Sagerbliv Creature Balance Fixes v2.0

Sick of creatures and NPCs that level infinitely? Want epic fights against devious and tough enemies? Your salvation is here!

The goal of this mod is to improve and rebalance core gameplay, with targeted changes, rather than a 'kitchen sink' philosophy of modding.

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What's here:

* Balance fixes -- the modified creature object and leveled lists.
* Sagerbliv Weapons -- modified and rebalanced weapons for more engrossing expereince.
* Sagerbliv Rare Items -- modified loot tables for a more challenging and believable experience.
* Balance settings -- my personal game settings, which modify spawn length, remove some annoying error messages and balanced back stabbing to account for the more challenging nature of the Sagerbliv mod.

To upgrade from an earlier version of this mod, just replace the old files.

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Credit:
Props to Winterborne for his ideas around wilderness spawning.
Tom Servo for use of his item list mod.
Lyrondor for use of many elelments and ideas from his Combat Behavior mod.
Neeboo9 for his Larger Ogres and Trolls mod.

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Description:
This mod provides a more dangerous and epic feel to the challenges in Tamriel by modifying creature spawns and strengths.

This mod does not modify an item leveled lists, and I strongly recommend Tom Servo's LL mod, or any of the other item LL's available.

In more detail:

Many enemies now spawn in multiples. This mod has been carefully balanced so that fights are difficult without becoming frustrating or impossible. If a fight seems too difficult, is there another way to approach it?

At lower levels, you will tend to see smaller encounters. Some enemy types, such as bandits, goblins, skeletons, wolves, clanfear and scamps, will tend to be found in larger numbers. Other types, such as very powerful dremora, will never be found in multiples. Most creatures will be found in multiple sometimes. This creatates hectic, difficult and epic fights.

Lyrondor's Combat Behavior modifications have been incorporated for more challenging and agressive enemy behavior.

Many enemy types have been modified because they now spawn in multipes.

Many enemy types have been modified to make them more challenging, or more varied.

Many enemies now spawn only in a limited range of levels. This means that some are usually weak (bandits), strong (vampires), or always very strong (dremora princes). Some monsters, such as ogres or dremora, will never be suitable for low level characters. Some monsters, such as bandits, will never become very powerful.

Arena fights are now statically leveled, and much more difficult. The Grey Prince is level 40.

Wilderness and road encounter lists are modified, so that they are more indepdent of level. This means that it is possible to run into very dangerous creatures at low level. The most dangerous creatures do not appear close to roads. Mythical creatures do not appear as random encounters, but will still appear close to their dens.

Many main quest encouter lists have been changed. Kvatch is now suitable for characters between abotu level 12 and 20. The main quest final encounter is level 55, and later main quest spawn lists will tend to spawn very difficult creatures irrespective of level.

Some summoned creatures, such as Scamps, Skeletons and Ancestor Guardians are tougher.

Because fights are so challenging, areas will stay cleared much longer. If you clear a road of bandit gangs, it will usually stay cleared for about 6 weeks.

Generally speaking monster difficulty ranks like this:

Goblins
Bandits
Marauders
Necromancers
Blackbow
Argonian Bandits
Vampires
Daedra
Conjurers
Dremora

This mod will work with any mod that does not modify creatures, NPCs or leveled lists.

Modders are free to use or change anything in the Sagerbliv mod, with proper credit.

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Sagerbliv weapons.esp:

Weapons types renamed to be more approrpiate for lore; for example, "Dwarven" is now "Dwemer", "Elven" is "Bosmer". Changes should be more consistent with Lore.

Iron weapons do almost as much damage as steel, but don't hold up well.
Steel weapons are tougher, and do a little more damage.
Silver (Mithril) weapons are unchanged.
Elven (Bosmer) are slightly faster and a little lighter.
Dwarven (Dwemer) are unchanged.
Glass (Dunmer) are unchanged

Blunt weapons are slower, but do more damage.

