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About this mod
Skysunder Metamagics seamlessly adds new mechanics to spellcasting. Charge your spells to knockback enemies. Share cloaks, wards etc. with nearby followers. Attempt a risky spell disarm. Reflect spells with a well-timed ward. Blink through walls for a quick escape. Pour several mage's worth of magicka into a huge fireball to blow up entire tow
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Skysunder Metamagics
Introduction
In tabletop RPGs, metamagics are abilities that allow spellcasters to alter the way they cast their spells, gaining increased spell power, longer durations, greater range or other bonuses. This gives them greater flexibility with their magical arsenal.
Skysunder Metamagics seeks to do the same for Skyrim by introducing new gameplay mechanics that let you empower your spells and use them in entirely different and creative ways. This means more options, more tactics, more explosions and more people launched into the air by said explosions. Skysunder <3 explosions. Magic should give its users a sense of power and control, but at the same time, vulnerability - the greatest rewards are those that come with the greatest risks.
Skysunder Metamagics integrates seamlessly into the base game. It requires no configurations and has no hotkeys.
Skysunder Metamagics - Spell Charging
The Spell Charging mechanic is the core of Skysunder Metamagics. It allows the addition of powerful effects to spells without making gameplay imbalanced. Casting a spell without releasing it will increase its effectiveness while draining a proportionate amount of magicka. Spell effects and projectiles increase in size to reflect their charge level. Skill experience also increases accordingly. If magicka runs out while charging a spell, health is consumed in its stead.
That's far from everything. Multiple other features are also tied into spell charging in one way or another.
Skysunder Metamagics - High Impact Magic
In vanilla, you can drive an ice spear the size of a greatsword through a man's chest and he'd just shrug it off without even flinching. No amount of chest hair should protect you from that. All Destruction spells gain a stagger or knockback based on their charge level. You can even disarm your attacker depending on the offending weapon and your charge level if you catch them mid-swing. The catch? Spells are now interrupted by melee attacks and any magicka spent charging spells is not refunded. Greater risk for greater reward. After all, no mage should be able to facetank a warhammer without losing focus - a problem all too common in vanilla. Fists don't count. Being magically attuned and supernaturally wimpy are separately acquired traits.
Skysunder Metamagics - Ultracasting
Dual casting increases the maximum charge level for spells by tenfold. If you'd ever dreamed of casting town leveling spells, this is it. Needless to say you will face the longest cast times and highest spell costs you'd ever seen, but an ultracast spell will likely bring about swift victory to any battle that has yet to conclude by the time you actually finish the damn thing. Dual casting now carries a movement speed penalty, so bring support, like any friends you haven’t already reduced to cinders. Ultracasting Destruction spells gives you a high damage cloak after reaching a certain charge level, and eventually you will bend the very weather to the element of your spell. The impact of an Ultracast Destruction spell will be strong enough to knockdown even giants and stagger mammoths. Interrupting an Ultracast Destruction spell will result in an explosion most unpleasant for anybody involved.
Future plans: If co-op mods become a thing, I will add mechanics that will allow players to channel spells together in large spell formations to share the magicka burden and emulate the abilities of vastly stronger magi. The tears of your enemies will be enough to go around.
Skysunder Metamagics - Spell Sharing
With the power of love, dual casting self-targeted heals, buffs and wards now share their effects with surrounding NPCs within the your line of sight. Non-concentration spells additionally become "smart", only affecting non-hostiles. Sharing radius increases with charge level. Ward your followers or give the entire town invisibility so you won't have to see anyone again for a while.
Skysunder Evasion – Dodge Rolls and Blinks
Skysunder Evasion is an optional but highly recommended standalone component of Skysunder Metamagics that increases your mobility and can be used both defensively and offensively. Dodge Rolls work similar to other dodge mods without interrupting your spell charging and allows you to roll in 8 directions. Just tap your Sprint key to roll forwards. Moving before you tap Sprint lets you roll in other directions. On reaching Alteration 25, Dodge Rolls are automatically upgraded to Blink which allows you to teleport short distances, through objects and even works while casting master spells if you have the magicka. Perfect for evading thunderbolts, taxes and your ex-wife. Blink only works outdoors and will revert to Dodge Rolls while indoors.
