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Destructor36

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destructor36

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Races are now more distinct in their abilities and more diverse in their skills. Characters start weaker and without spells, letting you choose your path in the world.

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Racial Skills and Leveling


Races are now more distinct in their abilities and more diverse in their skills. Characters start weaker and without spells, letting you choose your path in the world.

Races feel more distinct.
  • Skills are more-evenly distributed across races. Races no longer have a major skill (10 point bonus). Each gets an additional 5 point boost to a minor skill (giving them 7, up from 6). Each skill has 4 races who are skilled in it (except Two-Handed and Pickpocket, which have 3), where in vanilla Skyrim some skills were represented by as few as 2 races and others as many as 5.
  • Abilities are better-balanced across races. Each race now has 3 abilities, where some in vanilla had as low as 1 or as high as 3. This, combined with their flattened skill bonuses, make it less of a waste to choose a race with a major skill you won't use.
  • Racial abilities are now constant or automatic. You no longer have to remember to use their abilities or worry about the 1-day cooldown period. They have been rewritten to balance this.
  • Racial abilities are lore-friendly and open up new playstyles. In vanilla Skyrim, your race was a visual choice that gave you a once-a-day power you'd forget to use. Now each race will have powerful advantages in a particular playstyle. You can ignore these benefits and create e.g. a stealth Orc or heavily-armored Khajiit, but your enemies will use most of their racial skills to their full advantage.
  • Certain races have race-specific armor and weapon bonuses as one of their abilities that make their race-specific weapons comparably effective to the highest tier weapons, giving them an edge earlier in the game and allowing them to use their customary items instead of Daedric/Dragon in the late game without compromising their stats.

The new racial abilities are:
  • Argonians' abilities now reflect their amphibious roots. They regenerate health more quickly than other races through their Histskin (constantly, rather than once per day on command), and can breathe underwater and swim faster. Their disease resistance has been increased from 50% to 99%, so they are immune to disease in the course of regular gameplay, but can still be infected by story-critical diseases. They are well-suited as hit-and-run fighters who can stay out of enemies' reach long enough for their health to regenerate, and occasionally escape into Skyrim's rivers or lakes.
  • Bretons' abilities are largely unchanged, as they already reflect their half-human/half-elf roots. They resist magic and absorb Magicka from hostile spells automatically (rather than once per day on command). They now also resist 50% of Shock damage, making them more resistant to Shock's magicka drain and making a race resistant to Shock, analogous to Nords' Frost resistance and Dark Elves' Fire resistance. They are well-suited as armored battlemages who can shrug off any attack.
  • Dark Elves' abilities reflect their volcanic origins, honor culture, and connections to ancestral spirits and Daedra. They retain their 50% fire resistance. Their Ancestor's Wrath ability now triggers automatically near death, and will both deal fire damage to enemies and turn enemies' conjured Daedra against them. They are more effective with Glass and Ebony weapons, which their ancestors have mined and forged for Eras. They are well-suited as aggressive spellswords, getting up close and personal with weapons and spells and goading enemies to rouse their Ancestral Wrath.
  • High Elves' abilities are largely unchanged, and reflect their innate magical abilities. Their Highborn status still grants them extra Magicka, but now lets them regenerate Magicka faster (constantly, rather than once per day on command). They are more effective with Elven weapons and armor, which their people forge from Moonstone. They are well-suited as pure mages who can outcast and outlast other races with a Ward in one hand and Destruction magic in the other.
  • Imperials' abilities now reflect their colonial prestige status in the empire. They are more effective at bartering and persuasion, and will automatically buff nearby allies' Health, Stamina, and Confidence in combat (this does not stack, i.e. having multiple Imperials in a party doesn't provide any more benefit than one). They have 50 extra stamina to reflect their generational conditioning for the Imperial Legion. They are well-suited as leaders of a party of followers who can benefit from their presence and carry their loot.
  • Khajiit abilities are expanded to reflect their feline nature. Their claws still deal additional damage. Their Night Eye is automatic, triggering in the dark and turning off in the light (the light level at which this triggers is configurable in the MCM). They are noticeably more acrobatic than other races: they can jump twice as high (if PowerOfThree's Tweaks is installed), suffer half as much fall damage, and move 25% faster when sneaking. They are well-suited as thieves and assassins.
  • Nords' abilities are expanded and reflect their pride, aggression, and brashness. They retain their 50% resistance to Frost. Their Battle Cry now sounds automatically when they enter combat, and will Rout enemies who are weaker than them. Nords are not intimidated by battle cries so will rarely flee from other Nords regardless of their strength discrepancy. They are known to fight even more ferociously when in states of intoxication and undress... They are well-suited as generalist melee-focused warriors, whether they're heavily-, lightly-, or not-at-all armed or armored.
  • Orcs' abilities are significantly expanded to reflect their large statures and hot tempers. Their Berzerker Rage now triggers automatically at low health, letting them take 1/2 as much damage and deal 2x as much. They have 50 extra Health and Carrying Capacity. They are renowned for their skill with Orichalcum, and more effective with Orcish weapons and armor. They are well-suited as heavily-armored berzerkers.
  • Redguards' abilities now reflect their agility and give them a significant edge with melee weapons. Their Stamina regenerates faster than other races (constantly, rather than once per day on command). They swing melee weapons 20% faster than other races, which combined with perks can let them deal massive damage in the blink of an eye and parry almost any attack. They retain their 50% poison resistance, which combined with the Toxicity module allows them to use potions more effectively to stay in the fight. They are well-suited as lightly-armored dual-wielding warriors, and benefit from having Alchemy as a supporting skill.
  • Wood Elves' abilities now reflect their connections to nature and unique cultural practices. They now calm animals up to their level automatically, letting them traverse the wilderness undisturbed. They draw bows 25% faster than other races, making them uniquely effective as archers. They can choose to honor the Green Pact signed by their ancestors by feeding on the dead to fortify their health and regeneration. Skyrim does not respect these practices and you will receive a bounty if witnessed. They are well-suited as survivalists and scouts.


NPCs benefit from these abilities as well, making it important be mindful of who you are fighting. Notably:
  • Your non-Nord followers may be intimidated when entering combat with high level Nords due to their Battle Cry, leaving you to fight them alone.
  • Imperial patrols and bandit groups with Imperials in them will be harder to kill and more aggressive.
  • Dark Elves will deal fire damage and turn any of your conjured Daedra against you when close to death.


Progression is more open-ended, and you start with almost nothing.
  • Your starting skills are weaker. Skills not affected by a racial bonus will start at 10, down from 15. Skills will level quickly in the early game, but you will struggle to survive for the first few hours and have slightly lower skills and fewer perks relative to your level, so your characters will be more specialized early on. This has very little effect on the late game: it increases the level cap you can hit without Legendary skills from 81 to just 82.
  • You no longer start the game with 'Flames' and 'Healing' spells, so magic is a choice you make rather than a default.


Requirements

Compatibility and Troubleshooting
  • Recommended to start on a new save. The module is safe to use on an existing save, but will not retroactively change your skill levels. If you want to use this on an existing save, you'll need to use the ShowRaceMenu console command and then use 'player.setav (skill) to (level)' to set your skills to their previous levels.
  • Survival Mode: Will overwrite a small change made by Survival Mode that allows the Dark Elf Ancestor's Wrath ability to provide warmth. It is otherwise compatible with and can be used safely with Survival Mode.
  • A patch is available here for my Movement mod. It's also available on that page, but it's the same: you don't need both.
  • 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