Arrows do slightly more damage to account for the slight changes in melee weapons.

This mod should not be unbalancing.

This .esp will be compatible with any mod that does not modify weapons.

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If a creature or area is proving too difficult, go away, level up, and come back later.

If you find yourself having trouble with a large, difficult combat, look for ways to use terrain chokepoints or traps to your advantage.

Sometimes running away is the right thing to do!

Daedra, dremora, and some quests are simply not suitable for low-level characters.

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Recommended companion mods:
Primary needs 1.35
Natural Wildlife
Darker Nights / Darker Dungeons
No Psyhic Guards 1.2
Marker Explore

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Known Compatible:
G_'s Loot Mod
Tom Servo'd item mod (included in current versions)
Darker Dungeons / Darker Night.
BT UI 2.20
Natural Wildlife
Auryn's Character Leveling mod.
Guilder ownership 1.2
Primary needs 1.1, 1.2, 1.33, 1.34
Kalamar's 1.2wb weapon modification
& others.

None of these are required.

Known Incompatible:
Arena mods
Winterborne's Wilderness Mod
Lyrondor's Combat Behavior modification, however many elements of his mod have been ported into Sagerbliz.
Any mod that changes the NPC / creature leveled objects.
This mod is not compatible with the Combat Behavior mod, as it changes NPC and creature objects.
Plastic Foam Man's item mod, as it modifies creatures and NPCs.

While it's not in incompatability per se it appears that, when there are many mobs and you are using the Hide and Attack mods, less mobs will tend to run after you.

Gaurds and arena combatants do not appear to always scale correctly. This has something to do with the way that Bethsoft implemented them. This will require investigation to resolve.

Balance suggestions and recommendations are welcome. Bugs and comments on the thread in the official forum at elderscrolls.com/forums

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If you want to undo or change any game settings:
1) Download CS.
2) Open CS.
3) Click Data.
4) Select balance fixes.esp
5) Click the gameplay dropdown menu.
6) Select settings.
7) Scroll down until you see iHoursToRespawnCell, or what you are looking for.
8) Set the value to 72 (default), or whatever you want.

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2.00

Minor bug fixes.

Included Sagerbliv Weapon Mod and a new leveled list mod based closely on Tom Servo's original.

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Beta 1.69
Armed some prisoners. It's only fair.

Fixed a transexual arena combatant. Whoops. This has no game effect, but was simply... odd. [This specific change may require restarting a game to see].

Added a zero to the end of CreatureOgre's hit points. Whoops.

Fixed a significant bug in dremora spawn lists.

Dremora lists will scale higher.

Roads are slightly safer.

Vampires slightly more numerous.

Vampire patriarchs / matriarchs are faster, tougher and stronger. [This specific change may require restarting a game to see].

Vampires are more resistent to normal weapons.

Vanilla wolf and dog power attacks were 100% -- I tweaked to 35%. This will hopefully help make wolves a little more challenging.

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Beta 1.68
Minor tweaks to Conjurer spawn lists.

Bandits and marauders more likely to have head proection.

Zombies are slowed a bit, but still faster than Vanilla.

Skeletons are much faster.

G_'s Loot mod now included.


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Beta 1.67
Numerous changes to Items lists. Magic items are much less common on non-boss NPCs. Fur and Iron are somewhat less common, and Steel, Leather, Steel and Chain are somewhat more common.

Many creature types don't carry lockpicks quite as often, but may have a little cash instead. When you do find lockpicks, there will be slightly more.

Backed out all changes to MG01 Zombies, in case those changes were causing difficulty completeing the quest for some people (though they did not for me).

Tweaked Flame Atronachs.


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Beta 1.66
Zombies are now slightly less tough, but faster. You can no longer step back. whack. Step back. Whack. Etc...

A zombie-related quest has been tweaked to generate multiple combatants at times.

Clanfear are faster, but a little less tough. This makes them a more challenging and dynamic enemey, without being more difficult as a whole.