Skysunder Metamagics - Advanced Wards
Wards now provide immunity to frontal physical attacks for the caster but breaks on a single hit. Blocking an attack this way also consumes additional magicka but the overall cost of wards is reduced. Timing a ward block right before a physical attack hits will result in a stronger stagger and disarms smaller weapons. Wards also reflect spells, shouts and mean things people say about your mother if cast right before they hit. You can direct reflected spells back at their caster or any unfortunate passersby with some aiming. If they happen to also have a ward, it is possible for others to re-reflect the spell back at you like some kind of spell tennis. When a ward breaks, nearby NPCs will recoil from the force of the shattered ward in realization that everything they said about your mother is true.
Skysunder Metamagics - Elemental Telekinesis
Telekinesis now affects people. Charge an unlucky grabbed NPC by marinating in your favorite elemental damage. The NPC will soon be exploding with flavor, elemental fury and misery... Soon after being chucked in the general direction of their friends - that is. Everyone loves a reunion.
Skysunder Metamagics - Real Explosions
In line with Skysunder's focus on intuitiveness (and love for explosions), Fireballs and Destruction Runes now blow away anyone in the blast radius including the clumsy mage who cast the thing in the first place. Don't be that guy. This also affects exploding people affected by Elemental Telekinesis - mind where you fling those guys. Fireballs and Destruction Runes now take much longer to cast.
Other Changes:
Increased the range of Lightning spells to match those of Fire and Frost.
Ice Spike and Icy Spear projectiles travel twice as fast.
Cloak and armor spells are active only in combat to preserve your shiny complexion after casting a long lasting buff.
Decreased casting time of all master spells.
Fire Storm has lower damage, spell cost and goes through walls.
Performance:
Skysunder Metamagics uses scripts that are fairly lightweight and most run only when spells are cast by the player. Personally, I've experienced no performance hit with Skysunder Metamagics on a clean install. Skysunder Evasion's Dodge Rolls are kind of lag sensitive so you may fail to dodge roll during combat if you install too many script-based mods but nothing game breaking.
Requirements:
Skysunder Metamagics
Skyrim 1.9.32.0.8+
Dawnguard
Hearthfires
Dragonborn
SKSE 1.7.3+
DienesTools 1.0+
Skysunder Evasion
Skyrim 1.9.32.0.8+
SKSE 1.7.3+
PapyrusUtil 3.0+
Recommended mods:
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch - Unofficial Patch Project Team
Fixes stuff. Skysunder carries forward any changes USLEEP makes to spells. Any conflicts reported by TES5EDIT are intended.
Open Cities Skyrim - Arthmoor
Solves some issues with Skysunder Evasion. Also lets you blow up cities without having to be actually inside them. Note that you can't nuke them from too far away since the game has a hard limit on how far it would track projectiles. The rule of thumb is if you can see people in it, you can hit it.
Realistic Ragdolls and Force (Medium Force) - dDefinder
Tweaks the physics of dead bodies to make them more believable. I recommend the Medium Force version as it is most consistent with the high impact combat of Skysunder.
D13 Faster GET UP STAND UP - DarkAngel13
If you find yourself stunlocking people/blowing yourself up too often for your tastes, this mod will help.
Ultimate HD Fire Effects - BuzzDee84
Fire texture replacer. Minor visual conflict with the fire cloak which textures it does not include but otherwise excellently crisp fire effects.
ELECTRIFY - ramccoid
It's like Ultimate HD Fire Effects for shock spells and looks great.
Lightning during Thunder Storms - Minty
Adds oomph to the stormy weather summoned when ultracasting lightning spells.
