SKYRIMLE Balanced Magic by Mysty

[TechAngel85]

Balanced Magic by mysty

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2275

 

This is no better description than the author's:

This mod is intended to provide greater flexibility when playing as a mage. Instead of relying on a few overpowered gimmicks, mages should be able to experiment with different techniques in different situations, and still have a reasonable chance of overcoming their opponent. I have attempted to make each school of magic uniquely powerful while staying pure to Elder Scrolls lore; these were the considerations I made when addressing each school of magic:

 

Alteration is the school of magic which deals with altering the physical world. Alteration mages can bend the laws of nature, changing the world around them. Many alteration spells are utilitarian - they allow the caster to access hard to reach areas, to lighten a burden, to breathe water as though it were air, etc., but alteration also has a place in combat. Alteration mages can change the composition of their own bodies, making them less susceptible to certain types of damage, or exhaust an opponent by making their own weapons and armor much heavier to carry.

 

Conjuration mages are able to telepathically commune with Daedra and the undead, and bend them to their will – for a time, at least. As the conjuror becomes more skilled, he may control more powerful servants for a greater length of time. Conjuration mages may also call forth mighty weapons from Oblivion, or bind the souls of the slain.

 

Destruction mages wield the destructive force of the elements to wreak havoc in battle. Their magic can ignore armor or take out an entire room full of enemies. With a full arsenal of spells at their command, there are few who can stand against a powerful destruction mage.

 

With the power to manipulate the mind, mages who study the school of Illusion can change what one perceives – for good or ill. While not able to deal much damage directly, a single Illusionist can turn the tide of a battle, causing enemies to fight amongst themselves or giving allies the confidence to surge forward. A skilled Illusionist is subtle, veiled in silence and cloaked in invisibility, often undetected by those she manipulates.

 

Those who practice restoration are not only excellent healers, they can also channel the powers of magicka to protect, strengthen, and enhance. Many restoration mages choose to serve as priests and healers, and are welcomed even by those who are generally suspicious of magic users. Their powerful bond to life causes undead to recoil in fear.

 

Enchanters, while not exactly spellcasters, are nevertheless intrigued by the magical arts, and are able to imbue physical objects with magical properties. Masters of enchantment can turn quality equipment into powerful artifacts, nearly as great as those of legend.

I personally use this and it does just what it says. It makes playing a straight or nearly straight mage slightly easier without over powering them and keeping things lore friendly. Though, after checking the mod page I realize I need to update because I'm currently using the older 1.3 which is modular. The newest (at the time of this writting) is 3.0 and it only includes one esp file.

[z929669]

Does anyone know if this integrates with ASIS? If so, then it would be great for a warrior class too, as it makes things more challenging. Good candidate for a STEP Pack or even Core STEP if it is truly vanilla friendly.

[Farlo]

Does anyone know if this integrates with ASIS? If so' date=' then it would be great for a warrior class too, as it makes things more challenging. Good candidate for a STEP Pack or even Core STEP if it is truly vanilla friendly.[/quote']

I think once we introduce STEP Packs and get a few of them going we can be a lot more strict with the definition of Core STEP, making it the essentials to making Skyrim looks its best, with everything after that being in a pack.

[TechAngel85]

Does anyone know if this integrates with ASIS? If so' date=' then it would be great for a warrior class too, as it makes things more challenging. Good candidate for a STEP Pack or even Core STEP if it is truly vanilla friendly.[/quote']

I can't confirm but after doing some research on ASIS (i had never heard of it), I don't see any issues. ASIS affects NPCs whereas Balanced Magic affects the player and I don't see anywhere the two would cross. ASIS also has a "mod exclusion" list in it's INI file. This will exclude any mod listed from being processed my ASIS. So in theory, Balanced Magic if found incompatible could be added to the exclusion list to prevent any compatibility issues. This should also work with any other mod, such as those that affect NPCs. You can also exclude individual NPCs from being processed.

