Description

I created this staff replacer mod to spice things up for my current playthrough. This mod was designed with my Evolving Blood Mage Staves and Evolving Elemental Staves mods in mind to give more customizability to a few of the staves that your mages might use in Fashion Age 2 Dragon Age 2.

Here's a list of the specific staves that this mod affects, see the uploaded pictures for more details:

• Architect's Legacy and Stone's Breath
• Crooked Staff and Apostate Staff
• Hubris, The Hypnotist's Staff, Acolyte's Staff and Free Man's Staff
• Sting, The Tiger's Tail and The Turncoat's Walking Stick
• The Magister's Scythe
• Voracity and Valdasine
• Malcolm's Honor
• Cold-Blooded and The Final Thought
  

Be warned though, the game will often reuse a particular staff's mesh for several different staves, for instance, using the staff replacer for The Hypnotist Staff will also affect the Acolyte's Staff and Hubris - it's just how the game was designed and can't be helped. With this mod, my other mods, the other texture replacers on the Nexus and some creativity, you can make some interesting creations for thematic builds.

This mod DOES a few things:

• It swaps the meshes of a few of the staves for more variety
• It ensures that the meshes know which vanilla textures to use
• It ensures that the meshes have the appropriate collision and weapons sounds (slashing sounds for attacking enemies in melee) that match its swapped mesh
  

This mod DOES NOT:

• Edit any of the GDA files to achieve the mesh swaps
• Edit the textures for the staves
• Introduce new staff meshes to the game
• Edit any of the stats on the staves
• Cause enemies to instantly die when they see you coming
  

Requirements

The mod will require any DLCs and/or Bonus Item Packs that the modded staves, the unique staves and/or two-handed weapons (that were used as templates) belonged to, as this mod doesn't package any of their custom textures.


Installation

After extracting the mod's zip file you will find 57 ERF files - with a wide range of options for the appearance of the staves listed above. You can pick and choose which ones you would like to use in your game, however, you can only use ONE ERF file per staff type. Copy and paste the ERF file for whichever staff or staves that you decide to replace into the override folder, which is typically found in the following directory:

C:\Users\"User X"\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2\packages\core\override


Mid Game Installation

Seeing that this is simply a mesh replacer you can install this at any point in time without the need of any additional tools like Waddi.


Updating

Simply copy and paste any of the ERF file(s) that were updated.


Uninstallation

Simply remove the ERF file(s) from your override folder.


Mod Compatibility

You can use other mods that edit the textures of the staves alongside this mod as long as you allow them to load before this mod or load my mod last. What do I mean by that? The game loads ERF files in your override alphabetically (or from the top of the list to the bottom). Knowing this, you can rename the ERF file name for this mod to ensure it gets loaded last which will allow it to overwrite any possible mesh edits done by mods higher up on the ERF list. For instance, adding a "Z" at the start of the ERF file name will likely ensure that this mod overwrites any possible mesh changes done by any of your installed texture replacers.

However, if you decide to store each of your ERF files within their own folders instead of directly dropping them into the override folder then you may need to rename the folders instead of the actual ERF files to ensure this mod gets loaded last. In any case, you may need to experiment with a combination of either or even both methods as everyone's set up is different. Here's a few mods that you can use as texture replacers for the staves:

• Glowing Weapon Retex
• Monoglow Weapon Recolors
• Ream-Ward Color Set
  

Recommended Mods

Here's a few more mods that I recommend, of course, you don't need any of them for this mod to work:

• A Gibbed Dragon Age Save Generator for Dragon Age 2
• Backpack Mod - Inventory Increase
• Blood Magic Bonus from Items Increased
• DA2 Epilogue Restoration and Fixes
• Darker Robes
• Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD
• Import Vault Fixes
• No More Bloody Teeth
• NPC Bloodmage Spells
• Unobtainable items Fix
• Valuable Junk
• Waddi - Please note that you will need to enable console commands first before using this mod.
  

Shout-out to Ninja Flips and AreleX for inspiring me to play my blood mage and making their awesome Dragon Age content.