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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

Balanced Magic SE v4.0.3
by radax
Balanced Magic originally by mysty
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Included Files
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Balanced Magic SE.esp
Balanced Magic SE.bsa


Manual Installation
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1 - Extract Balanced Magic SE.esp and Balanced Magic SE.bsa into your ...\Skyrim Special Edition\Data\ folder
2 - Launch Skyrim Special Edition and enable the mod in the Mods\Load Order menu


Purpose
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This mod is intended to provide greater flexibility when playing as a mage. Instead of relying on a few overpowered gimmicks, mages should be able to experiment with different techniques in different situations, and still have a reasonable chance of overcoming their opponent. I have attempted to make each school of magic uniquely powerful while staying pure to Elder Scrolls lore; these were the consideratons I made when addressing each school of magic:

Alteration is the school of magic which deals with altering the physical world. Alteration mages can bend the laws of nature, changing the world around them. Many alteration spells are utilitarian - they allow the caster to access hard to reach areas, to lighten a burden, to breathe water as though it were air, etc., but alteration also has a place in combat. Alteration mages can change the composition of their own bodies, making them less susceptible to certain types of damage, or exhaust an opponent by making their own weapons and armor much heavier to carry.

Conjuration mages are able to telepathically commune with Daedra and the undead, and bend them to their will � for a time, at least. As the conjuror becomes more skilled, he may control more powerful servants for a greater length of time. Conjuration mages may also call forth mighty weapons from Oblivion, or bind the souls of the slain.

Destruction mages wield the destructive force of the elements to wreak havok in battle. Their magic can ignore armor or take out an entire room full of enemies. With a full arsenal of spells at their command, there are few who can stand against a powerful destruction mage.

With the power to manipulate the mind, mages who study the school of Illusion can change what one perceives � for good or ill. While not able to deal much damage directly, a single Illusionist can turn the tide of a battle, causing enemies to fight amongst themselves or giving allies the confidence to surge forward. A skilled Illusionist is subtle, veiled in silence and cloaked in invisibility, often undetected by those she manipulates.

Those who practice restoration are not only excellent healers, they can also channel the powers of magicka to protect, strengthen, and enhance. Many restoration mages choose to serve as priests and healers, and are welcomed even by those who are generally suspicious of magic users. Their powerful bond to life causes undead to recoil in fear.

Enchanters, while not exactly spellcasters, are nevertheless intrigued by the magical arts, and are able to imbue physical objects with magical properties. Masters of enchantment can turn quality equipment into powerful artifacts, nearly as great as those of legend.


What It Does
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Magicka Management
- Magicka regenerates faster in combat (60% instead of 33%)
- Dual Casting costs less (2.4x instead of 2.8x) and is more effective (2.6x instead of 2.2x)
- Spell costs have been calculated so that they no longer decrease as your skill improves; instead your spells will get more powerful as skill increases.
- Neither light nor heavy armor increase spell costs, however, costs are reduced if armor is removed since movements are less restricted, making it easier to cast spells. Each slot (head, body, hands, and feet) that is unarmored will reduce casting cost by 8%.

Alteration
- Alteration spells with a magnitude become more powerful as your skill increases (automatically)
- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Alteration perks increase the duration of corresponding level spells based on your skill. At skill level 100, duration will have doubled.
- Each perk reduces the magicka cost by 25% instead of 50%
- Paralyze has been reduced to 6 seconds (was 10)
- Mass Paralysis has been reduced to 10 seconds (was 15)
- With scaling, higher level protection spells became redundant, so I have altered them so that each is the embodiment of a particular element. Stoneskin increases your armor (much as the original *flesh spells did), and Flameskin, Frostskin, and Stormskin provide less bonus armor, but also offer some resistance to the associated elemental damage.
- Casting a *skin spell will dispel any other active *skin spell so you can switch at will
- Dragonhide stacks with the *skin spells
- Mage Armor Perk Rank 1: *skin spells provide additional armor if you are not wearing physical armor (calculated for each armor slot)
- Mage Armor Perk Rank 2: *skin spells provide additional armor if you are not wearing physical armor (calculated for each armor slot)
- Mage Armor Perk Rank 3: *skin spells provide additional armor if you are not wearing physical armor (calculated for each armor slot). Also increases the duration of *skin spells and Dragonhide by 50%
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds
- Transmute Mineral Ore now prioritises Iron to Silver over Silver to Gold

