Duke Patrick's SCA or Deadly Reflex? Hard decision...

[Rangoon]

Suddenly last weekend a problem arose when I discovered all of Duke Patrick's mods. I had just gotten into a groove with Deadly Reflex 5.0 when I went looking for a mod that might allow me to ID NPCs at range without having to nock an arrow. Well I at least found DP's de-nock mod. And then I found his SCA Combat and Combat archery.

 

First, I'm using FCOM plus many other mods.

 

So the debate I'm going through is this:

 

1. Deadly Reflex 5.0 (with the patch) seems to work very well - stable, functional, fun. And it doesn't affect damage or hit rates so all of my level and progress mods work just fine without tweaking. Everything balances well still with magic (I use Supreme Magicka and some others). The game is challenging depending on where I go, when, and melee combat is more engaging than before, of course. I also look forward to a well-implemented mounted combat component being reinstated for DR sometime.

 

2. It's obvious that Duke Patrick has the experience and passion to make mods that really do make combat feel more realistic in Oblivion. It's really hard for me not to want to go that route (with locational damage and adrenaline-fueled combat). It feels much better when (even against tough enemies) I don't need to put 20 arrows and sword wounds into an NPC before he falls. The severity of weapons feels good with SCA no recoil and combat archery. I like the NPC behavior with DP's mods, too. However, they leave the question of magic being weak and it seems armor is far more necessary even for mages. I know he plans to address this with the combat magic mod (now in beta) but I haven't tried that and will at least wait a bit on that one to get finished. Then maybe that side will be addressed perfectly. But the last concern is that if I'm hitting harder but less frequently, then I need to go in and tweak the progress.ini to accelerate my blade, blunt, block, and armor skills. That will take some real time to find a proper balance.

 

A part of me wishes that I could just have DPs behavior without the huge damage adjustment on weapons.

 

Any thoughts from the community on this? I was just settling into a nice flow with a great set of mods.....but there's always more to try with this great game's mods. I think DR will make the game still feel more RPGish but well balanced, while DP SCA will feel more realistic and severe - requiring better strategy and focus on combat. DR keeps a nice balance throughout the game mechanics but I have a hard time suspending disbelief when it takes that many arrows to hurt an NPC. Maybe this is just the difference between them and I already have enough to base my decision on. But I'm sure others have really played these mods more thoroughly and hopefully have some insight.

 

Thanks.

 

And as always, thanks to all modders everywhere who so generously put their work out for us to enjoy.

[MrCooper2006]

Honestly, I use both Deadly Reflex 5 and Locational Damage. They work fine together and you're not splitting ppl in half every two minutes.

 

To be honest, the Deadly Reflex barely ever works for me "the puncturing lungs" bit with marksman. But locational damage is cool to see when you pop someones Heart out or slice off their head with a blade, lovely.

 

Although DR has never worked me for, Iv had 50 in blade and Markmans skill but Iv never managed to do a slow-mo chop... maybe im doing it wrong. Even with the chance multiplier at 100!

 

Anyway, if you cant decide, take both.

[NemesisLeone]

I wanted to use Deadly Reflex, new version 6, but any version refuses to let me start a new game or load an old one without crashing.

 

I use Unnecessary Violence II instead because of this.

It's nice that Unnecessary Violence II has damage multipliers for npc and player damage in its INI, so I can adjust damage amounts freely. So many things are customizable for it!