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About this mod
This mod adds perk books that allow the player to further improve bows, but it also adds uniquely enchanted bows and various enemies and ingredients.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Donations
19-08-2019
I have noticed that several things are wrong with the description. Other than that, there are some other things I wish to improve.
So, my plans for the (hopefully*) near future are:
*please keep in mind that I have very little time due to real life. I'll do my best to tackle the list above, but that is all I can promise.
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Introduction
Do you enjoy the hunt? As Hircine's influence spreads across Skyrim, more and more people are becoming like you... or are they? These hunters are always trying to prove themselves to Hircine and would stop at nothing to hone their skills. Kill them, or be killed - you may like the results! You may think the Dragonborn is of no interest to most of the Daedric Princes and you may be right. However, Hircine has got his eyes on you, too! Destroy as many of his hunters as you can to prove yourself and you will be greatly rewarded!
This mod
This mod used to be called "Extended Bow Improvement". I was unhappy with that name and with its new additions, I finally had a reason to give it a different one. This mod is basically version 3 of EBI, however I call it version 1 of Hircine's Influence, since the mod has a very different feel to it now and actually also plays differently.
This mod adds several perks to the archery tree that allow the player to further improve bows and arrows. I created it, because I'm playing around a lot with bows again and I wanted to be able to craft stronger bows, especially because I play on legendary. With this mod, a player can decide for him/herself how powerful he/she wants a bow to be.
This mod also adds a few unique(-ish) bows and upgrades to Auriel's Bow. I always found the low power for a divine bow hard to understand.
You can find EBI here, if you want to check out previous versions: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60597/?
This description contains
Perks
--> In Version 4 I removed the perks from the perk tree.
This mod adds a few perks to the 'Archery' skilltree. Picking these perks will allow the player to upgrade bows. The perks are:
Fast Bows: allows the player to create faster, but weaker versions of bows.
Powerful Bows: allows the player to create more powerful, but slower bows.
Leveled Bows 2 - 5: Allow the player to upgrade regular/fast/powerful bows to level 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Enchanted Bows 1 - 5: Allow the player to upgrade level 5 bows with enchantment levels 1 - 5, for Frost, Shock and Fire. Level 10 bows (level 5 bow, with level 5 enchantments), are not easy to get, but are worth the trouble if you like to be powerful. The Frost bow of level 10 freezes anyone it can solid for a full day, as long as their health reaches 50% or below.
Poisonous Arrows 1 - 5: Allow the player to craft poisonous arrows with levels 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. It won't be necessary to upgrade previous arrows, but you need the perks to get the stronger ones, of course.
IN VERSION 4 I removed the perks from the perk tree. They still exist, because I added perks to special perk books. Thanks to GioGr for the
idea and helping me to get started and credits to SarthesArai for his
perk book scripts. Check out his mod right here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25702/?
The perk books come in 16 volumes, 1 for each perk. They all start with
"Perks To Being A Marksman", so they can easily be recognised. They have
been added to all vendors that I added the bows to, plus a new vendor
has been added to the list of bow merchants and book mechants. This new
one can be found in Morthal.
The books are separated into 2 series, the 'main' series for bows, with 11 volumes and an 'extra'
series, for the poisonous arrows, with 5 volumes. The insides of the
books tell you when you can start learning the poisonous arrows perks.
All books will tell you if your skill level is high enough, if you have
the prerequisite perks and if you already know the perk you're reading
about. If you are allowed to learn the new perk, a pop-up will... well,
pop up and tell you you have the perk.
The crafting recipes will appear at the forge the second your perk gets added. Overdraw is no
longer needed as a first perk. Fast Bows can now be learned as soon as you have a marksman skill level of 25.
The better perk books are more expensive. The merchants will sell 3 random
books every day, so you can collect them as soon as you have the money.
Prices range from roughly 100 - 2000 septims, depending on speech skill
and how good the perk is.
Added bows
The bows I focussed on for now, include Skyrim's bows and Dawnguard's bows, but only the craftable ones that are most often used. I may expand on that later, but for now, I've focussed on Dwarven, Elven, Orcish, Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragonbone. Since there are no craftable bows at the start, normally, I added upgrades and crafting recipes for Hunting Bows as well. Because of this, you will not need the Smithing Skill. However, if you want more powerful bows than Hunting Bows, you will need to get smithing perks to unlock the other categories - that just makes sense to me.
All bows now have levels 2 - 5 and also Frost 1 - 5, Fire 1 - 5 and Shock 1 - 5. The base bows are counted as level 1, of course, so that gives all bows 10 levels, for both fast, powerful and normal bows. Note that you need a normal bow first, to make it fast or powerful. It's your choice whether you want to go for enchantments and which ones you want to go for. You could have a fast, powerful and normal bow, all in level 10, with all 3 enchantments, if you would like (not all 3 on 1 bow), but I think that would take you a very long time. Since I want to collect bows, I might go and collect them all. There are well over 450 versions of bows added, so you'll be collecting for a while (crafting).
Powerful Bows
These bows have 8 base damage more, for all 5 first levels. So a Powerful Hunting Bow, has 8 more base damage than a Hunting Bow. Level 2, has 16 points more than a Hunting Bow, etc. However, once you start applying enchantments through the perks I created, you will not gain more base damage. Only your enchantment power will go up.
Powerful bows have a drawback though. All 5 levels of powerful bows are slower than their previous levels. In the Creation Kit, speed is given by a number below 1, for most bows. The slowest bow is the Daedric bow. The powerful version of that bow, has 0.4 speed (the original one has 0.5 speed). Level 2 has 0.3, level 3 has 0.2, level 4 has 0.1 and level 5 has 0.05. This means that, although the powerul bows have a great advantage in theory, the speed reduction is VERY noticable. It's a penalty to still keep it somewhat balanced and in my opinion, you're best off using the maximum levels of these powerful bows, only if you need to kill something that hasn't spotted you. I think that the bow will be over-powered if you sneak anyway, but since I don't like to sneak, I have no idea.
Fast Bows
These bows work the same as Powerul Bows, but they are much weaker. A Fast Hunting Bow, has got 3 less base damage than a normal Hunting Bow and every level only goes up with 3 base damage. However, the speed of every fast bow, will go up with 0.1 per level, giving you extreme speeds with the fastest bows, which should make the low damage a good way to.... slow things down? Bad joke, I know... Moving on!
Normal Bows
There is not much to say about these normal bows. They level up, just like the others, but their speed will not change. Their damage goes up with - you guessed it - 5 for every level and that's about it. The Hunting Bow can be crafted right away (listed in the Steel section) and the player will still need the Smithing Skill to get other bows, but that's the same story for the fast and powerful bows, of course.
Auriel's Bow
Auriel's Bow now has a few upgrades. WARNING: the crafting recipe for Auriel's Bow requires you to already have one. It duplicates the bow. I have done this, so that you need to get the bow in the game first and to make sure you can 'complete' your bow collection. If you want all versions eventually, you're going to need to be able to duplicate the original bow!
Versions of Auriel's Bow:
Auriel's Bow (vanilla + crafting (duplicate) recipe)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 2 (double the damage)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 3 (double the damage of Level 2)
Auriel's Bow (Fast) (Faster, but slightly weaker)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 2) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 3) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 2)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful) (Stronger, but slightly slower)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 2) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 3) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 2)
The bow is duplicated by using:
Auriel's Bow
1 Flawless Diamond
2 Diamonds
5 Golden Ingots
5 Refined Moonstones
10 Filled Grand Soul Gems
Elven Smithing (smithing level 30)
Extra Effect (enchanting lvl 100)
All bows after the original (duplicate) do not require the flawless diamond. They require everything else, though. It should not be easy to upgrade a godly bow. The stronger versions also need 'fast bows' as a perk, or 'powerful bows' as a perk and 'Leveled Bows 5' for Lvl 2 and 'Enchanted Bows 5' for level 3.
If you wish to obtain Auriel's Bow without playing through Dawnguard for the millionth time, please check the Chanelog for version 4 (EBI 6), or the Cheat section.
Unique(-ish) Bows
The 3 unique bows I originally added in Version 2, cannot be created, only found. I also added a new version for each of them in Version 3.
- Bow of the Vampire (ebony, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 HP drain, 20 Frost dmg) can be found on a table in Castle Volkihar
- Bow of the Wolf (hunting bow, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 fire dmg, 1 minute fear (as in the howl of the wolf)) can be found on top of something, next to a weapon rack in Jorrvaskr
- Bow of the Valkyrie (glass, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 shock dmg, 1 minute soul trap) can be found in Riverwood's river, between the bridge and the mill... but also, maybe not... rivers flow ;)
There is no cheating chest for these.
Version 3 unique bows:
The bows of version 2 were updated in version 2.1. They simply cost too much and even after the change. These bows still exsist and can be found as I described above. However, I added a version of each of these bows in version 3, that has an infinite amount of weapon charge (for as far as I know) and these cannot be found. These can only be obtained by killing "Hircine's Fallen Valkyrie", "Hircine's Cured Vampire" and "Hircine's Loyal Wolf". It is obvious which enemy carries which bow. You will not come across them often and they are really dangerous, so be careful! These 3 new versions can be combined, along with some other ingredients, to create a fourth added bow: "Hircine's Bow". This bow has 75 base damage and drains 50 health, magicka and stamina at once. However, it is the most difficult item to obtain in this entire mod. This bow is the reward the into speaks of.
Since version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added a Daedric version for Hircine's Hunting Bow. The Hunting bow first wasn't Daedric because it was a hunting bow, but since Hircine is a Daedric prince and the Sacrificial Arrows are Daedric, I thought I would add the option to create both.
Poisonous Arrows
There are 5 levels of poisonous arrows. They can be made from 5 different natural ingredients, fire wood and ingots. The ingots are the same as normally, however, I'm not going to spoil the full list.
Level 1 arrows: do 1 point of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 2 arrows: do 5 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 3 arrows: do 10 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 4 arrows: do 15 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 5 arrows: do 20 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
AS OF VERSION 4:
As per request, there now is a file with shorter Poison durations. The durations are now 60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 seconds, respectively.
Sacrificial Arrows
These arrows were added in version 3 and they are very hard to obtain. However, they are very powerful. You're going to need to create them and you will need a few hard-to-obtain ingrediënts to get them. You will also only get 1 arrow at a time. Not worth the trouble? Maybe it is, as these arrows are Daedric arrows with 1000 base damage and an enchantment that drains 1000 health, magicka and stamina at a time. Not all enemies are affected by the enchantment and not all enemies will be killed in one shot. Still, the arrows are really useful to use. And because they are so hard to obtain, I believe you will appreciate them.
Enemies And Loot (Ingredients)
This mod adds a new set of enemies to some of the leveled lists. As most of them are hunters, they have been added to the global leveled lists for animals (for plains, mountains, hills, etc) and to the predator leveled lists. The only exception is that 2 powerful dragons have been added. They have TONS of health and were added to the dragonany leveled list. These dragons will give you a rare Manipulated Dragon Heart, 10 scales, 10 bones and some other items, though, so they are worth killing. And the challenge might be fun, if they are a challenge to you, supreme hunter!
The other enemies are Hircine's Novice Hunter and higher: Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Excellent, Master, Perfect and Godlike. Godlike does not refer to the hunter being non-human, but to how well he has proven himself to Hircine. All hunters are Nords (I plan on adding more variation later on) and there are both females and males. The stats for the females and males are the same and for most of them, so is their inventory. However, Godlike Hunters use dragon equipment. Males use Dragonplate and females use Dragonscale. And for those in elven armor (Expert Hunters), it is the same story: Gilded for males, normal for females. Just to add some variation to the stuff they drop. The higher the rank, the better the gear.