Conjuration
- Spell duration increases with skill (automatically). Spells may be a few seconds shorter initially, but will increase to 150% of vanilla duration by the time you max your skill.
- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Conjuration perks increase the level of summoned Daedra, and allow necromancers to reanimate higher level corpses
- Each perk reduces the magicka cost by 25% instead of 50%
- The base damage of the bound bow was reduced, and the base damage of the bound battleaxe was increased
- Fixed "Storm Thrall" spell so that it actually summons a Storm Thrall instead of Storm Atronach. It is now a ritual spell as well.
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds
- Bound Weapons scale with your Conjuration skill. Base damage of bound weapons has been lowered. At 100 Conjurationg skill these will have doubled in strength.

Destruction
- Destruction spells become more powerful as your skill increases (automatically)
- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Destruction perks increase damage of corresponding level AND ALL LOWER LEVEL spells by 10% in addition to reducing spell costs
- To keep damage to magicka cost ratios balanced, I had to scale cost up along with the extra damage. I also reduced the cost of Adept, Expert, and Master spells more than the 25% stated.
- Each perk reduces the magicka cost by 25% instead of 50%
- Incinerate, Icy Spear, and Thunderbolt do lingering damage for 3 seconds. (Tapered, in all damage is roughly doubled)
- The impact perk causes stagger to occur 25% of the time in apprentice spells, 50% of the time in adept spells, and 75% of the time in expert spells.
- The Rune Master perk now allows the placement of multiple runes (up to 4)
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds

Enchanting
- Capped Fortify enchantments for Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, and Restoration. You can no longer enchant away spell costs completely. Soft cap is 50%, hard cap is 72% (depending on strength of enchantments and order in which you equip items.)

Illusion
- Illusion spells influence higher level creatures based on skill (automatically)
- The Aspect of Terror Perk no longer increases the damage of Destruction Fire spells
- Hypnotic Gaze, Aspect of Terror, and Rage increase level of controlled opponents based on illusion skill (+.2*skill)
- Each perk reduces the magicka cost by 25% instead of 50%
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds

Restoration
- Restoration spells become more powerful as your skill increases (automatically)
- Wards charge more quickly and provide experience each time they successfully protect the caster. They are free to maintain but drain magicka when hit.
- The shield effect from the wards (bonus armor) has been set to 40 for all 3 wards. This scales up as your Restoration skill increases so that at skill level 100, you will gain 80 armor.
- Each perk reduces the magicka cost by 25% instead of 50%
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds


Change Log
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v4.0.3
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- Vampire Drain spells (standard and Vampire Lord) now scale with Destruction. Base damage has been slihtly increased, cost has been significantly increased. Cost now roughly matches the damage at 100 Destruction and with all novice/apprentice/etc perks.
- Corrected damage values on bound sword to be in line with other bound weapons. This had been missed when reworking bound weapon scaling.
- Corrected descriptions for Destruction Adept/Expert/Master perks.


v4.0.2
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- Carried over removal of WISpellDangerous keyword from the fire/frost/shock cloak spells done in Dawnguard. This stops cloaks from unsummoning atronachs.
- Changed conjuration summon spells to manual cost calculation and returned the costs to vanilla. After reviewing the original changes I believe the increased cost was not intended. Additional conditional summon effects were added for functionality without accounting for increased cost.


