Are my spell ideas impossible to make?

[Citruszinus]

I spent all last night trying to learn how to mod Skyrim and specifically focused on making spells. I realized that another game, League of Legends, could provide an awesome array of new spells if I could figure out how to mod them in. However, my attempts were fruitless, the spell I tried to make was from an LoL champion named Akali called Mark of the Assasin. I attempted to adapt this to skyrim by making a fire and forget aimed spell that would hit an enemy dealing Y initial damage and then leave a "Mark" on them, meaning the next time they are hit by a melee weapon in X seconds the mark will trigger dealing said magic damage again.

 

If I can become good enough I would love to do a spell and mage skill tree overhaul to make classes like a spell sword or a stealth mage more viable, as well as general magic more interesting and diverse.

[EnaiSiaion]

That's basically the inverse of the old Deathmark in Apocalypse. Or you can download Apocalypse and steal Atronach Mark and change the conditions. :thumbsup:

[Citruszinus]

Did he do anything outside the creation kit that let him add in those spells? I have tried Apocalypse and liked it a lot but I felt some of the spells were terribly over powered, I would like my spells to be balanced.

[kromey]

In the CK, shouts are implemented in almost the same way as spells; you might try looking at the Marked for Death shout, which does a very similar thing as what you want to accomplish it sounds like.

 

Another option is to use a scripted that, in the OnEffectStart event, applies a perk to the target that itself applies the extra damage in an OnHit event; the spell's script's OnEffectEnd event would then remove that perk from the target. (Alternatively, I think the Perk entry in the Magic Effect dialog is a perk that is applied to the target while the spell is active on them? I'm not entirely clear on that, or how it works, but it might do exactly the same thing as I just described without the script.)

 

Also try looking at the Dragonhide spell, since it reduces incoming damage by 80%; shouldn't be hard to reverse that to increase incoming damage.

[Citruszinus]

I tried changing mark of death around so that it would proc damage when a melee weapon hit the NPC but I don't know that it is possible, I may have to just have it hit for initial damage then give the enemy a de-buff increasing damage they take from melee or something. Sigh, I want to be good at this but it is all terribly confusing and I can't seem to find any videos that show how a custom spell is made from scratch. Moral is low T.T

[kromey]

My advice is this: Don't start from scratch. At least not yet.

 

As a programmer I can assure you that it is the mark of a successful developer when you can copy someone else's work and use that as the basis for your own. Now, we're not talking plagiarism here, more like quoting a passage you found in your research while writing a report: You cut it down to the meaty bits relevant to the argument you're making, and then add your own words around it to end up with a result that represents your own work.

 

Find a spell that's at least somewhat close to what you want to achieve, and make a copy of that to start from. Then start changing things around, experiment until you get things just the way you want them. For my current project, Lichdom (see link in sig), when I needed a spell that "charged" the phylactery, I started with Transmute and changed it to "transmute" my phylactery object rather than iron and silver ore. The phylactery itself was even originally cloned from a gold diamond amulet, and while the crafting recipe for it now bears almost no resemblance whatsoever the amulet's recipe was the basis for the crafting recipe for my phylactery.

 

Every last thing I have created thus far for my mod Lichdom was first copied from some other asset in-game that was at least close in some aspect to what I wanted (I wanted the phylactery to look like the golden diamond amulet; I wanted the spell to behave in a similar manner to Transmute; the Elixir of Endless Night is very similar to a simple damage health poison; etc.), with the sole exception of a couple of perks that in and of themselves perform no function at all (I use them as markers to track when the player learns the crafting recipes I'm adding).

 

Taking this approach for (at least) your first few mods will build up your familiarity with the CK. There's far too much there to learn it all, and as you start by making tweaks here and there to head toward what you want, you'll learn it by bits and pieces and gain competence in it until, at some point down the road, you can fire it up and bang out a brand new, totally unique spell from scratch in 5 minutes.

