questions on casting, spells & magic-effects

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 4:05 am

1. as increased skills e.g. destruction should lower the amount of magicka you should need for a spell, I tried to enchant all my armor with "increase skill destruction" - but it doesn't seem to make any diffence if you have a 100 or 150 destruction skill! Anybody knows if this effect is capped at 100?

2. how does "drain life" work? As it's quite cheap - I enchanted a weapon and this seems to work quite good - afterwards I designeg a spell:

"drain life 100 on target range 20 for 3 seconds"

...but this one doesn't seem to have nearly the effect promised, besides enemies are glowing red...

3. how does "burden" work? I have one spell "burden 100 & absorb strength 30 for 10 seconds on touch", what should have a total effect of "burden 250" but even on heavy armored enemies this doesn't seem to have any effect...

4. I know that you can stack effects by casting different named spells with the same effect - but as this is quite stupid, is there any possibility to design spells with more then "100" whatever?

5. Some "free" spells and even some spells you can buy are much better then everything you can design yourself - what are the best spells you can find?

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:34 am

1. Destruction like all magic schoolls is capped atone hundred.

2. Drain life 100 magnitude for 3 seconds in 20' of the target does just that. It drains 100 hit points for three seconds, if those affected have 100 or fewer hit points they die, if not they regain all the lost hit points after three seconds. So if a monster has 150 Hit Points, and you dont do another fifty points of damage within the time limit, it will be back at 150 when the time expires. Draining effects are not cumalative, i.e. they don't stack with each other. However they do stack with other damage effects, so a spell that Drains 100 Health for 1 second on target + 20 Frost Damage for 1 second on target + 20 Fire Damage for 1 second on target + 20 Shock Damage for 1 second on target will kill that 150 HP beastie stone dead. If the target has 200 HP then two doses of the spell will kill it etc..

3. The game cheats! I can't be 100% certain about that, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't actually calculate the burden for 'monsters'. I gae up on burden as a waste of time years ago, literally.

4. By combining effects in the same spell (similar to what I wrote above) you can achieve (in theory) a touch spell that does 600 damage in one second. This is achieved by creating a spel that does 100 damage in Absorb & Damage Health, Frost, Fire, Shock and of course Drain Health. It could be just a little expensive to cast though. Other than that, each effect is indeed capped at 100.

Someone at Bethseda seems to have been obsessed with the number 100, maybe they should go see a shrink, as it's obviously some sort of mental malady as 100 is a completely unnatural number to use that way in a computer game, 255 would make sense, 100 doesn't!

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:03 am

galraen wrote:3. The game cheats! I can't be 100% certain about that, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't actually calculate the burden for 'monsters'. I gae up on burden as a waste of time years ago, literally.

Just tested it with a Minotaur Lord, generic Minotaur, Mud Crab, Wolf, Marauder
I make 10 spell, each maxed, and tested it on the above creatures and NPC (one at a time of course). I stacked the spells, and they don't chase me. So it works; you just need more point to encumber your enemies.

P.S: You should bring many Strong Potion of Sorceries with you, if you want to prove it yourself

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:07 am

Thanks for clarifying Master David, so it's not broken, just far too expensive to bother with unless your running a test.

If I was going to create a mod to fix the faults (as I see them) altering the cost and effectiveness of both Burden and Feather is certainly one of the things I'd look at.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:55 am

...hmmm...-...but as said, I tried "burden 100 & absorb strength 30 for 10 seconds on touch", what should have a total effect of "burden 250" but even on heavy armored human enemies this doesn't seem to have any effect...

...250 burden, a weight 50 weapon and heavy armor for 200 weight should stop most humans from my point of view...

...never tried it on monsters, as they don't wear much heavy stuff and I would expect that most have strength 100+

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:03 am

What level are you?

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:21 am

Master David wrote:What level are you?

as I tried it ~L20

why?

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:54 am

Because level is the thing that determines your enemies Strength,

In lv 20, a female Redguard bandit will have 72 Str
72x5=360

For male, it's 82
82x5=410

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:01 pm

didn't know...

but with (82-30)*5-100 = 160

...ok - 160 might be just enough for a heavy weapon and a few pieces of heavy armor... (most of them aren't all heavy)

...but even umbra (very heavy) wasn't affected by this spell!

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:10 pm

Don't worry, just put more spells on your enemy

Umbra has 100 points of str, regardless of your level. You'll need more work on her

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:35 pm

you are right - the complete Umbra equipment weights 186,8

100STR - 30STR(spell) = 70STR x 5 - 100(burden) = 250

...so it would only work with minimum -43 STR and 100 burden - should have a look what you need for that kind of spell...