All these enemies have Manipulated Hearts and 10 of those can be merged in a cooking pot, to create 1 Manipulated Dragon Heart, of which 10 are necessary to get Hircine's Bow. They also all carry 3 blood potions, while 100 of those are necessary for Hircine's Bow. The dragons carry 5 blood potions. All hunters carry a vanilla bow that matches their rank and when they die, they will drop more arrows, with a 20% chance of any level of poison arrow for their rank (so for Godlike Hunters, there is a 20% chance to get a set of 50 lvl 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 Poisonous Dragonbone Arrows. If you don't obtain poisonous arrows, you will obtain 50 regular, vanilla arrows. All hunters carry a vanilla bow and there is a chance of them carrying a more powerful leveled or enchanted one, depending on your level. The higher your level, the more bow variations you unlock. However, it is practically impossible to get all variations through killing hunters. Most powerful bows will only appear when you reach levels 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 and anything in between. This is to keep an incentive to actually CRAFT the bows that you want.
Last but not least there are "Hircine's Fallen Valkyrie", "Hircine's Cured Vampire" and "Hircine's Loyal Wolf". These enemies are rare, but more powerful than even the Godlike hunters. They carry the new versions of the unique-ish bows and because there is a chance to encounter these enemies more than once and thus obtain their weapons more than once, they are not truly unique weapons. These weapons are key ingredients in creating Hircine's Bow, so if you want it, you are going to have to find them and kill them before they kill you. The Loyal Wolf is in werewolf form, but will still carry the correct bow and he will also have a fourth blood potion. All 3 of these special enemies, have a guaranteed drop of 50 poisonous arrows. The arrows will match the bow material (the wolf is the exception, having Poisonous Daedric Arrows), but the chances for level 1 arrows are the highest, then lvl2, 3, 4 and finally 5 with the lowest chance of dropping. Still, you will get guaranteed poisonous arrows, so that is pretty cool, huh?
Since version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added scaling to leveled lists for enemies: you will now encounter novices at level 5, apprentices at level 10, adepts at level 15, experts at level 20, excellents at level 25, elites at level 30, masters at level 35, perfects at level 40, godlikes at level 45 and the three special hunters from level 50. The dragons, even though really powerful, can still be encountered as soon as dragons are unlocked through the main storyline.
- I noticed there was some information missing, so in short: there are also elite hunters (as you can see above, they can be found once the player hits level 30). Also, the bows and arrows have been added to merchants. They are (for now) sold in Warmaidens, Belethor's shop, The Drunken Huntsman, the Blacksmith in Riverwood, the blacksmith in Solitude and the blacksmith in Riften. It is possible that I included the Riverwood Trader, but I forgot and just closed the CK, sorry my bad XD. Last but not least: all added enemies except the special ones added have a 5% chance of any random bow dropping. This means that that could be the best bow in the mod (not including the unique-ish bows or Auriel's Bow), but there is a very slim chance of it happening. I think this was all info that had to be added.
A sidenote: the enemies have the poisonous arrows in leveled lists. The lists have been added to their "Deth Item" slot, which means they will never ever use these arrows on the player. Why? The enchantment carries over to the target, so if the player is hit, the player is enchanted with poison for 24 hours, without a possibility to cure himself. That's why. I tried many solutions, but have not be able to fix this problem yet. I'm sorry if you're disappointed about this.
The Rituals Of Hircine
Farengar The Annoying finally did it! He found his use in the game, other than being annoying! He found out how to bless your bows with Hircine's power, without actually enchanting them. He wrote book about it - a book that's an important ingredient for every enchanted bow you want to create. If you didn't know (unlikely): Farengar can be found in Dragon's Reach in Whiterun and is the wizard that sends you to Bleak Falls Barrow, for a stone tablet that may or may not actually be there.
Shops
The shops where you can buy the added bows and arrows (and perk books as of version 4 (EBI 6)), through leveled lists, are:
Nordic Stuff
Nordic Stuff is an optional file that adds Nordic bows and arrows to the game in the same way as other (elven/orcish/iron) categories were included. This means the Nordic stuff benefits from the added perks and level system and I also added the stuff to the proper Leveled Lists, making the stuff purchaseable in the shops listed above. The stuff is unlocked when the Orcish stuff is unlocked.
Also, new hunters, Supreme Hunters, wearing Nordig Armor and having Nordic bows and arrows join the parade. They work the same way as all the other hunters and start appearing when the Excellent, AKA Orcish-geared hunters do.
NORDIC STUFF REQUIRES DRAGONBORN AND THE MAIN FILE!!!
Cheating
Yes, for those who want to cheat - uh - test... I've added a chest that contains all 450+ bows, plus all poisonous arrows, plus all regular bows and arrows. All Arrows even come in packs of 999... how convenient. All you have to do find your way to Jorrvaskr's backyard, where the targets are displayed. There, you will find the chest. Only drawback for cheaters is that it has a Master Level lock... unless of course, you use the console to open it. Cheating in style and all....
This was for version 1. For all other versions, to cheat, you can open the console and enter help "<rank> Hunter" to get an ID and player.placeatme <ID><number> to spawn the enemy you desire, or help "<kind of bow>" and player.additem <ID><number> to add bows you desire. I don't encourage cheating, but it is possible.
The Nordic bows and arrows have been added to the same cheating chest as the rest of the stuff.
As of version 4 (EBI 6), I also added 6 optional cheat files. The main file is not needed for these files and you should only pick one file. I plan on
playing with Auriel's Bow in my next playthrough and I've already
finished Dawnguard about 7 times... so I don't want to do that now. If
you're like me, you like to have options. So here they are, from most
broken to most balanced:
- Cheat File A - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing
Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can
also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed
arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing.
- Cheat File B - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24
elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith.
- Cheat File C - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you
only need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24
elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect.
- Cheat File D - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing Perk.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also
upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows.
You need Elven Smithing, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul
Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File E - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing and
Arcane Blacksmith Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with
perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed
or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1
diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion
and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File F - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled
Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to
change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into
either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing,
Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled
Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul
Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
Again - choose only one of these. They are standalone. I called the files A - F, too,
so if you wish to switch them up, rename the new file you wish to try
according to the name of the one you are replacing. And I mean the .esp.
If you use mod organizer, you can keep the A - F markings in the name to distinguish the 'flavors'.
Requirements
Skyrim (I recommend fully updated, as I use the same)
Dawnguard (I recommend fully updated, as I use the same)
I don't think SKSE is necessary, but if you use mods, you might as well grab the fully updated version of that. After all, it's what I use and many other mods require it.
I recommend Wrye Bash to create a Bashed Patch (see below for instructions).
NORDIC STUFF REQUIRES BOTH THE MAIN FILE WITH DAWNGUARD AND DRAGONBORN!!!
THE CHEATING FILES DO NOT REQUIRE THE MAIN FILE OR DRAGONBORN, BUT THEY DO REQUIRE DAWNGUARD, FOR THEY ARE ALL ABOUT AURIEL'S BOW
Possible conflicts
AS OF VERSION 4 (EBI 6), the compatibility with other mods, namely perk mods, should be greatly improved. As long as my perk books can still refer to a 'marksman' skilltree, it's all good. They do not show up in the skill tree anymore, but in the books alone. The only thing is that they must be able to read the marksman skill level to determine if you are ready to learn the perks. Perk mods that change the basic knowledge of the game so that it cannot find a proper Marksman (which is Archery in the CK) skill level, are probably incompatible.
I need people to test the compatibility with perk mods/overhauls. I stay away from them as much as I can, but even if I wanted to test my mod with those, there are way too many for me to test them on my own.
Previous compatibility info:
Only mods that make changes to the Archery Skilltree, are likely to cause conflicts. If you want my perks (you could use the cheating chest if you don't have access to the perks), you need to put my mod below the other perk mod in your load order. Otherwise, if you want to use the perks of the other mod, you need to put that one below mine.
The above was true for version 1, but now that leveled lists have been added to shopkeepers, I recommend a Bashed Patch. See below for instructions:
Bashed Patches
If you want to create a Bashed Patch (usually only necessary if you have several mods installed that alter leveled lists), you are going to need Wrye Bash. Once you have that installed, fire up the program and make sure the 'mods' tab is open. Scroll to the bottom and you will see 'bashed patch 0' or something similar. Right-click on it, choose 'Rebuild Patch' and tick Leveled lists and other options you might want. I have 3 of them ticked in total, but I forgot which ones. Something with names, I believe.
Let Wrye Bash do it's thing and when it asks you if you want to activate the Patch, click yes. A log will pop up and you can read it if you want, however I always click OK.
Add the bashed patch to your mod list, at the bottom and keep it at the bottom of your load order. If you add or remove a mod that changes the leveled lists, repeat this process. Other than that, have fun!
Recommended Mods (only for fun)
Too many... don't get me started. For bows I like Better Bows, Unique Bows and a few others, I cannot play without SkyUI, Convenient Horses, UFO, Sharpshooters and some others. I LOVE Better Vampires, Cloud Of Bats, Moonlight Tales, Bloodmoon rising and many other supernatural mods... I love magics mods, Frostfall, Realistic Needs And Diseases... like I said; too many.
Installation
Nothing special, to NMM will do, or otherwise just drop it into the Skyrim/Data folder. Should be easy enough. Check "Bashed Patches" above for instruction on how to do that and when.
Updating can be done by deleting the previous version and installing the new version. Very simple; can be done by NMM as well. I ALWAYS recommend backups before installing, or uninstalling anything, though.
WARNING: the mod now has a new name (As of V1.1. Al versions since use the same name), so it will be treated as a different mod! Change the name back to Extended Bow Improvement.esp, or remove the old mod!!!
Uninstalling
For as far as I know, simply removing it from the Data folder should so the trick without problems. NMM can also do that for you. I ALWAYS recommend to make a backup of your files before installing, or uninstalling anything, though.
WARNING 2: I never recommend to uninstall a file midway through a savegame anyway. Think of them like houses of cards. Pull 1 part of it out and the whole thing comes crashing down.
Showcase
Since I make Let's Play video's, a showcase of my mod is bound to come. Stay tuned, or check out 2-Cousins on youtube every once in a while. Has some Skyrim vids already and I plan on trying to play as a Hybrid soon (already have a how-to video on that).
Version 3 showcase will most likely come later.
Hints, Tips and Known Issues
- As of version 5 (EBI 7), the poison from the arrows can be cured by using separate cure poison potions, or emergency spells!
A mod can never be tested good enough if you don't just play around with it... which is why I continously play with it in my playthroughs and sometimes stumble upon weird things, like incorrect crafting recipes later on. Here are a few things I have to notify you about (not evrything is about poisonous arrows, but most of it is).
Despite my efforts to keep NPC's away from the poisonous arrows, it may happen that they use them. I didn't have a problem with that in 2 savegames, but in my latest savegame the Hunters of Hircine and other archers decided to grow a brain. I shot poisonous arrows at them, effectively placing them in their inventory that way and they shot those arrows right back at me and my follower. Not good.
So... what do you do when that happens? When you get hit? When a follower gets hit?
There is no better way than to first win the fight (or reload, if you wish), then (if you did not reload), store all your enchanted stuff in some kind of inventory, other than your own. That could be a follower, or a horse if you use convenient horses, a chest, an urn, a satchel... just somewhere (SAVE BEFORE YOU DO THIS). Then open up the console with the '~' key on your keyboard and type: player.dispelallspells. This will get rid of your active effects; give it three seconds and your poisonned status should be gone. Feel free to reclaim your enchanted stuff and re-equip it again; it was stored away to not cause glitches.
