Enchanting Mod Idea

[Shadriss]

Let me start by saying that, if I had even the slightest clue how to do this, I would be more than happy to do it myself. In fact, if you have the knowledge I'm looking for, PLEASE direct me to the relevant tutorials or what not, preferably text versions, since video ones tend to give me headaches.

 

Right.

 

So, the one thing that truly bothers me in Skyrim (Tamriel, really) is the basis of Enchanting. Not the Soul Gem aspect, that's a decent mechanic. But the LEARNING of Enchantments, that's a sticking point. As it is, and from anything I've seen lore wise, this skill should never even have come into existence. Observe:

 

How to Learn An Enchant:

A) Find an enchanted item.

B) Study it.

C) Break it (this is why we can't have nice things...)

D) Learn new enchantment by breaking it.

 

By this logic, the need to break something already enchanted to learn an enchantment, the skill would never have come to be. Therefor, it is logical to suppose that there must have been, at some point, the ability to learn it through some other means. Hence, the beginnings of my mod idea.

 

Learn Enchants from books. Simple. In my vision, they would not be something that could be bought off the shelf (or the current system would never have come to be), but a rare find deep in some dungeon, or perhaps a created item associated with some similar standard school spell (IE Flame Bolt for the Fire Enchantment). The exact mechanic is still to be determined, honestly. But the point is that it makes more sense to me that this should exist...

 

... Also, it would make it easier in some ways to be sure I've gotten every possible enchantment w/o trusting to luck to find that ONE LAST ONE I'm looking for.

 

Again, not looking for anyone to take up the torch, I'm looking for the basics on how I would even begin to do something like this. Every tut I've seen for mod creation seems to hover around armors and weapons and nifs (oh my!), and so are not the easiest to make use of.

 

Thanks all in advance.

[Marthenil]

 

 

By this logic, the need to break something already enchanted to learn an enchantment, the skill would never have come to be.

Daedric influence. I'm not sure it's this way lorewise, but it makes perfect sense to me. Like, the very first enchanter got his hands on a daedric item, disenchanted it and learned how to do it.

 

That said, I do agree that the know how would have spread by then.

[Shadriss]

Like, the very first enchanter got his hands on a daedric item, disenchanted it and learned how to do it.

Not a bad take on it, and if it were possible (in vanilla) to disenchant Daedric Artifacts (don't think this is possible, but I may be wrong) I'd leave well enough alone. But, as far as I know, not the case.

 

I've done a little hunting and learned a little bit. Came across (finally) a page that talked about modding books. It was enough to get me most of what I need to make the items, except that as far as I can tell, Enchantments are learned through a separate system than spells (no surprise). Which means I may need to learn a little scripting to have the book teach the enchant, since I can't have it called up under the Spells heading like the others ones.

 

So, that plus a little work and figuring out placement/creation recipes, and this could easily be a go. I figure to just use the Spell Tome art, since any enchantment can be directly tied to one of the main schools of magic (and, in fact, list these in the CK).

[kryptopyr]

I think this is a pretty nice idea, and I have to agree that there must be other ways available to learn enchantments then simply destroying already enchanted items.

 

One way to approach this might be to create a new weapon or armor item, give it the appearance of a book, and add the enchantment directly to it.  Then you would "disenchant" the book to learn the effect in the same way you'd disenchant a piece of armor.

[CovertSlinky]

I think this is a pretty nice idea, and I have to agree that there must be other ways available to learn enchantments then simply destroying already enchanted items.

 

One way to approach this might be to create a new weapon or armor item, give it the appearance of a book, and add the enchantment directly to it.  Then you would "disenchant" the book to learn the effect in the same way you'd disenchant a piece of armor.

Liking your idea myself so far Shadriss. And I am thinking Kryptopyr as the simplest approach. Cause the only thing I see you running into headache wise(mostly...I think, lol) is then linking what you learned from said book, if you just read it and gained it, to the enchantment system to know that you did in fact "learn" it.

