Vampire Overhaul

[Jakisthe]

Hmm...that no fast travel ever thing is certainly going to be a problem. You're right though, Oblivion must have done something, since I do recall having fast travel...I mean, I was planning no fast travel at certain stages anyway, but still, never? That's bad :ohdear:

 

As far as sticking to the lore goes, there's a LOT of it. I'm trying to work most of it in via easter eggs, but for certain stuff there's also balance in mind. If the player wasn't hurt from being a super vampire, then where's the choice? They'd just go all the way to the end, and be done with it. Not very fun to be that powerful with no drawbacks...and, lest we forget, it is a disease after all.

 

Huntsman, your ideas are certainly noted, but we have to be careful to not just make an absolute ton of special abilities for vampires because they're shadow-based. My ideas were to have abilities which were a)frequently mentioned in lore b)work into the vampire playstyle and in synch with their other attributes.

 

 

...Also, as far as I know, there is no dismemberment in this game...

[MofoMojo]

...Also, as far as I know, there is no dismemberment in this game...

 

There is beheading. lol. :) I actually spawned in a master vampire and about 20 imperial guards. It was a sight to behold with one very special beheading I caught. Check this out:

 

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596955603779629957/56DAA9E00DB8BD2CF897F6313B05E882406B25E5/

 

But yes, no fast travel is a pain. In Oblivion you just couldn't fast travel/wait when you were in direct sunlight, so this is either a bug in their evaluations or they achieved the sun damage via a script rather than effect. I'm going to have Oblivion load up overnight and I'll find out how they did it over the next day or so as time permits. Back to work tomorrow.

 

-MM

[MofoMojo]

Ok, Vannixii, let me know if you'd prefer I put this in a seperate thread. Personally I like sharing our ideas but since I've provided enough suggestions and criticisms over others ideas I figured i'd start putting some of my thoughts down. This is currently just a fleshing of the Vampire as a Player Character/Race, and not much from a quest/faction perspective yet.

 

Goal is to create a vampire mod, which causes vampires to become stronger the "older" they are but while also making them more susceptible to their weaknesses. Vampires will adhere to various vampire lore, and not just one particular camp including my own lore.

 

Life Force

In my personal lore, vampires aren't drinkers of blood for the "SAKE" of blood. In order to survive they must consume the life force of other, living, creatures to survive because they are undead. i.e. they lack the ability to generate their own life force. They have a heart beat because the life force must still be carried by the blood in their bodies to the cells otherwise they will die, similar to oxygen for humans.

 

This means that vampires, in my lore, can feed on the dead but it would have no effect as their life force is gone if they are dead. The act of feeding on the dead will not, however, act as a "poison" to vampires. That being the case, I will likely not even implement the ability to feed on a corpse as it serves little to no purpose.

 

Again, in my personal lore, Life force is the root of much of the vampires power whether discussing automatic powers such as increased strength or speed, or powers that must be activated such as influence over others. I would love to implement LifeForce as another "vessel" like health, stamina, and magica and have ALL spells consume that lifeforce. That may be more difficult to implemet so for the sake of speed, Lifeforce will simply be tracked on a scale from 0 to 100. Feeding will fill the life force level, time will deplete the life force level, and the players Vampiric level will SCALE UP the time at which it depletes it to compensate for their increased level/powers.

 

HATED

I will remove player being AttackOnSight all together, however they will be in the VampirePCFaction.

 

Level Progression:

Level progression is currently in an unknown state. I have two ideas to consider:

Vampirism as a Skill

-In this mode Vampirism will literally be a skill just like Archery, Two-handed weapons, Heavy Armor, etc,.The player will increase in skill as he uses his power and feeds.

-Going Hungry will have two separate impacts. The skill will degrade the hungrier the player gets, vampire related bonuses will degrade, and specific hunger based abilities will be added.

-Will likely not have "Perk Trees" if additional perks are not easy to implement without conflicting with other mods. If Perk Trees can't be implemented could have automatic "Perks" but what's the point?

-Most favorable option

 

Vampirism as a Level base 1

-The player's level will be noted at the time they become a vampire. They will be a level 1 vampire at that time. When leveling as a player, the vampire's level will also increase by 1 (or some ratio). Favorable.