v4.0.1
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- Corrected conditional logic for Conjuration summons. Summons will now scale with with your level if you have the corresponding Novice, Adept, Expert or Master perk. Elemental Potency now works correctly
- Included fixes for the summoned weapons from the Unofficial Patches. corrected Crit values and removed incorrect sounds


v4.0.0
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- Initial Balanced Magic SE release for Skyrim Special Edition
- Merged Balanced_Magic_Dawnguard.esp into Balanced Magic SE.esp
- Created a modified script for Transmute Mineral Ore to now prioritise Iron to Silver over Silver to Gold. This is useful for creating silver ore without having to remove the silver after each transmute to prevent it being transmuted to gold
- Balanced Magic Scaler and Cost Offset perks are now added via an auto run/run once quest and script. These were formerly added directly to the Player/Prisoner NPC entity. If another mod later in the load order makes changes to the entity the perks would not be added
- Bound Dagger now supported
- Bound Weapon spells now use a single Bound Axe/Bow/Dagger/Sword that scales with the Conjuration skill level. This used to be achieved by multiple conjured weapon entities that were summoned depending on perks learnt
- Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm and Dragonborn.esm are now all listed masters for Balanced Magic SE
- Conjuration duration mod in BalanceMagicScaler perk had incorrect AND condition on SpellHasCastingPerk"ConjurationAdept50"


Change Log for the original Balanced Magic releases by mysty
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v3.05
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- Fixed typo in Conjure Frost Atronach description
- Incinerate, Icy Spear, and Thunderbolt do lingering damage for 3 seconds. (Tapered, in all damage is roughly doubled)
- The impact perk causes stagger to occur 25% of the time in apprentice spells, 50% of the time in adept spells, and 75% of the time in expert spells.
- Hypnotic Gaze, Aspect of Terror, and Rage increase level of controlled opponents based on illusion skill (+.2*skill)
- Illusion spells influence even higher level creatures based on skill (automatically) by an additional 1-10 levels.
- Dawngard conjuration spells can no longer be absorbed (affect optional Balanced_Magic_Dawngaurd.esp only)


v3.04
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- Absorb Magic will no longer affect bound weapons or conjured daedra
- Adjusted mage armor. *Skin spells scale up more gradually, but have the potential to be more powerful.
- Flaming Familiar explosion does additional damage with Apprentice Conjuration perk
- Added an optional .esp that scaled the conjured boneman, mistman, and wrathman from Dawnguard


v3.03
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- BUG FIX: Conjuration perks now correctly affect level of undead you can reanimate. Only the novice perk was working as intended in the previous version. Thanks to mojo22 for catching this bug!
- Removed the enchanting cap on Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing. I wanted to help address the crafting loop exploits, but the caps were effecting people who didn't use them
- Restored conjured Dragon priests to their vanilla level since it was pointed out that this is not a regular spell, but a proc from one of the Dragon masks


v3.02
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- Rune Master perk allows you to place 4 runes (Many thanks to Uriel24 for helping me figure out the 'Modify Max Placeable Mines' command)
- Adjusted Destruction perks so that cost scales up with magnitude. Overall, low level spells got more expensive as they scale up, and high level spells got less expensive.
- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Conjuration perks cause conjured Daedra to scale in level
- Conjured Dragonpriests and Dremora Lords were weakened (although they scale up to their vanilla level, but I felt they were too powerful initially)


v3.01
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- Increased the amount of armor that mage armor provides
- Removed dependency on Update.esm
- Went back to the scripted wards from v2.0. Apparently, the visual effect AND the magnitude of the ward spells are built into the "Accum. Magnitude" archetype, so keeping the visual means losing the ability to scale the power of the wards. I chose function over form.
- Also reduced the bonus armor from wards to keep scaled up versions of the spells more reasonable


