Lichdom

[kromey]

@KILLERZombie135: If there does become a point where the lich gets a custom look, I highly doubt it will be configurable in the way you're looking for. In fact, it would most likely be more on par with the werewolves and vampire lords: one model, regardless of what you looked like before the transformation or think you want to look like after.

 

Liches will retain the ability to wear armor and wield items. So you heavy armor warmages out there will still get to keep your armor while becoming more badass, and you College of Winterhold robe-wearers (*raises hand*) will still get your awesome enchanted clothes' bonuses on top of all the cool stuff liches will get.

 

If demiliches lose the ability to wear armor, lore-wise it would be a side effect of your new frail nature -- your body is just too darn weak to support it. In fact, a race change would almost necessitate the loss of the ability to wear armor, especially if the new model differs significantly from vanilla, and I'm actually thinking I may prohibit wearing armor while a demilich because I like the idea of you being weakened so much you can't even go the classic route of self-protection until you repair your phylactery.

 

On that note, something I just realized is that, at present, there's nothing stopping you from being able to craft as many phylacteries as you have the materials for. This means that, in theory at least, you could always have an emergency phylactery on hand and thus all but negate that downside to being a lich. Unless and until I decide that I want to support the option for a lich to have multiple phylacteries (which will incur some sort of cumulative penalty for each one beyond the first to balance out the huge benefit), I'm going to have to find a way to prevent multiple phylacteries being made by the player, or at least work it so only the first one made ever "counts" as being your phylactery.

[Zephyr2011]

I like where your head is at, Mr. Kronos (also I dig the name).

 

However, for a perk to affect a spell, doesn't the spell or magic effect have to specify the perk that it's modified by? Or am I totally misunderstanding the purpose of the Perk box in the magic effect dialog (and/or the spell dialog? don't have the CK open in front of me...)?

 

Why thankee good sir. The name is the concept for part of a book I had dreamed up and a long forgotten Morrowind mod I tried to craft (before I became even remotely competent haha). Zephyr Kronos was supposed to be a deity composed of two mortals that ascended to godhood in their destruction. Coincidentally Kronos was a lich. If I ever actually make that though I should probably change the lich aspect's name.

 

It seems a little confusing in the whole setup thing but all you need for a spell to be affected by a perk is a keyword. Magic Effects have associated keywords like MagicUndeadSummon and MagicTurnUndead. You simply reference these in the perk's dialogue box. You don't need to tell the spell to specifically talk to the perk or tell the keyword that either. That's the main reason Beth implemented the keyword system I think, it reduces the number of scripts you need to point things in different directions and allows a whole lot more modification within individual save files by never editing the spell itself.

 

That being said, I could see there possibly being a complication if you added a new keyword but I'm not sure what you would need that for. Most of the Magic Effects in Skyrim already have very nice, very descriptive and handy-dandy keywords. Like all of the summons and such. Unless you wanted to specifically affect a type of undead summoning I don't really see the point. If you did add new keywords that might overwrite keywords added by other mods or be overwritten itself but I don't think so. I believe the system works kind of like copying a folder into a directory with a folder of the same name, you overwrite the folder name itself and any files named exactly the same but otherwise you just add stuff. Don't hold me to that.

 

Anywho: you're completely safe making perks like I mentioned above, it won't affect any of the spells in anyway, it should also be compatible with custom magic mods, provided the creators were thorough and added proper keywords to the spells. It's a very elegant system the more I look into and think about it. They allow the perk to target the Magic Effect (and therefore all of the spells with that affect) without modifying the Effect or spells so no compatibility issues there.

 

I hope this helps, like I said, I'd be happy to whip up some perks for you if you give me your specifications.

 

-Zeph

[kromey]

Well, Mr. Zephyr, I shall give that a whirl -- wouldn't be hard to whip up a quick perk that e.g. doubles the duration of reanimation spells (but not summons), then try it out in-game (since my conjurer character has twin souls, I can reanimate and summon simultaneously and then jsut stand there and watch them both fall apart at the same time, then add the perk to myself and repeat the experiment, whereupon I should see the summon disappear before the zombie melts to ashes).