Can't I just wait for the effect to go away?
Nope; it takes 24 real life hours to go away. So you could, technically, but that would take away the fun. It rarely happens that I get hit by poisonous arrows, but it's good to know that there is a solution.
What about a 'cure poison' potion, then?
Does not work. I have a theory on this: the enchantments on arrows are caused by the explosions on the projectiles. This makes the enchantment carry over to the target; making it an enchanted NPC (sort of), rather than a poisonned one. This could be a false theory, because how then does charus poison work? Well... that only lasts a few seconds... maybe that's it? This enchantment will even affect you if you're a vampire, resistant to poison. It will not do full damage, but it will still do damage. Store away your enchanted stuff, player.dispelallspells and take your stuff back. That is by far the best thing to do!
My horse/follower/necessary NPC got hit! I didn't even shoot them?! How do I fix it?!
Like I explained above, the explosion carries the enchantment. Because enchanted arrows have explosions, stuff goes flying arround when you shoot at it (like at a table or marketstall). However, while the arrow does damage to your intented target; an enemy or ally that's very close to the intented target can get posionned. I lost my horse twice because of this and had a quest glitch up, before I found the fix, which is similar to what I wrote above.
If it's a follower: take all the enchanted stuff. Same with the horse if you use convenient horses. Then open the console with ~ and left-click the unintentionally poisonned target. Make sure it's not the player that's selected! My player is always 00000014, maybe yours is, too. If that ID shows up after clicking, please try again.
After clicking and getting the correct ID, simply type dispellallspells. Not npc.dispellallspells, just dispellallspells. Give the stuff back. Naturally, if it's someone you can't control the inventory of, or that you don't care about, simply click on them without taking their stuff. It's not that hard.
A tip is also to NOT give your follower poisonous arrows. If you do and he shoots an archer with it, the archer can start using the poisonous arrows and this increases the chances of you, or someone else important getting poisonned. You can try it, as in 2 savegames my followers used the poisonous arrows without issues, but you have been warned. Same story about the Sacrificial Arrows. They are very rare and I'm sure you'll know when to use them, but if you hand them out to followers and the targets don't die, you're at risk as they might shoot those 1000 base damage arrows right back at you.
If you use Loot and Degradation, like me, don't be surprised that archers loot NPC bodies and pick up the poisonous arrows you have used. They might use them against you that way, but the chance is very small. I still had it happen though, so just don't be surprised.
Are these poisonous arrows worth it? All these things I've got to keep in mind...
YESSSSS THEY. ARE. AWESOME!!! In my opinion, at least. And honestly, it's not that much and the chance of things going wrong is kind of small. At least now you know how to fix things. Still, I advice you to save the game before trying the fixes!
My dwarven bows use hunting bow models! Huh?!?!?!
I get the confusion... I was surprised myself, but this seems to have happened in the previous version somehow. No idea how, as I cannot even edit the model, nor did I use the hunting bow as the base for the dwarven bows and im 100% certain the dwarven bows were fine when I first tested my mod when EBI was in version 1. I could fix this, but I never use dwarven bows, so I don't really care. The STATS ARE DWARVEN! Trust me, I checked. Only the model got switched around somehow and I didn't even do it. I can't even do it. If I would need to fix it, I would need to remake everything dwarven. Everything my mod adds at least. If people are bothered by this... I might consider it, but please tell me that you are bothered by it first. If no one is bothered by it, then me neither and we can all continue playing happily. It just looks weird, but that's all. And maybe it's not even you who experiences the issue; maybe it's just me (unlikely, but possible in this crazy world).
THE VANILLA DWARVEN BOWS STILL USE THE CORRECT MODELS! IF NOT, IT CANNOT BE MY MOD CAUSING IT!!!
You said the Fallen Valkyrie, Cured Vampire and Loyal Wolf are RARE, but I am level 50+ and I keep encountering them!!!
Yes, I noticed. I'm sorry. This was not meant to happen, but it makes sense. The game seems to work in a way where it selects the leveled enemies closest to your level, so if you unlock these three, they will keep popping up like ants. No matter how rare they would be in a fair list, as they only make up about 3/80 of the leveled list. Not even joking. I'm not saying you won't encounter other Hunters of Hircine, but the hunters you will encounter have high chances of being the latest ones you have unlocked.
I keep finding good stuff and poisonous arrows on my enemies... you said THAT was rare, too!
Same story; leveled lists all over. Again, I'm sorry, as it kind of defeats the purpose of creating the arrows yourself. Luckily the lvl 10 bows and things like that are still hard to get, as you need at least lvl 100 to encounter everything. So... if you never make skills legendary, I suggest you start doing so.
I have made the poisonous arrows more rare as drops now, though.
About Loot and Degradation... I can't temper these weapons and so my stuff keeps breaking!
I know, I did not include tempering recipes on purpose. You see, you can already upgrade these bows to become really powerful. I did not see the need to be able to temper all these individual bows as well. Loot and Degradation has an option to make your equipped weapons immune to breaking. Do that. Also, the LeD system generates tempered weapons for you, even if no tempering recipes exsist. There's a good chance you'll find a Legendary Daedric Bow (Shock Lvl 5), for example.
These enemies are too powerful!
They were meant to be a challenge; have you noticed the stuff they wear? If you could easily kill them, you'd be getting powerful way too easily. Tip: craft or loot poisonous arrows, shoot, get on your horse and start running around in circles. Take cover, wait for them to shoot, dodge and shoot back. Use your brain to not get hit and the poison will do the rest. Basically after hitting them, it is just a waiting game if you can't kill them in a normal way. However, if your archery skill is good enough and your armor is, too, you should be able to win most battles without much effort. That is, if you don't use 'Realistic Difficulty', or combat overhaul mods. Then they usually 1-shot you, or actually grow a brain in every playthrough. I will not be making them weaker, as I enjoy the crap out of my mod as it is. Especially the challenge it can bring on higher difficulties, or with 'realistic difficulty' as a mod.
Known Issue about Auriel's Bow, Sunhallowed Arrows and the Sunburst
I found out that the sunburst when shooting at the sun ONLY WORKS for Auriel's ORIGNAL bow with the ORIGINAL Sunhallowed Arrows. Somehow I haven't been able to make it work with the Level 2 and 3 bows, nor with the level 2 and 3 arrows.
Thank you (and future-talk)
For as far as I know, this was all information. I might add some other things and other versions in the future as well. I plan on making a file for those with Dragonborn, so that at least the Nordic Bow(s) can be included, as I initially planned. I might make more and more bows upgradeable, as well as the arrows. I might include more enchantments and more different kinds of arrows in the future as well, but I don't really have much time. If people want to see that though, I will give it some serious thought. I'm also thinking of adding more enemies and unique(-ish) bows.
If you downloaded this, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I put quite some hours into it and I can use all the support I can get!
CREDITS TO SARTHESARAI FOR HIS PERK BOOK SCRIPTS I USE SINCE VERSION 4!
THANK YOU GIOGR FOR THE EXCELLENT IDEA AND HELPING ME TO GET STARTED!
Planned Mods
I am working on 'The Maze of Trials'; a dungeon in the form of a big maze, in a do-as-you-please format. Might tie a quest into it, but it's not my original idea to do so.
I am also working on a mod similar to Hircine's Influence, but it is for Destruction Mages. I am planning on 'overhauling' all weapons and magic schools in the same way (as far as possible) as I have 'overhauled' the bows and arrows with Hircine's Influence.
I plan on making several versions of the Maze mod, with and without Hircine's Influence and other 'overhauls'.
I have at least 1 follower mod planned. May become a follower pack. This is uncharted territory for me, though, so I'm not sure how far I will come. If I am successfulm however, I am sort of already planning a second follower. Not a second pack. They shall all be standalone and I aim to make the follower (pack) configurable through an MCM menu or something, so change hair and eye color. And maybe some other things, like essential yes/no, combat style, etc.
I have created a mod called the 'Guardians Of Scrolls' and quite some other mods. Please check the section below this one. TGOS makes Scrolls a more viable option, adds enemies, locations, new scrolls, etc.
MY OTHER MODS:
- The Guardians of Scrolls: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71479/?
- Hircine's Influence: This is where you are now
- Simple Poison Enchantment: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75863/?
- Silver Sword Smithing: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75865/?
- Simple Katana Crafting: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75864?
- Simple Angel and Fallen Angel Races: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78861/?
- Fragcil: The Sword Bound to its Wielder's Soul: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75855
- Fragcil: The Soulbound Gear: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78873?
- 4 Presets: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76286?
Custom Models
I planned on learning how to mesh and texture weapons, but I don't have all the software and I lack the time. Plus, adding a new design for all these upgraded bows, may be a bit too much. If there's someone out there who would like to help me with it, thanks a bunch. However, I don't expect anyone to do such a huge job for me, so I'm sorry if it disappoints any of you, mod users out there, who love custom models.
Changelog
Verion 1.1: For poison arrows levels 4 and 5, there were 2 entries for snowberries in the recipes, in stead of 1 for ectoplasm and 1 for snowberries. I swapped the ectoplasm ingredient for deathbell, as ectoplasm can be far more difficult to obtain. Therefore, the second entry for snowberries, has been changed to deathbell as well.
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Version 2: For this version, I added crafting recipes for Auriel's Bow and its upgrades and also 3 unique bows. WARNING: the crafting recipe for Auriel's Bow requires you to already have one. It duplicates the bow. I have done this, so that you need to get the bow in the game first and to make sure you can 'complete' your bow collection. If you want all versions eventually, you're going to need to be able to duplicate the original bow!
Versions of Auriel's Bow:
Auriel's Bow (vanilla + crafting (duplicate) recipe)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 2 (double the damage)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 3 (double the damage of Level 2)
Auriel's Bow (Fast) (Faster, but slightly weaker)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 2) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 3) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 2)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful) (Stronger, but slightly slower)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 2) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 3) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 2)
The bow is duplicated by using:
Auriel's Bow
1 Flawless Diamond
2 Diamonds
5 Golden Ingots
5 Refined Moonstones
10 Filled Grand Soul Gems
Elven Smithing (smithing level 30)
Extra Effect (enchanting lvl 100)
All bows after that do not require the flawless diamond. They require everything else, though. It should not be easy to upgrade a godly bow. The stronger versions, also need 'fast bows' as a perk, or 'powerful bows' as a perk and 'Leveled Bows 5' for Lvl 2 and 'Enchanted Bows 5' for level 3.
The unique bows I have added, cannot be created, only found.
- Bow of the Vampire (ebony, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 HP drain, 20 Frost dmg) can be found on a table in Castle Volkihar
- Bow of the Wolf (hunting bow, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 fire dmg, 1 minute fear (as in the howl of the wolf)) can be found on top of something, next to a weapon rack in Jorrvaskr
- Bow of the Valkyrie (glass, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 shock dmg, 1 minute soul trap) can be found in Riverwood's river, between the bridge and the mill... but also, maybe not... rivers flow ;)
There is no cheating chest for these.
After a very busy school time of like 4 weeks is over, I plan on adding the various bows to loot lists and merchant lists/chests. These lists are not going to include Auriel's Bow versions, nor the 3 unique bows added by Version 2.
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Version 2.1: small change - the three unique bows appeared to cost too much when I tested them in-game (had not done that yet). To be more exact, the vampiric bow's enchantment did cost too much and the valkyrie bow could do with a decrease in cost. I changed the cost of the enchantments on those two bows and added an extra main file, so that you can choose your version. Huge cost, or smaller cost.