[Shadriss]

Well, if I went Krypt's route, it would be no different than any other disenchant... the only difference would be that the object being destroyed is a book, which happens with Spell Tomes anyhow. The only restriction then would be that you still have to get to an Enchanters station to 'learn' the enchant, but as those are pretty much everywhere, that isn't a huge problem. Of course, it DOES mean learning a completely different side of the CK than I've delved into so far.

 

I'll have to think more on this, but it may be that that would be the simplest way, rather than putting in some kind of scripting that could just cause more issues elsewhere.

[DoubleYou]

Books seem too cheap a way to learn an enchantment. I think you have to experience it, and that's what breaking the item does. You ask how enchantments first were learned? Simple answer: Magic.

 

I'd far prefer some sort of quest that the reward magically gifted you with the ability to use the enchantment. Or finding some random magical anvil somewhere that randomly impues it with an enchantment, with a chance of breaking it, by which you learn how to enchant it.

[Teabag86]

Have you checked in the CK as to whether you can assign an enchantment for a skill book? Last time I checked there were a stack of options in the dropdown box. I made a simple mod that granted me all the alchemy experimenter perks upon reading the Alchemist Compendium. I just had to set it up as a script that activated on reading. There were quite a few online tutorials.

[Shadriss]

Books seem too cheap a way to learn an enchantment. I think you have to experience it, and that's what breaking the item does. You ask how enchantments first were learned? Simple answer: Magic.I'd far prefer some sort of quest that the reward magically gifted you with the ability to use the enchantment. Or finding some random magical anvil somewhere that randomly impues it with an enchantment, with a chance of breaking it, by which you learn how to enchant it.

The Magic has to have come from somewhere - it had to have been created before it was destroyed for us to learn it. The sheer number of enchanted items out there is easy to explain, of course, since once you know the process, you can make as many of that as you wish. But there had to have been an origin - some way it was originally developed. And a deus ex machina explanation just doesn't work for me. *shrug* I hadn't intended for these books or whatever (starting to look more like a whatever) to be easy finds at the local bookstore, understand... just an alternate way to locate an enchantment that may not come up randomly after many hours of play for the completionists like myself. You are right that it's the breaking that does it - the same way the Chinese learn to make new technology by taking it apart. There's a reason they are outstanding reverse engineers, but that doesn't mean it's part of the process - it means they are standing on the shoulders of those who did the original work because they don't know how to innovate it themselves, much as we in Tamriel are standing on the shoulders of whatever mage came up with the process originally. I'm aiming to kind of address that seeming gap in magical lore.

 

Have you checked in the CK as to whether you can assign an enchantment for a skill book? Last time I checked there were a stack of options in the dropdown box. I made a simple mod that granted me all the alchemy experimenter perks upon reading the Alchemist Compendium. I just had to set it up as a script that activated on reading. There were quite a few online tutorials.

I have, and the ENchantments are in a completely different category. My real options, so far as I see them with my extrememly limited knowledge of the system are to either A) Create individual armor and weapon pieces that look like books and must be read (disenchanted) at the Enchanters Table to learn them (the Kryptoper suggestion), or B) Learn a small amount of scripting to run on the book being read to simulate the same idea as Spell books. I'm tending towards A, mostly because I am afeared of scripting and the Python Demons of Skyrim.

 

If you can think of another approach, by all means - I'm brainstorming right now, not doing any serious work on this. Heck, I still have to figure out how to make a new plugin in the CK. The majority of my time investigating this concept has been along the lines of "OK, CK is installed... boot it up and... WHAT THE HECK IS ALL THIS?!"

 

Fun times... fun times.

[fireundubh]

When Skyrim was released pre-CK, I tried making learning enchantments from books possible. That would have been part of my Lorecraft-lite enchanting overhaul, which was eventually superseded by Enchanting Freedom when the CK arrived. When the CK was released, there was no way to force the player to learn an enchantment.

 

Until SKSE 1.7.0, there was still no way but now we have the SetPlayerKnows() function.

 

Personally, I think you could do an enchanting books mod entirely without the CK.

[Aiyen]

The way I see it with enchantments is that they are soul powered, hence it is a sort of daedric related craft most likely. Hence it is not just like in some other fantasy worlds where enchanting a weapons with flames is a matter of "say magic spell of magic on sword".. you have to actually merge the soul power to the weapon or object in question. I imagine that doing this is a matter of experience for the enchanter.... like any other craft the person has to know how to do it to create something complex. You cannot simply look up the formulae on the internet/book and then do it. I imagine that a description on how to do an enchant would be something like this if it was written down.

