Duke Patrick’s Nosferatu Class Vampires Mark II
Rev 4.5

REQUIRES OBSE 20 or higher

MUST DO A CLEAN INSTALL!
So sell your holy water first!






New Compatibility tool for other mods that try to play a death sequence on the vampires.

New game mechanics for wood stakes.

New "wood stake" arrows.

New Holy symbol effect on vampires!

New vampire slaps your arrows out of the air feature!

And lots more new stuff...

Now compatible with Duke Patrick's Hammer-Blade mod.

see here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27949


Mr.Pointy (the vampire stakes) is now more photo realistic instead of cartoon like, and it is no longer an enchanted item, just a stick! I am making it work now via scripting and not a spell. This will allow you to use it with my Hammer-Blade mod with out any penalties if you are an SCA Knight or Squire.

Throwing Holy water will not be detected as casting a spell by the Hammer-Blade mod now. This will allow you to use it with my Hammer-Blade mod with out any penalties if you are an SCA Knight or Squire.


Armor worn over the heart (upper body armor) will fall to the ground when the upper body armor health is ZERO (Vamps only). You may also choose to concentrate your attacks on the torso by going into your inventory and clicking on the "Target Torso Armor" icon. This will be in the Armor section of your inventory. Doing this will give you a detrimental penalty to your normal attacks with any melee weapon. However it will do a great deal of damage to the torso armor and will soon knock the armor to the ground so you can get to the vampires heart!

Damage for this is calculated using your strength, speed, your actor value attack bonus (if any), the your Fatigue Percentage and the weight of your melee weapon as the MAJOR contributors to the damage. Also power attacking will double this damage!

Then on top of that all NORMAL oblivion damage results such as damage armor spells or weapon heath and skill adjustments (and so on) as minor damage contributors.

A cross (or if preferred a lore friendly holy symbol) held up in the left hand can startle and scare the vamps! The player may choose to use either a Crucifix or a lore friendly stand-in called Meridia's Solar Scepter! Any reference to a crucifix in the following also includes the Solar Scepter!

The crucifix is not an enchanted item! It is a symbol with a powerful psychological effect on the Vampires. It allows the player to channel their willpower against the Vampires will power.

Duration of the effect = Player’s Willpower - Vamps Willpower * 2 and then modified by the player's Fatigue Percentage.

15% of your Fatigue will be consumed in each turning of a vamp. (Due to the stress of focusing your Willpower) Just enough to make it a consideration in the combat.

To focus on an attacking vampire you must be facing them with your cross-hair on them. It is possible for a vampire to circle in on you from the side to slip past your outstretched Crucifix. You will only be able to effect one Vampire at a time, however it only takes a moment to set fear into them and force them to retreat briefly. So it is not hard to juggle several vampires at a time.

Used properly the Crucifix can slow down, confuse and startle vampires to impend their short-range attacks!

However even if you have a superior Willpower stat the crucifix is not going to be an ultra weapon against Vampires as there are major considerations in using a Crucifix properly and strategically!


The Crucifix has a very short effect range. It must practically be in their face, so any vamp with a long sword will be very difficult but not impossible to effect. Most archers will be far out of range!

You must not lower the Crucifix (such as to parry or attack)
You must not turn your back on the vampire.

If the vampire is struck with damage there is a small chance that they will become furious and overcome their fear attacking you freely for a duration depending on their Willpower.

If you strike the Vamp with damage personally there is an extreme likelihood that they will become furious as described above!

(Note to player, when I say chance I do not mean a dice roll. I always attempt to find other ways to determine events other than artificial dice rolls. This makes the events more natural and allows the player much more opportunity to learn and master the outcome. So success or failure is calculated much in the same way Oblivion’s detection systems works based on the conditions at the time in the game.


I improved the Holly Water script so that the water will not "miss" the target vamp as often as it did in previous revisions (unless they dodge it!) Now they will writhe in pain (new animations for vamps) once they are hit with Holy water!



You can now use wood arrows (without metal tips) with a bow to hit the heart of vampires! They are NOT enchanted arrows! Just large wood arrows with no metal tip. It is also a little thicker in diameter than most arrows. Essentially this will be just like a wood stake to the heart with the same rules (must be in front of the vamp and the vamp must not be wearing upper body armor) but at range now!

Here is how the wood stakes and tip less arrows will work now. My script will use your actor value luck and hand to hand skill or marksman skill to calculate the DEGREES that you must be inside of to successfully hit the heart.

At the moment the stake or arrow hits the Vamp my script checks to see how far the vamp is turned away from the attack using the calculated degrees off center.

With a 100 luck and 100 HandToHand you would have about 30 to the left and 30 to the right (60 degrees total ) you could be off and still get the kill!

