great idea, that im surprised hasnt been done, at least not on se as far as I know. I play requiem though, so early game is a little tough and you wont be killing a dragon until level 20 or 30 at the very least. I dont want to have to wait till such a high level to have to take on a dragon and then use a standing stone. So I personally think that for requiem players or others that the best requirment for touching a standing stone would be how many rabbits were slain. lol That would be dope, but for a more immersive experience, my suggestion would be to tie in the standing stone abilities with who can use them. for example if you want to touch the thief stone, you have to have done some thievery, not a lot but enough to make the player feel encouraged to touch a standing stone after having stolen eight apples or something. Personally I find a more subtle approach would be nice. So instead of dying, (havent died, but im assuming thats what happens based on description page) the player simply activates the standing stone, and if the requirements are not met than a nothing at all happens except for either a quick message displaying in upper left corner that you are not worthy, or an animation plays on the player but nothing happens or for peolpe who like drama, it would be fuin to expeirement with the dark brotherhood secret entrance door voice files. Make them sound unique or something, and tie it to lore. but im rambling now, sorry. Not downloading mod for reasons stated but, I think its a great idea and I will be watching progress and updates closely. THank you
Love the suggestions. I had no idea about Requiem doing that. I set further development on this aside because I've got a dozen other projects I'm working on, but I do plan to come back and provide more options for "worthiness" other than just confronting dragons. Not sure if I want to go as far as making the requirements unique for each different stone though, that would get tedious for me to implement and for users to achieve. I'm hoping I can find some easy things in the game to track, e.g. completed quests, places visited, reputation, or just something unique about the PC that is detectable without creating my own global values to track yet one more thing in the game. (And thanks for the encouraging pm. :)
That's a good point, Having too many things being tracked might get too much. Keeping it simple and just keeping track of one thing that is ambiguous, but also unique is a challenge but its fun to brainstorm none the less. Thanks for considering my suggestions!
Great idea for a mod. It always felt odd that you could touch them and they grant you powers without a proper explanation. Is it because you are Dragonborn or anyone can get these powers? If it's the latter you bring up a good point, why aren't bandits and thugs taking advantage of this and using them themselves and charging people for their use? I was working on an unreleased Standing Stones mod that changed their powers to be more balanced but there are so many already on the nexus, also due to lack of time, it has been left unfinished but I wrote immersive messages when you touch them implying that something weird and rare was going on. And maybe this mod can benefit from that as well.
Here are my ideas for more immersive messages and worthiness:
1. When the player is unworthy and he/she touches a stone:
"This stone is cold to the touch. You get shivers down your spine by merely standing close to it. Something tells you there is strong powerful magic pouring from it but you feel no different after touching it"
2. When the player is worthy and he/she touches a stone:
"Upon touching this stone, you freeze in shock, unable to move for an instant. Time pauses for what seems an eternity. Nothing has changed but everything seems different. You have no doubt that the magical nature of this stone has somehow poured into your very core. You understand now this is a rare occurrence. It is uncertain why you have been chosen but you feel invigorated by this new gift"
Regarding worthiness, I think you got it right. Killing a dragon and absorbing its soul should be the trigger. Or maybe learning a word of power can also trigger it because they are magical in nature and only the Dragonborn can learn them magically from the walls. And these are both doable early in the game and they just depend of when the player decides to kill the first dragon or go and explore a dungeon.
Lastly, as a suggestion, I don't think there should be a dead adventurer because he touched the stone, he was unworthy and he died. How many people, children in Skyrim would go to these interesting stones and touch them and die out of curiosity? There would be a pile of dead people next to all of them haha. The most logical thing is, nothing happens if you are not worthy. As the text I wrote at the beginning implies.
Hey I love these suggestions. I do plan on adding some more conditions, and I need to make it clearer what is needed. Good idea about the word wall, if it's easy to detect that the PC has done that I may add that to the requirements. Maybe something like this:
(Absorb 1 dragon soul) AND ((touch 4 different standing stones) OR (learn 1 word of power from a word wall))
I may keep track of the progress through a couple global variables, and change the message you get each time you touch a stone to reveal the progress and what is still lacking. I can also change what happens when you touch a stone after each progress to make the progress more satisfying.
