Lore Friendly Birthsign Rebalancing
By Half11

Version: 1.0

=========
Contents
=========
1. Description
2. Requirements
3. Installation
4. Incompatibilities
5. Changelog
6. Permissions
7. Contact
8. Credits


============
Description
============
I was not completely satisfied with the birthsign rebalancing mods that are available for Morrowind. Yet I wanted the choice for the sign your character is born under to be a well thought out consideration. Another wish of mine was to balance the ingame birthsigns in a way that makes sense to their lore (the book The Firmament) and in accordance with the existing ones (e.g. no fortifying skills abilities, no resistance). As a bonus I have made the full birthsign descriptions visible when you hover over them in the UI.

Birthsigns which I considerd overpower (2) have been nerfed. Birthsigns which I considerd underpowered (5) have been buffed. Birthsigns which I considerd balanced (6) have remained untouched.*


Nerfes
*******
The Atronach:
In Morrowind the Atronach is completely broken. The disadvantage of Stunted Magicka is not as big a tradeoff as it is in Oblivion. This is because Morrowind doesn't have constant magicka regeneration, whereby only the possibility of regeneration by resting is taken away. It's not the massive magicka boost what makes this birthsign overpowered, but the 50% Spell Absorption. Every time a spell hits you, there's a 50% chance that it will do absolutely nothing. For these reasons, I chose to half the Spell Absorption.
*Cloak Wombburn - Now gives Spell Absorption 25% (Instead of 50%)

The Lady:
The Lady is overpowered because of one reason: hit points per level. Each time you level up, your Endurance is divided by 10 and this value is added to your current maximum. This bonus health gain from leveling up is not retroactive. Therefore, it is most advantageous to build up Endurance early on. Therefore in the long run the Fortify Endurance 25 pts grants you a boost to your maximum health. The Fortify Endurance is clearly what made this birthsign overpowered, so removing this seemed to me this best solution. This change is not in conflict with the in-game discription ('Those born under the sign of the Lady are kind and tolerant'). To do justice to its original state (being the only birthsign that grants you a 50 attributes boost), I decided to change the Endurance boost to Willpower, since this makes some sense to the in-game discription about tolerance
(the WILLingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with).
*Lady's Grace - Now Fortifies Willpower 25 pts (Instead of Endurance 25 pts)


Buffs
******
The Ritual:
The Ritual just falls within the category underpowered birthsigns. It's not straight out bad and great for roleplaying purposes because of its Turn Undead spells, but far from good when compared with most other birthsigns. Just like Oblivion did, I doubled the healing power of Mara's Gift to make it a decent lifesaver in critical situations.
*Mara's Gift - Restore Health 200 pts on Self (Instead of 100 pts)

The Tower:
The Tower also just falls within the category underpowered birthsigns, although it is a favorite for many. It's Beggar's Nose spell (Detect Animal / Key / Enchantment for 60 secs in 200 ft) is pretty unique and can guarantee an interesting playthrough. Tower Key (Open 50 pts on Touch) however is just a mediocre Power that can be easily replaced with spells or scrolls early in the game. I have decided to increase Tower Key's power to 80 (100 seems to much because it takes away the experience of encountering high locks).
*Tower Key - Open 80 pts on Touch (Instead of 50 pts)

The Serpent:
Here we have an interesting one. The Serpent's Star Curse is a spell that deals 90 damage over 30 seconds (on Touch), but comes with the drawback of damaging the player also. This spell can be usefull when you encounter a tough opponent. Ideally, you would cast this and retreat. The problem is that the spell is not that strong that it necessitates a drawback. In addition, this birthign comes with no other bonuses, making it easily outshined by other birthsigns. Bethesda revisited The Serpent in Oblivion. Damage to the player was replaced with a more forgiving damage to fatigue, and they added the positive effects of Cure Poison and Dispel on Self. This did not help however. In Oblivion players still regarded this birthign as one of the worst. This is a shame because it is one of the more interesting ones when it comes to lore ('The Serpent wanders about in the sky and has no Season, though its motions are predictable to a degree. No characteristics are common to all who are born under the sign of the Serpent. Those born under this sign are the most blessed and the most cursed.'). Simply taking over Oblivions implementation of The Serpent would therefore make little sense. That is why I came up with the following idea: adding Oblivion's Cure Poison and Dispel on Self to the spell as a SEPERATED Power. By making it seperated it's more useful. This way The Serpent grants the player a "cursed" damage spell, and a "blessed" cure Power. These two together reflect the aspects of being 'the most blessed and the most cursed' in a nice way. The original Star Curse spell is left untouched.
*Serpent�s Blood - Cure Poison on Self, Dispel 90 points on Self