v3.00
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- Rewrote the mod (again) from the ground up. Mostly because it's been several months, and I didn't remember what I had done.
- Tweaked magicka cost multipliers
- Spells scale slightly even if you don't spend perk points. However, you will still need to spend them to get maximum power.
- Changed how armor affects spell costs. Neither light nor heavy armor increase spell costs, however costs are reduced if you are wearing cloth since removing armor would make it easier to cast spells.
- Cost-reducing perks in all schools of magic reduce spell cost by only 25% instead of 50% (to prevent spell spamming)
- Reduced casting time for Ritual Spells to 2 seconds for all schools of magic
- Changed *flesh spells with elemental themed protection spells so scaled up versions don't make higher level protection spells redundant.
- Changed Mage Armor perks so they are closer to vanilla, but account for each armor slot, and also increase duration of protection spells.
- Added spell scaling to conjuration - bound weapons and reanimation spells now scale up. I did not add more summonable creatures. Maybe later...
- Storm Thrall now summons a Storm Thrall
- Rune Master perk now allows placement of multiple runes
- Capped several "Fortify" enchantments to prevent abuse
- Scaled Illusion spells so that they influence higher level creatures as your skill increases
- Wards charge instantly and cost less to maintain. I think the way they were handled in the previous version was more elegant, but I don't know how to accomplish it without scripts, and I am unsure about using scripts with Steam Workshop
- The Dawnguard expansion already added spells that do fire damage to undead, so the "Holy Fire" perk I had added seems less relevant now. I would still like to find a replacement for Regeneration so that the healing spells can scale based on skill level without becoming overpowered when you add the perk.


v2.00
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- Rewrote the mod from the ground up using the CK
- Changed how destruction magic scales. This should fix the experience gain rate so it matches vanilla
- Scaling is based more directly on your skill level now
- Lowered the scaled damage a little, particularly in the lower levels
- Increased casting time for Master Destruction spells to 1.5 seconds
- Increased armor penalty but also decreased spell cost; cost will be about the same or less for armored mages as in the previous version. Cloth wearers should have spell costs a bit closer to NPC costs (see spreadsheet for details)
- Replaced "flesh" spells with shield spells
- Casting a shield spell will dispel the armor from a previous shield spell
- Dragonhide stacks with Shield spells
- Changed Mage Armor Perks: Rank 1 - Shield spells become more effective the fewer pieces of armor you wear. Rank 2 - Shield spells become permanent, but decrease your available magicka while active. Rank 3 - Reduce the magicka penalty for maintaining Shield spells.
- The second Mage Armor perk also adds the spell "Dispel Shield" which allows you to remove any shield spell to restore your magicka pool.
- Permanent Shield spells provide experience (based on alteration skill) each time the player is hit with physical damage
- The Novice and Apprentice Perks allow the Shield spells to scale up
- The Aspect of Terror Perk no longer increases the damage of Destruction Fire spells
- Wards charge more quickly and provide experience each time they successfully protect the caster. They are free to maintain but drain magicka when hit.
- The Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master Restoration perks allow the corresponding spells to scale in magnitude based on skill
- Replaced Steadfast Ward with Cure Disease
- Replaced Greater Ward with Cure Poison
- Replaced Repel Undead with Spell Absorption
- Replaced Turn Undead with Fortify Stamina
- Replaced Turn Greater Undead with Fortify Health
- Replaced Close Wounds with Fortify Magicka
- Replaced Regeneration Perk with "Holy Fire" - Casting healing spells on the undead causes them to take fire damage. Affected spells are: Healing Hands, Heal Other, and Grand Healing

TO DO
X Change wording for the Mage Armor perk
X Check Wards, why are they breaking so easily?
- Fire Shield is bugged? (No effect?) Check all shield spells
X Greater Ward Tome needs to be renamed to Cure Poison
- Adjust destuctruction spell costs
- Remove friendly fire from AOEs
X Mage Armor duration is not scaling evenly with shield when dual casting
- Cap enchanting values
- Scale enchanting values based on item quality?
- Should enchants be tied to a skill like restoration?