Vampirism as a Level based on Player Level

-Alternatively the player's vampiric level could be determined literally from their player level, similar to the base Werewolf implementation. This is the least favorable

 

Weaknesses:

Garlic

-Introduce garlic as a "Poison" or recipe that can be used against vampires. This means it should apply to NPC vampires and not just players since NPCs would not attack a player with Garlic poison (to my knowledge)

-Picking up garlic will cause damage to the player (on pickup with 1 sec duration). The amount will scale with the player

-After picking up it will be assumed the player has put the garlic in a bag

-Garlic will cause a longer sustained about of damage if eaten by the player which scales with level

 

Silver

-Silver weapons will cause damage to the player

-Damage amount will scale UP with the player level

-There's an entire faction called the silver hand which seems to have a pretty high chance of using silver weapons. They hunt vampires and werewolves almost religiously though the game seems to focus specifically on Werewolves for this.

 

Sunlight

-Sunlight will cause health, magicka, and stamina to not regenerate at varying levels based on player's vampirism level. The higher the player the higher the impact

-Sunlight will cause health, magicka, and stamina DAMAGE at higher levels.

-This should be based on the light level cast on the player along with the previous conditions for Sun Damage which consider that the player is not in an interior, and that the hours are between 5 and 7 pm.

-Sunlight should remove ALL bonuses from the player, effectively making them human, or less than human depending on their hunger state and level.

-Sunlight should disable the casting of any vampiric related spells

-If it has any influence, the player's "Blindness" will increase during the day

 

Fire

-Fire will damage a vampire more than any other thing.

-Considering that there's a "Death" and a "True Death" where perhaps death by fire or sunlight is a "True Death" but other Deaths will have the player resurrect at one of their player homes perhaps. Uknown how easy that might be to implement. Likely very difficult

 

Water Repulsion (in a sense).

- In some vampiric lore, vampires are not able to cross flowing water, at least not without ground from their homeland underneath their bodies, essentially sitting in dirt in a box/coffin. Taking liberty here, if I can get the "Walk on Water" spell working this could be a nice addition.

 

Undead

-Obviously prone to people using Turn Undead, assuming NPCs even cast that spell

 

Hunger

-The player MUST feed to ...survive… I have not worked out the hunger system yet but every day that goes by without feeding will have negative impacts on the player.

-If Lifeforce is implemented, then rather than tracking the time at which the vampire last fed the life force will slowly drain from that time. As the player scales in level, the speed at which the player consumes lifeforce will also increase. This introduces a level of …. Uncertainty because it won't necessarily be a 24 hour cycle for the player.

-, and if vampirism is implemented as a skill, will cause the player to lose that skill, and any skills associated with the previous skill level.

-At higher levels, the vampire MAY be required to feed more often to sustain their level

-As noted above, feeding on the dead is mostly a moot point because the life force has left the body. Perhaps there's enough life force that the vampire may be able to get a "little" bit out of it.

 

Weakness to Werewolf Claws/Bite

-I am not sure, at this time, if Werewolve's actually have a "claw" attack or if they just get increased melee damage, etc,. But if there's a weapon associated with their melee attack, I'm thinking of making vampires more susceptible to it

-Similar sentiments for biting

 

Strengths

 

Fortify Unarmed Damage

-Vampires are "stronger" by nature. Their unarmed danger should scale UP the higher their level

 

Fortify Melee Damage

-Same for unarmed, they are using weapons which in much ways are more damaging the stronger the player (except archery)

 

Fortify Block Ability

-Same for blocking. I think the stronger they are, if they are using a shield, their block should be fortified

 

Weapon Speed Multiplier

-It is generally held that vampires are "Faster" than humans and thus their weapon speed should alter as well.

 

Speechcraft Modifier

-Vampires have a better chance of influencing others. This should translate into scaling speechcraft modifiers

 

Illusion Modifier

-Undecided if Illusion should be increased.

-Their sway over the minds of others however should be considered here, which illusion falls directly inline with

 

Heal Rate

-Health Regeneration should be faster as the player's vampiric level progresses, however not too quickly.

-No BONUS to health, magicka or stamina as a vampire…. Ok maybe stamina and magicka.

 

Immune to Poison (at least most poisons… re:garlic)

-Somewhat undecided. While Vampires are "undead" that doesn't mean they don't have "blood" so to speak. In my lore, vampires have blood, they have a heartbeat, but they have no regenerative life force. It is LifeForce STOLEN that provides life to a vampire. Blood is simply the carrier of this Life Force, much like blood is a carrier of oxygen for humans.

 

Immune to Disease

 

Jumping Bonus

-The player should be able to jump higher, scaling with the vampire's level. Let's not over do it.

 

Sneak or MovementNoise

-Either the sneak or the MovementNoise of the vampire will be scaled with the vampire's level.