 

What leaves me confused, though, is that the existing perks make no such use of conditionals -- Atromancy perk, for example, only affects your summons, yet the perk itself has no conditionals on it, only the Entry Point that applies a times-two modifier to spell duration. Which looks like it should affect all spells' durations, doesn't it? And yet it only seems to affect summons...

 

Maybe Beth hard-coded those perks into the game itself though? Hm... Still, experimentation paves the way to victory!

[Selvec]

I suggest you make the requirements to be a lich involve some hefty magical skills. Its unlikely a low level mage would succeed in such an envdevour.

 

Might I also suggest you move away from a potion aspect, as it takes away from the share depth of knowledge required to transform yourself into an a lich. Make it a ritual instead, in which the player must bind their life force to a phylactery from a convulted ritual quest line. You may also decide to include the requirement of NPC's helpers needed to undertake the ritual. Furthermore, if it's possible, maybe include a delaying aspect in the transformation from living to skeleton. Introduce a decaying process into the after effects, over the course of several rest periods the player transforms into the skeletal creature. Same as with the vampire and werewolf transformations. This is more in line with traditional lich information as well, since a lich can be a decaying corpse as much as a full skeleton.

[Zephyr2011]

It does actually use those. I looked at that one for my research haha. It does look deceiving though because it initially looks like the only thing used is "entry point" data but if you select the middle tab over on the left, about a third of the way down the dialogue box (maybe more like half) under the conditionals it should say spell and it lists the conditions there. The conditions are filtered based on what they refer to, you can also bolster damage on certain kinds of targets like extra damage against dragons or something like that. Like I said, the box can be a little deceiving if you still have trouble finding it I'll take a screen shot in the ck and upload it. A word on the resurrections and summonings: Resurrection spells have the same keyword as UNDEAD summonings so comparing your perk between resurrection spells and say a summon skeleton won't do anything unless you make a new keyword. However, the comparison should work if you were, say, resurrecting someone and summoning a dremora for the same length of time for the baseline. With the perk you should be able to see the difference in magnitude or duration so long as you have the perk. So look at a 30second resurrect spell, make the perk for 1.5 or 2x duration, go in game, give self the perk and it should show having a duration of 45 or 60 seconds respectively. I hope this clarifies things. It's inspiring me to do some additional research now... lichdom perk tree anyone?

[jack013]

what would be awesome is if you could get something like the new immersive creature draugr-priest models, combined with a floating instead of walking animation.

 

some of the conjuration perks are used on the spells instead i think. so the spell has an extra effect with the 'hasperk' conditions.

[kromey]

I suggest you make the requirements to be a lich involve some hefty magical skills. Its unlikely a low level mage would succeed in such an envdevour.

The rituals will involve hefty Magicka, but I'm not putting a skill requirement per se on it -- reason being is that I don't want e.g. only Conjurers to be able to become liches, but rather anyone willing to devote the time to mastering the use of magical energies in general.

 

Might I also suggest you move away from a potion aspect, as it takes away from the share depth of knowledge required to transform yourself into an a lich. Make it a ritual instead, in which the player must bind their life force to a phylactery from a convulted ritual quest line.

The purpose of the potion is to highlight that becoming a lich is a multi-discipline process; same thing with having to smith the phylactery. And while I don't think I've explained it clearly yet, the final transformation is a ritual -- it just happens to be one that requires you have the potion in your inventory.

 

The full process is (not necessarily in this order):

1. Craft phylactery
   
2. Ritual of Defilation ("charges" phylactery)
   
3. Elixir of Endless Night (potion required for final transformation)
   
4. Ritual of Becoming (final transformation; must have a "charged" phylactery and the Elixir)
   

So the bulk of the process is indeed rituals, you just have to step a bit beyond "just" magic to complete the entire process.

