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About this mod
This is a simple esp. file that makes the arcane staves that you choose between as a reward for joining the arcane university, not quite so useless.
- Permissions and credits
After trying out a few other mods that attempted to fix the problem with the arcane university staves, I found them all wanting, and whipped up this mod to suit my personal preferences.
Firstly, I removed the leveled aspect so that you wont suffer the fate of getting a shitty staff just because you did the quest at a low level. For anyone concerned, yes this does cause some balancing issues if you're using the vanilla leveled lists. Now, no matter what level you are, when you finish the quest "A Mage's Staff" you will receive the most powerful version of the staff enchantment you choose.
My main focus was to make the destruction staves do enough damage to be worth carrying for at least a decent portion of the game, and putting them at their max damage output effectively did that, BUT because of the natural advantage that shock has in oblivion (because virtually nothing has resistance to it) this actually leaves the staves unbalanced, so I made a few more adjustments afterward.
The old values:
- Charm 10/15/20/25 points for 10/10/20/25 seconds on target
- Dispel 10/20/30/40 points on target
- Fire damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Frost damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Paralyze 2/4/6/8 seconds on target
- Shock damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Silence 2/5/10/15 seconds on target
- Soul Trap 10/20/30/40 seconds on target
- Telekinesis up to 20/30/40/40 feet for 10/15/20/30 seconds on target
Fireballs and fire spells in general just seem like they were MEANT to explode. When I use a fire spell that doesn't explode, I'm always disappointed. To give the fire staff it's own advantage to make it worthwhile, and to give the effect of burning something, the fire staff has been given a short duration and a splash radius.
Frost is the most useless magic in Oblivion, because pretty much everything undead has a high resistance or a total immunity to it. Because of this, I made sure to make the frost staff do the most damage by giving it a lower output for a lengthy duration. (for those that use Midas' Magic, I found this extremely useful against the balrog).
Lastly, Shock, being the most useful, was left exactly as it is for the max-level staff in vanilla oblivion, doing more damage than the fire staff (but with no area of effect), and less than the frost (but with no duration), delivering all of its damage in one definitive jolt.
The new values are as listed below:
- Charm 30 points in 20 feet for 20 seconds on target
- Dispel 40 points on target
- Fire damage 30 points for 2 seconds in 10 feet on target (most effective for fighting against groups)
- Frost damage 20 points for 5 seconds on target (highest overall damage output)
- Paralyze 8 seconds on target
- Shock damage 80 points on target (great damage with no wait)
- Silence 15 seconds on target
- Soul Trap 40 seconds on target
- Telekinesis up to 40 feet for 30 seconds on target (still useless, lol)
Notice that the charm staff has also been improved. This is because charm spells in general are easy to cast even at low levels, and even having a charm staff at all makes it almost guaranteed to be useless. The highest level single-target charm spell I've found in vanilla oblivion is for 36 points for 30 seconds, and costs less than 100 magicka. Anything more powerful than this for a single target would be asinine. As far as AOE charm spells though, the most powerful would be Enthralling Presence, and this effectively stops people in a certain area from attacking you. The charm staff has been made just slightly more powerful than Enthralling Presence, giving it a purpose in combat as well as still being useful for bartering and getting information.
Firstly, I removed the leveled aspect so that you wont suffer the fate of getting a shitty staff just because you did the quest at a low level. For anyone concerned, yes this does cause some balancing issues if you're using the vanilla leveled lists. Now, no matter what level you are, when you finish the quest "A Mage's Staff" you will receive the most powerful version of the staff enchantment you choose.
My main focus was to make the destruction staves do enough damage to be worth carrying for at least a decent portion of the game, and putting them at their max damage output effectively did that, BUT because of the natural advantage that shock has in oblivion (because virtually nothing has resistance to it) this actually leaves the staves unbalanced, so I made a few more adjustments afterward.
The old values:
- Charm 10/15/20/25 points for 10/10/20/25 seconds on target
- Dispel 10/20/30/40 points on target
- Fire damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Frost damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Paralyze 2/4/6/8 seconds on target
- Shock damage 20/40/60/80 points on target
- Silence 2/5/10/15 seconds on target
- Soul Trap 10/20/30/40 seconds on target
- Telekinesis up to 20/30/40/40 feet for 10/15/20/30 seconds on target
Fireballs and fire spells in general just seem like they were MEANT to explode. When I use a fire spell that doesn't explode, I'm always disappointed. To give the fire staff it's own advantage to make it worthwhile, and to give the effect of burning something, the fire staff has been given a short duration and a splash radius.
Frost is the most useless magic in Oblivion, because pretty much everything undead has a high resistance or a total immunity to it. Because of this, I made sure to make the frost staff do the most damage by giving it a lower output for a lengthy duration. (for those that use Midas' Magic, I found this extremely useful against the balrog).
Lastly, Shock, being the most useful, was left exactly as it is for the max-level staff in vanilla oblivion, doing more damage than the fire staff (but with no area of effect), and less than the frost (but with no duration), delivering all of its damage in one definitive jolt.
The new values are as listed below:
- Charm 30 points in 20 feet for 20 seconds on target
- Dispel 40 points on target
- Fire damage 30 points for 2 seconds in 10 feet on target (most effective for fighting against groups)
- Frost damage 20 points for 5 seconds on target (highest overall damage output)
- Paralyze 8 seconds on target
- Shock damage 80 points on target (great damage with no wait)
- Silence 15 seconds on target
- Soul Trap 40 seconds on target
- Telekinesis up to 40 feet for 30 seconds on target (still useless, lol)
Notice that the charm staff has also been improved. This is because charm spells in general are easy to cast even at low levels, and even having a charm staff at all makes it almost guaranteed to be useless. The highest level single-target charm spell I've found in vanilla oblivion is for 36 points for 30 seconds, and costs less than 100 magicka. Anything more powerful than this for a single target would be asinine. As far as AOE charm spells though, the most powerful would be Enthralling Presence, and this effectively stops people in a certain area from attacking you. The charm staff has been made just slightly more powerful than Enthralling Presence, giving it a purpose in combat as well as still being useful for bartering and getting information.