The cost for the vampiric bow was over 2000. Changed it to 300.
The cost for the valkyrie bow was over 1200. Changed it to 300.
The cost for the wolf bow was less than 200. Kept it that way.
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Version 3:
- Changed the name of the mod to "Hircine's Influence".
- Changed the mod version to '1' for the sake of the new name. The mod feels very different now.
- Added enemies (to leveled lists).
- Added the bow and arrow improvment to merchants (leveled lists) and to the created enemies (also in leveled lists).
- Added 2 new ingrediënts (Manipulated Hearts and Manipulated Dragon Hearts)
- Added a new type of arrow (Sacrificial Arrow. Very hard to obtain, but very powerful indeed).
- Added a new bow (Hircine's Bow; the reward the introduction speaks of. Very hard to obtain, but very powerful).
For a more detailed description, please read the rest of the page.
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Hircine's Influence Version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added scaling to leveled lists for enemies: you will now encounter novices at level 5, apprentices at level 10, adepts at level 15, experts at level 20, excellents at level 25, elites at level 30, masters at level 35, perfects at level 40, godlikes at level 45 and the three special hunters from level 50. The dragons, even though really powerful, can still be encountered as soon as dragons are unlocked through the main storyline.
- Added a Daedric version for Hircine's Hunting Bow. The Hunting bow first wasn't Daedric because it was a hunting bow, but since Hircine is a Daedric prince and the Sacrificial Arrows are Daedric, I thought I would add the option to create both.
- I noticed there was some information missing, so in short: there are also elite hunters (as you can see above, they can be found once the player hits level 30). Also, the bows and arrows have been added to merchants. They are (for now) sold in Warmaidens, Belethor's shop, The Drunken Huntsman, the Blacksmith in Riverwood, the blacksmith in Solitude and the blacksmith in Riften. It is possible that I included the Riverwood Trader, but I forgot and just closed the CK, sorry my bad XD. Last but not least: all added enemies except the special ones added have a 5% chance of any random bow dropping. This means that that could be the best bow in the mod (not including the unique-ish bows or Auriel's Bow), but there is a very slim chance of it happening. I think this was all info that had to be added.
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Hircine's Influence Version 2 (EBI Version 4):
- Some crafting recipes for poisonous arrows were still wrong. They have been fixed.
- Finished adding bows/arrows to all shop I want to sell them. These shops are:
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Version 2.1 (EBI Version 4.1)
I really have to stop working on these things when it's past midnight... It helps avoiding small things.
- Once again fixed a crafting recipe, but this time for Auriel's Bow. I somehow managed to tell the game that 3 copies of it are needed to create 2... yeah...
- I buffed the enchantment on Hircine's Daedric/Hunting Bow from 50 stamina/magicka/health to 100. I finally got all the necessary ingredients legitimately, created the bow and... it just wasn't satisfying enough. A tip to use in conjunction with this is something like 'deadly dragons' and 'elemental dragons' though, to buff those legendary beasts... Hircine's bow makes short work of anything now. With full archery skill it now sits at about 350 damage for me + 100 absorption of all attributes. A rewarding weapon after gathering ingredients for so long, but dragons will most likely be too easy. Maybe not on legendary, I don't know... I finally play a game on adept again in stead of legendary.
- Added a hints, tips and known issues section towards the bottom of the page; READ IT if you have problems with, or plan on using poisonous arrows!
Video('s)
No video for Hircine's Influence yet. There is a video on the Extended Bow Improvement page.
Version 2.2 (EBI Version 4.2)
Only changed the crafting recipe for the Sacrificial Arrows. It was correct, but I felt it was unsatisfying. I made the Manipulated Hearts required only 1, in stead of 5, but you can now create them in batches; if you have 5 hearts you can create 5 arrows, if you have 10 hearts you can create 10 arrows and if you have 25, you can create 25 arrows. Enjoy!
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Version 3.0 (EBI 5.0)
- Added Sunhallowed Arrows Level 2 and level 3
- Added crafting recipes for Sunhallowed Arrows Level 2 and level 3
- Lowered the drop rate for Poisonous Arrows on killed Hunters.
The level 2 and 3 Sunhallowed Arrows have 8 more base damage than the regular Sunhallowed/Elven arrows. Those have 16, Level 2 has 24 and Level 3 has 32. Also, the blast when an enemy is hit directly is increased in power for both new levels. The enchantment should mean something now.
This version is tested to not break the Nordic Stuff, so go ahead and use that too if you wish, it's still compatible.
The new arrows can be crafted if you have the Elven Smithing perk, the Extra Effect perk and for level 2 the Poisonous Arrows Level 1 Perk and for Level 3 the Poisonous Arrows level 5 perk.
Needed are 50 regular Sunhallowed Arrows, 2 golden ingots, 2 moonstone ingots and 2 pieces of firewood per set.
BUG: I found out that the sunburst when shooting at the sun ONLY WORKS for Auriel's ORIGNAL bow with the ORIGINAL Sunhallowed Arrows. Somehow I haven't been able to make it work with the Level 2 and 3 bows, nor with the level 2 and 3 arrows.
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Version 4.0 (EBI 6.0)
I removed the perks from the perk tree. They still exist, because I added perks to special perk books. Thanks to GioGr for the idea and helping me to get started and credits to SarthesArai for his perk book scripts. Check out his mod right here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25702/?
This ensures a better compatibility with mods that add perks or even overhaul the trees entirely, as my mod now does not touch the skill trees anymore.
The perk books come in 16 volumes, 1 for each perk. They all start with "Perks To Being A Marksman", so they can easily be recognised. They have been added to all vendors that I added the bows to, plus a new vendor has been added to the list of bow merchants and book mechants. This new one can be found in Morthal.
The books are separated into 2 series, the 'main' series for bows, with 11 volumes and an 'extra' series, for the poisonous arrows, with 5 volumes. The insides of the books tell you when you can start learning the poisonous arrows perks. All books will tell you if your skill level is high enough, if you have the prerequisite perks and if you already know the perk you're reading about. If you are allowed to learn the new perk, a pop-up will... well, pop up and tell you you have the perk.
The crafting recipes will appear at the forge the second your perk gets added. Overdraw is no longer needed as a first perk. Fast Bows can now be learned as soon as you have a marksman skill level of 25.
The better perk books are more expensive. The merchants will sell 3 random books every day, so you can collect them as soon as you have the money. Prices range from roughly 100 - 2000 septims, depending on speech skill and how good the perk is.
As per request, there now is a file with shorter Poison durations. The durations are now 60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 seconds, respectively.
I also added 6 optional cheat files. The main file is not needed for these files and you should only pick one file. I plan on playing with Auriel's Bow in my next playthrough and I've already finished Dawnguard about 7 times... so I don't want to do that now. If you're like me, you like to have options. So here they are, from most broken to most balanced:
- Cheat File A - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing.
- Cheat File B - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith.
- Cheat File C - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect.
- Cheat File D - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File E - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File F - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled
Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
Again - choose only one of these. They are standalone. I called the files A - F, too, so if you wish to switch them up, rename the new file you wish to try according to the name of the one you are replacing. And I mean the .esp. If you use mod organizer, you can keep the A - F markings in the name to distinguish the 'flavors'.
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Version 4.1 (EBI 6.1)
Fixed a small problem through Tes5Edit. Thanks to GioGr for finding it out in conjunction with Ordinator and testing the result of the fix. Should work properly now.
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Version 5.0 (EBI 7.0)
This may very well be the final version of the mod. I don't know if it's really going to be, but we'll see.
- Poison issues fixed!
- V5 adds the ingredients required for poisonous arrows to alchemy shops. Especially nightshade was sometimes very hard to get a hold of in batch. Now the stores will sell them from a random list. The 5 ingredients have all been given a batch of 1, 3 and 5 and the list will pick a random ingredient/batch a few times, with also a small chance to fail. Making what gets added to the stores each 48 hours (vanilla restock time. Could differ for you) completely random.
- V5 FIXES THE POISON FROM ARROWS!! In the same alchemy shops you can now buy 'weakest', 'weaker', 'normal', 'stronger' and 'strongest' arrow poison cure potions, that will cure your poisoning. I MAY give the hunters of hircine their poisonous arrows back in the future, but we'll see about that later.
- 2 emergency spells have been added that will dispell any poisoning effects from the player on any npc/creature, depending on the spell that is used. They can be added via console, or bought from Farengar for... 300 gold or so? Base price is 150 per spell. Normally Farngar sells stuff for twice the price, or a bit more, depening on speech skill and such.
Thank you lofgren, for giving me the tip to make my own potions with keywords! It works perfectly!
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Version 5.1 (EBI 7.1)
I did not think I would come back, but here I am. Started another playthrough with this and I want to ensure better compatibility with Loot and Degradation. To that end, I am starting to add tempering recipes. I'll add them over time as it's a bit of tedious busywork, while I really only have very little time to play and I'd rather do that. Of course, if you have any requests for a specific bow line (example, Daedric Fast Bows) let me know and I'll work on that request next before doing any other bows.
With this update you'll have tempering recipes for:
Hunting/Elven Bow Lvl 2/3/4/5/6 (all 3 elements)/7 (all 3 elements)/8 (all 3 elements)/9 (all 3 elements)/10 (all 3 elements).
The reason for adding them was because without these tempering recipes, the weapons will break using Loot and Degradation's breaking system, unless you set your weapons, or these specific bows, to invulnerable. I always did that in the past but it's also always annoyed me, so I'm finally doing something about it. I did not intend to add tempering recipes because the bows are already being upgraded through my system, but... well, here we have it.
And I still have not figured out how to fix the Dwarven bow textures, I'm sorry. It's still greyed out for me and I have no clue how that went wrong in the first place.
I have noticed that several things are wrong with the description. Other than that, there are some other things I wish to improve.
So, my plans for the (hopefully*) near future are:
- Fix errors in the description
- Create a TL;DR section on top of the description for those who dislike all this reading and just want to hop in and play
- Add tempering recipes for all remaining bows, to ensure compatibility with Loot and Degradation (40/550 ~ 7,27% done)
- Try to fix issues with Auriel's Bow lvl 2 and 3 (plus the arrows)
- Try to fix the Dwarven bow model (don't know if I can)
- Try to improve spawn rates to make more sense (no godlike hunters at lvl 20 and more variation, among other things)
- Convert the mod to SSE
- Perhaps edit the hunters so that the weaker ones are indeed a lot weaker than the stronger ones. There is a difference, but I've often found the weakest are still too strong. Might edit their armor while I'm at it, I'm no longer as happy with them as I once was
- Perhaps add some unique locations, just like with the Guardians of Scrolls
*please keep in mind that I have very little time due to real life. I'll do my best to tackle the list above, but that is all I can promise.
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Introduction
Do you enjoy the hunt? As Hircine's influence spreads across Skyrim, more and more people are becoming like you... or are they? These hunters are always trying to prove themselves to Hircine and would stop at nothing to hone their skills. Kill them, or be killed - you may like the results! You may think the Dragonborn is of no interest to most of the Daedric Princes and you may be right. However, Hircine has got his eyes on you, too! Destroy as many of his hunters as you can to prove yourself and you will be greatly rewarded!
This mod
This mod used to be called "Extended Bow Improvement". I was unhappy with that name and with its new additions, I finally had a reason to give it a different one. This mod is basically version 3 of EBI, however I call it version 1 of Hircine's Influence, since the mod has a very different feel to it now and actually also plays differently.
