SSE Temporarily adding a perk or ability to negate damage from one particular explosion.

[cumbrianlad]

I have a staff that can be made with a more powerful version of the 'Flaming Familiar' explosion. (dunHighGateFlamingThrallFireBallExp01)

 

The flaming familiar's damage to enemies is done with an explosion, placed at the familar when it's hit. The script resonsible is on the actor. So there's no spell involved.

 

One problem is that the original script makes the OnHit event includes projectiles as well as melee weapons. If the player summons the wolf to close and the enemies hit it straight away, the player gets damaged by the blast. The other problem is that the familiar can run back towards the player, chasing an enemy and get hit by a mage or archer as it comes close to the player.

 

The explosion damage is 4 times higher than the vanilla damage to kill low level enemies and do significant damage to higher level ones. With the vanilla spell Bethesda didn't give the player any immunity as far as I can see from the quest scripts, but they probably didn't need to (I think they should have, but there you go!) My explosion can seriously damage the player or kill them if they don't have any fire/magic resist and their health isn't full.

 

I can't think how to make a perk or ability that will work because all the magic effect, spell and perk conditions using Mod Incoming Damage don't seem to have an explosion option as the source. I wondered about using GetIsId on the 'Attacker Weapon' section of the perk entry, but is an explosion counted as a weapon? After that, this is all very well for the player, but what about pets and followers?

 

Any suggestions?

[IsharaMeradin]

Make a modified version of the script on the actor so that the OnHit event does not include projectiles. That way, the summons does not explode when hit by projectile but only melee thus ensuring any explosion will also affect enemies. It would then by on the player to keep themselves clear of the familiar when in close combat.

[maxarturo]

A secondary option is to:

1) Make a unique explosion (your explosion) with the vanilla explosion

2) Remove from the explosion all the:

Force

Damage

etc.

Except "Radius"

3) Make an 'Enchantment' > "Destruction Damage" with the required conditions to not damage player &or+ followers on the "Magick Effect".

4) Insert the 'Enchantment' to the explosion.

5) Add the explosion to the "Flaming Familiar"

You are done.

I hope it helps.

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks both of you.

 

Removing the projectiles is a good idea, IsharaMeradin.

 

Wolfie* is so fast that he will close with mages and archers quickly. He has Resist Damage 200 on him, so he can take a lot of hits from projectiles before dying. when they switch to daggers or swords... surprise! He also does 40 unarmed damage, so he can finish off one weak opponent and run off to the next one... that's half the problem. Especially for followers. Lydia got her hair singed a few times. He never killed her and I would never use that staff if I had a follower but it's not ideal.

 

In extensive testing without Lydia I got caught & damaged on a few occasions and died once. I got trapped in a corner while fighting an enemy. I'd loosed Wolfie on a group of enemies across the room and turned my attention to a couple on the opposite side in the corner. Wolfie's bandits must have been 'easy' or else he changed his target to the bandits I was attacking. I knew what was coming but didn't have time to get out of the explosion radius. Dead! :teehee:

 

Maxarturo, that sounds like a plan. I already have a unique version of the explosion and Wolfie already has it.

 

I can give it a try and see if it works as I hope. I'm just wondering if the enchantment I make will actually fire, though. I'll soon find out.

 

* He's not really called Wolfie! He's called Bal Freki, which is ancient viking for 'Fire Wolf'

[maxarturo]

This is the spine of how all my "Dwarven X Arsenal" works, well at least the once that involve using explosions.

 

Have a happy modding.

[cumbrianlad]

Have a happy modding?

 

I just have!

 

You wouldn't believe how much fan that staff is! :thumbsup:... a rare smiley for you!

 

The enchantment works fine. The player isn't damaged by it's explosions but the enemies are. Haven't tested yet with Lydia, but I can't see a problem.

 

Fun aside, there is one issue, though. The summoned wolf only lasts 3 or 4 seconds then does its un-summoning animation, or it lasts the same time and explodes when in combat. The summon spell is for 60 seconds, and it used to last that long before this mod. I didn't touch that because there was no need.

 

I thought at first that this problem was related to the length of the enchantment and taper duration on the magic effect for the new enchantment, since they were similar, but no.

 

Setting these to add up to 15 seconds, the wolf still lasted 3 or 4 seconds.

 

I haven't even altered the script on the actor yet, because I didn't need to. The script on this actor just has an explosion property that was already pointing to my unique explosion. I just edited my own explosion to add the new enchantment. The explosion is added OnHit I haven't altered the OnHit event, yet. I still tested on both a clean save and an old save, with the same results.

 

So, other than changing the enchantment in the explosion form to the new enchantment, nothing is different, except for taking the damage out of the explosion form.

 

The 4 seconds also applies if you summon it with no enemies around. It stands there for 3 or 4 seconds and does its un-summoned effect.

 

I must have done something basic wrong. I'll check it all again.

[cumbrianlad]

I did a test removing the script that adds the explosion and added an atronach flame cloak to Bal Freki's abilities, after failing to find anything that could be reducing his summoned time.

 

Actually I like him better this way. It restored his full 60 seconds. The flame cloak magic effect is conditioned not to harm the player and followers. he's better because he returns to the player like a normal familiar, you can see his name and really appreciate the flame FX, which are a bit wasted on the vanilla flame thrall wolf. Plus it makes him different to the vanilla one... and I like different.

 

I'll make the flame cloak into a levelled spell, I think, but other than that, he's now good to go.

 

I haven't the faintest idea how an explosion added by his script with an OnHit event could affect his summons time but it did. I don't even have to write an adapted script for him now, either!

 

Thanks again to you both for the advice.