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About this mod
Spells don't scale with character level. Stronger early spells, reasonable late game spells. With tons of minor improvements for spellcasters.
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Kab's Unleveled Spells
Removes level-scaling from spells, in addition to some other magic overhauls.
Now on UESP! See https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells
Features
Background
Balancing spell power and cost has been in my sights since I released Skilled Spells, but the scaling part of spells ended up being not very interesting in the way it's implemented in Daggerfall. The difference in cost between a "+1" or a "+1 per level" is always going to have a tipping point where one is more "value-cost efficient" for your level, so low-level characters will take the former and high-level characters the latter. There's no point in mixing them, like you'd expect from a AD&D spell.
So, this mod just removes the level scaling from spells, like the later Elder Scrolls games did. With this, I can just give the effect itself a cost: 50 damage is always worth 50 damage, 35% chance is always worth 35% chance. I couldn't just keep the classic values for spell effect costs - some spells would have just been completely unviable for what they do. So I redid lots of it to make expensive effects cheaper (I didn't make strong effects like Free Action more expensive yet, we'll see about that).
But redoing all the spells to have a fixed strength also affects enemies. When I first tested my mod, the level 2 imps in Privateer's Hold would consistently one-shot me with Toxic Cloud, which now has its level 8 strength at all times. So, I've had to give all spellcasting enemies custom spells too: they should have the same average strength as classic, with the same range and element, except with maybe a bit less variance (ie: min damage higher, max damage lower). Class enemies (ex: Mages, Healers, Sorcerers, ...) all use the same spells as the player gets from the spell vendor, no cheating there.
Since I was in the process of editing all the spells in the game, I also fixed icons and descriptions. They should be more useful than classic at least.
Latest changes
1.0
- Fixed compatibility with mods that add new enemies (Daggerfall Enemy Expansion)
- Fixed spell effect editor Magnitude sometimes being improperly capped at 20 (or improperly not capped)
- Changed enemy spell names (can be observed by hovering the icon in the pause menu after being hit by a spell)
- Increased costs of "Unleveled" Lock and Open
- Adjusted the cost formula for "Continuous Damage" and "Regenerate". They are now equivalent to the direct versions at 1 round duration, and become much cheaper the more you split damage/healing over time
- Increased many spell durations. Most buffs last 10 rounds (1 minute), elemental Resist and Spell Absorption/Reflection last 5, paralysis and silence lasts 3. This affects magic items
0.2.5
- Fixed guards accidentally having the Wizard Rend spell.
0.2.3
- Fixed launch issues on Linux
- Made the Open and Lock spells unleveled. They now use a Magnitude for lock level rather than a Chance to cast.
- Added "spell migration" system. When a mod compatibility is detected, or when the Unleveled Spells settings are changed, your spellbook will be modified to take this into account. Mod compatibility migrations only occur on new characters. Settings migrations can be done at any time, even during gameplay.
- Added compatibility with Roleplay&Realism: Items' setting "skillBasedStartingSpells". All your new skill-based starting spells will be modified, when creating a new character, to have their fixed level 1-3 strength, depending on the spell.
0.2.1
- Added magic school in spell effect descriptions
- Fixed classic rest spell points recovery not being disabled while real-time magic regen is enabled
0.2
- Added (optional) constant spell point regeneration. Every round, some spell points will be recovered, depending on Willpower.
- Holding SHIFT while changing Duration, Chance, or Magnitude in the Spellmaker will now increase/decrease the value by 10
Compatibility
Conclusion
This is a pretty stable early release, most feedback has been positive so far. All forms of feedback, on any aspect of the mod, are welcome. Please report any issue you see on the Nexus page, in the dfworkshop forums, the Github, or directly on Discord.
Source code: https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells
Spell list: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells/Spells
Spell effect costs: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells/Spell_Effects
Enemy spells (before and after): https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells/blob/main/Scripts/UnleveledEnemySpells.cs
Feature manual: https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells (see README)
Removes level-scaling from spells, in addition to some other magic overhauls.
Now on UESP! See https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells
Features
- No level-scaling on spells. Fireball does the same thing at level 1 and at level 20.
- Affects player spells, enemy spells (no more 20 rounds long paralyzis effects), and magic items - but not potions
- Spell effect costs overhauled. The classic values were too expensive to leave intact without the crazy level scaling to abuse
- Spell descriptions reworked to remove the "scaling" elements from the text, as well as other legacy mismatches between description and actual effect
- Spell icons have been redone to have more diversity, and to more easily identify the element of an offensive spell (red=fire, yellow=shock, etc...)