Daedra and dremora spawn lists tweaked a little for balance.

Kvatch Soldiers bumped up in level slightly. Oddly, this does NOT require a game restart. I have no idea why not.

Savage trolls are a little smaller based on a report that they were getting stuck.

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Beta 1.65
Minor fixes to dremora spawn lists, including fixing a Vanilla Oblivion bug in the Dremora archer leveled list.

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Beta 1.64
Toned down Goblin spawns slightly.

Trolls and Ogres are now... bigger thanks to Neeboo9's mod.

Weak painted trolls now have a lower level range.

Scamps and Clanfear now are slightly weaker.

Summoned scamps and skeletons are slightly more powerful.

Many spawn list changes to reduce unusual occurences of overly large quantities of enemies, especially undead and dremora.

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Beta 1.63
Large groups of bandits are a little rarer, and bandits will spawn somewhat less overall.

Toned down all Kvatch spawn lists a bit.

Tweaked all daedra spawn lists slightly.

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Beta 1.62
Fixed an issue that would make Kalperklan trolls too weak.

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Beta 1.61
Minor fix to rare items.

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Beta 1.6
Tweaked and fleshed out combat styles further.

Kvatch soldiers are now staticly leveled, appropriate to their type.

A Certain Main Quest NPC is staticly leveled to a very high level (55) to assure an appropriate end game challenge, and to assure that no low-level character can ever beat the game.

Imperial Legion soldiers now a little tougher.

Clanfear daedra are more dangeous -- especially in packs.

Clanfear Quest daedra are now normalized like normal clanfear.

Most Xivilai now begin scaling at level 30.

Dremora level rangers are 50+% higher, making Dremora tougher.

The arena fights increase smoothely in difficulty.

Many changes to Quest, Dremora and Mainquest leveled lists. Many quests may be too difficult for low level characters to complete. This will make the main quest much more challenging. Leveled lists will be fine-tuned in the future, but this will not require a game restart.

Numerous small changes.

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Beta 1.5

Fixed a bug in vanilla Oblivion where some Marauder bowmen had 2 bows.

Incorporated many elements of Lyrandor's Combat Behavior mod, although there are some slight differences. Bandits, Marauders, Veyond, Goblins, Imps, some wild animals, Vampires, and many other creatures will now exhibit more aggressive and efficient combat behavior. Kudos to Lyrandor for his many good ideas in this area.

Vampires are tougher still. (Scale value changed from -4 to -2 to 2 or 1, and max level increased.)

Marauders are tougher. (Minimum level from 5 to 8, and scale value upped slightly).

Bandits scale a little higher (Maximum level increased from 8 to 10).

Necromancers tougher.

Scaling trolls re-balanced to be somewhat tougher.

Several NPC named vampires, such as the Crowhaven boss, have now been increased to apporpriate power levels (25 or more). Ditto Lichs (30 or more).

Liches much tougher.

More creatures and NPCs balanced.

Arena combatants are completely static in level.

It does not appear that the very low-risk Tamriel / World Object conflict reported by a mod tool causes ill effects. This is not reported by CS, and appears to have no game effect. The resolution of this issue is somewhat severe (regressing a problem with too many bandits appearing), so I have chosen not fix this issue.


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Beta 1.4
iLevItemLevelDifference removed from balance fixes.esp to avoid incompat w/ Tom Servo, and other item mods.

Many guards etc... are now fully static. City guards are weaker, castle, imperial and road guards stronger, and bodyguards and the imperial palace guards are strongest. Jailors are not strong at all.

Arena much, much harder. Level range now goes up to 40.

Lich's much more dangerous.

Conjurer lairs are far, far more dangerous.

Vampires are tougher still, and weak vampire types (bards, for example) will rarely spawn. Additionally, vampires are no longer loners, and their pets aren't nearly so friendly.

Imperial guard is doing a better chance keeping the roads clear of bandits.

Necromancy lairs more dangerous.

Sometimes there is a greater evil behind the vampire coven than a mere patriarch.

