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About this mod
A mod that adds blocking of arrows and spells with melee weapons to Skyrim's combat. Successful blocks may even send the missiles back at the attacker.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Abstract
Return to Sender (RTS) is a melee combat mod that allows players to block arrows and spells with their weapon and eventually send them back at the attacker with a proper skill level. It is intended to add an enhancement to combat for melee based characters by providing an additional new option to dealing with ranged enemies. It uses a timed blocking system that requires the player to block right in time in order to deflect or reflect the incoming missile.
RTS is built around the player's progress in the block tree and integrates seamlessly with all major perk overhauls.
1 - Features
2 - Gameplay
Return To Sender is designed as a melee combat mod. It's features depend on the player's progression in the block tree. It adds two features to Skyrim's combat: missile deflection and missile reflection. As missile counts any game object that's transported with a missile object. This includes arrows, dart trap darts, Riekling spears, fire and forget spells, concentration spells and shouts.
RTS provides a Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) to adjust certain internal values to ones liking, game difficulty or to play nicely with other mods
3 - Compatibility and Installation
General Compatibility and Installation / Un-Installation
Other
4 - Technical Requirements
These files are required, otherwise the mod will not work!
5 - Perk Requirements and Perk Overhauls
Depending on the chosen Perk Overhaul mod different block tree perks are required for RTS's missile deflect and reflect mechanic to work. No perk is changed or altered in any way. They merely function as entry point for RTS to hook into and as a mean to provide progression for a melee character when investing in block. The following list provides an overview of the required deflect and reflect perks.
Return to Sender (RTS) is a melee combat mod that allows players to block arrows and spells with their weapon and eventually send them back at the attacker with a proper skill level. It is intended to add an enhancement to combat for melee based characters by providing an additional new option to dealing with ranged enemies. It uses a timed blocking system that requires the player to block right in time in order to deflect or reflect the incoming missile.
RTS is built around the player's progress in the block tree and integrates seamlessly with all major perk overhauls.
1 - Features
- block arrows, trap darts, spears and spells / shouts with your one-hand, two-hand or dual wielded weapons
- timed blocking
- blocked missiles are deflected and may be reflected
- deflect / reflect behavior depends on token perks in the block tree
- compatible with every major perk overhaul and dual wield parrying
- successful blocks enhance the block skill and buff the player in combat
- customizable features through an MCM
- event-based threaded architecture + no save game residuals
- built with low priority, non-demanding "Niceness" in mind. If need to RTS will step back and give the Papyrus VM more "breathing room" to compute other script's instructions first
2 - Gameplay
Return To Sender is designed as a melee combat mod. It's features depend on the player's progression in the block tree. It adds two features to Skyrim's combat: missile deflection and missile reflection. As missile counts any game object that's transported with a missile object. This includes arrows, dart trap darts, Riekling spears, fire and forget spells, concentration spells and shouts.
- two core mechanics: missile deflection and missile reflection
- both need to be unlocked via perks in the block tree (see: Paragraph 5)
- the required perks depend on the chosen Perk Overhaul mod. They can be looked up in the MCM's Overview tab
- deflect is always bound to an around skill level 30 block perk
- reflect is always bound to an around skill level 50 block perk
- deflection makes a missile bounce off or be deflected in a random direction
- reflection allows for targeted reflection of the missile
- a character first learns to deflect missiles before learning to reflect them which replaces deflection
- eligible combat styles are one-handed, two-handed and dual wielding
- blocking with a shield does not apply as there are already perks that accomplish this
- RTS features a "feedback system" that makes investing in the block tree and blocking missiles worthwhile
- blocking (deflect or reflect) arrows buffs the player's melee combat damage with a stacking buff
- blocking (deflect or reflect) spells buffs the player's resistances with a stacking buff
- additionally, blocking concentration type spells for a certain amount of time staggers the attackers
- the amount of spell damage that may be blocked directly scales off the player's block skill (e.g. a block skill of 30 is needed to block a spell that does 30 damage)
- successful blocking of missiles advances the block skill
- a timed blocking window (2.5 sec for spells & 1.5 sec for arrows/darts) and a block cooldown to prevent block spamming are introduced as balance mechanics
- additionally successful missile blocking costs stamina so players may want to invest in stamina
RTS provides a Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) to adjust certain internal values to ones liking, game difficulty or to play nicely with other mods
- the MCM provides a scaling factor to spell blocking (e.g. a factor of 2 will allow a block skill of 30 to block spells that do up to 60 damage)
- by default reflected missiles need to be aimed by the player. The MCM allows to change that to auto aiming, however auto aiming will advance the block skill a significant amount slower than manual aiming
- blocking concentration type spells or spells all together may be deactivated
- blocking arrows may be not for obvious reasons
3 - Compatibility and Installation
General Compatibility and Installation / Un-Installation
- basically compatible with everything
- drop it in your load order wherever you like
- activate and configure it in the MCM (RTS ships in deactivated state by default)
- un-install by deactivating the mod in the MCM before removing from the load order
- compatible with every major perk overhaul mod
- compatible with every combat overhaul as there is no overlap between those and RTS
Other
- compatible with Dual Wield Parrying
4 - Technical Requirements
These files are required, otherwise the mod will not work!
- SKSE
- JContainers
- SkyUI for the MCM
5 - Perk Requirements and Perk Overhauls
Depending on the chosen Perk Overhaul mod different block tree perks are required for RTS's missile deflect and reflect mechanic to work. No perk is changed or altered in any way. They merely function as entry point for RTS to hook into and as a mean to provide progression for a melee character when investing in block. The following list provides an overview of the required deflect and reflect perks.
- vanilla perks: DeflectArrows (30 Block) & ElementalProtection (50 Block)
- Perkus Maximus: Quick Reflexes 1/2 (30 Block) & Shatter 1/2 (50 Block)
- SkyRe: Quick Reflexes 1/2 (30 Block) & Shatter 1/2 (50 Block)
- SPERG: Power Bash (Apprentice) (25 Block) & Charge! (Adept) (50 Block)
- Ordinator: Deflect Arrows (30 Block) & Dominion (50 Block)
- SPERG Ordinator Combined: Power Bash (Apprentice) (25 Block) & Charge! (Adept) (50 Block)
- Requiem: Strong Grip (15 Block) & Elemental Protection (50 Block)
- SkyPerk Overhaul: Deflect Arrows (30 Block) & Elemental Protection 1/3 (50 Block)
- Else: books have been added to the world that will provide the necessary requirements