...so -80 STR AND 100 burden for a few seconds should do it against almost anybody...

...but, think I will go back to paralize, less complicated and even cheaper...

...btw. for some reasons umbra (sword) has just 23 basic damage instead of 28 - is this sword also levelled?

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:22 pm

Well I created a spell as an experiment that did Burden 100 for 10 seconds and Absorb Strength 30 for ten seconds and of course it didn't do anything, apart from get the target (an Imperial Battle Mage) anoyed.

So I did a little research and came to the conclusion that the net effect would have to be much higher to work on virtually anything. To stop the Imperial MB would have taken the equivalent of a burden of over 350, and quite frankly it makes zero sense to waste magicka on such a spell. Far more productive to use it on another spell.

The spell you described for example cost my Mage 68 points of Magicka to cast. She has a spell that for 59 points of Magicka Turns Undead (max magnitude) for 10 seconds, summons a Flame Atronach for 15 seconds, does 3 points of fire damage for 10 seconds and restores 3 health points for five seconds on self! So the undead runs away, taking damage all the time, with a Flame Atronach in hot pursuit, meanwhile my lady gets healed (if necessary), eventually the undead return for another dose.

Alternatively for 45 magicka points she could cast a spell that demoralises a living opponent (max magnitude) for 5 seconds, and does 10 elemental damage for 5 seconds. So the victim runs away for 5 seconds sustaining 50 damage, then returns to get zapped again.

In short, forget about burden and absorbing strength and kill the blighters.

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:14 am

silverdragon72:
I too prefer Paralyze over burden, but it doesn't work on some enemies (while Burden works for all)
But think of it: if Burden works as easy as Paralyze and you combine it with Silence, then it will make the game even more easier than a stroll in the park (because the game is already easier than a stroll in the park).
Bethesda must do this on purpose because even Paralyze is banned in the Enchanting altar

Umbra will have 28 basic damage if you're a Master of Blade

galraen:
You're absolutely right,
And I too fancy mixing spells to get an interesting effect

Btw, do you know why Beth describe Darkness as "DO NOT USE"?
I want to try it, but I'm afraid it will ruin something permanently, because Beth even use caps

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:25 am

I don't know why Darkness carries that warning, but I suspect it could/would cause problems due to the way lighting is handled by the engine. Lock is also disabled, which I find inconvenient, I think this is due to the way doors work in Oblvion.

I don't know why they disabled enchatn for paralyze, it's so expensive that it wouldn't unbalance the game really. I really think they should have disabled enchant and spellmaking for chameleon though, now there's a real game killer in terms of making the game patheticaly easy.

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:17 am

How did the game engine handle lightning?

Because doors work as portal?

Again, you're absolutely right (but 100% Chameleon would be very helpful in some testplay)

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:37 am

I don't know how lighting is handled, I was just surmising.

I suspect it is the portal aspect that's the problem. In Morrowind of course only the PC (or companions) could go through doors that acted as teleporters, not the case in Oblivion. You can use the console to lock doors with some interesting results. I don't recommend it, some of the results aren't good.

One of the advantages of mixing effects in spells is that you can balance the spell to boost whichever school you are working on at the timw. So, for example, the two spells I mentioned before can be tweked to either boost destruction, conjuration or restoration in the first one, Illusion or destruction (or even restoration if you replace one of the elemental segments with absorb health) with the second. Or yo could add a Shield element and tweak the spell to be an alteration spell. You can get a very powerful mage in fairly short order that way.

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 11:03 am

Well, I lock the gate from IC Market to Arena when there's Amantius Allectus nearby,
he won't come to the Arena as usual (I lock the gate with its default, then 99)
Do you mean that locking a door can break a quest?

So, we have some similarity

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:50 pm

It came very close to disrupting the Knights of the Nine quest for me once. I locked everyone in the Chapel after Whatshisname gave his sermon prior to the last mission. When I got to the Aylid ruin I was on my own, as intended, but the knights mysteriously appeared inside. Things went haywire for a bit, some unexpected conflicts with collision detection left oneor two hung up on furniture etc..

Locking doors can also disrupt the AI, sometimes if an NPC's routine is disrupted that way they never again show up where and/or when they should.

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 12:38 am

I don't lock them, but I still got the collision problem in the room with the "time stopper",
Is it my mod problem? Because OBMM detect a red problem with Talkie Toaster's Capture Ball
Now...can you make the summon spell ranged?