Small compatibility bug fixes to Tom's mod. There are no more compatibility issues between Balance fixes.esp and the version of Tom's mod included in this .rar.


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Beta 1.34
Even more revs to road bandit spawning. Now, 3 - 10 bandits will be most common, with 12 the true maximum. There is one exception to this rule -- a particularly well protected fort with a strong bandit presence nearby.

Adjusted skeleton and marauder LL's in a similar way.

Most trolls and ogres are now staticly leveled.

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Beta 1.33
Further revs to bandit spawning.

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Beta 1.32
Cannot get settings and fixes files to work together. Removed settings from the archive. Balance fixes now has values for: iLevCreaLevelDifferenceMax, iLevItemLevelDifferenceMax. and iHoursToRespawnCell ONLY. These settings are instrumental.

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Beta 1.31
Fixed a problem with nested lists that was creating WAY too many road bandits sometimes. Numbers between 1 - 12 are now possible, but no higher. I also used the opportunity to slightly increase the number of cave and camp bandits possible.

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Beta 1.3
Mod is now split correctly into two mods. Balance fixes contains all object (creature / NPC) changes and only three settings: iCreaLevDifferenceMax, iCreatLevDiffMin and iHoursToRespawnCell. These three settings are instrumental to the gameplay of this mod and must be used. Balance fixes.esp will not conflict with any projectile speed mod.

A seperate file, called Balance Settings.esp is now included for those that would also use my other settings. These settings up magic projectile speed greatly (hard to dodge), missile speed slightly, set iLowLevelNPCMax to 7 and remove the irritating 'Loading Level' message.

I have included a slightly modified version of Tom Servo's mod. The modifications I made were a bug fix to bandit bow generation which resulted in almost constant magic bows, and a tweak that will result in a lower incidence of high quality arrows (no more iron bows + dwarven arrows). Please note that full credit for this item list modification must go to Tom Servo!!!

Updated and tweaked many creature leveled lists and a few creature objects.

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Beta 1.2
Contention problems with settings.esp. I've removed it and gone back to a single .esp. Most velocity mods do not seem to modify the actually setting, rather, they modify the object. This means that they should work fine. My recommendation is to try it.

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Beta 1.1

Dunmer Ancestor Guardian now levels with the player, but is slightly weaker at all levels.

Lowered the troll target level range.

No more imps in the wild. Removed and tweaked the road and wild leveled lists for better balance and believability.

Backed out all of the changes to settings, and added a second esp called, surprisingly, 'balanced settings.' If you do not use it, I still recommend tweaking your cellrespawn to at least 720, or higher.

Slightly lowered Cell respawn to 45 days.

Minor tweaks to CreatureGoblin.

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Beta 1 Partial feature list:
Added multiple places where low level encounters with static creatures can generate multiple bad guys.

Modified wilderness encounter similar to Winterborne TE's mod.

Arena fights now tougher, and with tight level ranges for a more interesting challenge.

Respawn of an area takes about 2 months.

Some NPCs are tougher.

Some non-leveled mobs now available in a wider level range -- watch out.

Many mobs now appear in 2, 3, and 4, or greater numbers.

Many mobs now have min and max level ranges -- there are no low-level vampires, or high-level bandits for example.

Many creatures have been tweaked, especially those for the lower levels.

Kvatch is no longer suitable for a low level character.

Maurauder are tougher and more numerous, but stop at around 15.

Bandits are tougher but more numerous, but stop leveling at around 10.

Goblins are no stronger or weaker than vanilla, but come in numbers.

Arena combats are leveled for a range between about 2 and 25. It will be difficult to beat under 20.

Gaurds are not leved, becaused I haven't got it, but should be static.

Some individual NPCs have been given higher static levels, but more probably need this treatment.

Kvatch may be tough to take under level 8.

Some leveling NPCs that were locked at level 3 are now locked a little higher.

This is designed to be used with a leveled item list mod.