0 of 0
About this mod
A perk tree overhaul that focuses on aspects of the magic trees that I felt were rather lacking.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
REQUIRES SKSE
UPDATE: Added DG, DB and NO DLC versions.
So I got thinking...all these fire mages and lightning mages in Skyrim, it might be fun to play as one. Of course, you can do this in vanilla Skyrim, but the way that goes is sort of like this: I'm playing as an ice mage who exclusively uses frost magic, even though I'm perfectly capable of using fire and shock magic, because all destruction magic in Skyrim is the same...This creates situations such as when I encounter say, a frost atronach. I'll be sorely tempted to use that Flames spell I started the game with - Nothing is stopping me from doing so because my character read one book at some point in his past which apparantly taught him everything he needs to know to be able to shoot fire out his hands without any prior knowledge of the nature of pyromancy, or even the nature of magic itself. Well what I've gone and done is change that so you won't be casting magic when you know nothing about it's attribute.
FEATURES
- A simple overhaul of the magic trees.
- You will need appropriate Novice-Master perks to be able to cast different types of spell(They will cost A LOT of magicka without them). Astronomical Spell Costs Is Not A Bug. They are supposed to be unusable without the right mastery perk.
- More meaningful upgrades in an easy to comprehend system.
- Magic will now scale with your skill levels.
Something I've never quite understood about Necromancy, is the idea of a corpse being "too powerful" to reanimate. It just makes no damn sense, and doesn't really increase the difficulty or challenge of combat - it only makes using the spell slightly inconvenient.
I decided to just scrap the idea and upped the magnitude of all reanimate spells so they will now work up to level 1000. The higher level Raise spells will now have increasingly longer durations rather than a higher level cap. This should be enough for any being in all of Skyrim.
I've also made some changes to the perk tree to make conjuration a wee bit more interesting:
"Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise." ―Colette Marence
There are two paths you can take with this school: Healing the living, and granting death to those who are unnaturally alive.
Illusion as a skill sort of lost it's appeal to me when I started meeting enemies that were immune to my brainwashing. Once you reach a certain level (and enemies have scaled with you), suddenly all the effort you put into honing your Illusion magic becomes meaningless. I thought it necessary to give Illusion a bit of a boost and help make it more viable.
The perks have been split up to affect the different types of entity you'll encounter: Animals, Humans, Undead, Machines and Daedra. Your illusion spells won't work on anyone without the right perk for that type of entity, and the multiple ranks will allow you to affect even higher levels of npcs.
As well as affecting the minds of others, the idea of Illusion magic is "Seeing the Unseen". For this reason, Detect Life is now part of the Illusion school. The way it works now is a little different though. You will only be able to detect creatures that can be affected by your Illusion spells, for example you won't be able to see a Daedra's aura without the "Master of the Mind" perk. Also, entities will no longer be colour coded based on if they are hostile to you or not.
The colour of their aura will now tell you what they are:
The spell has also been made into a toggle. I've left Detect Dead as a concentration spell though, because odds are you'll only need it for 5 seconds to quickly find the body of something you've just killed.
Some perks require that you have other ones before they can be unlocked, for example "Augmented Flames" needs all the other fire damage perks, and each of those needs a Novice-Master perk. If you can't tell what perk you need, the skill level is a good idea to start with i.e. "Destruction Dual Casting" has a requirement of 25, so any one of the element apprentice perks is needed before you can unlock it.
UPDATE: Added DG, DB and NO DLC versions.
So I got thinking...all these fire mages and lightning mages in Skyrim, it might be fun to play as one. Of course, you can do this in vanilla Skyrim, but the way that goes is sort of like this: I'm playing as an ice mage who exclusively uses frost magic, even though I'm perfectly capable of using fire and shock magic, because all destruction magic in Skyrim is the same...This creates situations such as when I encounter say, a frost atronach. I'll be sorely tempted to use that Flames spell I started the game with - Nothing is stopping me from doing so because my character read one book at some point in his past which apparantly taught him everything he needs to know to be able to shoot fire out his hands without any prior knowledge of the nature of pyromancy, or even the nature of magic itself. Well what I've gone and done is change that so you won't be casting magic when you know nothing about it's attribute.
FEATURES
- A simple overhaul of the magic trees.
- You will need appropriate Novice-Master perks to be able to cast different types of spell(They will cost A LOT of magicka without them). Astronomical Spell Costs Is Not A Bug. They are supposed to be unusable without the right mastery perk.
- More meaningful upgrades in an easy to comprehend system.
- Magic will now scale with your skill levels.
DESTRUCTION
Destruction magic is now split up into Pyromancy, Cryomancy, Electromancy and Runes. Each branch now has their own Novice-Master perks as well as others that improve your proficiency with the element. They should be fine to use in an existing playthrough, I haven't replaced any vanilla perks, just changed them a bit.
