make it an item that you earn through a quest. Not a spell or anything like that, just an item that activates whenever you hit the Use button on a corpse (kind of ala the blood harvesting script), which will in turn bring up a prompt that lets you pick between looting, or reviving them. Again, it could run off of soul gems.

[cooltrickle]

Either that or they could return as a ghost or you could have to visit Sovngarde to retrieve their soul with a mini-quest.

 

I think the soul gem idea would be pretty fun actually and then the resurrect spell puts the soul into any body. Obviously it would have to be a humanoid body but you could go and find and kill a strong enemy and then put their soul in there. Dialogue would be the same but it would essentially just be a change in skin and some attributes

 

The soul transplant idea is probably getting off the purpose of this mod, but I'm sure players would find it entertaining. The Sovngarde mini-quest to retrieve lost souls is a pretty good. Low-level characters could use this method to resurrect their allies. It might be necessary to create a custom dungeon which provides access to Sovngarde, similar to that Painted Trolls quest in Oblivion. I like the idea of fighting your way through Sovngarde to win back the souls of your allies. It's a really interesting way of dealing with the friendly-fire issues of the game. Of course the decision to go to Sovngarde is optional; you don't always have to bother.

 

It will probably get old after while, so this will discourage players from being too reckless with friendly fire, thinking they can always go to Sovngarde. And high-level players can just use a spell, to avoid the hassle.

[cooltrickle]

There's also another alternative to all of this so as to save us the complexities; make it an item that you earn through a quest. Not a spell or anything like that, just an item that activates whenever you hit the Use button on a corpse (kind of ala the blood harvesting script), which will in turn bring up a prompt that lets you pick between looting, or reviving them. Again, it could run off of soul gems.

 

So, a resurrection staff? In that case, I wouldn't even bother making it a quest. Just stick it in dungeon. Job done. The prompt complicates it. We just need a script to make sure the inventory of the corpse is preserved.

 

Edit: I suppose you could break up the staff into pieces and place one piece in each of the Halls of the Dead. Put the pieces together, voila, staff of resurrection. There's your quest.

Edited December 1, 2011 by cooltrickle

[Terralventhe]

Agreed, I think that'll work the very best in all of this. Multi-piece staff, scattered in the Halls, as a quest, no prompts, just aim and fire off one. On the context of going to Sovngarde to retrieve souls.. what if the staff summons a portal? Effectively then that'd be the key aspect of the quest; Piece together, I dunno, The Staff of Arkay or something like that, which when completed allows you to summon forth a portal into Sovngarde, where you can retrieve the souls of the dead. The only problem I see with such a thing, at any rate, is that it removes the versatility of the item. If the staff would just be 'point-and-revive' based, then you can revive anyone. If you go with the Sovngarde thing, that means you gotta specify which characters, upon death, end up in Sovngarde, since you can't make it so that every person who dies ends up there.. that place'd be overcrowded in no time.

[cooltrickle]

Agreed, I think that'll work the very best in all of this. Multi-piece staff, scattered in the Halls, as a quest, no prompts, just aim and fire off one. On the context of going to Sovngarde to retrieve souls.. what if the staff summons a portal? Effectively then that'd be the key aspect of the quest; Piece together, I dunno, The Staff of Arkay or something like that, which when completed allows you to summon forth a portal into Sovngarde, where you can retrieve the souls of the dead. The only problem I see with such a thing, at any rate, is that it removes the versatility of the item. If the staff would just be 'point-and-revive' based, then you can revive anyone. If you go with the Sovngarde thing, that means you gotta specify which characters, upon death, end up in Sovngarde, since you can't make it so that every person who dies ends up there.. that place'd be overcrowded in no time.

 

The Staff of Resurrection can work as a simple placeholder mod, that just fires of a polished resurrect script.

 

I think the staff will do the job nicely, but there is definitely potential here for a substantial and interesting mod in the future. This mod, would actually turn something that is not fun (allies dying), into a decent quest. I like the portal idea. The staff that calls the portal could be called the Staff of Sovngarde. The Scrolls of Resurrection could be found only in Sovngarde. So you once you clear Sovngarde, you grab the scroll, leave, and resurrect your ally. If not a scroll, some object you can disenchant to learn the spell.

 

Grabbing a scroll and not the soul from Sovngarde, means we get back control of who we resurrect. So we don't need to worry about every dead NPC appearing in Sovngarde. I like the disenchant object route better, because we go into Sovngarde just once, possibly as part of a quest given to us by someone important, like a Jarl?

 

BTW, In vanilla Skyrim you can get potions of extra magicka. Just make a special extra strong version for use with resurrection spells. They will be very expensive so low-level mages and even warriors can buff their magic enough to do the spell. If we place an object in Sovngarde that can be disenchanted to learn the spell, that means we only have to go to Sovngarde once. High-level mages could still need to buy extra magicka, but cheaper versions. This attaches a gold price to resurrection, especially for non-mages, to prevent abuse, and give players something extra to spend their huge sums of gold on.

[Terralventhe]

Here's a crazy idea.. what about making it a sword instead of a staff? I dunno, just strikes me as this amusing concept; a sword that does zero damage, heals 50 points of damage, and when it strikes a dead body it revives them.

[qeveren]

Didn't see it mentioned, but the console command 'resurrect 1' will resurrect an NPC as-is - no reset of inventory.