Simple mod that adds yet another fun activity for your character to do in the world: 12 epic "Leaps of Faith" across Skyrim for you to discover and complete as you play. Jumping from one of these places will play a custom jumping and falling animation and give you a small (well-earned) bonus.
I usually say yes to everything, but I appreciate a message first :)
File credits
Thanks to Tsaxaman for the "jumping into water" animation used in V1.03 and below - If you haven't checked his mod "UNDERDOG" yet, you're REALLY missing out!
And thanks to TateTaylorUSA for suggesting to add eagles! *Flies away*
Donation Points system
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Slightly slows down the animation, cause it was a bit too fast.
Falling animation got "repositioning" support for left/right positioning in the last update, but now the animation doesn't change even if you move backwards. Nice!
Version 1.04
Hey assassins! Hope you've been leaping safely these past months. Small update, safe to update mid-game.
So, the original leap animation had a weird thing with the character's foot. It did a weird twist when leaping. It was very fast so not too easy to notice, but if you know, you know and it always bothered me. So I decided to sit in front of a Blender tutorial for a few hours to learn how in the 9 divines you animate. I was getting nowhere following the tutorial, so I decided to just "take a leap of faith" and start moving stuff around blender. 6 hours later... we have my first blender animation created from scratch. It's supid and small, but I'm super proud of myself. It was pretty fun, so I might start making more animations for some of my other mods... We'll see!
Added support for moving around and repositioning a little bit mid-flight. In previous versions, doing this would revert to the vanilla falling animation, which looked terrible. Now it looks super smooth and you can move mid-air while looking as gracious as an eagle... or something haha.
Version 1.03
Safe to update mid-game, but: one of the tree jumping platforms has been moved around a little bit. I don't think this will be an issue but the craziest among you might want to re-do your lod so it's 100% accurate to its new position. The tree hasn't been moved that much, less than 1m, so I don't think it matters but just for your info.
All jumps using trees as jumping platforms have been slightly tweaked: these locations will no longer use your (modded) tree models, but vanilla trees. This of course affects ONLY these 4 or 5 trees that I use as a jumping platform in a couple of locations and the mod continues to be compatible with everything. You shouldn't really notice the change. The reason I've done it this way is cause 1) some modded tree mods could make one of my trees invisible, making the jumps impossible and 2) so everyone has the same experience. If your tree mod makes the fallen tree bigger/smaller, the jump might be easier/harder. Now everyone has the same tough-but-doable experience and it's compatible with all tree mods.
Jump near Nilheim has been made easier, so even the races with the shortest legs can make the jump. This sounds like a joke, but it's definitely not lol. The smaller your character, the slower they move and the less distance they can move while jumping/falling. All races can make all jumps now.
Nilheim jump has also been enhanced with a bit more realism. AKA: I've turned the tree around and added a nearby tree stump.
I've added an extra second to the "water check" so the quest continues as normal even if you take a bit longer to land in water. As a reminder: the mod checks that you jump at the top and that you land in water within X seconds. Now the seconds are a bit more generous.
Kudos to raziell74, whose patch I used to speed up the changes from this mod. Big shoutout to them and all modders making patches :)
Version 1.02
New feature: Added a new "guild specific" jump as an easter egg. So, TECHNICALLY there are 13 jumps now. However, to complete the quest, all you need to do is find 12 jumps just like in the original version. I'm doing it this way since this jump is guild specific and I don't want to lock it for people that don't join that guild. All in all, having one more possible jump ensures a bit more variety/choice for completing the Leaps of Faith misc quest. Thanks to the mysterious Chest of Mechadave for the suggestion, and the legendary Catir for forwarding the awesome idea.
Failsafe: Added a small failsafe to the misc quest and falling damage reduction. If you complete more jumps than expected (Say 13 jumps, instead of 12!), everything will continue to work as intended.
Bugfix: Removed one unnecessary edit from the solitude worldspace.
Bugfix: Removed one floating rock from the LOTD patch.
Version 1.01
Mini update, safe to update mid-game.
One of the jumps (certain toll road we are all familiar with) would sometimes not be recognized by my quest correctly, I've made it so jumping from it will guarantee it triggers.
Changed the falling animation slightly so it doesn't move to the sides as much as the previous one.
Forgot to disable some items in the LOTD patch, this is now fixed.