This mod adds several perks to the archery tree that allow the player to further improve bows and arrows. I created it, because I'm playing around a lot with bows again and I wanted to be able to craft stronger bows, especially because I play on legendary. With this mod, a player can decide for him/herself how powerful he/she wants a bow to be.
This mod also adds a few unique(-ish) bows and upgrades to Auriel's Bow. I always found the low power for a divine bow hard to understand.
You can find EBI here, if you want to check out previous versions: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60597/?
This description contains
- Video('s)
- Perks
- Added bows
- Powerful Bows
- Fast Bows
- Normal Bows
- Auriel's Bow
- Unique(-ish) Bows
- Poisonous Arrows
- Sacrificial Arrows
- Enemies And Loot (Ingredients)
- The Rituals Of Hircine
- Shops
- Nordic Stuff
- Cheating
- Requirements
- Possible Conflicts
- Bashed Patches
- Recommended Mods (only for fun)
- Installation
- Uninstalling
- Showcase
- Hints, Tips and Known Issues
- Thank you (and future-talk)
- Planned Mods
- Custom Models
- Changelog
Perks
--> In Version 4 I removed the perks from the perk tree.
This mod adds a few perks to the 'Archery' skilltree. Picking these perks will allow the player to upgrade bows. The perks are:
Fast Bows: allows the player to create faster, but weaker versions of bows.
Powerful Bows: allows the player to create more powerful, but slower bows.
Leveled Bows 2 - 5: Allow the player to upgrade regular/fast/powerful bows to level 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Enchanted Bows 1 - 5: Allow the player to upgrade level 5 bows with enchantment levels 1 - 5, for Frost, Shock and Fire. Level 10 bows (level 5 bow, with level 5 enchantments), are not easy to get, but are worth the trouble if you like to be powerful. The Frost bow of level 10 freezes anyone it can solid for a full day, as long as their health reaches 50% or below.
Poisonous Arrows 1 - 5: Allow the player to craft poisonous arrows with levels 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. It won't be necessary to upgrade previous arrows, but you need the perks to get the stronger ones, of course.
IN VERSION 4 I removed the perks from the perk tree. They still exist, because I added perks to special perk books. Thanks to GioGr for the
idea and helping me to get started and credits to SarthesArai for his
perk book scripts. Check out his mod right here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25702/?
The perk books come in 16 volumes, 1 for each perk. They all start with
"Perks To Being A Marksman", so they can easily be recognised. They have
been added to all vendors that I added the bows to, plus a new vendor
has been added to the list of bow merchants and book mechants. This new
one can be found in Morthal.
The books are separated into 2 series, the 'main' series for bows, with 11 volumes and an 'extra'
series, for the poisonous arrows, with 5 volumes. The insides of the
books tell you when you can start learning the poisonous arrows perks.
All books will tell you if your skill level is high enough, if you have
the prerequisite perks and if you already know the perk you're reading
about. If you are allowed to learn the new perk, a pop-up will... well,
pop up and tell you you have the perk.
The crafting recipes will appear at the forge the second your perk gets added. Overdraw is no
longer needed as a first perk. Fast Bows can now be learned as soon as you have a marksman skill level of 25.
The better perk books are more expensive. The merchants will sell 3 random
books every day, so you can collect them as soon as you have the money.
Prices range from roughly 100 - 2000 septims, depending on speech skill
and how good the perk is.
Added bows
The bows I focussed on for now, include Skyrim's bows and Dawnguard's bows, but only the craftable ones that are most often used. I may expand on that later, but for now, I've focussed on Dwarven, Elven, Orcish, Glass, Ebony, Daedric and Dragonbone. Since there are no craftable bows at the start, normally, I added upgrades and crafting recipes for Hunting Bows as well. Because of this, you will not need the Smithing Skill. However, if you want more powerful bows than Hunting Bows, you will need to get smithing perks to unlock the other categories - that just makes sense to me.
All bows now have levels 2 - 5 and also Frost 1 - 5, Fire 1 - 5 and Shock 1 - 5. The base bows are counted as level 1, of course, so that gives all bows 10 levels, for both fast, powerful and normal bows. Note that you need a normal bow first, to make it fast or powerful. It's your choice whether you want to go for enchantments and which ones you want to go for. You could have a fast, powerful and normal bow, all in level 10, with all 3 enchantments, if you would like (not all 3 on 1 bow), but I think that would take you a very long time. Since I want to collect bows, I might go and collect them all. There are well over 450 versions of bows added, so you'll be collecting for a while (crafting).
Powerful Bows
These bows have 8 base damage more, for all 5 first levels. So a Powerful Hunting Bow, has 8 more base damage than a Hunting Bow. Level 2, has 16 points more than a Hunting Bow, etc. However, once you start applying enchantments through the perks I created, you will not gain more base damage. Only your enchantment power will go up.
Powerful bows have a drawback though. All 5 levels of powerful bows are slower than their previous levels. In the Creation Kit, speed is given by a number below 1, for most bows. The slowest bow is the Daedric bow. The powerful version of that bow, has 0.4 speed (the original one has 0.5 speed). Level 2 has 0.3, level 3 has 0.2, level 4 has 0.1 and level 5 has 0.05. This means that, although the powerul bows have a great advantage in theory, the speed reduction is VERY noticable. It's a penalty to still keep it somewhat balanced and in my opinion, you're best off using the maximum levels of these powerful bows, only if you need to kill something that hasn't spotted you. I think that the bow will be over-powered if you sneak anyway, but since I don't like to sneak, I have no idea.
Fast Bows
These bows work the same as Powerul Bows, but they are much weaker. A Fast Hunting Bow, has got 3 less base damage than a normal Hunting Bow and every level only goes up with 3 base damage. However, the speed of every fast bow, will go up with 0.1 per level, giving you extreme speeds with the fastest bows, which should make the low damage a good way to.... slow things down? Bad joke, I know... Moving on!
Normal Bows
There is not much to say about these normal bows. They level up, just like the others, but their speed will not change. Their damage goes up with - you guessed it - 5 for every level and that's about it. The Hunting Bow can be crafted right away (listed in the Steel section) and the player will still need the Smithing Skill to get other bows, but that's the same story for the fast and powerful bows, of course.
Auriel's Bow
Auriel's Bow now has a few upgrades. WARNING: the crafting recipe for Auriel's Bow requires you to already have one. It duplicates the bow. I have done this, so that you need to get the bow in the game first and to make sure you can 'complete' your bow collection. If you want all versions eventually, you're going to need to be able to duplicate the original bow!
Versions of Auriel's Bow:
Auriel's Bow (vanilla + crafting (duplicate) recipe)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 2 (double the damage)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 3 (double the damage of Level 2)
Auriel's Bow (Fast) (Faster, but slightly weaker)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 2) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 3) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 2)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful) (Stronger, but slightly slower)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 2) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 3) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 2)
The bow is duplicated by using:
Auriel's Bow
1 Flawless Diamond
2 Diamonds
5 Golden Ingots
5 Refined Moonstones
10 Filled Grand Soul Gems
Elven Smithing (smithing level 30)
Extra Effect (enchanting lvl 100)
All bows after the original (duplicate) do not require the flawless diamond. They require everything else, though. It should not be easy to upgrade a godly bow. The stronger versions also need 'fast bows' as a perk, or 'powerful bows' as a perk and 'Leveled Bows 5' for Lvl 2 and 'Enchanted Bows 5' for level 3.
If you wish to obtain Auriel's Bow without playing through Dawnguard for the millionth time, please check the Chanelog for version 4 (EBI 6), or the Cheat section.
Unique(-ish) Bows
The 3 unique bows I originally added in Version 2, cannot be created, only found. I also added a new version for each of them in Version 3.
- Bow of the Vampire (ebony, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 HP drain, 20 Frost dmg) can be found on a table in Castle Volkihar
- Bow of the Wolf (hunting bow, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 fire dmg, 1 minute fear (as in the howl of the wolf)) can be found on top of something, next to a weapon rack in Jorrvaskr
- Bow of the Valkyrie (glass, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 shock dmg, 1 minute soul trap) can be found in Riverwood's river, between the bridge and the mill... but also, maybe not... rivers flow ;)
There is no cheating chest for these.
Version 3 unique bows:
The bows of version 2 were updated in version 2.1. They simply cost too much and even after the change. These bows still exsist and can be found as I described above. However, I added a version of each of these bows in version 3, that has an infinite amount of weapon charge (for as far as I know) and these cannot be found. These can only be obtained by killing "Hircine's Fallen Valkyrie", "Hircine's Cured Vampire" and "Hircine's Loyal Wolf". It is obvious which enemy carries which bow. You will not come across them often and they are really dangerous, so be careful! These 3 new versions can be combined, along with some other ingredients, to create a fourth added bow: "Hircine's Bow". This bow has 75 base damage and drains 50 health, magicka and stamina at once. However, it is the most difficult item to obtain in this entire mod. This bow is the reward the into speaks of.
Since version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added a Daedric version for Hircine's Hunting Bow. The Hunting bow first wasn't Daedric because it was a hunting bow, but since Hircine is a Daedric prince and the Sacrificial Arrows are Daedric, I thought I would add the option to create both.
Poisonous Arrows
There are 5 levels of poisonous arrows. They can be made from 5 different natural ingredients, fire wood and ingots. The ingots are the same as normally, however, I'm not going to spoil the full list.
Level 1 arrows: do 1 point of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 2 arrows: do 5 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 3 arrows: do 10 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 4 arrows: do 15 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
Level 5 arrows: do 20 points of poison damage per second, for a full day
AS OF VERSION 4:
As per request, there now is a file with shorter Poison durations. The durations are now 60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 seconds, respectively.
Sacrificial Arrows
These arrows were added in version 3 and they are very hard to obtain. However, they are very powerful. You're going to need to create them and you will need a few hard-to-obtain ingrediënts to get them. You will also only get 1 arrow at a time. Not worth the trouble? Maybe it is, as these arrows are Daedric arrows with 1000 base damage and an enchantment that drains 1000 health, magicka and stamina at a time. Not all enemies are affected by the enchantment and not all enemies will be killed in one shot. Still, the arrows are really useful to use. And because they are so hard to obtain, I believe you will appreciate them.
Enemies And Loot (Ingredients)
This mod adds a new set of enemies to some of the leveled lists. As most of them are hunters, they have been added to the global leveled lists for animals (for plains, mountains, hills, etc) and to the predator leveled lists. The only exception is that 2 powerful dragons have been added. They have TONS of health and were added to the dragonany leveled list. These dragons will give you a rare Manipulated Dragon Heart, 10 scales, 10 bones and some other items, though, so they are worth killing. And the challenge might be fun, if they are a challenge to you, supreme hunter!
The other enemies are Hircine's Novice Hunter and higher: Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Excellent, Master, Perfect and Godlike. Godlike does not refer to the hunter being non-human, but to how well he has proven himself to Hircine. All hunters are Nords (I plan on adding more variation later on) and there are both females and males. The stats for the females and males are the same and for most of them, so is their inventory. However, Godlike Hunters use dragon equipment. Males use Dragonplate and females use Dragonscale. And for those in elven armor (Expert Hunters), it is the same story: Gilded for males, normal for females. Just to add some variation to the stuff they drop. The higher the rank, the better the gear.