-Leaning to just MovementNoise, and letting sneak be purely a physical skill

 

Combat Health Regeneration

-This will be altered, not so that it's too much higher than normal but still higher than average and perhaps scale with the level

 

Waterbreathing

-If permanent walk on water doesn't work out, or can only be partially implemented, I have endless waterbreathing implemented. You don't breath as undead so makes sense you can't drown.

 

SPELLS and other Abilities

Remember, most spells the player will simply not be able to cast at minimum based on the light level the player is in when it is daylight, or simply not at all during daylight hours if outside, or perhaps not at all during daylight hours at all, tying the player to the cycle of sun.

 

Some of these spells will only be available at higher levels. Levels not considered yet until level progression is fully worked out

 

Vampiric Speed

-This will allow the player to temporarily (or toggle) their speed. I am considering one of two methods

--SpeedMult - This simply alters the speed multiplier of the player

--Slow Time - This actually slows game time down to a certain level

--Combination?

-I've worked with trying to get Slow Time voice effects to be channelled and simply cannot do it (at least without CK)

-This leaves me not knowing whether we have much control however the games time scale (not the speed at which a day passes) can be altered. This slows EVERYONE down, but if you combine that with SpeedMultiplier you can increase the speed of the player by an inverse multiplier.

-Given that the SlowTime actually seems to have a speed effect on the player as well, I think that's how it's accomplished

 

Night Vision

-Vampires should have increased vision at night. This will be toggled rather than duration based.

 

Vampiric Detect Life

-The Vampire will be able to detect the living, but will not be able to distinguish friend from foe

-The AREA will scale with the player

 

Vampiric Detect Undead

-The Vampire will be able to detect undead, but will not be able to distinguish friend from foe

-The AREA will scale with the player

 

Transform Wolf

-The player may be able to transform themselves into a wolf. This is _NOT_ a werewolf, but quite literally a quadruped wolf. This is VERY dependent on the ease and applicability considering the current struggles in the modding community in regards to similar work

-Last on the list to be implemented

 

Call of the Night

-This will call in a pack of wolves to follow the player. The type and/or number of wolves will scale with player to some extent

--Wolf

--Ice Wolf

--Red Wolf

--Potentially Spirit Wolf

 

Flicker

-The Vampire will be able to flicker out of sight

--Similar to the 100 level Sneak Perk that all combatants will lose track of the vampire

 

Into the Shade

-The Vampire will be able to turn invisible, or into a shadow form if the light level is not too high

-Cannot cast if in combat

-Could technically Flicker and then cast to get away! :)

 

Raise Undead

-Can raise the recently departed. The level of the dead possible to raise will scale with the player. The player should NOT be able to raise ANYTHING higher level than themselves.

 

Fear

-Player will be able to fear. This will not be considered a hostile attack

-Scales with player

 

Vampiric Health Drain

-The player will have the ability to drain health from other NPCs. This will be a hostile action and implemented pretty much the way it is now

 

Absorb Lifeforce

-Life force is ethereal, it's not physical, so to some degree vampires should be capable of absorbing lifeforce from living creatures.

-While not causing damage, this will be a hostile act.

-For the sake of balance, if implemented, this will not be useable by lower level vampires and should be such that higher level vampire shouldn't be able to rely solely on this spell to survive. They must still feed.

-Not sure how to balance this AND keep it from being abused. If I have health damage, it negates the point of Health Drain regardless of whether it's a higher health drain, or lower health drain.

 

Charm

-Vampire will able to have such influence over lower level creatures to turn them against others in combat.

-To balance, this may only be active against one NPC at a time, or # will scale with player to a very small degree

-Level of influenced NPC will scale with player

 

Feed

-Player will be able to "feed" when not in combat

-Feeding will be a hostile act UNLESS the NPC is a follower/companion or asleep

-Feeding will be SEEN as hostile by any observers NOT a follower/companion

-How to balance this so that having a companion isn't an easy way out of the hunger mechanics as that technically negates the whole implementation.

 

 

These are the ideas I've currently fleshed out and some of them are currently implemented in my personal mod.

 

-MM

 

Edit: Formatting....at least trying to...

Edited January 20, 2012 by MofoMojo

[Anya29]

HATED

I will remove player being AttackOnSight all together, however they will be in the VampirePCFaction.

 

I like all your changes but I would happily put up with the backwards vanilla Vampire settings if this one massive flaw could be fixed.

 

But all power to you and I wish you well getting it all done properly.

[MofoMojo]

HATED

I will remove player being AttackOnSight all together, however they will be in the VampirePCFaction.

 

I like all your changes but I would happily put up with the backwards vanilla Vampire settings if this one massive flaw could be fixed.

 

But all power to you and I wish you well getting it all done properly.