Compatibility:
Skysunder Metamagics should be compatible with anything that doesn't:
Compatibility patches will be needed for magnitude/duration scaling and stagger/knockbacks to work on new spells added by mods. Other stuff like spell sharing should work out of the box. Skysunder Evasion should be incompatible with other dodge mods, but you never know...
Stuff compatible so far:
Known Issues:
Some spells have variables that are semi-hardcoded and do not respect stuff like magnitude or area scaling. A notable example is how Blizzard's duration and radius do not increase with charge level.
Skysunder Evasion's Blink might clip you through buildings and rocks. Dodge rolls might stop working during heavy script load. (If you can't chain your blinks without pausing in between, your script load is heavy.)
Installation:
Toss into your preferred mod manager or unextract archive contents into Skyrim's directory. If you have spells equipped in your save, some features will not work until you unequip them.
Uninstallation:
Unequip your spells and save in an area where no spellcasting is taking place. Deactivate in mod manager or remove manually.
Making a compatibility patch for your favorite spell mod:
Credits:
Bethesda - Skyrim
SKSE Team - SKSE
Dienes - DienesTools
exiledviper and meh321 - PapyrusUtil
Leron9999 - Spell Charging (Skysunder Metamagics doesn't utilize his framework, but his work provided me with much needed insight.)
Introduction
In tabletop RPGs, metamagics are abilities that allow spellcasters to alter the way they cast their spells, gaining increased spell power, longer durations, greater range or other bonuses. This gives them greater flexibility with their magical arsenal.
Skysunder Metamagics seeks to do the same for Skyrim by introducing new gameplay mechanics that let you empower your spells and use them in entirely different and creative ways. This means more options, more tactics, more explosions and more people launched into the air by said explosions. Skysunder <3 explosions. Magic should give its users a sense of power and control, but at the same time, vulnerability - the greatest rewards are those that come with the greatest risks.
Skysunder Metamagics integrates seamlessly into the base game. It requires no configurations and has no hotkeys.
Skysunder Metamagics - Spell Charging
The Spell Charging mechanic is the core of Skysunder Metamagics. It allows the addition of powerful effects to spells without making gameplay imbalanced. Casting a spell without releasing it will increase its effectiveness while draining a proportionate amount of magicka. Spell effects and projectiles increase in size to reflect their charge level. Skill experience also increases accordingly. If magicka runs out while charging a spell, health is consumed in its stead.
- Illusion and reanimation spells are more viable at higher levels
- Zombies and other summonables last longer in case you happen to like their company. I'm not judging.
- Buffs like armor spells need to be recast less often.
- Most area spells have their radius increased. Think explosions, but bigger.
- Destruction spells damage charge twice as fast and twice as much, but DPS-wise is still inferior to rapid casting. What it gives you the option to initiate combat with a stronger first hit to quickly eliminate priority targets and also make use of time spent in cover to increase your damage. Charging your spells is a tactical decision.
That's far from everything. Multiple other features are also tied into spell charging in one way or another.
Skysunder Metamagics - High Impact Magic
In vanilla, you can drive an ice spear the size of a greatsword through a man's chest and he'd just shrug it off without even flinching. No amount of chest hair should protect you from that. All Destruction spells gain a stagger or knockback based on their charge level. You can even disarm your attacker depending on the offending weapon and your charge level if you catch them mid-swing. The catch? Spells are now interrupted by melee attacks and any magicka spent charging spells is not refunded. Greater risk for greater reward. After all, no mage should be able to facetank a warhammer without losing focus - a problem all too common in vanilla. Fists don't count. Being magically attuned and supernaturally wimpy are separately acquired traits.
Skysunder Metamagics - Ultracasting
Dual casting increases the maximum charge level for spells by tenfold. If you'd ever dreamed of casting town leveling spells, this is it. Needless to say you will face the longest cast times and highest spell costs you'd ever seen, but an ultracast spell will likely bring about swift victory to any battle that has yet to conclude by the time you actually finish the damn thing. Dual casting now carries a movement speed penalty, so bring support, like any friends you haven’t already reduced to cinders. Ultracasting Destruction spells gives you a high damage cloak after reaching a certain charge level, and eventually you will bend the very weather to the element of your spell. The impact of an Ultracast Destruction spell will be strong enough to knockdown even giants and stagger mammoths. Interrupting an Ultracast Destruction spell will result in an explosion most unpleasant for anybody involved.