All these enemies have Manipulated Hearts and 10 of those can be merged in a cooking pot, to create 1 Manipulated Dragon Heart, of which 10 are necessary to get Hircine's Bow. They also all carry 3 blood potions, while 100 of those are necessary for Hircine's Bow. The dragons carry 5 blood potions. All hunters carry a vanilla bow that matches their rank and when they die, they will drop more arrows, with a 20% chance of any level of poison arrow for their rank (so for Godlike Hunters, there is a 20% chance to get a set of 50 lvl 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 Poisonous Dragonbone Arrows. If you don't obtain poisonous arrows, you will obtain 50 regular, vanilla arrows. All hunters carry a vanilla bow and there is a chance of them carrying a more powerful leveled or enchanted one, depending on your level. The higher your level, the more bow variations you unlock. However, it is practically impossible to get all variations through killing hunters. Most powerful bows will only appear when you reach levels 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 and anything in between. This is to keep an incentive to actually CRAFT the bows that you want.
Last but not least there are "Hircine's Fallen Valkyrie", "Hircine's Cured Vampire" and "Hircine's Loyal Wolf". These enemies are rare, but more powerful than even the Godlike hunters. They carry the new versions of the unique-ish bows and because there is a chance to encounter these enemies more than once and thus obtain their weapons more than once, they are not truly unique weapons. These weapons are key ingredients in creating Hircine's Bow, so if you want it, you are going to have to find them and kill them before they kill you. The Loyal Wolf is in werewolf form, but will still carry the correct bow and he will also have a fourth blood potion. All 3 of these special enemies, have a guaranteed drop of 50 poisonous arrows. The arrows will match the bow material (the wolf is the exception, having Poisonous Daedric Arrows), but the chances for level 1 arrows are the highest, then lvl2, 3, 4 and finally 5 with the lowest chance of dropping. Still, you will get guaranteed poisonous arrows, so that is pretty cool, huh?
Since version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added scaling to leveled lists for enemies: you will now encounter novices at level 5, apprentices at level 10, adepts at level 15, experts at level 20, excellents at level 25, elites at level 30, masters at level 35, perfects at level 40, godlikes at level 45 and the three special hunters from level 50. The dragons, even though really powerful, can still be encountered as soon as dragons are unlocked through the main storyline.
- I noticed there was some information missing, so in short: there are also elite hunters (as you can see above, they can be found once the player hits level 30). Also, the bows and arrows have been added to merchants. They are (for now) sold in Warmaidens, Belethor's shop, The Drunken Huntsman, the Blacksmith in Riverwood, the blacksmith in Solitude and the blacksmith in Riften. It is possible that I included the Riverwood Trader, but I forgot and just closed the CK, sorry my bad XD. Last but not least: all added enemies except the special ones added have a 5% chance of any random bow dropping. This means that that could be the best bow in the mod (not including the unique-ish bows or Auriel's Bow), but there is a very slim chance of it happening. I think this was all info that had to be added.
A sidenote: the enemies have the poisonous arrows in leveled lists. The lists have been added to their "Deth Item" slot, which means they will never ever use these arrows on the player. Why? The enchantment carries over to the target, so if the player is hit, the player is enchanted with poison for 24 hours, without a possibility to cure himself. That's why. I tried many solutions, but have not be able to fix this problem yet. I'm sorry if you're disappointed about this.
The Rituals Of Hircine
Farengar The Annoying finally did it! He found his use in the game, other than being annoying! He found out how to bless your bows with Hircine's power, without actually enchanting them. He wrote book about it - a book that's an important ingredient for every enchanted bow you want to create. If you didn't know (unlikely): Farengar can be found in Dragon's Reach in Whiterun and is the wizard that sends you to Bleak Falls Barrow, for a stone tablet that may or may not actually be there.
Shops
The shops where you can buy the added bows and arrows (and perk books as of version 4 (EBI 6)), through leveled lists, are:
- Belethor's Goods in Whiterun
- Warmaidens in Whiterun
- The Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun
- Blacksmith Alvor in Riverwood
- The Riverwood Trader
- The Pawned Prawn in Riften
- Blacksmith Balimund in Riften
- Birna's Oddments in Winterhold
- Arnleif And Sons Trading Company in Markarth
- Blacksmith Moth gro-Bagol in Understone Keep in Markarth
- Sadri's Used Wares in Windhelm
- Bits and Pieces in Solitude
- The Flethcher in Solitude
- Blacksmith Beirand in Solitude
- Gray Pine Goods in Falkreath
- Blacksmith Lod in Falkreath
- Blacksmith Rustleif in Dawnstar
- A shop in Morthal as of Version 4 (EBI 6). I forgot the name, I don't visit Morthal often. At all.
Nordic Stuff
Nordic Stuff is an optional file that adds Nordic bows and arrows to the game in the same way as other (elven/orcish/iron) categories were included. This means the Nordic stuff benefits from the added perks and level system and I also added the stuff to the proper Leveled Lists, making the stuff purchaseable in the shops listed above. The stuff is unlocked when the Orcish stuff is unlocked.
Also, new hunters, Supreme Hunters, wearing Nordig Armor and having Nordic bows and arrows join the parade. They work the same way as all the other hunters and start appearing when the Excellent, AKA Orcish-geared hunters do.
NORDIC STUFF REQUIRES DRAGONBORN AND THE MAIN FILE!!!
Cheating
Yes, for those who want to cheat - uh - test... I've added a chest that contains all 450+ bows, plus all poisonous arrows, plus all regular bows and arrows. All Arrows even come in packs of 999... how convenient. All you have to do find your way to Jorrvaskr's backyard, where the targets are displayed. There, you will find the chest. Only drawback for cheaters is that it has a Master Level lock... unless of course, you use the console to open it. Cheating in style and all....
This was for version 1. For all other versions, to cheat, you can open the console and enter help "<rank> Hunter" to get an ID and player.placeatme <ID><number> to spawn the enemy you desire, or help "<kind of bow>" and player.additem <ID><number> to add bows you desire. I don't encourage cheating, but it is possible.
The Nordic bows and arrows have been added to the same cheating chest as the rest of the stuff.
As of version 4 (EBI 6), I also added 6 optional cheat files. The main file is not needed for these files and you should only pick one file. I plan on
playing with Auriel's Bow in my next playthrough and I've already
finished Dawnguard about 7 times... so I don't want to do that now. If
you're like me, you like to have options. So here they are, from most
broken to most balanced:
- Cheat File A - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing
Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can
also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed
arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing.
- Cheat File B - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24
elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith.
- Cheat File C - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you
only need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24
elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect.
- Cheat File D - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing Perk.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also
upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows.
You need Elven Smithing, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul
Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File E - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing and
Arcane Blacksmith Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with
perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed
or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1
diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion
and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File F - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and
using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots
and 10 filled
Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to
change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into
either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing,
Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled
Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul
Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
Again - choose only one of these. They are standalone. I called the files A - F, too,
so if you wish to switch them up, rename the new file you wish to try
according to the name of the one you are replacing. And I mean the .esp.
If you use mod organizer, you can keep the A - F markings in the name to distinguish the 'flavors'.
Requirements
Skyrim (I recommend fully updated, as I use the same)
Dawnguard (I recommend fully updated, as I use the same)
I don't think SKSE is necessary, but if you use mods, you might as well grab the fully updated version of that. After all, it's what I use and many other mods require it.
I recommend Wrye Bash to create a Bashed Patch (see below for instructions).
NORDIC STUFF REQUIRES BOTH THE MAIN FILE WITH DAWNGUARD AND DRAGONBORN!!!
THE CHEATING FILES DO NOT REQUIRE THE MAIN FILE OR DRAGONBORN, BUT THEY DO REQUIRE DAWNGUARD, FOR THEY ARE ALL ABOUT AURIEL'S BOW
Possible conflicts
AS OF VERSION 4 (EBI 6), the compatibility with other mods, namely perk mods, should be greatly improved. As long as my perk books can still refer to a 'marksman' skilltree, it's all good. They do not show up in the skill tree anymore, but in the books alone. The only thing is that they must be able to read the marksman skill level to determine if you are ready to learn the perks. Perk mods that change the basic knowledge of the game so that it cannot find a proper Marksman (which is Archery in the CK) skill level, are probably incompatible.
I need people to test the compatibility with perk mods/overhauls. I stay away from them as much as I can, but even if I wanted to test my mod with those, there are way too many for me to test them on my own.
Previous compatibility info:
Only mods that make changes to the Archery Skilltree, are likely to cause conflicts. If you want my perks (you could use the cheating chest if you don't have access to the perks), you need to put my mod below the other perk mod in your load order. Otherwise, if you want to use the perks of the other mod, you need to put that one below mine.
The above was true for version 1, but now that leveled lists have been added to shopkeepers, I recommend a Bashed Patch. See below for instructions:
Bashed Patches
If you want to create a Bashed Patch (usually only necessary if you have several mods installed that alter leveled lists), you are going to need Wrye Bash. Once you have that installed, fire up the program and make sure the 'mods' tab is open. Scroll to the bottom and you will see 'bashed patch 0' or something similar. Right-click on it, choose 'Rebuild Patch' and tick Leveled lists and other options you might want. I have 3 of them ticked in total, but I forgot which ones. Something with names, I believe.
Let Wrye Bash do it's thing and when it asks you if you want to activate the Patch, click yes. A log will pop up and you can read it if you want, however I always click OK.
Add the bashed patch to your mod list, at the bottom and keep it at the bottom of your load order. If you add or remove a mod that changes the leveled lists, repeat this process. Other than that, have fun!
Recommended Mods (only for fun)
Too many... don't get me started. For bows I like Better Bows, Unique Bows and a few others, I cannot play without SkyUI, Convenient Horses, UFO, Sharpshooters and some others. I LOVE Better Vampires, Cloud Of Bats, Moonlight Tales, Bloodmoon rising and many other supernatural mods... I love magics mods, Frostfall, Realistic Needs And Diseases... like I said; too many.
Installation
Nothing special, to NMM will do, or otherwise just drop it into the Skyrim/Data folder. Should be easy enough. Check "Bashed Patches" above for instruction on how to do that and when.
Updating can be done by deleting the previous version and installing the new version. Very simple; can be done by NMM as well. I ALWAYS recommend backups before installing, or uninstalling anything, though.
WARNING: the mod now has a new name (As of V1.1. Al versions since use the same name), so it will be treated as a different mod! Change the name back to Extended Bow Improvement.esp, or remove the old mod!!!
Uninstalling
For as far as I know, simply removing it from the Data folder should so the trick without problems. NMM can also do that for you. I ALWAYS recommend to make a backup of your files before installing, or uninstalling anything, though.
WARNING 2: I never recommend to uninstall a file midway through a savegame anyway. Think of them like houses of cards. Pull 1 part of it out and the whole thing comes crashing down.
Showcase
Since I make Let's Play video's, a showcase of my mod is bound to come. Stay tuned, or check out 2-Cousins on youtube every once in a while. Has some Skyrim vids already and I plan on trying to play as a Hybrid soon (already have a how-to video on that).
Version 3 showcase will most likely come later.
Hints, Tips and Known Issues
- As of version 5 (EBI 7), the poison from the arrows can be cured by using separate cure poison potions, or emergency spells!
A mod can never be tested good enough if you don't just play around with it... which is why I continously play with it in my playthroughs and sometimes stumble upon weird things, like incorrect crafting recipes later on. Here are a few things I have to notify you about (not evrything is about poisonous arrows, but most of it is).
Despite my efforts to keep NPC's away from the poisonous arrows, it may happen that they use them. I didn't have a problem with that in 2 savegames, but in my latest savegame the Hunters of Hircine and other archers decided to grow a brain. I shot poisonous arrows at them, effectively placing them in their inventory that way and they shot those arrows right back at me and my follower. Not good.