Destruction magic is now split up into Pyromancy, Cryomancy, Electromancy and Runes. Each branch now has their own Novice-Master perks as well as others that improve your proficiency with the element. They should be fine to use in an existing playthrough, I haven't replaced any vanilla perks, just changed them a bit.
- The "Destruction Novice-Master" perks are now part of the Pyromancy tree and allow different levels of fire magic to be cast.
- The"Augmented" perks are now higher end boosts that I've tweaked to have no effect unless you have their prerequisite perks, in case you've already unlocked them.
- "Rune Master" has been divided up into several perks that affect not only how far away you can place runes, but how many you can place too.
- "Power" increases the strength of it's particular element, and "Affinity" decreases how much magicka it takes to cast it's spells.
CONJURATION
Something I've never quite understood about Necromancy, is the idea of a corpse being "too powerful" to reanimate. It just makes no damn sense, and doesn't really increase the difficulty or challenge of combat - it only makes using the spell slightly inconvenient.
I decided to just scrap the idea and upped the magnitude of all reanimate spells so they will now work up to level 1000. The higher level Raise spells will now have increasingly longer durations rather than a higher level cap. This should be enough for any being in all of Skyrim.
I've also made some changes to the perk tree to make conjuration a wee bit more interesting:
- Split up Conjuration into Necromancy and Daedrology
- More ranks of "Twin Souls" so you can summon up to 5 Daedra (renamed the perk to "Bound Souls").
- Added an equivalent to the Necromancy tree named "Imprisoned Souls".
- New "Blood Binding" perk stops reanimated corpses disintegrating when they die.
- Redesigned the soul trap system. For each level of soul, you will need the appropriate rank of the "Harvester" perk, and for Black(Human) souls you will need the "Reaper" perk. This system will also apply to bound weapons.
- "Exorcist" in the Daedrology tree will allow you to banish different types of Daedra as you rank it up. This applies to bound weapons as well.
- "Banish Daedra" is used to sever a summoned Daedra from its summoner, but "Expel Daedra" will now sever an unsummoned Daedra from its body (the idea is that their souls are sent back to Oblivion so their physical body will basically die).
- Vampire Lords can still cast their Raise spells without any Necromancy perks, as it is more of a power of theirs rather than a learned skill.
RESTORATION
"Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise." ―Colette Marence
There are two paths you can take with this school: Healing the living, and granting death to those who are unnaturally alive.
- New tree dedicated to fighting the undead.
- Added "Overpowering Will" and "Sun Conjuring" perks.
- "Regeneration" and "Recovery" now have 5 ranks each.
- Changed "Necromage" so that it only affects spells cast at others. It was ridiculous that taking a Restoration perk would give boosts to an unholy vampire character.
- Put in the standard "Affinity" perks.
- Various requirement tweaks.
ILLUSION
Illusion as a skill sort of lost it's appeal to me when I started meeting enemies that were immune to my brainwashing. Once you reach a certain level (and enemies have scaled with you), suddenly all the effort you put into honing your Illusion magic becomes meaningless. I thought it necessary to give Illusion a bit of a boost and help make it more viable.
The perks have been split up to affect the different types of entity you'll encounter: Animals, Humans, Undead, Machines and Daedra. Your illusion spells won't work on anyone without the right perk for that type of entity, and the multiple ranks will allow you to affect even higher levels of npcs.
As well as affecting the minds of others, the idea of Illusion magic is "Seeing the Unseen". For this reason, Detect Life is now part of the Illusion school. The way it works now is a little different though. You will only be able to detect creatures that can be affected by your Illusion spells, for example you won't be able to see a Daedra's aura without the "Master of the Mind" perk. Also, entities will no longer be colour coded based on if they are hostile to you or not.
The colour of their aura will now tell you what they are:
- Animals/Humans/Living Beings - Bluish Purple
- Undead - Orange
- Corpse/Automaton - White
- Daedra - Red
The spell has also been made into a toggle. I've left Detect Dead as a concentration spell though, because odds are you'll only need it for 5 seconds to quickly find the body of something you've just killed.
ALTERATION
- Changed armor spells so they will not work at all if you are wearing armor unless you have the new "Battle Mage" perk (1st rank for light armor, 2nd rank for heavy).
- Moved "Quiet Casting" from the Illusion tree as I see it making more sense as an Alteration perk.
- Moved the Invisibility and Muffle spells from the Illusion school for the same reason.
- About muffle: Added the muffle effect to the invisibility spell.
INFO
Some perks require that you have other ones before they can be unlocked, for example "Augmented Flames" needs all the other fire damage perks, and each of those needs a Novice-Master perk. If you can't tell what perk you need, the skill level is a good idea to start with i.e. "Destruction Dual Casting" has a requirement of 25, so any one of the element apprentice perks is needed before you can unlock it.