Oblivion

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Ogramirad and Drake the Dragon

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DrakeTheDragon

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About this mod

Adds enchantments to the Arch Mage\'s Robe and Hood and to the King of Worms\' Robe and Hood. All Vanilla Robes have the \"hide rings\" and \"hide amulets\" attributes disabled and thus are showing amulets and rings now when worn. About all robes of any kind and the Dremora helmets are made playable, so you can loot them of your victims\' corpses

Permissions and credits
*==========================================*

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

EnchantedArchMageRobeandHood -

by Ogramirad and Drake the Dragon

*==========================================*

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# DESCRIPTION
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This is the result of a cooperation between Ogramirad and myself, Drake the Dragon.
It adds enchantments to the Arch Mage's Robe and Hood and to the King of Worms' Robe and Hood.
All Vanilla Robes have the "hide rings" and "hide amulets" attributes disabled and thus are showing amulets and rings now when worn.
About all robes of any kind and the Dremora helmets are made playable, so you can loot them of your victims' corpses.
As they do when you're wearing Necromancer Robes, Mages' Guild Members will now also tell you to put off the King of Worms' Robe, when you speak to them.
The scripting system used in SI to let Heretics and Zealots mistake you as one of them for a while, simply because you're wearing their Robe and Hood,
was expanded to also cover Necromancers, Mythic Dawn and even Dremora now. So while you're wearing Robe and Hood of one of the evil factions,
they will think you're one of them, until you come too close or get involved into a fight. This makes for fantastic opportunities to sneak into their habitats,
keep your distance to stay undiscovered, and try to seperate them to dispose of them one after another, as opposed to normally just rushing inside and letting the slaughter start.
You can even spare some lives, if you prefer to do so and manage to stay undiscovered from those lucky-this-time victims.
But be warned! Their lairs are known to habitate some other beings as well, mainly creatures, which will not get tricked by you, and them attacking you while somebody is nearby and watches will blow your cover!

(I will never forget the one situation while play-testing it in a Necromancers' Lair, I managed to sneak past a really huge group of them with only receiving suspicious looks into my direction and already considered myself safe,
as suddenly out of nowhere a skeleton warrior walked around the corner I was walking towards and attacked me on sight. I didn't really use my brain in this moment,
the tension from getting past that group, which easily outnumbered me, undetected just a few seconds ago was still taking its toll, so I first thought this one single foe will be an easy dispose... boy, was I wrong!
Now, running into a large group of enemies, raising your battle cry, your trusty sword at hand, ready for everything that's lying ahead, is one thing... getting ambushed from behind by just the same easily outnumbering group you already deemed no thread anymore,
conjuring their creatures all at once doubling their numbers, just because you literally stumbled into one single foe easy to dispose on its own, was definitely something completely different!)

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# REQUIRED PLUGINS/TOOLS
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Oblivion Script Extender v0015 or higher
The official Shivering Isles expansion
a game patched to v1.2.0416 (it was created with TESCS v1.2)

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# KNOWN FLAWS AND INCOMPATIBILITIES
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This mod currently only affects Robes and Hoods from Vanilla Oblivion, content added by mods (e.g. OOO) won't have the functionality.
It also only affects Vanilla NPCs for the ability to discover you. I tested it myself, Necromancer Cloaks from OOO don't have the cloaking scripts running, Non-Vanilla NPCs can't discover you, but they were always quite mixed with Vanilla, so I was always discovered sooner or later for being careless.
Not even all Vanilla NPCs will be able to discover you, but still they're quite well mixed, so there will be one who's able to do that sooner or later all the time. And still there are enough random creatures around getting attacked by/in a fight with will blow your cover anyways.
Any mod altering stats of the robes and hoods affected loading later will remove the scripts from them. Any mod altering the NPCs able to discover you loading later might remove their scripts(= ability to discover you).
This currently works only for the player, Companions and the like will, although wearing robes and hoods as well, still get attacked, so it would be better to leave them behind for a short sneak-in-hit-and-run-sneak-out action.
But honestly, wouldn't it look a little a bit suspicious when a stranger marches into their lairs with a whole army of yet more strangers, all only clad in the evil faction's robes and hoods, avoiding every contact or close looks at their faces? I don't suppose those guys are "that" stupid.

