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About this mod
Significantly increases the duration and strength of the oak/stone/iron/ebonyflesh spells when not wearing armor to make being a pure mage more practical. Additionally, Dragonhide has been reworked to be simply the next tier of mage armor spells.
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Mage Armor Rebalanced
Playing Skyrim as a pure robe-wearing mage is just plain tedious. The oak/stone/iron/ebonyflesh spells only last for 60 seconds and, even with Rank 3 of the Mage Armor perk, cannot provide an armor rating higher than 300 points. It's worse than that, actually, as this is equivalent to wearing a set of light or heavy armor with only a 200 point rating (light and heavy armors in Skyrim provide additional protection equivalent to +25 points a piece, although that's not displayed anywhere in the game).
Dragonhide does compensate for this somewhat by giving an automatic 80% damage reduction (equivalent to an armor rating of 667), but it takes 3 seconds to cast, you're forced to stand still while casting it thereby making you vulnerable, the spell is easily interrupted, and it only lasts for 30 seconds! It also bothers me that it's unaffected by the Mage Armor perks.
Mage Armor Rebalanced changes all of these spells so that they can be a viable alternative to light/heavy armors.
Oakflesh:
+40 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+60 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +120, +150, and +180 respectively.
Stoneflesh:
+60 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+120 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +240, +300, and +360 respectively.
Ironflesh:
+80 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+160 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +320, +400, and +480 respectively.
Ebonyflesh:
+100 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+190 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +380, +475, and +570 respectively.
Dragonhide:
+120 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor.
+220 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +440, +550, and +660 respectively.
Can now equip in either hand and cast immediately just like the other flesh spells.
The automatic 80% damage reduction effect has been removed from Dragonhide since having an armor rating of +660 provides an equivalent amount of protection. The durations of all of these spells have been increased to 180 seconds. When combined with the stability perk and dual-cast, this comes out to nearly 10 minutes!
I tried to scale the armor ratings so that, with the Mage Armor Rank 3 perk, the damage reduction from one spell to the next stays somewhat equivalent. For example, with Stoneflesh you'll take roughly 73% of the physical damage that you otherwise would with Oakflesh. Similarly, with Ironflesh you'll take roughly 73% of the physical damage that you otherwise would with Stoneflesh, and so on. The difference between Ebonyflesh and Dragonhide, however, is a fair bit larger and you'll see that reflected in its magicka cost (uses about 50% more than Ebonyflesh).
I also wanted to avoid making these spells overpowered if combined with actual armor. Thus, if you're wearing any pieces of light/heavy armor, the protection they provide reverts back to their default, unperked Vanilla values, although you'll still have the increased duration.
This is my first mod. It was mainly inspired by Longer Durations & Annoyance Fixes by CrushBoss.
Practical Dual Cast Cost
I originally had this wrapped into Mage Armor Rebalanced, but then figured players might want it as a separate optional file. In vanilla Skyrim, dual-casted spells are 2.2x more powerful but at 2.8x the magicka cost. With a Destruction spell like Fireball, your damage output is only 10% higher when dual-casted compared with just firing two fireballs at the same time, but you're using 40% more magicka to do so.
Practical Dual Cast Cost makes it so that dual-casted spells are instead 2.3x more powerful at 2.5x the cost. That dual-casted Fireball is now 15% more powerful than two fireballs at a cost of 25% more magicka. I didn't want to increase the power much more than that, because it'll make some spells from Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim ridiculously overpowered (as if they aren't already?).
Similarly, I wanted dual-casting to still be relatively inefficient. Any spell that you can't simply dual-wield benefits tremendously from dual-casting, such as runes, the mage armors mentioned above, or pretty much everything in Illusion. Furthermore, maximizing the power of anything is rarely cost efficient in real life, so I felt that dual-casting ought to follow the same trend.
The cost of Dragonhide was balanced with this mod in mind, however. With Practical Dual Cast Cost, a dual-casted Dragonhide will cost just shy of 400 magicka at 100 Alteration skill.
Compatibility
Should be compatible with any mod that doesn't touch these spells.
Is compatible with Cutting Room Floor by Arthmoor. That mod restores the original visual effects that Bethesda made for Iron Flesh, Oak Flesh, Ebony Flesh, Stone Flesh, and Dragonhide. These effects are in vanilla Skyrim, they're just not used. The few changes that Cutting Room Floor made to these spells have been copied over to Mage Armor Rebalanced.
Installation / Uninstallation
Just use Nexus Mod Manager.