But at a luck of 20 and HandToHand of 20 you would need to be DEAD CENTER to get the kill. Thus this combines your PC skills and luck and your own player skills and "luck" to get a result.


Vampires can bat the arrows out of the air or deflect them with weapons or their arms! You will see the arrows slapped and then bounce off the walls near by as the vampire deflects them!

Their ability to bat the arrows depends on factors such as their skills and attributes and if they are not too busy doing other things such as casting spells. The further you are away from the vampires the easer it will be for them to bat the arrows. But they cannot bat the arrow if they are not in combat with you (have not detected you). Also the faster the arrows travel the less likely the vampire will be able to bat the arrows!


I have a “beta” work around for conflicting mods that step on my the vampire "Fry Baby" death sequence! You can set the variable aadpBurstDelay to .01 in console to delay my Vampire death sequence a few seconds. This should allow the conflicting mod time enough to finish what ever death sequence it is trying to do.

This is NOT really my vision (my preferred choreographed death) for my vampires but for those that insist on trying to use both mods this MAY work.

Just type in the Console:Set aadpBurstDelay to .01

To set it bak to normal type:Set aadpBurstDelay to 0





Vampire Heightened Senses:

If the Vampire is not asleep and not already in combat they will be able to hear, see and smell you far better than any other creature in Oblivion!

Vampires will now be able to see any movement clearly in the dark up to 300 feet if you are moving in any way even if you are only turning from left to right while you stand in one spot. The Vampire must be facing your direction however and have no obstacles blocking their view. Unfortunately the hardcode in oblivion allows a few objects that should block LOS but do not such as trees!

Vampires will easily hear you at short distances (about 10 feet) if you are moving at all. Your sneak skill will have a MINIMAL effect on this! In most cases you will have to wait for the vampire to move past you rather than you walking up behind them to get your short-range sneak attack on them!

The vampires can now smell you if you are in front of them and within 60 feet.
Each foot you are from them reduces their ability to smell you by 1/60th. Obstacle such as walls and large rock formations can obscure their ability to smell you.



Please also use this plug in: Duke Patrick’s - All NPC Or Just Vampires Now Bob And Weave.esp

get it here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15103



A CLEAN INSTALL of this upgrade!

A clean install is done by taking out the OLD rev 1 mod and then save a save game. Then start up the clean savegame with this new mod loaded.

But sell your Holy Water first so you do not take such a big hit to your gold pouch! There is 5 free Holy Waters for you outside a cave near Skingrad.


The vampire features do NOT yet apply to the Player, only the NPC. But A Future Rev may include this someday.


This version will turn all NPC that are marked in Oblivion as Vampires into Nosferatu Class Vampires. What this means is that they can be killed instantly with a wood steak, they are hurt and can die in the sunshine, and they are hurt by holy water and will explode in a burst of flame when they die! A Crucifix (or solar Scepter if you prefer a lore friendly alternative) will startle and scare them depending on your willpower and their willpower.


This will effect even Vampires from other mods as long as they have their vampire check box marked in the CS.


You will only be able to penetrate the ribcage to the vampire’s heart by using a power attack. Normal fast(weak) attacks will not be strong enough to break the ribs. Be careful not to hit shields or you may shatter your wood stake.

You Can Buy holy water and the Holy symbols from some merchants, church devoted merchants like priests will have a better chance of having holy water and Holy symbols to sell you but they will never have wood stakes to sell you.

However Holy water is very expensive, and not widely availed as merchandise as many in the church find it offensive to be used as a weapon. Wood steaks can sometimes be found in crates and barrels.

Any NPC that is marked as ESSENTIAL will not die in the sun to prevent breaking quests.

There is a sizzling sound to the vamps when burning from the holy water and a bottle of water sound effect when flinging the holy water whether you hit and splash on a target or miss (thus no splash sound).




Description of the mod:

Vampires NPC are too much of a push over for me. After I completed the vampire cure quest it was a joke to hear the witch go on about how amazing it was that I survived the task.

There are a lot of VAMP mods for changing the player, but I could not find (as of 2007) any Mods to upgrade the NPC vampires without doing a LOT of other things I did not want.

This mod makes all the vampires have the weakness and strengths of the Nosferatu Vampires. Even Vamps from other monster mods like MMM!

However this mod may or may not be incompatible with other vamp mods that CHANGE vamp behavior! Try it yourself and let us know!



I like my Vampires the way I like my Dragons...
Not so much magical, just good old fashion brut strength and speed!


The following features make fighting one Nosferatu vampire as scary as fighting a platoon of city guards.

