LE Deadly Dragon Priests

[darkdill]

I've only seen a handful of mods that do anything to try and buff the Dragon Priests, but all the ones I've tried are LOADED with bugs or undesirable changes. Avenger's Boss mod is one such mod; it does make the Dragon Priests nastier, I will admit, but it also changes too many things for my liking and creates a large number of glitches and CTDs.

 

The big problem is that I think those mods try to change too much while only upgrading the Dragon Priests as a side attraction. What I'm looking for is a mod that directly upgrades the Dragon Priests as its main function, making them into truly lethal opponents on the level of the Deadly Dragons.

 

I'd make such a mod myself, but sadly I am no programmer, and have no mod-making experience/skill. However, to help try and make this mod become a reality, I will list a few things that I think should be given to the Dragon Priests so that they become nastier opponents, besides just improved stats and more powerful spells.

 

1. Give the Dragon Priests healing spells or give them slight health regeneration

Dragon Priests aren't that durable when you get down to it. They can use Ward spells, sure, but they tend not to last long when I smack them down using a Daedric Battleaxe (or an equivalent weapon). I say that, at least when damaged, they should make an effort to heal themselves, prolonging your fights against them. This can make up for their lack of durability compared to dragons. Alternatively, if making them cast healing spells is too difficult, grant them a tiny amount of health regeneration so that they prove more dangerous the longer you take to kill them.

 

2. Make the Dragon Priests resistant to staggering

If you are able to keep landing power attacks on a vanilla Dragon Priest, you can just beat it down until it dies without it ever throwing a spell at you. That's not really fun. 3jiou addressed this in Deadly Dragons by making the dragons have a resistance to stagger effects. The same should be done for the Dragon Priests; make it so that your heavier attacks will only stagger them about 50% or less of the time, and warriors will need to think twice before charging in head-on, or they might get vaporized.

 

3. Add resistances/immunities based on a Dragon Priest's type

This just makes sense: if they are basically liches with powerful elemental magic, they should have some kind of immunity attached to them. For instance, fire-type Dragon Priests should be immune to fire, ice-types should be immune to frost, etc. Don't give them 100% magic resistance, though; we all know what kinds of problems that can cause. All of them should also be immune to poison, of course. Whether they should carry other resistances besides to their elemental type is up to the modder.

 

4. Give the Dragon Priests an attack(s) that ignores resistances

Elemental and magic resistances basically shut down Dragon Priests because they're spellcasters. Considering that in Deadly Dragons you tend to want high resistances, it's not fun to fight them and have their attacks just bounce right off you. I've seen this done in another mod (it was buggy, though) where the Dragon Priests would basically ignore your elemental and magical resistances with their spells, dealing huge damage whenever they hit you. Makes it much more important to dodge their attacks when able rather than relying on durability.

 

5. Grant the Dragon Priests access to Become Ethereal

3jiou did this for one of his Deadly Dragons, the Spectral Dragon, in that it can become temporarily invulnerable to damage. Giving the Dragon Priests access to this would definitely make the fights more of a cat-and-mouse affair, forcing you to fall back while they are invulnerable.

Alternatively, a mechanic similar to the Wispmothers could be used. The Dragon Priests could summon a few minions when turning invulnerable, and if you kill all of these minions, you remove the priest's immunity. It'd make the fight more of a situation where you can do something about it.

 

6. Give the Dragon Priests access to custom shouts

They're liches that worshiped dragons, of course they should have access to shouts! The fact that vanilla Dragon Priests can't even throw Unrelenting Force at you is a big letdown. Why can the ice-based ones not throw Ice Form at you, or the fire-based ones throw Fire Breath at you? This needs to be rectified.

HOWEVER, they should not be given vanilla shouts, as those are either underpowered, overpowered, or just plain buggy (i.e. Marked for Death). Like with Deadly Dragons, the Dragon Priests should have access to custom versions of various shouts that they can throw at you. For instance, fire-based priests should be able to throw a dragon version of Fire Breath at you for tons of damage, or the ice-based ones should be able to throw a modified Ice Form at you.

Here's a few custom shout ideas I have, and which priests they could be applied to. (names are purely placeholders)

Mana Burn (lightning-types only)

Burns away a large portion of your magicka if you are struck. Alternatively, temporarily reduces your maximum magicka and/or reduces your magicka regeneration.

 

Amplification (all types)

A modified Marked for Death that temporarily lowers your armor and resistances by fixed amounts. Not affected by magic resistance (magic resist won't reduce this shout's effectiveness).

 

Weapon Break (fire-types only)

A modified Disarm that also applies a debuff that temporarily lowers your damage with all weapons (i.e. a negatively-valued Fortify One-Handed, Fortify Two-Handed, and Fortify Archery). Disarms you at any level (i.e. level limit is 200).

 

Dragonborn Rend (named Dragon Priests only)

A twisted variant of the Dragonrend Shout that is meant for the Dragonborn. Temporarily removes your ability to use Shouts. Only the highest order of Dragon Priests knew this Shout (i.e. Morokei, Otar, Krosis, etc.).

 

 

7. Make other custom scripts for the Dragon Priest fights

This one is purely up to the modder's imagination or the ideas of contributors. Various scripts like the priests constantly raising undead warriors to fight you (i.e. modified Dead Thrall), teleporting away from you if you get too close, or even having Wards that reflect spells back at you, would greatly enhance each one's fight, making them truly harrowing battles. Other ideas for scripts will have to come from the community.

 

I'm hopeful that someone will take up this request. It's one that I feel is desperately needed for those of us who want a challenge from more than just Deadly Dragons.

[blitzen]

The "MIghty Dragons" mod has a separate .esp for Mighty Dragon Priests. Have you tried that? I doubt that it has everything you requested, but it will make them more difficult. I use Super Mighty Dragons, and that makes a big difference for the Dragons.