 

Don't get discouraged that the CK is massive, daunting, and full of byzantine mazes of arcane dialogs. Just start with small pieces at a time, and learn it as you go. Make your first project be some slight tweak to something vanilla, like turning the shout Marked for Death into a spell; once that works, change its effects so it doesn't do any health damage, just makes the target more vulnerable to other attacks (i.e. the current "damage armor" effect); from there, create the perk that applies extra damage on a hit (test it by adding it to yourself in-game), and once that works make your new spell apply that perk to the target. [Alternatively, start from the Dragonhide spell, and make it do the opposite effect -- increase incoming damage rather than decrease it -- which may actually be simpler than starting from the shout.]

 

In just one series of baby steps, you'll end up with the spell you're trying to create. :thumbsup:

[BigKevSexyMan]

Create two magic effects, one set to health damage, and the other will be a script. Make a spell and add both of these effects to it. For the Health one, just set the amount of damage you want it to do. For the second effect, set the duration you want it to last.

 

Now, on the script magic effect, make a script and give it a Spell Property, and give it the OnHit event. Whenever this event is triggered you cast a new damage spell on the target actor using the GetTargetActor() function. Oh, and don't forget to set the property to the spell you want.

[EnaiSiaion]

Did he do anything outside the creation kit that let him add in those spells? I have tried Apocalypse and liked it a lot but I felt some of the spells were terribly over powered, I would like my spells to be balanced.

 

I wish all people who claim that "some" spells are overpowered and then don't bother to 1/ specify which ones or 2/ actually report it so they can be balanced instead of crying in a corner and uninstalling would get hit by lightning.

 

 

Another option is to use a scripted that, in the OnEffectStart event, applies a perk to the target that itself applies the extra damage in an OnHit event; the spell's script's OnEffectEnd event would then remove that perk from the target. (Alternatively, I think the Perk entry in the Magic Effect dialog is a perk that is applied to the target while the spell is active on them? I'm not entirely clear on that, or how it works, but it might do exactly the same thing as I just described without the script.)

 

Also try looking at the Dragonhide spell, since it reduces incoming damage by 80%; shouldn't be hard to reverse that to increase incoming damage.

 

Applying perks to enemies with magic effects doesn't work. Perhaps it works if you just script it instead, but anything that is permanent unless the mod is still installed when it ends is probably a bad idea just in case you hit someone you care about.

 

 

Create two magic effects, one set to health damage, and the other will be a script. Make a spell and add both of these effects to it. For the Health one, just set the amount of damage you want it to do. For the second effect, set the duration you want it to last.

 

Now, on the script magic effect, make a script and give it a Spell Property, and give it the OnHit event. Whenever this event is triggered you cast a new damage spell on the target actor using the GetTargetActor() function. Oh, and don't forget to set the property to the spell you want.

 

This is the correct solution.

[bloomingdedalus]

I spent all last night trying to learn how to mod Skyrim and specifically focused on making spells. I realized that another game, League of Legends, could provide an awesome array of new spells if I could figure out how to mod them in. However, my attempts were fruitless, the spell I tried to make was from an LoL champion named Akali called Mark of the Assasin. I attempted to adapt this to skyrim by making a fire and forget aimed spell that would hit an enemy dealing Y initial damage and then leave a "Mark" on them, meaning the next time they are hit by a melee weapon in X seconds the mark will trigger dealing said magic damage again.

 

If I can become good enough I would love to do a spell and mage skill tree overhaul to make classes like a spell sword or a stealth mage more viable, as well as general magic more interesting and diverse.

 

I play a light armored stealth mage/archer right now - they're pretty stinking viable. Once you get 80%+ destruction spell cost reduction, they're near invincible on Master. Arrows hurt though.

 

Most things can be faked with scripting, it's just a matter of knowing enough scripting to do it. According to the "ActiveMagicEffect Script" page on the Creation Kit wiki, active magic effects will receive events from the actor they are attached to, possibly making it possible for you to call an "OnHit()" Event after casting a spell on something.