Future plans: If co-op mods become a thing, I will add mechanics that will allow players to channel spells together in large spell formations to share the magicka burden and emulate the abilities of vastly stronger magi. The tears of your enemies will be enough to go around.
Skysunder Metamagics - Spell Sharing
With the power of love, dual casting self-targeted heals, buffs and wards now share their effects with surrounding NPCs within the your line of sight. Non-concentration spells additionally become "smart", only affecting non-hostiles. Sharing radius increases with charge level. Ward your followers or give the entire town invisibility so you won't have to see anyone again for a while.
Skysunder Evasion – Dodge Rolls and Blinks
Skysunder Evasion is an optional but highly recommended standalone component of Skysunder Metamagics that increases your mobility and can be used both defensively and offensively. Dodge Rolls work similar to other dodge mods without interrupting your spell charging and allows you to roll in 8 directions. Just tap your Sprint key to roll forwards. Moving before you tap Sprint lets you roll in other directions. On reaching Alteration 25, Dodge Rolls are automatically upgraded to Blink which allows you to teleport short distances, through objects and even works while casting master spells if you have the magicka. Perfect for evading thunderbolts, taxes and your ex-wife. Blink only works outdoors and will revert to Dodge Rolls while indoors.
Skysunder Metamagics - Advanced Wards
Wards now provide immunity to frontal physical attacks for the caster but breaks on a single hit. Blocking an attack this way also consumes additional magicka but the overall cost of wards is reduced. Timing a ward block right before a physical attack hits will result in a stronger stagger and disarms smaller weapons. Wards also reflect spells, shouts and mean things people say about your mother if cast right before they hit. You can direct reflected spells back at their caster or any unfortunate passersby with some aiming. If they happen to also have a ward, it is possible for others to re-reflect the spell back at you like some kind of spell tennis. When a ward breaks, nearby NPCs will recoil from the force of the shattered ward in realization that everything they said about your mother is true.
Skysunder Metamagics - Elemental Telekinesis
Telekinesis now affects people. Charge an unlucky grabbed NPC by marinating in your favorite elemental damage. The NPC will soon be exploding with flavor, elemental fury and misery... Soon after being chucked in the general direction of their friends - that is. Everyone loves a reunion.
Skysunder Metamagics - Real Explosions
In line with Skysunder's focus on intuitiveness (and love for explosions), Fireballs and Destruction Runes now blow away anyone in the blast radius including the clumsy mage who cast the thing in the first place. Don't be that guy. This also affects exploding people affected by Elemental Telekinesis - mind where you fling those guys. Fireballs and Destruction Runes now take much longer to cast.
Other Changes:
Increased the range of Lightning spells to match those of Fire and Frost.
Ice Spike and Icy Spear projectiles travel twice as fast.
Cloak and armor spells are active only in combat to preserve your shiny complexion after casting a long lasting buff.
Decreased casting time of all master spells.
Fire Storm has lower damage, spell cost and goes through walls.
Performance:
Skysunder Metamagics uses scripts that are fairly lightweight and most run only when spells are cast by the player. Personally, I've experienced no performance hit with Skysunder Metamagics on a clean install. Skysunder Evasion's Dodge Rolls are kind of lag sensitive so you may fail to dodge roll during combat if you install too many script-based mods but nothing game breaking.
Requirements:
Skysunder Metamagics
Skyrim 1.9.32.0.8+
Dawnguard
Hearthfires
Dragonborn
SKSE 1.7.3+
DienesTools 1.0+
Skysunder Evasion
Skyrim 1.9.32.0.8+
SKSE 1.7.3+
PapyrusUtil 3.0+
Recommended mods:
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch - Unofficial Patch Project Team
Fixes stuff. Skysunder carries forward any changes USLEEP makes to spells. Any conflicts reported by TES5EDIT are intended.