Or you can copy the *.esp files to Skyrim's Data folder then activate the mods manually. I prefer the mod manager.
Playing Skyrim as a pure robe-wearing mage is just plain tedious. The oak/stone/iron/ebonyflesh spells only last for 60 seconds and, even with Rank 3 of the Mage Armor perk, cannot provide an armor rating higher than 300 points. It's worse than that, actually, as this is equivalent to wearing a set of light or heavy armor with only a 200 point rating (light and heavy armors in Skyrim provide additional protection equivalent to +25 points a piece, although that's not displayed anywhere in the game).
Dragonhide does compensate for this somewhat by giving an automatic 80% damage reduction (equivalent to an armor rating of 667), but it takes 3 seconds to cast, you're forced to stand still while casting it thereby making you vulnerable, the spell is easily interrupted, and it only lasts for 30 seconds! It also bothers me that it's unaffected by the Mage Armor perks.
Mage Armor Rebalanced changes all of these spells so that they can be a viable alternative to light/heavy armors.
Oakflesh:
+40 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+60 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +120, +150, and +180 respectively.
Stoneflesh:
+60 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+120 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +240, +300, and +360 respectively.
Ironflesh:
+80 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+160 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +320, +400, and +480 respectively.
Ebonyflesh:
+100 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor (same as vanilla).
+190 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +380, +475, and +570 respectively.
Dragonhide:
+120 armor rating if also wearing light/heavy armor.
+220 armor rating if wearing no armor.
Each rank of the Mage Armor perk will raise this to +440, +550, and +660 respectively.
Can now equip in either hand and cast immediately just like the other flesh spells.
The automatic 80% damage reduction effect has been removed from Dragonhide since having an armor rating of +660 provides an equivalent amount of protection. The durations of all of these spells have been increased to 180 seconds. When combined with the stability perk and dual-cast, this comes out to nearly 10 minutes!
I tried to scale the armor ratings so that, with the Mage Armor Rank 3 perk, the damage reduction from one spell to the next stays somewhat equivalent. For example, with Stoneflesh you'll take roughly 73% of the physical damage that you otherwise would with Oakflesh. Similarly, with Ironflesh you'll take roughly 73% of the physical damage that you otherwise would with Stoneflesh, and so on. The difference between Ebonyflesh and Dragonhide, however, is a fair bit larger and you'll see that reflected in its magicka cost (uses about 50% more than Ebonyflesh).
I also wanted to avoid making these spells overpowered if combined with actual armor. Thus, if you're wearing any pieces of light/heavy armor, the protection they provide reverts back to their default, unperked Vanilla values, although you'll still have the increased duration.
This is my first mod. It was mainly inspired by Longer Durations & Annoyance Fixes by CrushBoss.
Practical Dual Cast Cost
I originally had this wrapped into Mage Armor Rebalanced, but then figured players might want it as a separate optional file. In vanilla Skyrim, dual-casted spells are 2.2x more powerful but at 2.8x the magicka cost. With a Destruction spell like Fireball, your damage output is only 10% higher when dual-casted compared with just firing two fireballs at the same time, but you're using 40% more magicka to do so.
Practical Dual Cast Cost makes it so that dual-casted spells are instead 2.3x more powerful at 2.5x the cost. That dual-casted Fireball is now 15% more powerful than two fireballs at a cost of 25% more magicka. I didn't want to increase the power much more than that, because it'll make some spells from Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim ridiculously overpowered (as if they aren't already?).
Similarly, I wanted dual-casting to still be relatively inefficient. Any spell that you can't simply dual-wield benefits tremendously from dual-casting, such as runes, the mage armors mentioned above, or pretty much everything in Illusion. Furthermore, maximizing the power of anything is rarely cost efficient in real life, so I felt that dual-casting ought to follow the same trend.
The cost of Dragonhide was balanced with this mod in mind, however. With Practical Dual Cast Cost, a dual-casted Dragonhide will cost just shy of 400 magicka at 100 Alteration skill.
Compatibility
Should be compatible with any mod that doesn't touch these spells.
Is compatible with Cutting Room Floor by Arthmoor. That mod restores the original visual effects that Bethesda made for Iron Flesh, Oak Flesh, Ebony Flesh, Stone Flesh, and Dragonhide. These effects are in vanilla Skyrim, they're just not used. The few changes that Cutting Room Floor made to these spells have been copied over to Mage Armor Rebalanced.
Installation / Uninstallation
Just use Nexus Mod Manager.
Or you can copy the *.esp files to Skyrim's Data folder then activate the mods manually. I prefer the mod manager.