Regarding the dead adventurer... I'm gonna leave that in because the idea is that the standing stones have been inactive and harmless until just recently (e.g. the last day or so) when the dragons reappeared. See the background section on the description page, and read the contents of the adventurer's letter and the book in his inventory to make that clearer.
Another thing I've thought about is for users of LAL who haven't visited Helgen yet, the dragons haven't reappeared yet... So I may need to add a check for the quest progress to make the stones inactive until visiting Helgen. Or at least make sure they're inert until whatever quest stage is reached that allows dragons to spawn. This means I'll need to disable the dead adventurer until that quest stage. Hmmm this is getting somewhat complicated!
Haha. I am glad you liked my suggestions! Happy to help!
My point regarding the dead adventurer is not about the stones being active or inactive but the premise that being unworthy and touching them kills you. This is the equivalent of having a statue in a city and if someone touches it, they die. It doesn't make much sense. They would quickly become cursed places everyone avoids like the plague so I hope you consider removing the adventurer for good or at least make him into an optional file.
I am really eager to see how this mod evolves! Kudos
What a cool mod! It always annoyed me how you could start the game and immediately acquire super powerful abilities for free.
I had an idea to prove your "worthiness". What if you must travel to all 13 Standing Stones first (discover the 10 locations) in order for you to acquire a Standing Stone ability? This encourages exploration, gives the player a goal as soon as they start the game (and discover their first standing stone), and is totally in-line with the themes of the Standing Stones and the natural land of Skyrim. Additionally, as soon as you activate the first Stone you discover, it can make the locations of the other Standing Stones become visible on your map (but not able to fast travel to). Though if people don't like that, maybe it can be optional?
I like the idea, but requiring all the stones might be too much since the player needs to be able to use the standing stones early in the game. Maybe requiring 4 or 5 of them would suffice? And I'm thinking touching them should be required, with appropriate feedback messages after each one showing the progression toward ultimate success. Not sure about revealing the locations though, there are so many mods out there that provide the locations that I'd be afraid of moving too far beyond the scope of this mod. I'd rather not add an MCM to this mod either, I want to keep it somewhat simple.
Oh I see, like a message box appears saying "To be granted the power of the Stones, you must prove your connection with the land. (1/5 Stones Discovered)". 5 is a good number since it's about half the amount of Standing Stones locations.
Yeah something like that. I'll still need to impose the original requirement in addition to visiting the stones because that's what really makes the PC unique in the Skyrim world compared to all the other NPCs who have tried but failed to be worthy.
What a simple way to add immersion, do more of these! Would it be hard to make a mod that as a Vampire you can only sleep in a coffin? There is nothing like that yet.
oooh, that is an interesting idea. Are there enough coffins around in the world though? Anyone who has a survival mod that requires sleep would be affected. I suppose adding a spell to conjure a coffin to sleep in, similar to carrying bedrolls/tents to sleep in, would work. In any case, the mechanics of this mod are pretty simple, if you look at what it does it's really easy to adapt it to other things. I'm working on another mod that uses the same methods.
You can make Coffins with Hearthfire and there are coffins in dungeons so it would not be too much of a problem. Currently all a coffin does is give you some wimpy bonus for sleeping in one. Maybe you can make a mod that boosts the effects of sleeping in a coffin and/or get a debuff for sleeping on a bed. Can it be done? I don't know how hard it would be since a lot of people use suvival mods.
All great ideas. Currently the method that this mod (and possible forthcoming mods) uses is to prevent the use of something based on certain conditions. Changing the effects of the object once it is used would be beyond the scope of the mod because then I'd have to touch/change the original records/scripts and that opens a whole can of worms in terms of complexity and compatibility.