v1.30
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- The Impact perk from the Destruction tree now causes stagger to occur only 50% of the time
- Paralyze has been reduced to 6 seconds (was 10)
- Mass Paralysis has been reduced to 10 seconds (was 15)
- Protection spells were restored to original base values (40/60/80/100) and Dragonhide was given a base value of 120
- Consequently, you can now cast Dragonhide and override lesser protection spells.
- I also reduced casting time for Dragonhide to 1.5 seconds.
- Protection spells gain bonus armor if you are not wearing armor on your body, hands, or feet. This means you can still get a partial bonus if you are wearing only 1 or 2 pieces of armor. Dragon masks (and helmets) do not affect the bonus armor.
- Wearing armor now affects casting cost for all schools of magic. Each piece of light armor worn increases cost by 4%, and each piece of heavy armor increases cost by 6%. (Additive, not multiplicative.)
- Alteration perks (novice - master) each increase the duration of alteration spells by 25% of the original duration. Protection spells, for instance, begin at 60 seconds, but will last 135 seconds once you reach Master Alteration (without the Stability perk).
- The stability perk was reduced to 2x (from 2.5x)
- Three new perks replace the obsolete Mage Armor perks - they are called "Less Is More"
- The first rank decreases casting cost of all schools of magic by 10%
- The second rank increases either magnitude or duration of most spells by 5% (this will be adjusted as I look more closely at other schools to see what the best approach is, and how I could make all spells "more effective")
- The third rank decreases casting cost of all schools by another 5% and increases effectiveness by another 5%

v1.20
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- BUG FIX! Destruction staves now level concurrenty with spells.
- Master destruction spells now have a 1 second delay before casting (hopefully a nice compromise)
- Now modular. Each school of magic has its own .esp, and there are 3 difficulty settings for balance preferences.

v1.10
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- BUG FIX! This mod no longer scales effects from enchantments or alchemy. Only the spells will level. Spell damage can still be increased with potions. I have left the Augmented perks alone for now, so those still affect enchanted items as they do in vanilla.
- Master destruction spells no longer have the preparation time before casting (by numerous requests)
- Corrected the name of the Lightning Rune spell
- Clarified the description of the Novice Destruction Perk to indicate magicka costs of all destruction spells are initially lowered.
- Magic Resistence perks in Alteration were restored to their original values after confirming NPCs use their own leveled spells and are unaffected by this mod. NOTE: This is incorrect. SOME NPCs use leveled spells, others use the same spells as the player and many NPCs do use the modified perks!


v1.01
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- By Popular request, I added a seperate .esp that contains only the leveled destruction spells for players using other mods that affect dual casting and magicka regeneration.


v1.00
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Overall improvements to magicka use
- Magicka regen in combat increased to 75% of normal (was 33%)
- Spell costs are now reduced by 40% of your skill in the corresponding school of magic (was 25%)

Improvements to dual casting (it's now a perk worth taking)
- Dual casting effectiveness increased to 3x damage (was 2.2x)
- Dual casting cost reduced to 2.2x magicka (was 2.8x)

Leveled Destruction Spells. All spells improve as you fill your perk tree - Master spells will still be the most powerful, and novice spells will still be the weakest, however, the novice spells will have improved significantly enough to still be useful as low cost damage even against high level opponents.
- All destruction spells have been adjusted to new "base" levels of damage. THIS GREATLY REDUCES THE MAGNITUDE OF HIGH LEVEL SPELLS WITHOUT PERKS!
- All destruction spells now scale in both magnitude and cost with perks for novice, apprentice, adept, expert, and master destruction. Specifically, damage is increased by 50% of the base magnitude with each perk. Cost is adjusted to correspond to half the cost it would have been at the original magnitude then scaled to the current magnitude.

Improvements to Alteration
- Magic Resistence Perks in Alteration have been increased to 15/30/45% to account for stronger destruction magic
- Protection spells like Stoneflesh now provide 25% less armor, but last twice as long (so players don't have to switch equipped spells to recast as often in combat)
- The Novice Alteration Perk now additionally reduces magicka cost so protection spells are close to original cost (even with the decreased armor, the spells were a bit too expensive. Novice spells still get a 50% greater reduction to align it with the perk as intended, and later perks are unchanged.)
- The Mage Armor perks now cause protection spells like Stoneflesh to be 3, 4, and 5 times as strong (this is to balance the weaker armor of the spells themselves. Protection spells become a little less useful for armored players, and a little more useful for unarmored players with the perks.)
- Stability now increases the duration of Alteration spells by 150% (protection spells will last 300 seconds)