- Enemies have been given unique spells in order to keep the same power as classic, in most cases
- Compatible with your existing playthrough, if you're okay with wiping your entire spellbook and filling it up again
Background
Balancing spell power and cost has been in my sights since I released Skilled Spells, but the scaling part of spells ended up being not very interesting in the way it's implemented in Daggerfall. The difference in cost between a "+1" or a "+1 per level" is always going to have a tipping point where one is more "value-cost efficient" for your level, so low-level characters will take the former and high-level characters the latter. There's no point in mixing them, like you'd expect from a AD&D spell.
So, this mod just removes the level scaling from spells, like the later Elder Scrolls games did. With this, I can just give the effect itself a cost: 50 damage is always worth 50 damage, 35% chance is always worth 35% chance. I couldn't just keep the classic values for spell effect costs - some spells would have just been completely unviable for what they do. So I redid lots of it to make expensive effects cheaper (I didn't make strong effects like Free Action more expensive yet, we'll see about that).
But redoing all the spells to have a fixed strength also affects enemies. When I first tested my mod, the level 2 imps in Privateer's Hold would consistently one-shot me with Toxic Cloud, which now has its level 8 strength at all times. So, I've had to give all spellcasting enemies custom spells too: they should have the same average strength as classic, with the same range and element, except with maybe a bit less variance (ie: min damage higher, max damage lower). Class enemies (ex: Mages, Healers, Sorcerers, ...) all use the same spells as the player gets from the spell vendor, no cheating there.
Since I was in the process of editing all the spells in the game, I also fixed icons and descriptions. They should be more useful than classic at least.
Latest changes
1.0
- Fixed compatibility with mods that add new enemies (Daggerfall Enemy Expansion)
- Fixed spell effect editor Magnitude sometimes being improperly capped at 20 (or improperly not capped)
- Changed enemy spell names (can be observed by hovering the icon in the pause menu after being hit by a spell)
- Increased costs of "Unleveled" Lock and Open
- Adjusted the cost formula for "Continuous Damage" and "Regenerate". They are now equivalent to the direct versions at 1 round duration, and become much cheaper the more you split damage/healing over time
- Increased many spell durations. Most buffs last 10 rounds (1 minute), elemental Resist and Spell Absorption/Reflection last 5, paralysis and silence lasts 3. This affects magic items
0.2.5
- Fixed guards accidentally having the Wizard Rend spell.
0.2.3
- Fixed launch issues on Linux
- Made the Open and Lock spells unleveled. They now use a Magnitude for lock level rather than a Chance to cast.
- Added "spell migration" system. When a mod compatibility is detected, or when the Unleveled Spells settings are changed, your spellbook will be modified to take this into account. Mod compatibility migrations only occur on new characters. Settings migrations can be done at any time, even during gameplay.
- Added compatibility with Roleplay&Realism: Items' setting "skillBasedStartingSpells". All your new skill-based starting spells will be modified, when creating a new character, to have their fixed level 1-3 strength, depending on the spell.
0.2.1
- Added magic school in spell effect descriptions
- Fixed classic rest spell points recovery not being disabled while real-time magic regen is enabled
0.2
- Added (optional) constant spell point regeneration. Every round, some spell points will be recovered, depending on Willpower.
- Holding SHIFT while changing Duration, Chance, or Magnitude in the Spellmaker will now increase/decrease the value by 10
Compatibility
- If you use Hotkey Bar, upgrade to 0.6 (or above)
- Mods that change spells will be overwritten.
- Can be used on an existing playthrough, but you must empty and refill your spellbook yourself
- Basic Magic Regen must not be used with the spell point regeneration setting of this mod. Pick one.
Conclusion
This is a pretty stable early release, most feedback has been positive so far. All forms of feedback, on any aspect of the mod, are welcome. Please report any issue you see on the Nexus page, in the dfworkshop forums, the Github, or directly on Discord.
Source code: https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells
Spell list: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells/Spells
Spell effect costs: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/DFU_Mod:Kab%27s_Unleveled_Spells/Spell_Effects
Enemy spells (before and after): https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells/blob/main/Scripts/UnleveledEnemySpells.cs
Feature manual: https://github.com/KABoissonneault/DFU-UnleveledSpells (see README)