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A massive gameplay overhaul powered by the extensive capabilities of MWSE Lua, coming with several new game mechanics like critical hits, semi-active blocking and dashing, as well as an Oblivion-esque perk system and a complete re-imagination of Morrowind's races and birthsigns, with the goal to make your choices matter throughout the entire game.

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POWER FANTASY beta version 0.91

Welcome to a modernized Morrowind gameplay experience, coming with massive additions to races, birthsigns and skills, as well as new gameplay elements such as critical hits, status effects, dashing, semi-active blocking, and much, much more...

As of Febuary 2023, after a long hiatus, I'm finally maintaining this mod again.
My main focus will be to purge its current functional issues and bugs and stream-line the script, mostly for quality of life.

Disclaimer: Power Fantasy is a MASSIVE overhaul and only comes in three parts with few custom MCM options in its current iteration. It's decently compatible with most other gameplay mods, but still lacks proper modularity and customizability. Also, it still has some issues and sometimes acts wonkily. As of now, consider this a hard work in progress.


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D O C U M E N T A T I O N
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Here, I haven't included every minute change down to the last bit. If something is unclear, please let me know. I have moved more detailed module descriptions to the articles section, so you don't have to scroll like a maniac to reach the bottom of this page. The formatting of some articles still leaves some to be desired though...

Core module

This one acts as a baseline for the other modules to expand upon. It contains the bulk of gameplay tweaks, the MCM menu and additions to creatures and can run on its own, if you so desire.

Articles:



Races & Birthsigns module

Just like the name of this mod suggests, the design of its races and birthsigns puts great emphasis on their powers and uniqueness. Instead of powers just being glorified 0-cost spells, that fall off quickly when progressing through the game, they now act as 'ultimate' abilities that bring great advantages to the table you wouldn't get otherwise. The same is true for most of the passive additions.

In the late game of vanilla Morrowind, it was almost irrelevant from a gameplay perspective what kind of race or birthsign you picked at the start. That has changed entirely. Your choice now matters throughout the entire playthrough. Some abilities become even more relevant the further you progress.

You may also note, that I went for a more uniform skill bonus distribution, with every race having seven different skill bonuses of +5. Races do have their unique advantages, but skill bonuses by themselves are not really a good way to emphasize that, which is why I tuned them down a notch. Attribute bonuses have the same issue, by the way.

Some general features:

  • Maximum Magicka bonuses have been nerfed across the board, since I pretty much expect you to play with some form of magicka regeneration, which makes large magicka pools less of a necessity
  • Most powers and some passives scale with level (their ingame tooltips display magnitudes according to your current level)
    • Note: For this documentation's puposes, if you see a magnitude range, for example Shield 25 – 75 pts for Bretons, it actually means that it gets stronger with level, and doesn't designate a random magnitude like it's usually the case with Morrowind. The second number describes the effect's magnitude at level 50. Most effects like this will also scale beyond that.
  • Player power cooldown scales with level, beginning from 24 ingame hours, capped at a minimum of 8 hours at Level 50
  • Few powers last over (ingame) hours, which makes their duration directly dependent on your timescale setting
  • NPCs also gain birthsign abilities (according to their class to keep it simple)
  • The higher their level, the more likely it is that they will use their powers(!)
  • Behold the synergies!

Articles:



Skills module

I've added special perks to skills, much similar to TES IV: Oblivion. However, in my attempt to make them as meaningful and unique as I can, I had to cut it down to three perks per skill. I may easily come up with a dozen Destruction perks, okay, but with skills like Mysticism, Speechcraft or Block, that isn't the case, without watering down the impact of individual perks. So the layout is as follows:

  • Apprentice: Level 30
  • Journeyman: Level 60
  • Expert: Level 90

This also has the benefit of providing Expert perks to a wider range of NPCs. A lot of perks will be accessible to them, and even to creatures!

Most lower level talents will scale with skill level to keep them relevant later on.

The Skills module is also the main hub for 'status effects'. These are mostly related to physical combat, can be resisted by Sanctuary (only) and communicate the following on-hit effects to the player:

  • Bleeding: 20% of incoming damage as Damage Health for 5 secs, dispels currently active Restore Health effects on the target; Undead, Atronachs and Centurions are immune
  • Slow: Drain Speed, Athletics and Acrobatics 100 pts for 5 secs; Can't stack
  • Daze: Blind and Noise 50% for 5 secs; Can't stack
  • Knockdown: Target briefly kneels and can't cast or attack for ~3 secs; Can't stack (custom limit)
  • Maximum Health Damage: Instantaneous Damage Health effects of Axe Expert and Short Blade Expert perks
  • Armor Penetration: Special Disintegrate Armor effects of Blunt Weapon Apprentice and Hand-to-Hand Apprentice perks
  • Damage Weapon: Special Disintegrate Weapon effect of Heavy Armor Apprentice perk

