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Destructor36

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destructor36

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About this mod

Defense is more intuitive. Blocking and Armor Ratings are more intuitive and better balanced between you and NPCs. Blocking requires Stamina. Wards block melee attacks.

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Defense


Defense is more intuitive. Blocking and Armor Ratings are visible and better balanced between you and NPCs. Blocking requires Stamina. Wards block melee attacks.


Armor and Block ratings are more intuitive and visible.
  • Damage Resistance from armor and blocking shows in the effects menu. There was no way to see this directly previously, as Damage Resistance did not scale linearly to Armor Rating.
  • Armor Ratings are more intuitive. Maximum damage resistance corresponds to 500 Armor Rating (0.2% resistance per armor unit), down from 833.33 (0.12%). Armor pieces no longer provide an invisible bonus in addition to their Armor Rating (previously 3% each). What you see in the menu is what you get.
  • Armor skills have a weaker effect on Armor Ratings. Armor will provide 1.2x as much protection at maximum skill, down from 1.4x.
  • Damage Resistance from armor is capped at 80%, unchanged from vanilla. This makes 400 Armor Rating the functional maximum (80% of 500), and it no longer changes based on the hidden bonus from the number of pieces you are wearing (the maximum could be between 542 and 567 depending on armor count in vanilla).
  • NPCs use the same Armor Rating calculation as the player, where previously they received more damage resistance per unit of armor.
  • This is all implemented through a small number of settings. This mod does not edit any individual armors' Armor Ratings directly, so does not require patches for other mods that do so or armor mods that are balanced against the vanilla armors.

Cumulatively, these tweaks:
  • Make it easier to understand how much damage you will deal to an enemy based on their visible armor, and vice-versa
  • Make most enemies less damage-spongy in the early game, and make you less of a damage sponge at high skill levels
  • Make low-level armor slightly weaker, keep high-level armors comparably effective, but still allow low-level armors to be effective at high skill levels or with tempering
  • Allow you to hit the armor cap with 2 of the 4 options you have to improve armor: skill, tempering, enchantments/potions, and shield/ward spells; vs. the vanilla game's high cap that you need to use all 4 of these options to achieve, and which enemies will never achieve.
  • Mods that affect specific armors' Armor Ratings or that overwrite the settings above will be accurately reflected in the menu: values are pulled from your armor, perks, and game settings in real time when you view your rating in the effects menu.

Damage reduction from blocking is visible and more effective.
  • Blocking with shields is more effective in general, and slightly less dependent on Block skill. The base block rate is increased from 45% to 50%. A Daedric shield at 0 skill will block 52% in vanilla vs. 59% in this mod. At 100 skill, this is 63% vs. 77%.
  • Blocking with weapons is less effective at low skill levels vs. the vanilla game, but more effective at high skill levels (almost as effective as shields). Blocking with an Iron Sword in vanilla would block 34% at 0 skill and 40% at 100. With this mod, it is 31% vs. 45%. This makes blocking with weapons less effective than with shields as in the vanilla game, but makes blocking with weapons more viable for high level characters as a reward for specialization.
  • Blocking provides up to 80% Damage Resistance as it does in the vanilla game.
  • Damage Resistance from blocking and armor stack as they do in the vanilla game: with the maximum 80% block and 80% armor, you will take only 4% of incoming damage (20% * 20%).
  • The amount of damage you block with weapons in vanilla Skyrim increases with based on the attack rating of the weapon you are being attacked with, rather than the weapon you are blocking with, meaning stronger enemy weapons are easier to block. This bug is described here. It is fixed by SSE Engine Fixes and Engine Fixes VR. The Damage Resistance rating shown in the menu assumes you are using Engine Fixes. This will work without them, but the blocked damage value you see in the effects will be incorrect.

Blocking drains stamina.
  • Stamina will drain slowly as you block to prevent spamming block.
  • If you run out of stamina, your shield will drop until you regenerate enough stamina to raise it again.
  • Stamina drain from blocking will show in the effects menu for parallelism with the other tweaks from this module.
  • A perk has been added to the Block tree that will prevent stamina drain while blocking. This is added as a 2nd tier on the vanilla Block Runner perk for compatibility. This will work without a patch with any perk tree mods that do not edit the Block Runner perk. The MCM options will allow you to achieve the same result if you want to use this with a perk mod without a patch.

Wards can block melee attacks.
  • Wards will now block melee attacks (configurable), and will use the base block damage for blocking with weapons (25% using the settings in this module). This makes Wards less effective than shield, but makes them visually much more satisfying to use.
  • Ward costs have been cut in half: in the vanilla game, they were too expensive for the protection they offered. This makes them more viable as one of mages' only 2 defensive options, and gives mages an alternative to using shields which doesn't feel very magical.


Requirements

Compatibility and Troubleshooting
  • My Armor Rating is showing as 0%: This will happen on the first time you load the module if you check the rating before un/equipping a piece of armor. Unequip and re-equip any armor and it will work properly from then on.
  • Will work with other armor mods and mods editing armor values or armor calculation equations: all calculations are done in real time.
  • Mods that edit the vanilla Ward spells directly will require a patch if you want them to use their lower casting costs from this mod.
  • Flagged as ESL


The mod suite
This mod was originally created as part of a large gameplay mechanics expansion mod that was designed to expand on under-used systems in Skyrim, bring back features from Morrowind and Oblivion, and implement features in a non-player-centric way to let NPCs use them. It's now standalone, but will play well with and have a similar design aesthetic as these mods that were also part of that suite:


My other mods