This modis just a small addition to your Skyrim adventure meant to bring yet another fun activity for your character to do. A small ESL for you to install, forget about it and then be like "holy cow, I can jump from that place?" in the middle of your playthrough and be amazed at how something so simple can make for an awesome moment or story in-game (Hopefully!)
*definitely NOT inspired by the Assassin's Creed mechanic of the same name - please, don't sue me, Ubisoft!
Featuring:
12 Leaps of Faiths (Jumping Points)
Custom Jumping Animation that ONLY applies on these specific spots, rest of the time it's your vanilla/modded jumping animation.
Different jump difficulty (some jumps are harder than others to pull off, but all are doable)
Fall resistance bonus: Each jump you complete gives you a small 4% damage resistance to FALL DAMAGE. If you manage to get all 12 jumps (which is really a late game endeavour since they're all over the map), falling damage is reduced by a total of 50%. I do not consider this OP in any way, since we all know how broken fall damage is, this won't allow you to make impossible jumps, just survive regular ones.
True to Skyrim: I've only added VERY mininal changes to the locations. The locations were already there and were already part of the natural landscape of Skyrim, I just added a a nest, a flying hawk or fallen tree, a wooden plank... etc. to act as jumping platform, but there's only 2 or 3 added objects per location.
Video Showcase
Looks daunting? Don't worry, I've asked my friend Dives-In-Waters to give you some tips!
Tom Daley would be proud
Compatibility:
TL:DR; Compatibility shouldn't be an issue. Very small mod that doesn't edit many things. Let all other mods take priority over mine.
Long: This mod adds a couple of static items to the world in 12 key locations. These changes are minimal so it should be compatible with everything (no conflicts in my +500 mod load order). Let my mod sit up high in your load order, so other mods can take priority over this one.
Requirements:
SKSE
Dynamic Animation Replacer (If you want the custom jumping + falling animation. Mod still works without DAR) (OAR works too)
Fantastic Jumps and Where To Find Them: - The intended way to find these locations should be naturally throughout your playthrough. You will spot the locations because:
You will see a crazy high place with water below and think "Isn't that an amazing place to jump from?"
Small enviromental tips: A couple of random feathers, a suspicious tree near a cliff, a wooden platform...
Flying hawks! They like placing their nests in high places, this can be a tip to find one of the Leaps of Faith (or not)
When you stand near the cliff of one of these locations, you will get a message "I could probably survive this fall"
If you don't want to discover the places on your own and want to know where they are, click the spoiler below.
Ain't nobody got time for that? Open the spoiler to check out the location of all jumps:
Spoiler:
Show
FAQ
Q: I installed this mod, nothing happens. Now what? A: Now, play the game and forget you installed this until you find a suspicious nice place to jump from and land safely...
Q: Is this compatible with jump replacers? A: Yes.
Q: Is this compatible with Parkour in Skyrim (A Jump Animations Replacer)? A: Yes, and it looks awesome! But I'm not sure I recommend jumping sideways or backwards, the jumps require good precision. You can also use the alternative leap of faith animations included in Parkour in Skyrim! To do so, just replace the 3 .HKX files included in my mod with those of Parkour BUT keep my _conditions.txt file. This is how it might end up looking!
Q: Can I become Etheral and cheat the jump? A: Yes, but: my mod checks for two things. That you jump at the top, and that you land in water (swimming not just standing on water). As long as these 2 things happen, you should be fine.
Q: I jumped, animation and sound played, but the misc quest didn't advance! A: Try to do the jump again. There's a time limit between the jump and you landing in water, maybe you somehow were too fast or too slow to land in the water and it didn't trigger correctly. Don't get out of the water immediately, give it a second.
Q: This jump is impossible, I don't think it can be done! A: I know some of the jumps can be quite tricky, they're all possible at the vanilla default speedmult (100) but if you have a mod modifying the speed of your character, some of the jumps might indeed be impossible unless you get to be a bit faster. Being faster will make your jump cover more distance, so that's why.
Q: How do I know if the "fall damage reduction" reward is working? A: It is working! Thing is, fall damage is quite crazy in Skyrim, so you will probably die anyway if you jump from any slightly high place, but the perk will definitely help you survive smaller falls.
Q: You know, some of those jumps into water would not be survivable! A: You are probably right! But doesn't it look fun? Also, the highest Leap of Faith in this game is actually a VANILLA jump! It's almost twice as high as any of the others, so it's not breaking Bethesda's rules, but of course: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Since you made it to the bottom of the page, here's something interesting for you: a video of the IRL current highest dive record at 58.8M (193 feet).