Morrowind

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Sphagne

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Sphagne

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About this mod

Categorizes spells in tiers from cantrips to grand master level, depending on their magicka cost.
Higher level spells would give more experience, and even failing a spell cvould give you a bit of experience.
Depending on your mastery and spell's tier, spells might cost less, but also might be penalized if you're not ready for them.

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Permissions and credits
Changelogs
Tiered spell casting
By Sphagne, Updated July 19, 2022

What's it all about

This mod categorizes spells into mastery tiers, by their magicka cost:


1. Cantrip     < 10 magicka cost
2. Novice      < 20
3. Apprentice  < 40
4. Journeyman  < 70
5. Adept       < 110
6. Expert      < 160
7. Master      < 220
8. Grand Master, above that

Casters are also categorized into mastery tiers, by their corresponding skill level, and if a spell has more effects in different magic schools, the caster's lowest skill level is chosen, like vanilla Morrowind

Depending on the "Level uncapped game" setting in MCM Menu, for level capped games:


1. Initiate    < 15 skill level
2. Novice      < 30
3. Apprentice  < 45
4. Journeyman  < 60
5. Adept       < 75
6. Expert      < 90
7. Master      <= 100
8. Grand Master, above that

*Note that reaching grand master tier can only be achieved by boosting skill levels by any means, like passive abilities, potions, spells or enchantments

And for level uncapped games:

1. Initiate    < 15 skill level
2. Novice      < 30
3. Apprentice  < 50
4. Journeyman  < 75
5. Adept       < 100
6. Expert      < 125
7. Master      < 150
8. Grand Master, above that

*Note that this setting makes spell casting a bit harder than the level capped setting, as you have to cast lower tier spells a bit more, until you are ready for higher tier spells

Mastering the magic

These mastery tiers affect a few things:
  • If the caster’s mastery is below the spell tier, then the spell casting can be penalized, depending on the MCM setting
  • If the caster’s mastery is above the spell tier or above “Apprentice” level, then the spell can cost a bit less
  • Casting higher mastery tier spells would grant us more experience points
  • Even failing to cast spells can also give us a little bit of experience, depending on the spell tier

Spell casting penalties

If the caster’s mastery is below the spell’s mastery tier, then the spell casting can be penalized, depending on MCM settings

If “Casting Chance Penalty” is active, then for each mastery tier that the spell is above the caster’s tier, there is a %33 penalty in its vanilla casting chance

So, you would not be able to cast spells more than two mastery tier beyond your current mastery at their corresponding magic school

And if “Spell Cost Penalty” is active, then for each mastery tier that the spell is above the caster’s tier, there is a %10 percent cost penalty for the spell

So, if the caster’s mastery is “Novice” and the spell’s tier is “Adept”, then there is a %30 increase in magicka cost

We can select either, both or none of these options if we like

Spell cost reduction

If “Spell cost reduction for lower spells” is active, then for each tier that the spell is below the caster's current mastery tier, there is a %10 reduction in magicka cost

So, if the caster’s mastery is “Adept” and the spell’s tier is “Novice”, then there is a %30 cost reduction

And if
Spell cost reduction for high mastery” is active, then spells of a schools will cost less in general, if caster is experienced enough and the spell's tier is not beyond the caster's mastery, as shown on the following table

1. Initiate
2. Novice
3. Apprentice
4. Journeyman    : %10 spell cost reduction
5. Adept         : %20
6. Expert        : %30
7. Master        : %40
8. Grand Master  : %50

So, if the caster’s mastery is “Master” and the spell’s tier is “Expert”, then there is a %40 cost reduction

If both of these reduction options are active
, for each situation the higher reduction is chosen


Experience points

Casting higher mastery tier spells would grant us more experience points:


1. Cantrip      : 1 experience points
2. Novice       : 2
3. Apprentice   : 4
4. Journeyman   : 6
5. Adept        : 9
6. Expert       : 12
7. Master       : 16
8. Grand Master : 20

Even failing to cast spells can also give us a little bit of experience, if the MCM option is active:

1. Cantrip      : 0.2 experience points
2. Novice       : 0.3
3. Apprentice   : 0.5
4. Journeyman   : 0.7
5. Adept        : 1.0
6. Expert       : 1.3
7. Master       : 1.6
8. Grand Master : 2.0

Spell information tool tips

I have also added some detail to the spell tool tips, like this:

  • Spell Tier: [Tier Name]                XP per (successful) cast: #xp
  • Caster Mastery: [Mastery]

Then if there is a boost or penalty in effect, one or two of the following lines may be appended to the tooltip:

  • Spell cost reduction: [A percentage]
  • Spell cost penalty: [A percentage]
  • Casting chance penalty: [Moderate, Severe, or Impossible]

These are only added to spell tool tips, not powers and abilities, as the effects are also only applied to the spells

Credits and the process

I use a lot of mods in my Morrowind games, and recently I have tried a lot of Lua based mods, because they are clean and powerful, including these great mods:

.
Equipment Requirements
is a great mod and is highly recommended, and it penalizes the usage of higher-level equipment, as we are also penalized with casting chances of higher-level spells, even in vanilla Morrowind

It forces us to work our way to the expertise level required for their usage, with less powerful gear, or we could endure the penalties, if we really need to use them when we are not ready for them

When I used that mod, I thought that a similar mod for magic would be interesting and I tried a lot of Lua based magic mods and liked them a lot, but they were not what I really wanted

So, I decided to make a combined magic mod and took bits and pieces from those great mods, but altered them to fit my ideas and added a lot of my own ideas into the mix, and this mod is the result

In v2.0, I took the MCM part of the great mod Expeditious Exit by NullCascade, and altered it to make an MCM menu for this mod

Thanks Nibenon76 for improvement ideas

In V3.0 I added a lot more MCM options

Compatibility

This mod is not compatible with any of the four magic mods that inspired me into making it, because of overlapped functionalities

I.e, do not use this with Tiered Magicka, Circinates, Magicka Mastery and Magicka Based Skill Progression, or any other similar mods

Optional Files

I have included another file Fargoth Plus.ESP that you can activate in the Data Files folder which does the following:

  • Fargoth has now some money and items for trade
  • He can also teach some useful beginner cantrips in all the magic schools, to help our character exercise in those schools, from the beginning

You can place it at the beginning of your load order, and maybe use TES3Merge to merge it with other mods and remove some incompatibilities

Change Log

  • July 15, 2022, Initial release
  • July 17, 2022, Added MCM, capped/uncapped setting and spell penalty choices
  • July 19, 2022, Added MCM options for almost all the aspects of the mod, fixed some bugs



Todo

Note that I use a lot of mods that affect my game balance, like uncapped leveling, Morrowind Rebirth, Mort's Ultimate Leveling Experience, NullCascade’s Proportional Progression, and Balanced Passive Races and Birthsigns, and these mods affect my game a lot, so I don’t know how this mod affects the players that don’t use those mods, or even the ones who use them but have configured them differently

So, any feedback is welcome, and might lead into releasing different versions, or a more flexible one