So... what do you do when that happens? When you get hit? When a follower gets hit?
There is no better way than to first win the fight (or reload, if you wish), then (if you did not reload), store all your enchanted stuff in some kind of inventory, other than your own. That could be a follower, or a horse if you use convenient horses, a chest, an urn, a satchel... just somewhere (SAVE BEFORE YOU DO THIS). Then open up the console with the '~' key on your keyboard and type: player.dispelallspells. This will get rid of your active effects; give it three seconds and your poisonned status should be gone. Feel free to reclaim your enchanted stuff and re-equip it again; it was stored away to not cause glitches.
Can't I just wait for the effect to go away?
Nope; it takes 24 real life hours to go away. So you could, technically, but that would take away the fun. It rarely happens that I get hit by poisonous arrows, but it's good to know that there is a solution.
What about a 'cure poison' potion, then?
Does not work. I have a theory on this: the enchantments on arrows are caused by the explosions on the projectiles. This makes the enchantment carry over to the target; making it an enchanted NPC (sort of), rather than a poisonned one. This could be a false theory, because how then does charus poison work? Well... that only lasts a few seconds... maybe that's it? This enchantment will even affect you if you're a vampire, resistant to poison. It will not do full damage, but it will still do damage. Store away your enchanted stuff, player.dispelallspells and take your stuff back. That is by far the best thing to do!
My horse/follower/necessary NPC got hit! I didn't even shoot them?! How do I fix it?!
Like I explained above, the explosion carries the enchantment. Because enchanted arrows have explosions, stuff goes flying arround when you shoot at it (like at a table or marketstall). However, while the arrow does damage to your intented target; an enemy or ally that's very close to the intented target can get posionned. I lost my horse twice because of this and had a quest glitch up, before I found the fix, which is similar to what I wrote above.
If it's a follower: take all the enchanted stuff. Same with the horse if you use convenient horses. Then open the console with ~ and left-click the unintentionally poisonned target. Make sure it's not the player that's selected! My player is always 00000014, maybe yours is, too. If that ID shows up after clicking, please try again.
After clicking and getting the correct ID, simply type dispellallspells. Not npc.dispellallspells, just dispellallspells. Give the stuff back. Naturally, if it's someone you can't control the inventory of, or that you don't care about, simply click on them without taking their stuff. It's not that hard.
A tip is also to NOT give your follower poisonous arrows. If you do and he shoots an archer with it, the archer can start using the poisonous arrows and this increases the chances of you, or someone else important getting poisonned. You can try it, as in 2 savegames my followers used the poisonous arrows without issues, but you have been warned. Same story about the Sacrificial Arrows. They are very rare and I'm sure you'll know when to use them, but if you hand them out to followers and the targets don't die, you're at risk as they might shoot those 1000 base damage arrows right back at you.
If you use Loot and Degradation, like me, don't be surprised that archers loot NPC bodies and pick up the poisonous arrows you have used. They might use them against you that way, but the chance is very small. I still had it happen though, so just don't be surprised.
Are these poisonous arrows worth it? All these things I've got to keep in mind...
YESSSSS THEY. ARE. AWESOME!!! In my opinion, at least. And honestly, it's not that much and the chance of things going wrong is kind of small. At least now you know how to fix things. Still, I advice you to save the game before trying the fixes!
My dwarven bows use hunting bow models! Huh?!?!?!
I get the confusion... I was surprised myself, but this seems to have happened in the previous version somehow. No idea how, as I cannot even edit the model, nor did I use the hunting bow as the base for the dwarven bows and im 100% certain the dwarven bows were fine when I first tested my mod when EBI was in version 1. I could fix this, but I never use dwarven bows, so I don't really care. The STATS ARE DWARVEN! Trust me, I checked. Only the model got switched around somehow and I didn't even do it. I can't even do it. If I would need to fix it, I would need to remake everything dwarven. Everything my mod adds at least. If people are bothered by this... I might consider it, but please tell me that you are bothered by it first. If no one is bothered by it, then me neither and we can all continue playing happily. It just looks weird, but that's all. And maybe it's not even you who experiences the issue; maybe it's just me (unlikely, but possible in this crazy world).
THE VANILLA DWARVEN BOWS STILL USE THE CORRECT MODELS! IF NOT, IT CANNOT BE MY MOD CAUSING IT!!!
You said the Fallen Valkyrie, Cured Vampire and Loyal Wolf are RARE, but I am level 50+ and I keep encountering them!!!
Yes, I noticed. I'm sorry. This was not meant to happen, but it makes sense. The game seems to work in a way where it selects the leveled enemies closest to your level, so if you unlock these three, they will keep popping up like ants. No matter how rare they would be in a fair list, as they only make up about 3/80 of the leveled list. Not even joking. I'm not saying you won't encounter other Hunters of Hircine, but the hunters you will encounter have high chances of being the latest ones you have unlocked.
I keep finding good stuff and poisonous arrows on my enemies... you said THAT was rare, too!
Same story; leveled lists all over. Again, I'm sorry, as it kind of defeats the purpose of creating the arrows yourself. Luckily the lvl 10 bows and things like that are still hard to get, as you need at least lvl 100 to encounter everything. So... if you never make skills legendary, I suggest you start doing so.
I have made the poisonous arrows more rare as drops now, though.
About Loot and Degradation... I can't temper these weapons and so my stuff keeps breaking!
I know, I did not include tempering recipes on purpose. You see, you can already upgrade these bows to become really powerful. I did not see the need to be able to temper all these individual bows as well. Loot and Degradation has an option to make your equipped weapons immune to breaking. Do that. Also, the LeD system generates tempered weapons for you, even if no tempering recipes exsist. There's a good chance you'll find a Legendary Daedric Bow (Shock Lvl 5), for example.
These enemies are too powerful!
They were meant to be a challenge; have you noticed the stuff they wear? If you could easily kill them, you'd be getting powerful way too easily. Tip: craft or loot poisonous arrows, shoot, get on your horse and start running around in circles. Take cover, wait for them to shoot, dodge and shoot back. Use your brain to not get hit and the poison will do the rest. Basically after hitting them, it is just a waiting game if you can't kill them in a normal way. However, if your archery skill is good enough and your armor is, too, you should be able to win most battles without much effort. That is, if you don't use 'Realistic Difficulty', or combat overhaul mods. Then they usually 1-shot you, or actually grow a brain in every playthrough. I will not be making them weaker, as I enjoy the crap out of my mod as it is. Especially the challenge it can bring on higher difficulties, or with 'realistic difficulty' as a mod.
Known Issue about Auriel's Bow, Sunhallowed Arrows and the Sunburst
I found out that the sunburst when shooting at the sun ONLY WORKS for Auriel's ORIGNAL bow with the ORIGINAL Sunhallowed Arrows. Somehow I haven't been able to make it work with the Level 2 and 3 bows, nor with the level 2 and 3 arrows.
Thank you (and future-talk)
For as far as I know, this was all information. I might add some other things and other versions in the future as well. I plan on making a file for those with Dragonborn, so that at least the Nordic Bow(s) can be included, as I initially planned. I might make more and more bows upgradeable, as well as the arrows. I might include more enchantments and more different kinds of arrows in the future as well, but I don't really have much time. If people want to see that though, I will give it some serious thought. I'm also thinking of adding more enemies and unique(-ish) bows.
If you downloaded this, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I put quite some hours into it and I can use all the support I can get!
CREDITS TO SARTHESARAI FOR HIS PERK BOOK SCRIPTS I USE SINCE VERSION 4!
THANK YOU GIOGR FOR THE EXCELLENT IDEA AND HELPING ME TO GET STARTED!
Planned Mods
I have created a mod called the 'Guardians Of Scrolls' and quite some other mods. Please check the section below this one. TGOS makes Scrolls a more viable option, adds enemies, locations, new scrolls, etc.
MY OTHER MODS:
- The Guardians of Scrolls: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71479/?
- Hircine's Influence: This is where you are now
- Simple Poison Enchantment: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75863/?
- Silver Sword Smithing: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75865/?
- Simple Katana Crafting: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75864?
- Simple Angel and Fallen Angel Races: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78861/?
- Fragcil: The Sword Bound to its Wielder's Soul: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75855
- Fragcil: The Soulbound Gear: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78873?
- 4 Presets: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76286?
Custom Models
I planned on learning how to mesh and texture weapons, but I don't have all the software and I lack the time. Plus, adding a new design for all these upgraded bows, may be a bit too much. If there's someone out there who would like to help me with it, thanks a bunch. However, I don't expect anyone to do such a huge job for me, so I'm sorry if it disappoints any of you, mod users out there, who love custom models.
Changelog
Verion 1.1: For poison arrows levels 4 and 5, there were 2 entries for snowberries in the recipes, in stead of 1 for ectoplasm and 1 for snowberries. I swapped the ectoplasm ingredient for deathbell, as ectoplasm can be far more difficult to obtain. Therefore, the second entry for snowberries, has been changed to deathbell as well.
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Version 2: For this version, I added crafting recipes for Auriel's Bow and its upgrades and also 3 unique bows. WARNING: the crafting recipe for Auriel's Bow requires you to already have one. It duplicates the bow. I have done this, so that you need to get the bow in the game first and to make sure you can 'complete' your bow collection. If you want all versions eventually, you're going to need to be able to duplicate the original bow!
Versions of Auriel's Bow:
Auriel's Bow (vanilla + crafting (duplicate) recipe)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 2 (double the damage)
Auriel's Bow Lvl 3 (double the damage of Level 2)
Auriel's Bow (Fast) (Faster, but slightly weaker)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 2) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Fast Lvl 3) (Faster, double the damage of Fast Lvl 2)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful) (Stronger, but slightly slower)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 2) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 1)
Auriel's Bow (Powerful Lvl 3) (Stronger, slower, double the damage of Powerful Lvl 2)
The bow is duplicated by using:
Auriel's Bow
1 Flawless Diamond
2 Diamonds
5 Golden Ingots
5 Refined Moonstones
10 Filled Grand Soul Gems
Elven Smithing (smithing level 30)
Extra Effect (enchanting lvl 100)
All bows after that do not require the flawless diamond. They require everything else, though. It should not be easy to upgrade a godly bow. The stronger versions, also need 'fast bows' as a perk, or 'powerful bows' as a perk and 'Leveled Bows 5' for Lvl 2 and 'Enchanted Bows 5' for level 3.
The unique bows I have added, cannot be created, only found.
- Bow of the Vampire (ebony, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 HP drain, 20 Frost dmg) can be found on a table in Castle Volkihar
- Bow of the Wolf (hunting bow, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 fire dmg, 1 minute fear (as in the howl of the wolf)) can be found on top of something, next to a weapon rack in Jorrvaskr
- Bow of the Valkyrie (glass, 35 dmg, 20 critical dmg, 50 shock dmg, 1 minute soul trap) can be found in Riverwood's river, between the bridge and the mill... but also, maybe not... rivers flow ;)
There is no cheating chest for these.
After a very busy school time of like 4 weeks is over, I plan on adding the various bows to loot lists and merchant lists/chests. These lists are not going to include Auriel's Bow versions, nor the 3 unique bows added by Version 2.
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Version 2.1: small change - the three unique bows appeared to cost too much when I tested them in-game (had not done that yet). To be more exact, the vampiric bow's enchantment did cost too much and the valkyrie bow could do with a decrease in cost. I changed the cost of the enchantments on those two bows and added an extra main file, so that you can choose your version. Huge cost, or smaller cost.
