===============================================================================
| Vampire Stat Gains Fix |
| A Morrowind Mod, Version 1.1 |
| by Necrolesian |
===============================================================================

---------
Summary |
---------

This plugin basically makes it so that the attribute and skill gains that go
along with being a vampire no longer count toward the attribute and skill cap
of 100. For attributes, it does this by temporarily removing the attribute
gains from the player upon resting, so that attributes will be at their base
values when leveling up. For skills, this plugin makes the spells that grant
the skill gains curses rather than abilities, so that the skills are trained
based upon their base value, not their fortified value.

See below for a more detailed discussion of why this is a good thing and how it
works.

---------
Details |
---------

This discussion is rather long-winded. If you want to skip it, scroll down to
the "Attribute Gains" and "Skill Gains" subsections below.

In vanilla Morrowind, the attribute and skill gains you get upon becoming a
vampire count towards the cap of 100 for attributes and skills, limiting how
far you can increase your attributes and skills by leveling, and making
training your skills more difficult.

For example, let's say you have a strength of 50 when you become a Quarra
vampire. Being a Quarra vampire increases your strength by 40, for a total of
90 points of strength. The +40 to strength is implemented as a permanent (well,
at least until you're cured of vampirism) ability, just like birthsigns that
increase your attributes. This means that your base strength is considered to
be 90 as far as the game is concerned.

So, when you level up, your strength is listed as 90, not 50, and you can only
increase it a further 10 points by leveling, to a maximum of 100. The +40 boost
for being a Quarra vampire ends up being wasted. The only way to avoid the
strength boost being wasted is to wait until your base strength is already 100
before becoming a Quarra vampire, in which case it will be boosted to 140.

Likewise, let's say you have an unarmored skill of 30 when you become a Berne
vampire. Being a Berne vampire increases your unarmored by 50, for a total of
80 points in the unarmored skill. The +50 to unarmored, like the bonuses to
attributes, is implemented as a permanent ability, so your base unarmored is
considered to be 80 as far as the game is concerned.

This means that your unarmored skill levels up as though it were 80, not 30 (it
will suddenly take much longer to increase your unarmored skill). Furthermore,
your unarmored skill will stop increasing at a boosted value of 100, since the
game considers that your base value, so the +50 boost for being a Berne vampire
ends up being wasted. The only way to avoid the unarmored boost being wasted is
to wait until your base unarmored skill is already 100 before becoming a Berne
vampire, in which case it will be boosted to 150.

If you only intend to remain a vampire long enough to do the vampire quests and
then take the cure, this doesn't matter much. But if you plan to play the game
as a vampire, and don't want to wait until you're already supremely powerful
before becoming one, this is a problem.

There are a few ways around this issue. The first is to enable the attribute
and skill uncapper patches in Morrowind Code Patch, so attributes and skills no
longer have a cap of 100. But this is a radical change to the game that isn't
in everyone's tastes.

Another option is to create a script that will remove the stat gains before you
level, and add them back after. The mod Level Up Birthsign Remover does this
for birthsigns that increase attributes. Every time you rest, the spell that
provides the attribute boosts is temporarily removed, so that your attributes
are at their base values on the level up screen.

This works for attributes, and this is the method this plugin uses to address
this problem with attribute gains (see below for more details), but it doesn't
work for skills.

A third option is to make the spells that provide the stat gains curses, rather
than abilities. As far as the game is concerned, an ability stat boost is a
permanent stat boost, and the stat is considered to be at its fortified value
for the purposes of the game. But a curse is considered to be temporary (even
if it's permanent), so when a stat is fortified by a curse, the game remembers
what the real base value is when you level up and when you train skills. The
mod Vampire Curse by Lythoc takes this tack.

But this presents its own problem. There's a bug in the game where if an
attribute or skill is fortified by a curse, and the player is hit with a Damage
Attribute or Damage Skill effect for the relevant attribute or skill, that stat
is *permanently* damaged. A Restore Attribute or Restore Skill effect will not
restore the stat above its base value, and since the curse is permanent and
cannot be removed, the damage to the stat is permanent (at least until you take
the cure for vampirism).

A similar problem exists when you're hit by a Drain Attribute or Drain Skill
effect. The attribute or skill will not be restored above its base value when
the drain effect wears off, which means the drain effect becomes a *permanent*
damage effect that cannot be fixed until you cure your vampirism.

Morrowind Code Patch fixes a similar bug when your attributes or skills are
being fortified by a constant effect enchantment, but the bugfix does not apply
when the fortification is provided by a curse, so this bug is present even with
MCP.

There's also a third threat: the Remove Curse effect. Being hit with any Remove
Curse effect will permanently remove all of your vampire stat gains. There are
no Remove Curse effects in vanilla Morrowind, but mods can add them.

The Vampire Curse mod addresses this problem by adding a spell that triggers a
script when cast. The script temporarily removes all of your vampire stat
gains, fully restores all of your attributes and skills, and then reapplies the
attribute and skill boosts. This is extremely powerful - a spell that will
fully restore all your attributes basically for free, on demand. Vampire Curse
tries to compensate for how unbalanced this is by limiting the restoration
spell to once a day, but that's nothing that can't be gotten around by pressing
the wait key.