 

You may also decide to include the requirement of NPC's helpers needed to undertake the ritual.

Ooh, good idea. While I've always envisioned liches as being typically solitary creatures, this is an interesting requirement. I will definitely consider it...

 

Furthermore, if it's possible, maybe include a delaying aspect in the transformation from living to skeleton. Introduce a decaying process into the after effects, over the course of several rest periods the player transforms into the skeletal creature. Same as with the vampire and werewolf transformations. This is more in line with traditional lich information as well, since a lich can be a decaying corpse as much as a full skeleton.

This would certainly be possible, however it's unlikely. For starters, to keep this from being the most boring process ever, there would have to be a progressing series of multiple models and/or textures -- which, as mentioned previously, is beyond my skills. If someone with those skills wants to offer those, I'd consider this, but for now it will be an instantaneous transformation.

 

It does actually use those. I looked at that one for my research haha. It does look deceiving though because it initially looks like the only thing used is "entry point" data but if you select the middle tab over on the left, about a third of the way down the dialogue box (maybe more like half) under the conditionals it should say spell and it lists the conditions there. The conditions are filtered based on what they refer to, you can also bolster damage on certain kinds of targets like extra damage against dragons or something like that.

How did I not see those tabs before now?? :facepalm:

 

Perks make soooooooooo much more sense all of a sudden!!

 

A word on the resurrections and summonings: Resurrection spells have the same keyword as UNDEAD summonings so comparing your perk between resurrection spells and say a summon skeleton won't do anything unless you make a new keyword. However, the comparison should work if you were, say, resurrecting someone and summoning a dremora for the same length of time for the baseline.

Oh, bother! Hm... maybe some creativity can work around that -- or maybe the lich's command over the undead isn't limited to just raising, but also to summoned undead!

 

You are awesome, this alone has opened up a whole slew of new possibilities and my mind is a whirl with ideas!

 

what would be awesome is if you could get something like the new immersive creature draugr-priest models, combined with a floating instead of walking animation.

That would be pretty sweet. Custom models/animations/effects/etc won't be part of the initial release, unfortunately, owing to me having no skillz.

 

some of the conjuration perks are used on the spells instead i think. so the spell has an extra effect with the 'hasperk' conditions.

Aye, most notably the more powerful versions of summons and the beefed-up health of raised undead. Still, it might be possible to get at least some of these effects via perks on the caster affecting the spells... we'll see, I'll be playing around with perks to see what's possible.

[skulleris]

Just wanted to put this here

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4y626H4AH1ql55zvo1_500.jpg

 

Why do i keep checking this thread every half an hour is beyond me.

[Cyrotek]

Just to throw something in:

 

I remember reading something about Lichs can posess theoretically any dead creature from withing their phylactery. If a lich gets destroyed, its soul gets stored into the phylactery and it needs a dead beeing nearby to "posess" it. If there isnt anything close, the lich has to wait till something will be or the phylactery gets destroyed.

 

Guess that was from some sort of D&D source.

 

What that means: Ability to posess different bodys. Beeing a shapeshifting undead dragon and such stuff (hello Sammaster).

Ok, probaly not possible, too overpowered and nothing that fits into the TES lore.

 

But still:

 

The Lich coud need to sacrifice parts of its soul (skillpoints!) to posess stronger beeing than its native one. Or he needs a higher level or perks for that.

Also it coud make Lichdom a bit more dangerous. The Lich coud have the need to store corpses close to his phylactery to be able to revive himself. If he didnt got any: Game over.

Also you coud do some sort of "forced" body switches if the decay destroys the Lichs body too much to be usable. After a certain period of time, the actual body gets destroyed automatically.

 

Well, maybe this gives you the one or other idea about some aspects. Most of it woud be to hard to achieve and too much to balance anyways i guess.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Cyrotek

[elricshan]

hmm what about making a necromancer forge in an unholy cave for this called something midnight forge or something like that :P