Open Cities Skyrim - Arthmoor
Solves some issues with Skysunder Evasion. Also lets you blow up cities without having to be actually inside them. Note that you can't nuke them from too far away since the game has a hard limit on how far it would track projectiles. The rule of thumb is if you can see people in it, you can hit it.
Realistic Ragdolls and Force (Medium Force) - dDefinder
Tweaks the physics of dead bodies to make them more believable. I recommend the Medium Force version as it is most consistent with the high impact combat of Skysunder.
D13 Faster GET UP STAND UP - DarkAngel13
If you find yourself stunlocking people/blowing yourself up too often for your tastes, this mod will help.
Ultimate HD Fire Effects - BuzzDee84
Fire texture replacer. Minor visual conflict with the fire cloak which textures it does not include but otherwise excellently crisp fire effects.
ELECTRIFY - ramccoid
It's like Ultimate HD Fire Effects for shock spells and looks great.
Lightning during Thunder Storms - Minty
Adds oomph to the stormy weather summoned when ultracasting lightning spells.
Compatibility:
Skysunder Metamagics should be compatible with anything that doesn't:
- Modify Aimed Destruction spell durations
- Alter vanilla spells and explosions (Spell effects are okay)
- Resize spell nodes/projectiles
- Change "LastFlattered" and "LastBribedIntimidated" actor values
Compatibility patches will be needed for magnitude/duration scaling and stagger/knockbacks to work on new spells added by mods. Other stuff like spell sharing should work out of the box. Skysunder Evasion should be incompatible with other dodge mods, but you never know...
Stuff compatible so far:
- SkyRe - Compatibility patch available.
- PerMa - Compatibility patch available.
- Requiem - Compatibility patch available.
- Ordinator - Compatible.
- Apocalypse - Compatibility patch available.
- Path of Sorcery - Compatible.
- Awakened Magicka - Compatible. Install before Skysunder Metamagics. AM's SkyRe patch should also be installed before SM's SkyRe patch if applicable.
Known Issues:
Some spells have variables that are semi-hardcoded and do not respect stuff like magnitude or area scaling. A notable example is how Blizzard's duration and radius do not increase with charge level.
Skysunder Evasion's Blink might clip you through buildings and rocks. Dodge rolls might stop working during heavy script load. (If you can't chain your blinks without pausing in between, your script load is heavy.)
Installation:
Toss into your preferred mod manager or unextract archive contents into Skyrim's directory. If you have spells equipped in your save, some features will not work until you unequip them.
Uninstallation:
Unequip your spells and save in an area where no spellcasting is taking place. Deactivate in mod manager or remove manually.
Making a compatibility patch for your favorite spell mod:
- Open Skysunder Metamagics.esp and your spell mod's .esp in TES5EDIT and add ESM into both their file headers. Backup and save.
- Load both .esp's in the Creation Kit.
- Add Skysunder[FF/Conc]<Delivery>Effect to the list of spell effects for each Player and NPC spell. It must be the LAST effect. SkysunderFFAimedEffect is for instant beam projectiles (Lightning) while SkysunderFFAimedSlowEffect is for missiles and floaty ball things (Ice Spike, Calm etc). For FFAimed* Destruction spells, set duration to 1 (this is for knockback). For ConcAimed* Destruction spells, set magnitude to 50 if it looks like it would slow an advancing enemy. For Wards to support Advanced Wards, use SkysunderWardEffect instead of SkysunderConcSelfEffect. Save and enjoy.
- Too easy.
Credits:
Bethesda - Skyrim
SKSE Team - SKSE
Dienes - DienesTools
exiledviper and meh321 - PapyrusUtil
Leron9999 - Spell Charging (Skysunder Metamagics doesn't utilize his framework, but his work provided me with much needed insight.)