Health Regeneration
No need to breath air (Water Breathing)
Frost Resistance
Resist Disease
Strength
Speed
Acrobatics
Athletics
Hand to Hand
New Vampire Heightened Senses
Ability to slap arrows out of the air.

They will gracefully duck and sidestep your attacks!

These supernaturally STRONG vampires will throw you around like a rag doll if you let them get too close!

One of their big weaknesses is daylight. If they get trapped out in the daytime and it is not raining they will burst into flames and die in a few seconds!

They slowly regenerate from non-lethal wounds. You will need to use your best and most powerful attacks or at least keep up a high rate of attack on them in combat! Fatigue management is going to be a high tactical consideration against these vampires.

Wood stakes will kill them instantly if you can get a clear shot to their heart from the front! The wood stakes will be fragile compared to other weapons, so carry a lot of them!

You must be on center facing the vampire. This on-center facing is not as hard as it sounds, it just makes it so you cannot instant kill from the side or back. And it will be very hard to do if you are being staggered and thrown around in combat. The vampire must not be wearing armor on his chest or the wood will not penetrate to the heart. In combat with a Vampire wearing torso armor, beat the armor off him with a melee weapon such as a sword, then use the wood stake!

Remember that you will only be able to penetrate the ribcage to the vampire’s heart by using a power attack. Normal fast (weak) attacks will not be strong enough to break the ribs.

You absolutely will need Holy water to defeat groups of my Nosferatu class vampires. The Holy water inflicts significant damage and knocks (they will cry in pain) them down long enough for you to throw a power shot at them or deal with the other attacking vampires. One Bottle works one time. It uses the SCROLL slot not the POTIONS slot.


You will hear the water splash on your Vampire but you will not see the small amount of liquid that comes out of tiny black bottles. The water will not fling far at all so only use the Holy Water when you are up close to the vampires. If you hit them with the Holy water you will know it. They will produce lost of smoke.

I have another mod out on TesNexus called Duke Patrick’s - All NPC Or Just Vampires Now Bob And Weave. If you do not use this other mod the vampires will not be able to duck and weave around your weapon attacks as intended! please use that mod at least just for the vampires. It can be adjusted to just effect the vampires.




INSTALLATION:
-------------

Unzip or drag the contents of the zip file into your oblivion\data directory.

If you are prompted to overwrite click 'yes', Do not worry, this is simply a warning to you that you are writing into folders that already exist, no files will be overwritten.

If dragging and dropping, be careful not to accidentally drag the files into another folder in your oblivion/data directory.

If you are upgrading, be sure to override all the data files with then one in this zip file as well.






Playing This Mod
-----------------

Activate this mode by checking the box for "Duke Patrick’s Nosferatu Class Vampires" and the plug in mod


Duke Patrick’s - All NPC Or Just Vampires Now Bob And Weave.esp

get it here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15103




YOU MUST LOAD MY MODs LAST! Please see below on MOD load order.


LOAD ORDER
-----------------------------------------------

FIRST...

All your other mods


THEN

Duke Patrick’s Nosferatu Class Vampires

LAST

Duke Patrick’s Basic Script Effect Silencer
(THIS MOD MUST BE USED IF YOU USE ANY OF MY MODS!)



Thanks to:
-------------

JDFan for NifSkope Guru-isum!

WillieSea for advice on my script.

TheTalkieToaster for advice on my script.

Scruggsywuggsy the ferret for a cool script trick to detect power shots.

StarX for great encouragement.

Mush for tying to help as well.

Jannix Quinn's for Potion Bottles

ICUP for the stakes

Glue for playtesting, bug recon, feedback, Icon help and moral support

Belle for feedback and moral support

BKS for feedback and moral support

Jericho66 for feedback and moral support

Deathless Aphrodite for feedback and moral support

And other active members on the Oblivion CS forums for feedback!

Special thanks to Psymon for tweaking the mod with tools I do not know how to use yet.


Bethesda for allowing all of us to shape and personalize our own virtual playgrounds!



Legal
..............................
I had to solve some very hard problems on this mod! It was not easy! This Mod is more a product of creativity, sweat and tears than script writing talent. (To date I have spent over 112 man hours of my time to make this mod.)

DO NOT distribute this mod! File is downloaded from Tes Alliance only.

If any other web site is distributing this work they are doing so illegitimately.

You MAY use my scripts and my other resources for making a mod only as long as it has NOTHING to do with visually flame bursting vampires! I.E do not make a disguised knock off! And you must credit me fully and include my "legal" as shown above.


The only two modders that did get permission before my policy on this changed is Star-X and ShadeMe! They are using my work with my permission.


For the most advanced SCA combat with sword and shield:
http://www.spookyfx.com/book/tromp.html