Skill/Spell Overhaul

[avocadoninja]

Looking for thoughts, suggestions, and opinions on this. Basically, I love internal consistency, and I love options. There are tons of great mods out there that overhaul the skill system, but I find I'm not perfectly happy with all of them by themselves: ACE is great, but so many of the perks get too number based and mathematical, which is bad for immersion. Did balance perfctly, flavor less so. Other than that, ACE is perfect. Empowered Magic is really awesome actually, and probably comes closest to what I want, in terms of not going overboard, while making things significantly better, so the only issues I have here are a few minor personal ones, the issues inherent in skyrim itself, and the fact it only does magic. SkyRe is awesome and fun, but I think it goes way overboard with the number of perks, and although he has some awesome ones (and I love the idea of combining pickpocket and lock picking) there’s simply too many for a normal number of levels, and it dilutes the concept.

 

 

So, I guess I'm just being picky, but I'm thinking about making my own overhaul. The big question is do I start from scratch, or simply approach the modders of the other ones and ask permission to make a miss and match combination of them? (The ones I'd be looking at are SkyRe, Steal Skills Rebalanced, Empowered Magic, ACE). Since modularity is cool, the skill related portion will probably be in three parts, addressing the three things I haven't found the perfect mod for.

1) Magic Skills - I would break this up more, but with all the moving around of spells, one wouldn't really work on its own. This would also be the most extensive, redoing and renaming the skills (see below) entirely. The main functional change that lead to all of this is an intuitive way to deal with the whole spell duration issue. Regularly cast spells with a duration should work about as vanilla, with perks increasing the duration. Double casting them, however, would turn them into a maintained spell that works until recast, at the cost of reserving a certain amount of magicka while being sustained.

2)Armor Skills - would basically change Heavy Armor and Light Armor into Armor (better name? Defense?) and Agility, Armor would be general armor perks, making armor better, and would benefit light armor and heavy armor. Agility would focus on evasion and movement, and benefit unarmored and light armor. I think I would create and invisible value representing how armored one is. Being fully heavy armored would be 100%, no armor 0%, and around the middle for full light armor. The values I'm thinking would actually be 20 (head)- 50 (chest) - 20 (gloves) - 30 (boots), for heavy armor (would still max at 100 without a helmet) and half of those values for light armor pieces (60 with helmet, 50 without).

This percentage would affect the experience gain. If you're at 100% armored, all of the experience gained from getting hit would go to the armor skill, at 0% it will all go to the agility skill, and at 50% it would be equally split between both. Some skills would also work on this system, such as certain ones in agility working on a percentage basis: Say a skill increases your movement speed by 20%. This would work fully if you're unarmored, and at 50 armored it would increase move speed by 10%, at 100 armored by nothing. I know I complained about mods that get too number-y, but this would all be under the hood, and intuitive. The perk itself would just say, " Increases movement speed by 20%", and you would intuitively know the more armor you wear, the weaker that would be.

Thus with heavy armor, you focus in the "armor" tree to become a juggernaut who moves slowly and absorbs massive damage, in you go unarmored, you specialize in the agility to become a nimble warrior who dodges and moves swiftly. With light armor, you could choose, or go for a little bit of both. Armor in general would slow you down and hinder sneaking, and the armor skill would do a little bit to mitigate that, but mainly increase defensive abilities. Agility would have more abilities to mitigate that, while blending in minor elements of acrobatics and athletics to increase speed, stamina, jump, etc.

3) Stealth and Survival Skills. Stealth is not horrible as is. Sneak and Locksmith seem a little specific for a tree on their own, so I like the SkyRe solution of combining them, which I would do. Sneak, Guile (Pickpocket/lockpick), and some Survival/Travel tree would be created to address the open spot. This is pretty much what SkyRe does, but again, way too many perks, and I love the idea of having a few riding perks, like from the "Ridin Dirty" Mod. Also, Sneak tree just really needs a disguise perk for faction armor, and a little balancing. That's it. yo. The Survival/Travel tree would have 3 or so riding perks, maybe a general stamina/move speed perk, some enemy (Animal -Beast- Dragon) perks that increases damage to that target, and a poison resistance and trap avoidance (stolen from the sneak tree) skill.

 

So, I know this all sounds complicated, but again, it should be mentally intuitive in that in game, the perks would be fun and interesting, not of an overwhelming amount (around vanilla number), balanced, and not at all complex. So there's that. Now, onto what I'm working on now, the Magic Skills.

Emphasis being on Skills. I've never really liked the Magic Schools. Or I do, but they seem limiting in that they come off as an academic interpretation, and more like subjects. The forsworn shamans or hagraven witches don't seem like they would follow a similar interpretation of magic, and such a system provides little opportunity to play as a shaman/witchy type.

