[LE] Concentrated Aimed Reanimate Spell help

[baldy3456]

Hello!

I am very new to modding in the creation kit but I do have have skills with other game engines like Unity and Unreal engine. I am a Game Artist by trade so this is all familiar but slightly out of reach for me. I am looking for some help or guidance on the magic system in the creation kit.

I am looking for some advice on making a Concentrated Aimed Reanimate spell. The ultimate goal is to condense several spells into one useful one that evolves as you unlock perks similar the Spell Siphon mod by Arctal but much much simpler. This means I would like to give each magic school some offensive spell to start with that is more active than Conjure or Frenzy and hide.

I am working on an Undead Conjuration spell first that starts off as absorb health magica and stamina, soul traps and reanimates dead creatures and NPCs. I have made it to the point where I have a Concentrated Aimed spell that absorbs Health, Magica, and Stamina and soul traps. The reanimate magic effect is tough though. I have it on the spell at the minute but it obviously just spams the effect on the body over and over which is expected from a concentration casting type.

I am pretty new and just getting into scripts and conditions but I understand scripting a little bit from other engines and I think I understand what I need to do but I am having trouble figuring out how to do it. If the conditions function like I think they do I just need to apply a perk or magic effect to the corpse on the first hit from the concentration spell that makes the next hit resisted while the body is reanimating.

If anyone has some clear advice on how to set that up with the conditions menu or even point me in the right direction with scripting that with Papyrus I would be very grateful!

PS. My ultimate goal for this effect is that the spell would require constant aimed contact until the Reanimate animation is just about finished. But one thing at a time.

[maxarturo]

The issue with the 'Reanimate' effect archetype is that, when the 'Fire and Forget' is applied the game engine starts playing the corresponding animation, which the animation has only a disrupt animation, resurrect > disrupt and that's it.

The magic Effect archetype is hard coded so that the animation will play only with a fire and forget Magic Effect, so by following the conventional way this cannot be achieve.

However, you can 'Fake' it.

This is just an idea i composed quickly in my head, and it certainly needs more research / dig in.

- You create a Magic Effect that is 'Concentration'.

- In your "Concentration Magic Effect" you add a script that will play the "Reanimation" animation on the target on "Effect Start()".

The same script will interupt the animation on "EffectFinish", if the spell is interrupted before the "Reanimation" animation is completed.

With the same logic you can make an "xMarkerActivator" to cast the "Reanimate Fire and Forget Spell" to your target, the "Cast" function when it's used on objects (Not On Actors) can cast the spell to the target from whenever that object is placed, this means that your "xMarkerActivator" can be living in an 'Empty Dummy Cell'.

* "Perks" cannot be added to npcs dynamically, it's not supported by the game, you can add perks dynamically ONLY to the player.

* If your spells will be listening to the vanilla perk tree, then you need to take in account all those mods that change - add - modify the vanilla perk tree, that might cause your spells from not functioning correctly, partially or completely.

Have a happy modding.

Edited December 19, 2020 by maxarturo

[baldy3456]

Thanks maxarturo!

this advice is very helpful. It went a little over my head with the xMarkerActivator. I will have to look that up but I think I see what you are talking about. I have been playing around with it for a little while and after looking at some other spells and shouts I was starting to understand I could not avoid scripting.

As far as the first thing you mentioned it seems similar to the Soul Tear wait for death scripted magic effect. It is a little different but they are using a duration after NPC death to cast a fire and forget reanimation spell on the body. I was hoping I could write a flexible script that I can tweak the amount of time required of uninterrupted casting contact to reanimate the body. This is more of a balance and player affordance thing. I may even have a magic effect fire of some FX when the player is safe to stop casting without the reanimation animation being interrupted spell failing.

I have been holding off from modding in the engine as there is so much nonsense and hard coded stuff in Bethesda's gamebryo engine (Especially when Skyrim was made). This mod may take me while as I am still super new to using the Engine. I just got inspired after playing Spell Siphon and both loving it and stressing out that I did not know what spell my character was about to cast. "Okay bound daggers... nope exploding invisibility" lol. It was honestly the simple contextual Light to Ward spell that peeked my interest.