Perk/Ability modding

[CreepShow1334]

So, pretty new to TES modding, and so far I'm enjoying it. But, I want to create custom perks and change up some old ones to make them more interesting, but I'm not sure on how to do a few things. I want to do something that replaces say, fists of steel with a perk that adds a +%stamina and/or health bonus while wearing all heavy armor, but can't seem to find anything to that effect in the creation kit. Could anyone tell me or point me towards the right tutorial that may help? I've yet to manage to find anything while searching, so I may just not be looking for quire the right thing. Sorry btw if this is the wrong place to ask, fairly new here.

[CreepShow1334]

Like, in the perk entries pop-up, would it be under ability, or entry point? If so, I can't seem to find it in either.

[CreepShow1334]

Is this even doable? Can I even make a perk that adds to your total stamina or health?

[CreepShow1334]

Or, if that's not quite doable, would there be a way to make it so the perk causes you to receive an unlimited duration fortify stamina buff while wearing only heavy armor?

[KingsGambit]

Like, in the perk entries pop-up, would it be under ability, or entry point? If so, I can't seem to find it in either.

To the best of my knowledge, I don't think it's possible to modify actor values directly with a perk. If you look at the "ExtraPockets" perk for example, it adds +100 carry weight to the player, taking the perk adds a hidden ability to the player (hidden in the UI that is). The ability is a constant effect spell and if you look at the magic effect it uses, you'll notice two main things. First, it's Peak Value Modifer (it doesn't stack with similar modifiers) and second, the associated item, CarryWeight in this case. Also worth noting, it takes a magnitude and is hidden in the UI (it won't show up under active magic effects).

 

Once you configure your perk to add a constant effect ability, you can add whatever magic effects to it that you wish. You can even duplicate the ExtraPockets effect to start with and change carry weight to health, stamina etc. The only thing is this will add a fixed (non-stacking) amount to health/stamina, not a percentage. I don't know of a way to add a percentage without scripting. If you want to go down that road, your magic effect would be "Script" instead of Peak Value modifer. You can create a new script along the lines of:

 

Script AddHealthToActor extends activemagiceffect

Event OnEffectStart(Actor Target, Actor Caster)
float CurrentHealth = Caster.GetActorValue("Health")
float HealthToAdd = ((CurrentHealth / 100) * 10) ; This calculates 10% of Actor Value "Health"
Caster.ModActorValue("Health", HealthToAdd)
EndEevent

 

Only downside to the above is that it can't retrieve the player's maximum health, just the current health. So if they had 200 max health but only 100 at the instant they took the perk, the script would add 10 health, not 20.

 

There are two other options you can consider. First, you could add multiple copies of the same effect with different conditions to the ability. For example, add 10 health if player is > lvl 10. Add 10 health if player is > lvl 20, etc. I believe this would scale with the player so it's like a pseudo-percentage. Second, you could make multiple levels of the perk (like Armsman for example), each of which adds something more.

 

I'll add a last personal note; I gladly welcome you to the modding community and any questions you have. I don't know how useful a perk that adds health/stamina would be however. We get a +10 stat boost every level-up without the need to spend a valuable perk point on it. Instead, perhaps consider something a little more in-line with the perk tree, for example, an extra 2% damage resist, shields are 10% more effective or a 10% decrease in stamina usage while wearing heavy armour. You can do that under "Entry Point" and no need for extra abilities/magic effects. Just a thought :thumbsup:

[CreepShow1334]

Thankyou, that was very useful! :) And I suppose that does make sense, since we do already get the +10 stat boost. I'll look these over when I have time(gotta go to work in a bit here) and figure things out. Thanks again, very helpful.

[KingsGambit]

One thing I forgot to mention, if you only want your effect to kick in when the player is wearing a full set of heavy armour (ie. 4 pieces), you would need to add a condition to the MGEF along the lines of:

 

GetKeywordItemCount

ArmorHeavy

== 4

[CreepShow1334]

Thinking it over, I think I actually like the idea of doing it as a damage resist/reduce stam usage perk. It kinda fits with what I had in mind but doing it in a different, more interesting way. I was originally trying to avoid making it too similar to the light armor perk that affected stam(windwalk I think its called?) but that would solve that concern very well. The perk idea in mind was that after long use of heavy armor, you'd end up building pretty decent strength and stamina, so that would fit in with that perk tree.

[KingsGambit]

Well I hope you at least have a few ideas for places to start and I look forward to seeing what you do. My comment was just that, it's your mod so you should do whatever you wish. Feel free to post any more questions and welcome again to the community. :smile:

 

I just had an idea from yours that you may like. Rather than a perk (in exchange for a perk point and the existing bonus the vanilla perk offers), in keeping with the theme of a reward for hours spent in heavy armour, to build on the idea one could have a hidden ability added to the player that checks every game hour whether or not the player is wearing full heavy armour. Each hour that they are, a counter increments and on reaching 50 they get one permanent (visible) bonus of your choice, on reaching 100, another bonus, etc.

 

It could be easily expanded to offer something for light armour, total dragons/skeevers/undead/daedra/etc killed (perma damage bonus against them), amount of fire/frost/shock damage taken (perma minor resist), number of successful crits or most any other variable. I could swear FO3 did something like that though I can't remember. Alpha Protocol did for sure. Sorry, went off on a tangent there! All the best to you, post back with any other Qs.

[CreepShow1334]

Well that's a bit more advanced for me atm haha. But I like that line of thought, sort of brings a dnd element to it, like where rangers could choose an enemy type they specialised against. Speaking of dnd I was also considering creating a custom race, adding tieflings from the dnd universe. Well if its not already done, though I assume at this point its more likely someone made playable daedra, and not tieflings.