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About this mod
Play as any monster in vanilla Skyrim or its DLC, with all their attacks, spells, and abilities.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Playable Monster Mod
This mod makes it so you can play as any monster in the game, outside of dragons, which are beyond me. If you can see it, you can turn into it, and it's very simple to use. As the mod uses DLC creatures, it requires Dawnguard and Dragonborn. There is an optional version that doesn't require any DLC. I also added an "RP Mode" that gives the monsters placeholder melee weapons that allow you to increase your one-handed akill when attacking, as well as the ability to re-apply the monster SFX when you reload a saved game (monster sounds disappear when loading a save file).- Becoming a monster - To start, simply buy the "Summon chest of polymorph tomes" spell from any court wizard. The spell tome is dirt cheap, and when used, plops a big chest full of spell books right in front of you. Pick whichever monster you'd like to turn into, and then activate the ability like you would a dragon shout or racial power. This will turn you into your chosen monster, complete with its vanilla health, magicka, and stamina, as well as factions and abilities.
- Playing as a monster - Attacks are mapped to a few different methods. Right and left attack perform basic attacks, as well as at times, the sprint and dual attack commands. Power attacks are done either by holding down the attack button or moving forward and attacking (power attacks tend to be glitchy for creature races). Moving in other directions while attacking can trigger other attacks in certain creatures, such as backwards attacks or side attacks. To perform idle moves for the creatures, hit the sneak button. Most creatures have basic idles as well as combat idles, so your combat status will affect what kind of idles you perform. Monsters that cast spells generally do so with their left hand, and a select few have shouts or other similar abilities. It's important to note that first-person doesn't work here, creatures are third-person only.
- Other abilities - Upon transforming you'll gain two powers, the ability to revert back to your original form, and the ability to "become friendly" and make civilized folks friendly to your monster, and lose your monster allegiance (as well as make your beastie a member of society - citizens will report any crimes you commit, and guards won't just try to kill you on sight). After becoming friendly, you'll get the option to go hostile and regain your creature factions again if you feel like it. It's important to always revert back to normal before transforming into something else, or the game will forget your original race and you'll be stuck as a monster for good.
There are a lot of creatures here to mess around with, so make sure to experiment. Some creatures, like wispmothers and seekers, have special abilities that spawn backup for them when their health is low, while others, like rabbits, can barely do anything at all.
VERSIONS
There are currently three versions of the mod to choose from, and only one is necessary:
- Playable Monster Mod: The basic version of the mod which includes all the above, with no extra frills or clutter. Simply buy the spell tome and then summon the chest of spells to get started. DLC is required.
- Playable Monster Mod - No DLC: The same as the above, but with no DLC required.
- Playable Monster Mod - RP Mode: Functions the same as the original, but adds in effects for players who want to roleplay as a creature. This version adds invisible weapons to creatures that fight hand-to-hand, allowing you to level one-handed by attacking. It also adds in a spell that allows you to refresh a creature's ambient sounds (or VFX for some) as creature sounds disappear when you load a saved game.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Switching spells while in combat tends to lock up your animations. To get around this, try to always switch spells when your "weapons" are sheathed. If this happens to you, just revert back and you'll be fine.
- If you revert back when your monster has low health, it's possible to make it so your health reads "0". This is because when the game sets you back to normal it tries to keep the damage you've taken into account, so if you go from a creature with 800 health that took a bunch of damage to a player character with 130, the game will try to give you a health that's below zero.
- If your character is a werewolf, some transformations will glitch out and try to act like a werewolf transformation. I suspect this is due to how the game handles transformation in general, and I haven't found a way to fix the error as of yet. That said, it's fairly minor, as most transformations still work for a werewolf player.
- This mod will conflict with any mod that modifies monster skeletons, as well as anything that modifies how monsters move and attack. Mainly, this means it's not compatible with other shape shifting mods, which is pretty self-explanatory. If you run into any other difficulties, let me know in the comments.
HINTS AND TIPS
- Some monsters have a hard time moving in confined spaces even if they appear to fit, you might have to use the TCL function in the console in dungeons and other interior spaces.
- Some creature animations have start-up lag, such as the Wispmother's or Spriggan's casting animations. As a rule, don't expect default responsiveness from creature animations.
- No creature can sneak, and only two skeleton types (Draugr and Steam Centurion) have shouting animations. Many creatures can't do anything besides attack - keep that in mind when playing.
- Creatures can still wear armor, though 90% of the time it won't appear on their bodies. Only specific creatures, such as Draugr and Falmer, have armor that actually alters their appearance when worn.
BUG REPORTING
Please try and be as specific as you can when reporting errors. I've done a lot of testing but there are very likely still issues that remain, and I'd love to fix them. Try and tell me what you were doing when the error occurred, and see if you can replicate it more than once.
CREDITS AND THANKS
Big thanks go out to my friend White Lord over at Datahacks for doing a ton of testing for me and helping me host the mod while I was working on it, as well as to my friend Erin and my girlfriend for doing a lot of testing and bug reporting as well. Thanks again to Jackalhead for the Master Shape Shifter mod and the excellent tutorials, and foamyesque on the forums for helping me out when I hit a wall while trying to script the wisp spawning function, as well as argvminusone, for their haste spells script I used to make the Seeker's haste spell work properly.
And, last but not least, thanks to you guys on the Nexus for downloading and playing this mod. If you enjoy it, leave a comment or an endorsement - this was a lot of work, and it's great to know people like it!
GLITCHES FIXED SO FAR:
- Fixed an issue with the Falmer voice that was causing duplicate sounds to play.
- Uploaded a missing skeleton file for the "White Stag" creature and fixed its race file.
- Fixed missing voice files for certain Draugr shouts, as well as an error that was causing duplicate shouts to be learned.
- Updated the Riekling voice to be more in line with the NPC version.
- Updated the base shapeshift script so it can work on anything the spell targets, not just the player.
- Fixed the Draugr Eye script so the FX dissipates correctly on revert.
- Replaced the dragon priest perks with duplicates so players don't have their own perks removed upon transforming back.
- Fixed an error that caused horses to attack while the player was mounted on them.
- Added injury sounds to creatures that didn't have them.