 

Further reading leads me to thing you can combine mods with ASIS using the patcher. I have read on the nexus forum of people doing this with Balanced Magic.

An note on the Plugin vs Patcher:

 

• The patcher will merge data from other mods in - preserving compatibility. It will also add the increased spawns to new creatures, and it will add mod-spells to NPC's, both mod-added and vanilla.
• The plugin is simply a normal mod generated with the default settings, and will not add in exterior mods.

[z929669]

Does anyone know if this integrates with ASIS? If so' date=' then it would be great for a warrior class too' date=' as it makes things more challenging. Good candidate for a STEP Pack or even Core STEP if it is truly vanilla friendly.[/quote'']

I can't confirm but after doing some research on ASIS (i had never heard of it), I don't see any issues. ASIS affects NPCs whereas Balanced Magic affects the player and I don't see anywhere the two would cross. ASIS also has a "mod exclusion" list in it's INI file. This will exclude any mod listed from being processed my ASIS. So in theory, Balanced Magic if found incompatible could be added to the exclusion list to prevent any compatibility issues. This should also work with any other mod, such as those that affect NPCs. You can also exclude individual NPCs from being processed.

 

Further reading leads me to thing you can combine mods with ASIS using the patcher. I have read on the nexus forum of people doing this with Balanced Magic.

An note on the Plugin vs Patcher:

 

• The patcher will merge data from other mods in - preserving compatibility. It will also add the increased spawns to new creatures, and it will add mod-spells to NPC's, both mod-added and vanilla.
• The plugin is simply a normal mod generated with the default settings, and will not add in exterior mods.

My point is that I would like to see the player-conferred magic enhancements also being available to NPCs. That is ASIS' primary perk ... So the question is: Does ASIS propagate Balanced Magic 'perks' to qualifying NPCs?

[TechAngel85]

Does anyone know if this integrates with ASIS? If so' date=' then it would be great for a warrior class too' date=' as it makes things more challenging. Good candidate for a STEP Pack or even Core STEP if it is truly vanilla friendly.[/quote'']

I can't confirm but after doing some research on ASIS (i had never heard of it), I don't see any issues. ASIS affects NPCs whereas Balanced Magic affects the player and I don't see anywhere the two would cross. ASIS also has a "mod exclusion" list in it's INI file. This will exclude any mod listed from being processed my ASIS. So in theory, Balanced Magic if found incompatible could be added to the exclusion list to prevent any compatibility issues. This should also work with any other mod, such as those that affect NPCs. You can also exclude individual NPCs from being processed.

 

Further reading leads me to thing you can combine mods with ASIS using the patcher. I have read on the nexus forum of people doing this with Balanced Magic.

An note on the Plugin vs Patcher:

 

• The patcher will merge data from other mods in - preserving compatibility. It will also add the increased spawns to new creatures, and it will add mod-spells to NPC's, both mod-added and vanilla.
• The plugin is simply a normal mod generated with the default settings, and will not add in exterior mods.

My point is that I would like to see the player-conferred magic enhancements also being available to NPCs. That is ASIS' primary perk ... So the question is: Does ASIS propagate Balanced Magic 'perks' to qualifying NPCs?

Sounds like a good question for a mod tester, :D though it might be kind of hard to measure. Having a NPC (spellcaster) deal you some damage before and after ASIS/Balanced Magic Patch and attempt to discern if they are deadlier or not...that's the only test I can think of, but even then it's not a great way to measure if the changes were applied to the NPCs. I don't use ASIS and had never even heard of it till today. I'm currently nose deep into creating a batch file or I'd give it a try.

[mysty]

Hi guys,

I have never heard of ASIS so I'm not sure how compatible it would be with Balanced Magic, but I can offer you a little insight as to how Balanced Magic works (as of version 3.01).