 

"When you feel your little finger tingling apply more elemental pressure on the top of the blade, and when you feel a sensation of euphoria make sure to have a soul gem and a new pair of pants ready!"

 

I also guess that it is simply a matter of since it is soul related then everyone feels the process differently hence the only way to learn is to take an existing enchant and work from that. 

As for the question of "where did the first one come from then"... then I imagine that like I said then it was most likely daedric.. hence some item formed in oblivion where the laws of nature does not exactly apply like everywhere else in the lore. Which leads me to another concept.

Perhaps the reason enchanting works like it does is because of how the "real" world is different then planes of oblivion. Which leads to an entirely new mod suggestion... to only being able to craft higher level enchants while in oblivion! Making it a bit more involved to make god like gear then simply taking a stroll down to the local inn and make yet another set of super god like gear! 

 

Oh well ranting a bit too much I guess, and deviating from the core question of the thread! Sorry! Hope someone enjoyed reading those few ideas. 

[Shadriss]

When Skyrim was released pre-CK, I tried making learning enchantments from books possible. That would have been part of my Lorecraft-lite enchanting overhaul, which was eventually superseded by Enchanting Freedom when the CK arrived. When the CK was released, there was no way to force the player to learn an enchantment.Until SKSE 1.7.0, there was still no way but now we have the SetPlayerKnows() function.Personally, I think you could do an enchanting books mod entirely without the CK.

I know about nothing about any kind of modding on this level, but good to know that SKSE came through just as I was needing it. Don't suppose you know any tutorials or whatnot that could point me in the right direction? As I said, my level of knowledge on mod creation is as close to zero as makes little difference. I don't even know enough to be dangerous...

 

The way I see it with enchantments is that they are soul powered, hence it is a sort of daedric related craft most likely. Hence it is not just like in some other fantasy worlds where enchanting a weapons with flames is a matter of "say magic spell of magic on sword".. you have to actually merge the soul power to the weapon or object in question. I imagine that doing this is a matter of experience for the enchanter.... like any other craft the person has to know how to do it to create something complex. You cannot simply look up the formulae on the internet/book and then do it. I imagine that a description on how to do an enchant would be something like this if it was written down.

 

"When you feel your little finger tingling apply more elemental pressure on the top of the blade, and when you feel a sensation of euphoria make sure to have a soul gem and a new pair of pants ready!"

 

I also guess that it is simply a matter of since it is soul related then everyone feels the process differently hence the only way to learn is to take an existing enchant and work from that. 

As for the question of "where did the first one come from then"... then I imagine that like I said then it was most likely daedric.. hence some item formed in oblivion where the laws of nature does not exactly apply like everywhere else in the lore. Which leads me to another concept.

Perhaps the reason enchanting works like it does is because of how the "real" world is different then planes of oblivion. Which leads to an entirely new mod suggestion... to only being able to craft higher level enchants while in oblivion! Making it a bit more involved to make god like gear then simply taking a stroll down to the local inn and make yet another set of super god like gear! 

 

Oh well ranting a bit too much I guess, and deviating from the core question of the thread! Sorry! Hope someone enjoyed reading those few ideas. 

Interesting thoughts, Aiyen... but to me, that still reeks of deus ex machina. Almost the literal translation of the term, in this case, though the Daedra aren't Gods.

 

Your thoughts on reading a book to learn magic were a small chuckle, I must admit... but my immediate thought was that the spell tomes would be exactly the same circumstance - only using pure magic instead of the soul element. Magic is often felt and perceived differently from person to person (drawing on the majority of magic using myth here, not just Skyrim... sue me!), so for it to be written down and be usable by anyone would run into the same limitation. Even were it difficult to learn in this way, it is not beyond the possibility that this origin point (person) would have written down his/her process... and that even if some aren't able to learn from those writings, some still would be able to.

 

Even if it's mostly a moot point, it's still a great discussion point!