[Highly WIP] I attempted to re-arrange magic schools for the perk system and make them more distinct from one another. However, after some testing and feedback, this change didn't benefit the overall game balance very much, clashes with the original feel and lore of Morrowind and also makes Power Fantasy incompatible with lots of other magic-related mods.
Hence why the following changes are to be reverted in future versions, alongside according perk adjustments. Still, the magic schools currently look as follows:

  • Destruction: Damage X, Drain X, Frost/Fire/Shock Damage, Poison, Weakness to X, Disintegrate Armor/Weapon, Blind, Noise, Burden, Paralyze, Silence
  • Alteration: Shield, Feather, Fire/Frost/Lightning Shield, Fortify X, Resist X, Spell Absorption, Reflect Magic, Sanctuary
  • Conjuration: Summon X, Bound X, Soultrap
  • Mysticism: Detect X, Divine/Almsivi Intervention, Mark, Recall, Telekinesis, Levitate, Swift Swim, Waterbreathing, Waterwalking, Jump, Slowfall, Lock, Open, Nighteye, Light
  • Illusion: Calm, Frenzy, Demoralize, Rally, Command X, Charm, Invisibility, Chameleon
  • Restoration: Cure X, Restore X, Absorb X, Dispel, Turn Undead

Articles:



General Feel and Design Implications

With the additions of dashing, various on-hit effects, critical hits, loads of other damage modifiers and unique powers, the combat experience turns out more fast-paced and tactical, as well as less predictable and rigid. Late game perks expand on your combat toolkit and utility skills will bring great enhancements for your general convenience.

Although I tried my best to balance the drastically increased power level of the player versus the environment by making most new mechanics accessible to creatures and NPCs as well, in Power Fantasy's current iteration, the game tends to be a bit easier in the early on. On the other hand, adjusting game difficulty now works in a more subtle way, instead of only making combat more tedious, so I'd suggest to increase it to your liking.

In the long run however, the odds are going to even out, with enemies getting more and more powerful as well. They will rain down on-hit effects on you, so it would be wise to have some form of 'control', like paralyze, knockdown, daze, blind or noise, as well as dispel in your arsenal. High level mages with their ability to stun-lock and pull off combos on you, or assassins with their immense burst potential have proven to be particularly challenging, apart from the usual two-handed-weapon-wielding warriors, who will be quite threatening throughout the entire game.

Some further advice I'd like to give is, that, even if you've planned a glass cannon build, you should have at least some form of 'last resort' defense and mobility up your sleeve. Enemies can and will overpower you in certain situations, so it's quite vital to be well prepared for that (in other words, retreat and run for your dear life, at least temporarily). On another note, if you want to go for a melee-focused build: Unless you've opted for very high mobility, having some ranged damage/control option in your arsenal certainly won't hurt. Otherwise, some opponents might have the potential to out-control and/or out-maneuver you, so keep that in mind.

You might have the obvious question on your mind:

Does Power Fantasy aim to make Morrowind more like Skyrim/Oblivion?

Well, although that wasn't really a specific goal of mine, with its somewhat modern orientation and the introduction of similar mechanics from later Elder Scrolls titles, this question is quite valid. The answer is:

Kind of.

I wouldn't totally deny that, however, at its core, it still is Morrowind with all its weirdness and freedom. I've hoped to add onto that with a greater variety of 'viable' character build options. Plus, you can still greatly influence it by either gimping your character or exploiting the magic system and AI, depending on your roleplaying approach. I didn't focus much on those, because a) there already are lots of other mods taking care of that and b) it's part of Morrowind's janky charme, arguably.

If I had to summarize my overall design approach in one sentence, I would bluntly put it like this:

Power Fantasy aims to offer a gameplay experience with everything your inner twelve-year-old desires.

Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but my number one priority indeed was to make the game more fun simply by introducing some very bold ideas, hence the name 'Power Fantasy'. While staying conscious of the implications, I certainly want to improve on potential imbalances in the future.


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T E C H N I C A LS T U F F
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Incompatibilities

I'd advise against loading the following mods along with this one unless you want to create some Cronenberg-esque gameplay loadout. Note, that this isn't a 100% comprehensive list. There might be more out there that I'm not aware of right now, so please let me know, if you stumble upon an issue related to Power Fantasy in conjunction with other mods...

Note, that most of the stuff not related to Races and Birthsigns isn't necessarily incompatible in a game- or mod-breaking sense. They just have overlapping features.

Core module incompatibilities:


Skills module incompatibilities:


Races & Birthsigns module incompatibilities:

Well, these ones are pretty obvious and there are many, but I'll name a few...


Also note, that Power Fantasy doesn't (yet) support non-vanilla modded races, like for example the additional races provided by Tamriel Rebuilt.