The Shadow:
I have considered to add a Fortify Personality 25 pts to this birthsign to buff it, because this is the Governing Attribute of Illusion magic which includes camouflage and invisibility ('The Shadow grants those born under her sign the ability to hide in shadows'). However, I stumbled on two problems with this. First, the Power to become invisible once a day is the most useful for character builds that don't invest in Illusion magic. This Power is worthless when you can simply cast a similar spell without much effort. Second, The Lady already has Fortify Personality 25 pts. Adding this also to The Shadow seems boring and won't benefit thought out considerations when creation your character.
Another consideration was buffing the duration of Moonshadow from 60 to 90 seconds. However this still doesn't take this Birthign to the power level of the other birthsigns. From the idea that this birthsign is most ideal for stealth characters that don't invest in Illusion magic, I have decided to add a cheap long duration Chameleon spell (like The Lord's Blood of the North and The Tower's Beggar's Nose). This does makes sense to the in-game discription of 'hidding in the shadows'. The values are inspired by Oblivion's Shadow Stone.
*Cloak - Chameleon 15% for 120 seconds (Cost 15)

The Lord:
Hands down the worst birthsign in Bethesda's history. Although it can be argued that this was implanted for the sake of a challenging playthrough, the permanent Weakness to Fire 100% on Self (one of the most common forms of damage in the game) was never an accepted trade-off for what the Blood of the North spell has to offer. Still the purpose of this mod is to make it a worthy consideration. Just like Bethesda decided to do in Oblivion, I also reduced the Weakness to Fire to 25%. Ideally, pure melee characters (the type of character that isn't able to afford proper healing magic otherwise) can use The Lord for the healing ability of the Blood of the North spell.
*Trollkin - Weakness to Fire 25% (Instead of 100%)


*For those who wonder, the balance changes were based on these tiers and rankings, which in turn were based on my own experience and what I have read on several forums:

***Overpowered***
#1 The Atronach
#2 The Lady

***Balanced***
#3 The Apprentice
#4 The Lover
#5 The Thief
#6 The Steed
#7 The Mage
#8 The Warrior

***Underpowered***
#9 The Ritual
#10 The Tower
#11 The Serpent
#12 The Shadow
#13 The Lord


=============
Requirements
=============
Morrowind


=============
Installation
=============
Copy the .ESP file into your Morrowind\Data Files folder. Activate the mod in the Morrowind launcher under the Data Files tab.


==================
Incompatibilities
==================
This mod will conflict with other mods that change the original birthsigns. Should be fully compatible with chargen overhauls.


==========

Changelog

==========

Version 1.0
- Initial release.


============
Permissions
============
I've had some unpleasant experiences this past few weeks with people who unsolicited spread my mods in compilations without asking for permission, to then make me out for antisocial or to get people to support them financially (Gilpow, Timothy Butterworth). I believe that this damages the community, at least my will to mod. Because of this I feel compelled to be careful about giving my permission for using my work, especially when it comes to compilations.

You are not allowed to convert/alter/modify/translate/improve/commercial use/use assets from or reupload this file to other sites under any circumstances without my permission. This mod can be freely translated into other languages with my blessings however, as long as credit is given to me as the original creator.


========
Contact
========
Discord: Half11 #2779

Morrowind Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/users/36879320/?


========
Credits
========
Thanks to Bethesda Softworks for developing Morrowind and the Construction Set.

Thanks to Brucoms for developing the TES3 Readme Generator this readme was made from.