 

I've had requests to keep the instant KOS in and to keep it out so I thought of the best of both worlds. A spell/ ability that must be cast which will remove the hatred/kos but either reduce your magicka pool by a lot or drain it slowly until turned off. This way it represents the player having to concentrate to "hide" their true selves.

[MofoMojo]

I've had requests to keep the instant KOS in and to keep it out so I thought of the best of both worlds. A spell/ ability that must be cast which will remove the hatred/kos but either reduce your magicka pool by a lot or drain it slowly until turned off. This way it represents the player having to concentrate to "hide" their true selves.

 

Every vampire mod thread deserves a bump today. Plus. I have to fix a mistake in my comment above. It was Jakisthe's idea to have a spell if I remember correctly.

 

Vannixiii where are you?!?

 

-MM

[NargacugaRoar]

i personally think that at the highest lvl of vampirism, you become immune to sunlight. if i'm a vampire, i want to be an embodiment of fear anytime and anywhere.

[xXxKurokazExXx]

i personally think that at the highest lvl of vampirism, you become immune to sunlight. if i'm a vampire, i want to be an embodiment of fear anytime and anywhere.

+1

But not for free. Need quest, perk or something like this...

[predator20]

But immunity to sunlight of any kind would unbalance being a vampire, regardless of whether or not you need a quest to get. I get that it is in some lore, but for the purposes of this mod and maintaining balance, in my opinion, there needs to be a trade off of powers and weaknesses. But maybe there could be a special perk type thing that reduces sun damage back to when you were a first level vampire, or something. Oh, and for more ideas, a player house, like a vampire lair, would be awesome. And you could be more powerful while you are there, like you are powered by it's dark energy. Kinda like what that person said about having a mist spell where you could detect life, only it's in and around your house, and you could be attacked by some vampire hunters in a quest, and you could have fun picking them off, one by one. :devil:

 

And on powers, are you sure about that wolf thing? I mean, I know it was Dracula lore (I think) but Dracula didn't have Werewolves (Again, I think). Skyrim does. You still need to remain true enough to Elderscrolls lore, right? Or wrong. I mean, this is your mod, you can do what you like. It's just my opinion. Seriously, seriously love this mod idea though, I am playing as a vampire with one of my characters and while fun, I agree Vampirism (love that word) needs a real makeover, to make it more fun and unique. Right now playing Werewolf beats Vampire hands down! Can''t have that! Keep working at it, carry on being awesome, and you can do this! Walk with the shadows...

[MofoMojo]

But immunity to sunlight of any kind would unbalance being a vampire, regardless of whether or not you need a quest to get. I get that it is in some lore, but for the purposes of this mod and maintaining balance, in my opinion, there needs to be a trade off of powers and weaknesses. But maybe there could be a special perk type thing that reduces sun damage back to when you were a first level vampire, or something. Oh, and for more ideas, a player house, like a vampire lair, would be awesome. And you could be more powerful while you are there, like you are powered by it's dark energy. Kinda like what that person said about having a mist spell where you could detect life, only it's in and around your house, and you could be attacked by some vampire hunters in a quest, and you could have fun picking them off, one by one. :devil:

 

And on powers, are you sure about that wolf thing? I mean, I know it was Dracula lore (I think) but Dracula didn't have Werewolves (Again, I think). Skyrim does. You still need to remain true enough to Elderscrolls lore, right? Or wrong. I mean, this is your mod, you can do what you like. It's just my opinion. Seriously, seriously love this mod idea though, I am playing as a vampire with one of my characters and while fun, I agree Vampirism (love that word) needs a real makeover, to make it more fun and unique. Right now playing Werewolf beats Vampire hands down! Can''t have that! Keep working at it, carry on being awesome, and you can do this! Walk with the shadows...

 

Call of the Night is certainly something I want in the game - The ability to call a pack of wolves. Immunity to sunlight, I'm not sure about yet. I want the player to have to make conscious play changes as a vampire, not just play the same way he played before, only more powerful. Part of what I'm trying NOT to sight on is that while it should be fun to play, it needs to be balanced. I'm sure they're may be things that end up in the mod that satisfy some and not others. You are correct, the wolves thing does come from Dracula, but that is because wolves were used as a sense of protection, a sign to stay away. The ability to change into a wolf, is something LAST on my list and also comes from Draculean lore. It will likely not be done. I figure there's a large distinction between morphing into a bi-pedal killing machine (werewolf) and simply a quadrapedal predator of the wolves. I see it more as a potential way to sneak around. Who's going to attack a wolf? Other than a hunter. He certainly won't be strong as a wolf. Again though, last on my list.

 

-MM