If you are using "ryns stand stones" there is a mod that conflicts with these stones, if I'm not mistaken it is "draur patrols" from MihailMods. I don't know if it could conflict with this mod since I removed it, but I'll leave it posted
Hi Anolias! No, Ryn's Standing Stones does not conflict with this mod at all. That mod is just a cosmetic makeover of the Standing Stones. I doubt it conflicts with Draugr Patrols either since they do completely different things.
While I think this idea is fledgling I think it has massive potential, really original too. Please keep developing this idea. Tracking to see the next iteration.
30 comments
- The PC needs to gain worthiness fairly early in the game since the Standing Stones are designed to help the player level up early skills.
- Requirements should not be restricted to specific locations since the PC can spawn anywhere in Skyrim (using mods like ASLAL).
- For compatibility reasons, I don't want to change the actual effects of the Standing Stones once the PC can touch them.
For example, I could track generic "heroic" activity like number of quests completed or specific quests.Here are my ideas for more immersive messages and worthiness:
1. When the player is unworthy and he/she touches a stone:
"This stone is cold to the touch. You get shivers down your spine by merely standing close to it. Something tells you there is strong powerful magic pouring from it but you feel no different after touching it"
2. When the player is worthy and he/she touches a stone:
"Upon touching this stone, you freeze in shock, unable to move for an instant. Time pauses for what seems an eternity. Nothing has changed but everything seems different. You have no doubt that the magical nature of this stone has somehow poured into your very core. You understand now this is a rare occurrence. It is uncertain why you have been chosen but you feel invigorated by this new gift"
Regarding worthiness, I think you got it right. Killing a dragon and absorbing its soul should be the trigger. Or maybe learning a word of power can also trigger it because they are magical in nature and only the Dragonborn can learn them magically from the walls. And these are both doable early in the game and they just depend of when the player decides to kill the first dragon or go and explore a dungeon.
Lastly, as a suggestion, I don't think there should be a dead adventurer because he touched the stone, he was unworthy and he died. How many people, children in Skyrim would go to these interesting stones and touch them and die out of curiosity? There would be a pile of dead people next to all of them haha. The most logical thing is, nothing happens if you are not worthy. As the text I wrote at the beginning implies.
(Absorb 1 dragon soul) AND ((touch 4 different standing stones) OR (learn 1 word of power from a word wall))
I may keep track of the progress through a couple global variables, and change the message you get each time you touch a stone to reveal the progress and what is still lacking. I can also change what happens when you touch a stone after each progress to make the progress more satisfying.
Regarding the dead adventurer... I'm gonna leave that in because the idea is that the standing stones have been inactive and harmless until just recently (e.g. the last day or so) when the dragons reappeared. See the background section on the description page, and read the contents of the adventurer's letter and the book in his inventory to make that clearer.
Another thing I've thought about is for users of LAL who haven't visited Helgen yet, the dragons haven't reappeared yet... So I may need to add a check for the quest progress to make the stones inactive until visiting Helgen. Or at least make sure they're inert until whatever quest stage is reached that allows dragons to spawn. This means I'll need to disable the dead adventurer until that quest stage. Hmmm this is getting somewhat complicated!
My point regarding the dead adventurer is not about the stones being active or inactive but the premise that being unworthy and touching them kills you. This is the equivalent of having a statue in a city and if someone touches it, they die. It doesn't make much sense. They would quickly become cursed places everyone avoids like the plague so I hope you consider removing the adventurer for good or at least make him into an optional file.
I am really eager to see how this mod evolves! Kudos
I had an idea to prove your "worthiness". What if you must travel to all 13 Standing Stones first (discover the 10 locations) in order for you to acquire a Standing Stone ability? This encourages exploration, gives the player a goal as soon as they start the game (and discover their first standing stone), and is totally in-line with the themes of the Standing Stones and the natural land of Skyrim. Additionally, as soon as you activate the first Stone you discover, it can make the locations of the other Standing Stones become visible on your map (but not able to fast travel to). Though if people don't like that, maybe it can be optional?