I created two new perks, BalancedMagicCostOffset and BalancedMagicScaler, which I then added to the player actor (they are not on any perk tree, I just went into the Player Actor SpellList and added them to the other perks the player has by default). CostOffset does just that - it makes the low level spells a little more expensive and the higher level spells a little less expensive since cost no longer scales down as your skill increases. Note that NPC costs are calculated with separate gameplay settings, so if you want to apply the changes to NPCs, you'll need to adjust the NPC settings or they'll be able to spam high level spells far more often than they should! Scaler does most of the work - it handles all of the automatic skill based scaling, as well as the bonus to casting cost for unarmored magic users.

As far as I can tell, NPCs use a very limited set of perks, and generally do not use the novice/apprentice/adept/expert/master perks. I used these perks for some additional scaling that players may choose to spend their perk points on, so for NPCs to get the full effect, they'll need to be added to the mage-y NPC actors.

If you get everything working, I'd love to see the merged result!

[Farlo]

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the explanation! If you're interested in STEP and want to stick around, toss me a PM on the Nexus (link's in my signature) to confirm you're the author and I'll give you the super-special Mod Author nameplate ;)

[z929669]

Hi mysty, send me a PM on the Nexus to confirm that you are not a fraudulent mysty and we'll fix you up with proper mod-author recognition in the tune of an enhanced nameplate ;)

@Farlo:ninja:

---

As far as the technicalities around spell scaling and perks in relation to NPCs, I am afraid I am not proficient; however, I like the idea of expanding your tweaks for access by the NPCs ... at least to some extent based on level, skill and probability.

[TechAngel85]

Welcome to the STEP forums and thank you for that explanation. It's always great to have the authors chime in and clear things up!

[Farlo]

@Farlo:ninja:

[mysty]

I made another update based on some feedback on Nexus:

 

Change Log

====================================================================

 

v3.02

--------------------------------------------------------------------

- Rune Master perk allows you to place 4 runes (Many thanks to Uriel24 for helping me figure out the 'Modify Max Placeable Mines' command)

- Adjusted Destruction perks so that cost scales up with magnitude. Overall, low level spells got more expensive as they scale up, and high level spells got less expensive.

- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Conjuration perks cause conjured Daedra to scale in level

- Conjured Dragonpriests and Dremora Lords were weakened (although they scale up to their vanilla level, but I felt they were too powerful initially)

[mysty]

Change Log

====================================================================

 

v3.03

--------------------------------------------------------------------

- BUG FIX: Conjuration perks now correctly affect level of undead you can reanimate. Only the novice perk was working as intended in the previous version. Thanks to mojo22 for catching this bug!

- Removed the enchanting cap on Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing. I wanted to help address the crafting loop exploits, but the caps were effecting people who didn't use them

- Restored conjured Dragon priests to their vanilla level since it was pointed out that this is not a regular spell, but a proc from one of the Dragon masks

[TechAngel85]

I'm not good with TES5Edit or the CK to check with out mod compatibility. So, if I may could I ask you a favor, Mysty? Could you tell me if you mod would conflict with IndigoNeko's SkyRealism -Balanced Perk Trees mod? If so, are there issues that would break either or both mods if installed together?

 

What I'm wanting to do is this....

Balanced Perk Trees adds more balancing than just magic. He included all the perk trees so I would very much like to use it. However, your Balanced Magic mod I have used for some time now and would like to continue using it. I think it's a bit more evolved considering you focus strictly on the magic and it's been around longer. However, I'm concerned if I load your mod after Balanced Perk Trees there will be some conflicts. You mod would obviously overwrite his seamlessly with no issues in a perfect world; however, I doubt this is the case.

[mysty]

Hmmm... I'm at work right now, so I can't really check out Balanced Perk Trees until I get home tonight, but it looks like they change the shape of the perk tree, how many perks it has, etc. so I suspect there would likely be some issues. I'll take a look when I get home and see if there's an easy fix.