Sooooo. there would be 5 new magic Skills, separate from the academic classifications you would find at the college or the arcane university. The schools would still exist in game, in the same way biology and chemistry are defined subjects. But chemistry is not a skill. A skill is more like critical thinking, or creativity. Which is useful in biology, as well. So that's the angle I’m going for.

The Magic Skills: Sorcery - Mysticism - Thaumaturgy - Conjuration - Theurgy.

Sorcery: "Sorcery involves manipulating primal energy and bending it to one's will. This skill makes it easier to cast destructive magic and harness the forces of fire, frost, and electricity."

This is of course the most similar to destruction, as each of the skills will somewhat align in terms of spells with a school, but not so much in concept. Sorcery involves utilizing one’s own energy and will for destructive and generation purposes. The spells would be the same as destruction. But the perks would be more universal, focusing on increasing the rate of energy generation and spell power, as well as specialization into fire/frost/shock. Primary skill of the modern idea of a mage, sorcery. Favored at the college types, as is the least spiritual, and thus easiest to think of scientifically. Offensive Skill

Perk Ideas: Prodigious, Volatility, Calamity, Supremacy, Empower, Frostbite/Incinerate/Disintegrate

Mysticism: “Mysticism involves communing with forces unseen. This skill allows one to tap into the spirit realms and dominate the minds and souls of others. “

Most similar in terms of spells to Illusion, but vastly different still. Conceptually, this is the spiritual skill, of shamans, mediums, and mystics. Offensive/Utility Skill

Perks: Medium, Ritualist, Blood Rites, Diviner, Augury, Agathion, Eidolon

Spells: Soultrap, Clairvoyance, Detection Spells, Mind Spells(Fear, calm, etc.), Spirit Spells*

This is where I’m going to be getting into making new spells. Want to be able to call spirits. Graphically I’m thinking either regular ol’ ghosts, or a draugr with the familiar graphical effect thrown on top. Maybe will fade out below the torso to make them look spirit-y. This is about the upper limit of my familiarity with the CK. I should be able to make these with my current knowledge. But thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

Thaumaturgy: “Thaumaturgy uses magic to manipulate the world and produce miraculous effects. This skill allows the user to evoke arcane energies of creation, alteration, and illusion.”

Improve available magical energy, spell duration, and efficacy through perks. This is the primary general wizard skill, lots of Utility/Defense spells, and subtle magic. The energy source is magic itself, and effects are on the natural world. Think Gandalf types(he would also probs have a little mysticism and Theurgy skill). Defensive/Utility Skill

Spell Weaver, Parsimony, Hermeticism, Enlightened, Erudition, Gnosis, Stasis

Spells: Protection Spells (Barkskin, etc.), Light Spells, Waterbreathing, Telekinesis, Transmutation, Invisibility. Planned: Teleportation

Theurgy: “Theurgy invokes benevolent forces and positive energy. This skill makes it easier to heal others and create protective wards.”

Spells: Healing Spells, Circles of Protection, Wards, Sunlight Spells, Anti Undead spells?*

Perks: Sanctuary, Cleanse, Luminous, Succor, Castigate

Okay, so this one is clearly just a renamed restoration, except for flavor. So much so, should I just leave it names as restoration? Restoration gets to the point and makes sense, and would still involve positive energy. The only issue is the connection with academically viewed restoration, and it always irked me that priests studies the same thing as at the college. So theurgy provide the divine explanation, priests use their gods as a divine medium for this type of magic. Viola. Defensive Skill. But thoughts on the name, pless.

Conjuration: “Conjuration involves the study of and interaction with the plains of Oblivion. This skill makes it easier to summon and bind otherworldly creatures and reanimate the dead.”

Spells: Bound Weapons, Summons, Reanimations, Bindings

This one will likely go without a name change, as the school involving commutation with other planes as its power source, conjuration works just dandy. You summon things from other planes here. Would be the school of warlocks (throw in some sorcery), Diabolists, and conjurors.

But necromancy, is it a subskill of conjuration, and your reanimating dead bodies with daedric entities, or is a mysticism subskill, communing and manipulating the spirits of the dead? ! I need thoughts on this. Also, don anti undead spells go wherever necromancy goes, or stay with the whole “positive energy” part of theurgy/restoration?

So… If you read all of that, thank you. I guess the reason I posted it is to get outside opinions of the whole magic skill reorganization. Is it worth the time? Would people want it? If yes, what are your thoughts on those minor issues – Where do anti undead spells go? Should it be called Theurgy or leave it as Restoration?

Lastly, help. Is anyone interested in working on this? I think the main things I’m unsure how to do is make dual casting turn the spells into a toggle/maintained version, and creating a teleportation spell. Some of the perks I will have questions on. I’ll probably go to a modding forum for those, but if anyone is willing to let me come to them with questions, even if they’re too busy to work on it themselves, I would be so super grateful.

Aight. Peace. Yo. Thanks.

Edited January 2, 2013 by avocadoninja