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About this mod
This mod adds a new staff for sale at Rindir\'s Staves in the Imperial City Market. The staff uses target spells from your spellbook, drawing its power from your magicka, and allowing your magic skills to progress as you use it.
- Permissions and credits
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Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Staff of Lore
-----------------------------------
Author: Frankie_Mac
Version: V1.0
Requirements:
OBSE version 16 or newer
Patch 1.2.0416
---------------
Description:
---------------
Sorry for the long readme, but the important stuff is in this paragraph. This mod adds a new staff for sale at Rindir's Staves in the Imperial City Market. The staff uses target spells from your spellbook, drawing its power from your magicka, and allowing your magic skills to progress as you use it. It uses a smart algorithm to determine the appropriate spell to use for a variety of situations. Although the staff does not do anything you could not otherwise do (in fact, if your spell book is empty it does nothing at all), it does have four distinct advantages over normal casting. The first is obvious: you don't need to open your spell book to select the right spell for the situation. Secondly, the staff's power is unaffected by your armor. Thirdly, missed spells do not cost you any magicka nor do errant spells hurt your allies, and lastly, if your enemy has a reflect spell ability the staff protects you from the rebounding spell.
---------------
Details
---------------
The staff only works on NPC's, creatures, and locked doors/containers. The algorithm first identifies what the spell has hit and then considers your spells to determine a good option. It ignores on-touch and on-self spells as well as any spell you cannot cast (low magicka or low skill in that school). The staff uses the appropriate amount of magicka and gives the appropriate experience as though you had cast the spell normally. For specific targets it works in the following ways:
For enemies it considers all damage health and elemental damage (fire, frost, and shock) spells and compares them to the enemies resistances, shields, and weaknesses. It predicts the amount of damage each spell will do. If you have spells that can kill the enemy in one shot, it will choose the one that costs you the least magicka; otherwise it will choose the spell that does the most damage. For example, if you have equal level spells of fire and frost damage, the staff will use fire against trolls (weak to fire) and Nords (resistant to frost) but use frost against Dark Elves (resistant to fire). For enemies the staff will consider multiple effect spells correctly (provided the effects are those listed above). It is also smart enough not to use area effect spells against nearby enemies, since you may be caught in the blast.
For friends (companions or anyone else either leading you or following you) it heals them if they are wounded and uses shield (or fire, frost, or shock shield) if they are at full health. For healing spells the staff only considers single effect spells. For shield type spells, the staff will consider multi-effect spells, but only on the merits of their first listed effect. Thus, you can tack on additional effects (like fortify health or attribute) and the staff will use this spell, but only if you have no other stronger shield spells.
For other characters the staff will charm them, provided you have an on-target charm spell in your book (single effect only). Don't forget to put the staff away before talking to them or the benefits of the charm spell will be at least partially negated by having a weapon out.
For any locked doors or containers the staff will unlock them if you have a target spell capable of doing so and are skilled enough to cast it.
Some additional notes: In Rindir's shop (where the staff is sold) there is a small altar that opens a menu when activated. From this menu, you can turn on messages that tell you the name of the spell the staff chose or tell you if the staff could not find an appropriate spell (this is off by default). You can also turn off the skill progression feature of the staff (on by default).
Based on the way destruction spells are chosen, it is in your best interests to have a well rounded spellbook with roughly equal level spells for each type of elemental damage. If, for instance, you have a 40 point frost spell but your highest fire and shock spells are 10 points each the staff will use the frost spell against Nords, wolves, and bears even though they are resistant to it. This happens simply because, if the target's health is higher than any of your spells, the staff uses the most damaging spell regardless of its efficiency. In this case, simply creating 40 point fire and shock spells will ensure that the most damaging spell is also the most efficient. In general, if your spellbook is well thought-out the staff will make good decisions consistently, otherwise it may leave you woefully low on magicka.
Many of Oblivion's spells are too subtle in nature to be selectable by any simple algorithm. Thus, I cannot incorporate such spells as calm, turn undead, or paralyze. I also cannot incorporate effects like telekinesis since the game engine will not run script effect spells on non-actor references except doors and containers. Likewise, I sadly cannot incorporate scripted spells such as those in the awesome Midas Magic mod. Player created spells, however, will work just fine.
--------------
Compatibility Issues:
--------------
I have not experienced any conflict with other mods, however this mod modifies and uses the visuals from the otherwise unused "Darkness" magic effect. (it does not use the effect, just the visuals) It is possible that other modders have also modified this effect in which case this mod may conflict with their mod. If this seems to be an issue for you let me know and I can provide an alternate version that does not use or modify these visuals.
--------------
Installation:
--------------
Copy the files into your Oblivion\Data directory.
Activate "StaffofLore.esp" file from Data Files in the Oblivion Launcher.
----------
Credits:
----------
Many thanks to the creators of OBSE without whom this mod could not exist.
Thanks to MentalElf for the TESFiles utilty and to TeamGecko for TESGecko.
Thanks also to the providers of Blender, Nifskope and Niftools, and Gimp.
Last but certainly not least, thanks to Bethesda for creating such a great game and for having the courage to let us all muck with it.
