DESCRIPTION

This mod simply makes multiple versions of a few staves, all with different damage types. It also flags the staves to improve as you level up.

Here's a list of the unique staves that this mod currently changes, for more details see the uploaded pictures:

• Apostate Staff
• Apostate's Courage
• Architect's Legacy
• Cold-Blooded
• Freedom's Promise
• Malcolm's Honor
• Staff of Parthalan
• Stone's Breath
• The Hawke's Key
• The Final Thought
• Voracity
• Basic Staff (The default staff that is automatically equipped whenever a staff is unequipped)
  

This mod DOES a few things:

• It sets all of the different versions of the unique staves listed above to scale with the player's level
• It offers various versions of the unique staves with different base damage types
• It changes the "+X% [type] damage" bonus of the unique staves to match the main damage type
• It changes the "+X [type] resistance" bonus on any of the unique staves to match the main damage type, an exception was made for the physical version of the Apostate's Courage staff where this property was replaced with the "+X% critical chance" property instead by using the same formula as Malcolm's Honor
• It adds the "Blood magic: Each point of health provides X additional mana" property to the staves to make them more useful to blood mages
• It adds the "Enemies drop better equipment" property to all of the staves
• It adds the "Messy kills" property which has an increased chance of triggering whenever you kill enemies with a critical
• It adds the "X% chance to knockback" to each staff to make them more unique and to add more utility to them
• It adds the "+X willpower" property to a few of the staves that didn't have any attribute bonuses to make them slightly more useful
• It adds additional rune slots for more customizability
• It edits the inventory icons for the staves to make them look more unique
• It adds an invisible version of the Basic Staff that will allow mages to cast spells with their hands alone
  

This mod DOES NOT:

• Add brand new staves to the game
• Edit the meshes and/or textures of the staves
• Edit every unique staff in the game
• Make ridiculously overpowered versions of the vanilla staves
  

REQUIREMENTS

The mod will require any DLCs and/or Bonus Item Packs that the staves belonged to as this mod doesn't package any of their custom meshes or textures. The mod also doesn't have the means to deliver the staves to the player unlike the Item Packs.

For certain staves like the Architect's Legacy staff, you will need to have the proper world state or have an imported Dragon Age Origin/Awakening save which meets the staff's requirements to acquire them. Alternatively you can try to use Waddi to get it but I have not confirmed if you can do that yet.


INSTALLATION

After extracting the mod's zip file you will discover that each unique staff with its 6 damage types are all stored within the same folder. You can pick and choose which ones you would like to use in your game, however, you can only use ONE ERF file per staff or ONE damage type per staff. Copy and paste the ERF file(s) for whichever staff or staves that you decide to use into the override folder, which is typically found in the following directory:

C:\Users\"User X"\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2\packages\core\override


MID GAME INSTALLATION

If you have already received one of these staves in your current playthrough but would like to try the mod, then you will need a tool like Waddi to "summon" the modded version to you. If you don't do this then your staff will still have the vanilla stats despite having the mod properly installed. Once you get the modded version, then you can discard the vanilla version of the staff or staves.


UPDATING

You will need a tool like Waddi to summon the updated version of the staff or staves to you. Once successfully doing so, you can then discard the outdated version of the staff or staves that you have in your possession.


UNINSTALLATION

If you decide to remove the mod, you will need to delete the ERF file(s) from your override folder and use a tool like Waddi to resummon the vanilla version of the staff or staves, at which point you can then discard the modded version of the staff or staves.


MOD COMPATIBILITY

You can use other mods that edit the meshes and textures of the staves alongside this mod as long as you allow them to load before this mod or load my mod last. What do I mean by that? The game loads ERF files in your override alphabetically (or from the top of the list to the bottom). Knowing this, you can rename the ERF file name for this mod to ensure it gets loaded last which will allow it to overwrite any possible stat edits done by mods higher up on the ERF list. For instance, adding a "Z" at the start of the ERF file name will likely ensure that this mod overwrites any stat changes done by any of your installed mesh/texture replacers.

However, if you decide to store each of your ERF files within their own folders instead of directly dropping them into the override folder then you may need to rename the folders instead of the actual ERF files to ensure this mod gets loaded last. In any case, you may need to experiment with a combination of either or even both methods as everyone's set up is different. You can use the following mod as a mesh and texture replacer for the staves:

• Glowing Weapon Retex
• Different Colors - Staff of Parthalan
  

Please note that a few of the staves packaged in this mod were also included in my Evolving Blood Mage Staves mod, because of this you will need to carefully pick which staff from which mod you would like to use - take a close look at the pictures uploaded by both mods and compare the stats with each other. I repeat, because of the staff overlap between both of my mods you can only use one version of the staff from either mod. You can have both staff versions from both mods installed, however, the version of the staff that gets loaded last will more than likely be the version that actually shows up in your game.


RECOMMENDED MODS

Here's a few more mods that I recommend, you don't need any of them for this mod to work but I do strongly recommend Waddi as it can be used to quickly confirm beforehand whether or not you installed any of your mesh and texture replacers correctly. It will also allow you to summon the modded version of any staff or staves that you have already unlocked in your current playthrough:

• A Gibbed Dragon Age Save Generator for Dragon Age 2
• Backpack Mod - Inventory Increase
• Blood Magic Bonus from Items Increased
• DA2 Epilogue Restoration and Fixes
• Darker Robes
• Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD
• Import Vault Fixes
• No More Bloody Teeth
• NPC Bloodmage Spells
• Unobtainable items Fix
• Valuable Junk
• Waddi - Please note that you will need to enable console commands first before using this mod.
  

Shout-out to Ninja Flips and AreleX for inspiring me to play my blood mage and making their awesome Dragon Age content.