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# MORE INFORMATION AND INSTALLATION
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Just copy the ESP into your Data folder, activate and have fun.
You might have to arrange it quite far down in your load order, as it alters many vanilla robes and adds scripts for detection/blow cover to many vanilla NPCs.
For overhauls such as Slof's Robe Trader make sure this plugin loads after them and they're properly tagged for Wrye Bash's bashed patch.

This whole work started with a question about some scripting possibilities by Ogramirad on the Official BethSoft Forums I answered to, and later I was asked to help with the scripting part of this mod.
Now being the playful type when it comes to scripts and programming and being intrigued by the idea of the mod, I couldn't resist and did the job. It was much fun to do, and I had even more fun when I was done, on play-testing. I didn't even know things like this already existed in Vanilla!
When I was done and sent over the file with my scripts I was asked to release it myself, so that's why I am doing this and not its original creator Ogramirad.


The enchantment on the Arch Mage's Robe and the King of Worms' Robe:

Fortify Alchemy 25
Fortify Magicka 130
Restore Fatigue 2
Restore Health 2
Restore Magicka 2

and the Hoods:

Reflect Damage 15
Spell Absorption 25


Further details about my scripting approach (for those interested):

Having normally hostile NPCs not immediately attacking the player on sight, as it was usual, but mistaking him for one of them at least for a while until he gets too close, because of him wearing their robes and hoods as a disguise, was indeed part of Vanilla Shivering Isles already.
It was achieved by temporarily putting the player into the appropriate enemy's faction while he is wearing both clothing items, and kicking him out again as soon as he puts one part off, comes too close to one of them so he is discovered, or gets into a fight by whatever means in their vicinity.
When the player still wears the items, he will be put into the according faction again, as soon as the fight's over. This way you can explore their dungeons a bit, sneak into them for hit-and-run type actions, or even trick the enemy by seperating them first and then disposing of them one-by-one.
In general, walking right in front of one will be a bad idea, as would be running into a random creature inside their lairs while a bunch of them is still around, so you will always have to watch out and stay alert for not to be discovered too soon.
This was achieved by the quest script for SECrime, handling the signal mechanism for putting the player into the factions or kicking him out during combat or when he takes the robes/hoods off, a script running on each of those clothing items telling SECrime the player wears them,
and scripts running on most of the evil factions' members to enable them to discover the player as not one of them under certain conditions.
This system was simply expanded by adding additional handlers for the other factions (Necromancers, Mythic Dawn, Dremora) to the SECrime quest script, adding appropriate signaling scripts to the other robes and hoods, and trying to add proper discovery scripts to as many of the factions' members as possible.
Unfortunately many Vanilla NPCs of these factions already possess their own scripts, so these will be unable to discover you ever, but from another point of view it might make your venturing into their lairs a bit more adventuring for you, as you can't exactly know for sure who of them might discover you and who not.
And still there are more than enough random creatures or conjured monsters inside those lairs, which will immediately attack you, alarming all NPCs in the vicinity, as you won't be in their faction anymore while the fighting takes place, so it shouldn't be too easy to sneak past them anyways.
As with Vanilla SI you still have to wear BOTH the robes AND the hoods all the time, to be mistaken for one of them, as the hood will somehow cover your face from too easy recognition. For the Dremora faction and their complete lack of hoods of any kind, you'll have to wear their masked helmets instead.
But this makes up for even more realism, as a Dremora most certainly won't mistake another race for one of them, while he can clearly see the face!
Keep in mind though, that it is dependent on inter-faction-relations, if a foe related to but not a member of the faction you're disguising as will mistake you as a friend or not, and there are many different Game Factions for members of some of the major evil factions, so better be careful around them.


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# VERSION HISTORY
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v1.0 initial release

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# CONTACT
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If you have questions, comments or suggestions for improving this resource, you can reach me by sending a PM to Drake the Dragon at the Bethesda Game Studios forums.

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# CREDITS
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Ogramirad - its original creator, for the idea itself and everything else but my humble scripting works