Why did I make this mod?

This target is too powerful for your illusion spells no more! 

Doesn't fury frenzy and calm magic kinda just feel horribly designed? Imagine being 4 perks into the illusion tree and at level 10, you can probably turn a level 50 giant into a fleeing chicken with a dual cast apprentice level spell. But if you're level 30 and you didn't put any perks in, none of your frenzy fury or calm spells work on even basic archer on the wall enemies.

Frenzy, Fury, and calm's "work if magnitude is greater than level, else, don't work" effects are a hallmark of horrible design, because level is part of how the game scales and combined with the fact that higher level spells provide marginally more magnitude and most of the ability to target higher level enemies is in the perks instead of higher level spells all comes together to mean that if you want to use mind altering effects to any non zero degree what so ever, there is a minimum amount of investment in the perk tree you have to do that only grows as the game grows later, and eventually outpases the perks in the perk tree all together. Otherwise you are locked out of the entire illusion tree save invisibility and muffle as you don't have access to any mind influence spells that work against any leveled enemies. It makes it very difficult to pick up illusion magic late into the game, use it sparingly as a secondary skill, and very daunting to ever legendary it. And while other mods have tried to fix it, they only lightly lesson the problem by adding a random component to the magnitude so that the magnitude becomes a new 'minimum level' by which higher level targets likely resist, but might not if you're lucky. But the entire mechanic is still dependent on you having the investment necessary to inflict these powerful effects in a single shot, and if you don't then you can't.

To me it felt akin to if a two handed weapon didn't do any damage to any enemy that a power attack doesn't one shot. Sure you can make the weapon randomly do a lot more damage, but it's still just not the best design. If I can kill people with two fireballs, why can't I frenzy people with two frenzy spells?

The Solution?


Now the fear frenzy and calm spells accumulate points of frenzy fury or calm effecting the targets mind once it's over a threshold, and the exact threshold is different for each effect. 

• Frenzy is opposed by experience and it's threshold is twice the targets level (Accumulate same amount as spells previous magnitude) 
• Fears is opposed by the target's fear of death and it's threshold is the targets current remaining health (accumulates 10x the spells previous magnitude)
  



• Calm is opposed by the will to fight and it's threshold is stamina (accumulates 10x the spells previous magnitude)
  

NEW TO VERSION 2.7 

Turn Undead is opposed by their remanences of mortality. Like fear it's threshold is the targets current remaining health, however turn undead is resisted by fire resistance which in practice means undead are vulnerable to it. 
Note about turn undead: turn undead spells do not work on undead of level 50 or higher even if you manage to accumulate it. Meaning Harkon, the named dragon priests, and Karstag can't be turned. This is intentional: these bosses have tags and abilities that make them immune to illusion magic, but in vanilla skyrim the only reason they couldn't be turned was because turn undead effects can't get to levels that high or because they have unique AI packages that ignore confidence where turning them sometimes bugs the game

On the other hand, turning powerful undead outside of those most powerful undead is easier, because dual casting turn undead effects improves the magnitude instead of the duration, just like they do with illusion spells

Last note: The guardian circle type effects use the old mechanics. Otherwise they'd accumulate too fast for balanced play and run the script too many times per second for a good stable game 

IF YOU HAVE ORDINATOR OR MYSTICISM PATCHES you can even use the new illusion effects added by those

Command (in either mod) is opposed by one's autonomy, and it's threshold is the sum of both their magicka and stamina (points x10 vanilla magnitude) 

Simulacrum (In Ordinator) is opposed by potential, and the threshold is the target's highest maximum attribute. 

Silence (In mysticism) is opposed by magical skills, and the threshold is the targets current Magicka.


So if a target is level 13 and you have a 4 level fury spell if you can cast it on them 7 times in 30 seconds they will begin to fury. The base spells are unchanged, and all the perks and abilities that effect illusion magnitude still effect the magnitude in this mod. It works for spells, poisons, and enchantments, and you can even mix and match them, put a poison of fear on an enchanted axe of fear and build the fear faster. Or hold your novice mysticism silence spell at a warding target until they run out of magicka and shut them up and keep them shut up. 


Compatibility: 
Load this mod bellow anything that effects illusion magic in any way. This mod only changes the vanilla magical effects, and not the spells.
That means it is incompatible with mods that change the fury calm fear mechanics at a fundamental level without a patch, such as Odin (Patch exists) and Path of Sorcery (Patch does not exist) but compatible with anything that adds new spells or perks
If a mod does add a new spell with a new magic effect, without a compatibility patch the spell will use the vanilla mechanic

It is not compatible with path of sorcery at this time, and I may need some help from the other mod author to insure that his mod works with mine. 

An ESL compatibility patch for Mysticism Odin and Ordinator are included on the mod page, I'll be making more soon. 

If you have any questions about compatibility, you can ask, and I'll try to answer.

I'm currently making a full game perk overhaul that will incorporate this mod because the illusion perks will be built around it. So that's exciting. Hope to see you guys soon!




ADDITIONAL COMPATABILITY NOTE (for other mod authors): This mod uses the player exclusive actor values HeavyArmorSkillArmorAdvance, SpeechSKillAdvance, and BlockSkillAdvance as place holders for points of fear fury and calm so that the number does not have to be stored in a script that would slow the game down. This means that A: this mod is inherently incompatible with mods that cause illusion spells to work on the player because the effects will cause the player to level up their skills. (do note that, mods that simply allow NPCS to use illusion against each other, such as a follower that has an illusion spell in their arsenals should still work, since the player is tagged to be immune to every illusion effect) and B: That any mod that uses these same unused actor values will be incompatible due to illusion spells triggering the features of other mods, and other mods causing targets to become easier or harder to influence. 

I had a look through of several mods that are known to use unused actor values, such as thunderchild and summermyst, and chose these actor values in particular due to not being able to find any mod that uses them. If you use an illusion spell, and any effects from another mod activate that are not supposed to, tell me and the author of said mod. 

There is a mod that allows for the creation of new actor values called the Actor Value Generator that can remove this concern. I prefer for my mod to not have any requirements, but i will make an unused actor value generator patch if any mod that uses the same unused actor values as my mod is found