The cost for the vampiric bow was over 2000. Changed it to 300.
The cost for the valkyrie bow was over 1200. Changed it to 300.
The cost for the wolf bow was less than 200. Kept it that way.
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Version 3:
- Changed the name of the mod to "Hircine's Influence".
- Changed the mod version to '1' for the sake of the new name. The mod feels very different now.
- Added enemies (to leveled lists).
- Added the bow and arrow improvment to merchants (leveled lists) and to the created enemies (also in leveled lists).
- Added 2 new ingrediënts (Manipulated Hearts and Manipulated Dragon Hearts)
- Added a new type of arrow (Sacrificial Arrow. Very hard to obtain, but very powerful indeed).
- Added a new bow (Hircine's Bow; the reward the introduction speaks of. Very hard to obtain, but very powerful).
For a more detailed description, please read the rest of the page.
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Hircine's Influence Version 1.1 (EBI 3.1):
- Added scaling to leveled lists for enemies: you will now encounter novices at level 5, apprentices at level 10, adepts at level 15, experts at level 20, excellents at level 25, elites at level 30, masters at level 35, perfects at level 40, godlikes at level 45 and the three special hunters from level 50. The dragons, even though really powerful, can still be encountered as soon as dragons are unlocked through the main storyline.
- Added a Daedric version for Hircine's Hunting Bow. The Hunting bow first wasn't Daedric because it was a hunting bow, but since Hircine is a Daedric prince and the Sacrificial Arrows are Daedric, I thought I would add the option to create both.
- I noticed there was some information missing, so in short: there are also elite hunters (as you can see above, they can be found once the player hits level 30). Also, the bows and arrows have been added to merchants. They are (for now) sold in Warmaidens, Belethor's shop, The Drunken Huntsman, the Blacksmith in Riverwood, the blacksmith in Solitude and the blacksmith in Riften. It is possible that I included the Riverwood Trader, but I forgot and just closed the CK, sorry my bad XD. Last but not least: all added enemies except the special ones added have a 5% chance of any random bow dropping. This means that that could be the best bow in the mod (not including the unique-ish bows or Auriel's Bow), but there is a very slim chance of it happening. I think this was all info that had to be added.
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Hircine's Influence Version 2 (EBI Version 4):
- Some crafting recipes for poisonous arrows were still wrong. They have been fixed.
- Finished adding bows/arrows to all shop I want to sell them. These shops are:
- Belethor's Goods in Whiterun
- Warmaidens in Whiterun
- The Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun
- Blacksmith Alvor in Riverwood
- The Riverwood Trader
- The Pawned Prawn in Riften
- Blacksmith Balimund in Riften
- Birna's Oddments in Winterhold
- Arnleif And Sons Trading Company in Markarth
- Blacksmith Moth gro-Bagol in Understone Keep in Markarth
- Sadri's Used Wares in Windhelm
- Bits and Pieces in Solitude
- The Flethcher in Solitude
- Blacksmith Beirand in Solitude
- Gray Pine Goods in Falkreath
- Blacksmith Lod in Falkreath
- Blacksmith Rustleif in Dawnstar
- Nordic bows and arrows are added for you to upgrade, just like the hunting bows, iron arrows, and all the others
- Nordic bows and arrows are added to the leveled lists and thus also to the shops I mentioned above
- Enemies, Supreme Hunters to be exact, shall now spawn and work the same way as the other enemies. They start spawning at the same time as the Excellent Hunters, whom wear Orcish gear.
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Version 2.1 (EBI Version 4.1)
I really have to stop working on these things when it's past midnight... It helps avoiding small things.
- Once again fixed a crafting recipe, but this time for Auriel's Bow. I somehow managed to tell the game that 3 copies of it are needed to create 2... yeah...
- I buffed the enchantment on Hircine's Daedric/Hunting Bow from 50 stamina/magicka/health to 100. I finally got all the necessary ingredients legitimately, created the bow and... it just wasn't satisfying enough. A tip to use in conjunction with this is something like 'deadly dragons' and 'elemental dragons' though, to buff those legendary beasts... Hircine's bow makes short work of anything now. With full archery skill it now sits at about 350 damage for me + 100 absorption of all attributes. A rewarding weapon after gathering ingredients for so long, but dragons will most likely be too easy. Maybe not on legendary, I don't know... I finally play a game on adept again in stead of legendary.
- Added a hints, tips and known issues section towards the bottom of the page; READ IT if you have problems with, or plan on using poisonous arrows!
Video('s)
No video for Hircine's Influence yet. There is a video on the Extended Bow Improvement page.
Version 2.2 (EBI Version 4.2)
Only changed the crafting recipe for the Sacrificial Arrows. It was correct, but I felt it was unsatisfying. I made the Manipulated Hearts required only 1, in stead of 5, but you can now create them in batches; if you have 5 hearts you can create 5 arrows, if you have 10 hearts you can create 10 arrows and if you have 25, you can create 25 arrows. Enjoy!
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Version 3.0 (EBI 5.0)
- Added Sunhallowed Arrows Level 2 and level 3
- Added crafting recipes for Sunhallowed Arrows Level 2 and level 3
- Lowered the drop rate for Poisonous Arrows on killed Hunters.
The level 2 and 3 Sunhallowed Arrows have 8 more base damage than the regular Sunhallowed/Elven arrows. Those have 16, Level 2 has 24 and Level 3 has 32. Also, the blast when an enemy is hit directly is increased in power for both new levels. The enchantment should mean something now.
This version is tested to not break the Nordic Stuff, so go ahead and use that too if you wish, it's still compatible.
The new arrows can be crafted if you have the Elven Smithing perk, the Extra Effect perk and for level 2 the Poisonous Arrows Level 1 Perk and for Level 3 the Poisonous Arrows level 5 perk.
Needed are 50 regular Sunhallowed Arrows, 2 golden ingots, 2 moonstone ingots and 2 pieces of firewood per set.
BUG: I found out that the sunburst when shooting at the sun ONLY WORKS for Auriel's ORIGNAL bow with the ORIGINAL Sunhallowed Arrows. Somehow I haven't been able to make it work with the Level 2 and 3 bows, nor with the level 2 and 3 arrows.
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Version 4.0 (EBI 6.0)
I removed the perks from the perk tree. They still exist, because I added perks to special perk books. Thanks to GioGr for the idea and helping me to get started and credits to SarthesArai for his perk book scripts. Check out his mod right here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25702/?
This ensures a better compatibility with mods that add perks or even overhaul the trees entirely, as my mod now does not touch the skill trees anymore.
The perk books come in 16 volumes, 1 for each perk. They all start with "Perks To Being A Marksman", so they can easily be recognised. They have been added to all vendors that I added the bows to, plus a new vendor has been added to the list of bow merchants and book mechants. This new one can be found in Morthal.
The books are separated into 2 series, the 'main' series for bows, with 11 volumes and an 'extra' series, for the poisonous arrows, with 5 volumes. The insides of the books tell you when you can start learning the poisonous arrows perks. All books will tell you if your skill level is high enough, if you have the prerequisite perks and if you already know the perk you're reading about. If you are allowed to learn the new perk, a pop-up will... well, pop up and tell you you have the perk.
The crafting recipes will appear at the forge the second your perk gets added. Overdraw is no longer needed as a first perk. Fast Bows can now be learned as soon as you have a marksman skill level of 25.
The better perk books are more expensive. The merchants will sell 3 random books every day, so you can collect them as soon as you have the money. Prices range from roughly 100 - 2000 septims, depending on speech skill and how good the perk is.
As per request, there now is a file with shorter Poison durations. The durations are now 60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 seconds, respectively.
I also added 6 optional cheat files. The main file is not needed for these files and you should only pick one file. I plan on playing with Auriel's Bow in my next playthrough and I've already finished Dawnguard about 7 times... so I don't want to do that now. If you're like me, you like to have options. So here they are, from most broken to most balanced:
- Cheat File A - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing.
- Cheat File B - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith.
- Cheat File C - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow for free, you only need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks.
Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows whenever you
want to, so long as you have Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect.
- Cheat File D - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing Perk. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File E - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing and Arcane Blacksmith Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
- Cheat File F - craft Auriel's Bow by upgrading a regular elven bow and using 1 flawless diamond, 2 diamonds, 5 gold ingots, 5 moonstone ingots and 10 filled
Grand Soul Gems. You also need the Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith and Extra Effect Perks. Obviously, I'm not going to change this with perk books. You can also upgrade 24 elven arrows into either sunhallowed or bloodcursed arrows. You need Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 diamond, 1 gold ingot and 1 filled Grand Soul Gem for Sunhallowed arrows and Elven Smithing, Arcane Blacksmith, Extra Effect, 1 ruby, 1 blood potion and 1 filled Black Soul Gem for Bloodcursed Arrows.
Again - choose only one of these. They are standalone. I called the files A - F, too, so if you wish to switch them up, rename the new file you wish to try according to the name of the one you are replacing. And I mean the .esp. If you use mod organizer, you can keep the A - F markings in the name to distinguish the 'flavors'.
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Version 4.1 (EBI 6.1)
Fixed a small problem through Tes5Edit. Thanks to GioGr for finding it out in conjunction with Ordinator and testing the result of the fix. Should work properly now.
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Version 5.0 (EBI 7.0)
This may very well be the final version of the mod. I don't know if it's really going to be, but we'll see.
- Poison issues fixed!
- V5 adds the ingredients required for poisonous arrows to alchemy shops. Especially nightshade was sometimes very hard to get a hold of in batch. Now the stores will sell them from a random list. The 5 ingredients have all been given a batch of 1, 3 and 5 and the list will pick a random ingredient/batch a few times, with also a small chance to fail. Making what gets added to the stores each 48 hours (vanilla restock time. Could differ for you) completely random.
- V5 FIXES THE POISON FROM ARROWS!! In the same alchemy shops you can now buy 'weakest', 'weaker', 'normal', 'stronger' and 'strongest' arrow poison cure potions, that will cure your poisoning. I MAY give the hunters of hircine their poisonous arrows back in the future, but we'll see about that later.
- 2 emergency spells have been added that will dispell any poisoning effects from the player on any npc/creature, depending on the spell that is used. They can be added via console, or bought from Farengar for... 300 gold or so? Base price is 150 per spell. Normally Farngar sells stuff for twice the price, or a bit more, depening on speech skill and such.
Thank you lofgren, for giving me the tip to make my own potions with keywords! It works perfectly!
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Version 5.1 (EBI 7.1)
I did not think I would come back, but here I am. Started another playthrough with this and I want to ensure better compatibility with Loot and Degradation. To that end, I am starting to add tempering recipes. I'll add them over time as it's a bit of tedious busywork, while I really only have very little time to play and I'd rather do that. Of course, if you have any requests for a specific bow line (example, Daedric Fast Bows) let me know and I'll work on that request next before doing any other bows.
With this update you'll have tempering recipes for:
Hunting/Elven Bow Lvl 2/3/4/5/6 (all 3 elements)/7 (all 3 elements)/8 (all 3 elements)/9 (all 3 elements)/10 (all 3 elements).
The reason for adding them was because without these tempering recipes, the weapons will break using Loot and Degradation's breaking system, unless you set your weapons, or these specific bows, to invulnerable. I always did that in the past but it's also always annoyed me, so I'm finally doing something about it. I did not intend to add tempering recipes because the bows are already being upgraded through my system, but... well, here we have it.
And I still have not figured out how to fix the Dwarven bow textures, I'm sorry. It's still greyed out for me and I have no clue how that went wrong in the first place.