Fortunately, the restoration script is really only unbalancing for attributes,
not for skills. Damage Skill effects are essentially non-existent in vanilla
Morrowind (as long as you're playing the latest official patch), and while
Drain Skill effects do exist, they're relatively rare. Also, Drain Skill
effects are supposed to be temporary and wear off anyway, so it's not
unbalancing to let you cast a spell for a magicka cost to fix the permanent
damage bug (unlike with attributes, where the restoration script basically
allows you to ignore the much more common and much more debilitating Damage
Attribute effect).

My plugin takes this same tack for skill gains: it makes them curses and adds a
special spell that will restore the relevant skills when needed. As the special
script is no longer unbalancing, it's not even necessary to limit it to once a
day.

Below are details on how the changes made by this plugin work, and special
considerations to be kept in mind. In addition to the below, this plugin
incorporates the Patch for Purists fixes to the modified scripts, including the
addition of the Vampire Fly (levitation) spell for vampires, which was omitted
from the vanilla scripts.

Attribute Gains
---------------

This plugin separates the attribute and skill gains for becoming a vampire, and
takes two different tacks to address the problems described above. For
attributes, the plugin adds a script that temporarily removes the attribute
gains when you rest, and re-adds them after, just like Level Up Birthsign
Remover does for birthsigns. So, when you level up, your attributes will be at
their base values, and so can be increased up to a *base* value of 100.

There's only one complication from this, and only if you're also using a
retroactive health mod like Talrivian's State-Based HP. Your health is
temporarily reduced when you rest (the vampire spell that boosts your strength
is removed, so your strength is lowered, therefore your health is lowered). If
you have very low health when you rest, the result is instant death.

The minimum safe health upon resting is 11 for Aundae and Berne vampires, and
21 for Quarra vampires. In practice, the safe thresholds are a bit lower than
this, I think because you actually gain a bit of health by resting before the
attribute gains are removed.

To address this problem I created an alternative version of the plugin with a
modified script. This version of the script basically checks your health before
it removes the spells, and if your health is below the minimum safe threshold,
it's increased to the safe value. The downside of this is that you basically
get a bit of free healing when resting with very low health.

Skill Gains
-----------

To address the problems with skill gains described above, this plugin makes the
skill gains curses, rather than abilities, just like the Vampire Curse mod. The
most immediately obvious change is that the relevant skills will show
highlighted in the menu, just like skills fortified by an enchantment.

If you get hit by a Remove Curse, Damage Skill or Drain Skill effect, your
vampire skill boosts will be permamently removed or reduced. Remove Curse and
Damage Skill are nonexistent in vanilla Morrowind, but Drain Skill effects do
exist.

To get around this problem, a new spell called Vampire Restoration is added.
The spell is just a Restore Fatigue effect, but when you cast it a script is
triggered that removes the skill boosts, restores the relevant skills, then re-
adds the skill boosts. In practice, unless you're playing a mod that adds
Damage Skill or Remove Curse effects, you'll only need to cast Vampire
Restoration when hit with a rather rare Drain Skill effect against one of your
boosted skills.

A minor annoyance is that, if your damaged skill value is still higher than the
base value, it will still be highlighted in white in the menu, so it's not
immediately obvious that the skill has been damaged. You'll just have to keep
an eye on them.

--------------
Installation |
--------------

Use a mod management tool such as Wrye Mash, or just copy the .esp file you
wish to use to your Data Files directory, and select the plugin in the
Morrowind Launcher.

Two versions of the plugin are included: a "regular" version, and one intended
to be used with Talrivian's State-Based HP. Use only one version of the plugin,
not both.

Due to how the new scripts are started, this plugin should be enabled *before*
becoming a vampire. If you're already a vampire when you enable this plugin, it
will not be fully effective.

---------------
Compatibility |
---------------

This plugin edits the following vanilla spells:

Vampire Skills
Vampire Aundae Specials
Vampire Berne Specials
Vampire Quarra Specials

And the following vanilla scripts:

Vampire_Aundae
Vampire_Berne
Vampire_Quarra
Vampire_Aundae_PC
Vampire_Berne_PC
Vampire_Quarra_PC
Vampire_Cure_PC

It should be compatible with anything that does not edit these things, but will
be incompatible with anything that does. Other vampire mods are likely to edit
at least some of these things, and so will probably be incompatible.

-----------------
Version History |
-----------------

Version 1.1 - 2020-03-19
- Incorporated Patch for Purists fixes into three edited scripts.

Version 1.0 - 2019-08-22
- Initial release.

---------
Credits |
---------

Level Up Birthsign Remover, by AzuMite and Hollaajith, is an inspiration for
part of this plugin. My remover script is a modified version of theirs. You can
find Level Up Birthsign Remover here:

http://mw.modhistory.com/download-8-15045

Vampire Curse, by Lythoc, inspired the other part of this plugin, and my
restoration script is a modified version of theirs. You can download it here:

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43485

-------
Usage |
-------

Feel free to use this however you want. If you use the remover script (that
removes the spells that provide the attribute gains on resting), you should
credit AzuMite and Hollaajith, creators of the Level Up Birthsign Remover mod.
If you use the restoration script (that restores damaged skills), you should
credit Lythoc, who created the Vampire Curse mod that the original version of
that script came from.