Highly recommended mods

These are my favorite gameplay additions you could/should run alongside Power Fantasy. It's been specifically tested and adjusted to run alongside those.


Supported mods

I've made some out-of-the-box adjustments to the following to match Power Fantasy's additions. You don't need to worry about anything when running or not running those. The script seamlessly takes care of that.


For now, this mostly relates to Power Fantasy's summoning restriction and bound item changes.


Installation and Setup

Requirements:

  • Morrowind Code Patch; Run all fixes, but also, few of its 'Game Mechanics' settings will be mandatory for Power Fantasy to work as intended, and my script will pester you when loading the game without them:
    • Twohanded weapon removes shield
    • Fortify maximum health
    • Exhaust NPCs with Damage Fatigue
    • Strength-based hand to hand damage
    • Detect life spell variant
  • MGE XE (update MWSE regularly!)
  • Magicka Expanded Framework
  • If you plan on playing Khajiit or The Tower birthsign, Enhanced Detection (Lite) is highly recommended

Once that's been taken care of, just drop the contents of Power Fantasy in your Morrowind/Data Files and press overwrite when prompted.

You definitely need to activate the Power Fantasy – Core module.ESP. The other two can be activated or deactivated to your heart's content, although I'd really like you to load all modules. ;-) Load order doesn't matter.

If you plan on using Marksman with the Skills module, you should free up your right mouse button for the Journeyman perk. I don't know yet how to customize mouse buttons via MCM...

I should note, that Power Fantasy has been designed around capped skill and attribute maximum values of 100. But if you insist on uncapping your stats, it shouldn't break anything majorly (no guarantee though).

I also like to use Swift Casting, since combat is a bit snappier now, but you do you...

I'd recommend to start a new game when you install Power Fantasy for the first time. I won't guarantee 100% functionality in case you don't.
Uninstalling the whole thing or individual modules should be fine, apart from some negligible error messages.

If you want to uninstall Power Fantasy, delete the ESP files, Data Files/MWSE/mods/Neph/Power Fantasy and Data Files/Icons/pwrFntsy.


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B U C K E TL I S T
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This project is arguably very ambitious for a newcomer to the Morrowind modding scene, like me. It's far from over, indeed it just began... There's a whole lot I'm eager to improve later down the line. I'd highly appreciate every comment and criticism.

General feedback topics and information I'd like to gather:

  • How it appeals to you, not only ingame, but also how it's represented here
  • Bugs of course; If you encounter one, please describe in detail how to reproduce it
  • If something feels too strong, too weak or just not right, please let me know
  • Typos and text style; I'm not a native English speaker, so if you've got a knack for that language and have suggestions, even regarding the names of powers, I'm all ears

Stuff I'd like to do in the future (roughly in order of priority):

  • Optimize the script for improved customizability and compatibility, as well as easier maintenance
  • Tweaks to spell base costs and skill progression
  • Unique sound effects for powers and certain perks
  • More Magicka Expanded support
  • OAAB support (mainly creatures)
  • TR support (creatures, classes, races, …)
  • Support for popular quest mods (creatures and classes)
  • Support for other mods adding new classes to NPCs (like Friends and Foes(?)...)
  • Special artifact effects and proper mage equipment
  • Maybe, proper tooltips for mind control (God, I hate UI scripting)
  • Maybe, just maybe, unique visual effects for powers and some perks
  • Maybe some new spell effects like blood magic and elemental novas


Known issues:

See Bugs section.


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C R E D I T S
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Well, it's somewhat vanilla to thank Bethesda for creating Morrowind, but there's no other fantasy RPG this unique, alien and beautifully crafted, and with this much freedom. IMO still the best entry of the Elder Scrolls series.

The devs of MWSE contributed big time to Morrowind's exceedingly long life-span and make projects like this possible in the first place.
Speaking of which, much thanks to NullCascade and Greatness7 for helping me out with a lot of questions and issues. I also used a snippet from UI Expansion to correctly display dynamic power cooldowns.

Much thanks to Archimag/Axemagister as well, who (unwittingly) contributed quite a bit to this project by being a badass modder. Power Fantasy includes specifically adapted snippets from Kick Master, N'wah Shooter and Fast Cast. I've also learned from methods used in Final Strike, Frenzy N'wahs and Auramancer to integrate similar mechanics.

In general, Power Fantasy wouldn't have been possible without the cumulative work of countless modders, who contributed to the bulk of lua scripts for others like me to learn how to do stuff.

Then there's EnaiSiaion, who isn't really related to Morrowind modding, but who inspired me the most, when it comes to designing the gameplay elements for this mod.

Thanks to Necrolesian for his advice on Enchanting.

Shout out to Operator Jack, too. His Magicka Expanded Framework was the saving grace for implementing the new Dunmer power the way I envisioned it.

Last, but not least, I'd also like to thank JaceyS, whose icons resource I used as a base for the rearranged magic schools.