----------
License:
----------
As with any of my mods, you may use this in your own mod as you see fit, no need to ask permission.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Staff of Lore
-----------------------------------
Author: Frankie_Mac
Version: V1.0
Requirements:
OBSE version 16 or newer
Patch 1.2.0416
---------------
Description:
---------------
Sorry for the long readme, but the important stuff is in this paragraph. This mod adds a new staff for sale at Rindir's Staves in the Imperial City Market. The staff uses target spells from your spellbook, drawing its power from your magicka, and allowing your magic skills to progress as you use it. It uses a smart algorithm to determine the appropriate spell to use for a variety of situations. Although the staff does not do anything you could not otherwise do (in fact, if your spell book is empty it does nothing at all), it does have four distinct advantages over normal casting. The first is obvious: you don't need to open your spell book to select the right spell for the situation. Secondly, the staff's power is unaffected by your armor. Thirdly, missed spells do not cost you any magicka nor do errant spells hurt your allies, and lastly, if your enemy has a reflect spell ability the staff protects you from the rebounding spell.
---------------
Details
---------------
The staff only works on NPC's, creatures, and locked doors/containers. The algorithm first identifies what the spell has hit and then considers your spells to determine a good option. It ignores on-touch and on-self spells as well as any spell you cannot cast (low magicka or low skill in that school). The staff uses the appropriate amount of magicka and gives the appropriate experience as though you had cast the spell normally. For specific targets it works in the following ways:
For enemies it considers all damage health and elemental damage (fire, frost, and shock) spells and compares them to the enemies resistances, shields, and weaknesses. It predicts the amount of damage each spell will do. If you have spells that can kill the enemy in one shot, it will choose the one that costs you the least magicka; otherwise it will choose the spell that does the most damage. For example, if you have equal level spells of fire and frost damage, the staff will use fire against trolls (weak to fire) and Nords (resistant to frost) but use frost against Dark Elves (resistant to fire). For enemies the staff will consider multiple effect spells correctly (provided the effects are those listed above). It is also smart enough not to use area effect spells against nearby enemies, since you may be caught in the blast.
For friends (companions or anyone else either leading you or following you) it heals them if they are wounded and uses shield (or fire, frost, or shock shield) if they are at full health. For healing spells the staff only considers single effect spells. For shield type spells, the staff will consider multi-effect spells, but only on the merits of their first listed effect. Thus, you can tack on additional effects (like fortify health or attribute) and the staff will use this spell, but only if you have no other stronger shield spells.
For other characters the staff will charm them, provided you have an on-target charm spell in your book (single effect only). Don't forget to put the staff away before talking to them or the benefits of the charm spell will be at least partially negated by having a weapon out.
For any locked doors or containers the staff will unlock them if you have a target spell capable of doing so and are skilled enough to cast it.
Some additional notes: In Rindir's shop (where the staff is sold) there is a small altar that opens a menu when activated. From this menu, you can turn on messages that tell you the name of the spell the staff chose or tell you if the staff could not find an appropriate spell (this is off by default). You can also turn off the skill progression feature of the staff (on by default).
Based on the way destruction spells are chosen, it is in your best interests to have a well rounded spellbook with roughly equal level spells for each type of elemental damage. If, for instance, you have a 40 point frost spell but your highest fire and shock spells are 10 points each the staff will use the frost spell against Nords, wolves, and bears even though they are resistant to it. This happens simply because, if the target's health is higher than any of your spells, the staff uses the most damaging spell regardless of its efficiency. In this case, simply creating 40 point fire and shock spells will ensure that the most damaging spell is also the most efficient. In general, if your spellbook is well thought-out the staff will make good decisions consistently, otherwise it may leave you woefully low on magicka.
Many of Oblivion's spells are too subtle in nature to be selectable by any simple algorithm. Thus, I cannot incorporate such spells as calm, turn undead, or paralyze. I also cannot incorporate effects like telekinesis since the game engine will not run script effect spells on non-actor references except doors and containers. Likewise, I sadly cannot incorporate scripted spells such as those in the awesome Midas Magic mod. Player created spells, however, will work just fine.
--------------
Compatibility Issues:
--------------
I have not experienced any conflict with other mods, however this mod modifies and uses the visuals from the otherwise unused "Darkness" magic effect. (it does not use the effect, just the visuals) It is possible that other modders have also modified this effect in which case this mod may conflict with their mod. If this seems to be an issue for you let me know and I can provide an alternate version that does not use or modify these visuals.
--------------
Installation:
--------------
Copy the files into your Oblivion\Data directory.
Activate "StaffofLore.esp" file from Data Files in the Oblivion Launcher.
----------
Credits:
----------
Many thanks to the creators of OBSE without whom this mod could not exist.
Thanks to MentalElf for the TESFiles utilty and to TeamGecko for TESGecko.
Thanks also to the providers of Blender, Nifskope and Niftools, and Gimp.
Last but certainly not least, thanks to Bethesda for creating such a great game and for having the courage to let us all muck with it.
----------
License:
----------
As with any of my mods, you may use this in your own mod as you see fit, no need to ask permission.