Over the 6ish years I've been playing Oblivion I've been slowly developing personal rules and modding it to balance the game and add challenge (without actually moving the difficulty bar.. to me that's just "fake" challenge because it doesn't make cheap tactics any less cheap). It's fun to do and it keeps the game fresh; I've never made it past lvl 17 or very far in the main quest because I play ironman and the difficulty is pretty tight by now.

There are two things I'd like to do:

1. Make it impossible for the player to run while he is casting a spell, aiming/firing a bow, or drawing/sheathing a weapon. While he is doing this he should be forced to move at a walk. The game already forces the player to walk when he's blocking, so the code is in there already. Would it be possible to apply it to those other actions too? This is hard to implement as a personal rule because it's not obvious when some of these actions end.

2. Have some sort of limit to how much the player can pause the game by bringing up his inventory menu. I'd like there to be some kind of time pressure when he's browsing his inventory/spell list/map in the middle of combat. Maybe a timer that runs down when he has the inventory open, and then slowly ticks back up while it's closed? Would it be possible for the game to run at 1/4 speed while the menu is open? Any other, more feasible ideas (either mods or easily-implemented personal rules)?

There is already a mod that handles the first portion of #2. It only allows you to keep the menu open for seconds while in combat. I cannot remember.

It make sense for you to have to walk when you are blocking. How could you block someone if you were running? However, people can run while aiming with bows, unsheathing swords and casting a spell. I mean, it is physically possible, especially for hardened adventurers I suppose. These settings are very plausible. Get no backwards running or something...

Running while casting allows you to run in circles healing yourself to full, going back to the fight until injured, then running in circles again. Anything less than a one-shot attack poses no danger to you.

Running while firing arrows makes it far too easy to kite enemies to death. Having to walk while drawing and firing still makes the tactic viable but it takes a decent speed difference, timing, and skill. "No backwards running" would probably solve this problem too, though!

Running while sheathing/unsheathing weapons makes the speed penalty for having a weapon out almost meaningless, since you can sheathe it while running away. Being forced to walk for a couple crucial seconds while fleeing from a nasty mob makes running away a bit more risky.

So, regardless of whether it makes sense, it makes combat uninteresting!

What mod makes the menu close after a few seconds?

You should use fatigue mods. Also, check the release that was just released. I was about to say that these settings can be made into a mod fairly simply...


Edit: These should make combat a bit more challenging.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12074

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29095

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25616

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10901

That is a strange coincidence. I swear that I didn't see this thread before I released my mod.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1085118-relz-no-running-while-using-bows-or-spells/

If it's still too easy for you send me a PM, I use a harder version that adds a short timer (0.5 seconds) after you cast a spell/shoot an arrow before you can run again. And I use my own fatigue mod and 'No running backwards updated' as well.

EDIT: I guess you could add a timer if the player is in combat in menu mode that closes the menu after a specified amount of time and disables menu access for a short while.

Wow awesome! I am installing this and trying it immediately thanks! :celebration:

That is sooo creepy. Phitt, you released it with such uncanny timing that I misread your name for Tamalak when I first saw the "[Relz]."

Wrye had a mod called: http://wryemusings.com/Combat%20Fumbling.html

A penalty for spending too much time in the menu during combat.

That's the one!

Phitt, your mod works great but can I have the extra 0.5 version? Even if I cast a healing spell as fast as I can, I'm still able to run in bursts, for about .5 seconds between each cast.

I would PM you directly but it keeps saying "this member cannot receive new messages :brokencomputer:

All of the mods I linked above hinder the players flexibility in combat. If you add all of them, Phitt's mod, and the mod Showler linked (that I could not remember) you should have a very tough combat situation. Using the SM's Combat Regen mod with SM Encumbrance & Fatigue would stop you from running very far while hurt and combat-fatigued, that is for sure.

From what I read, most of them actually increase the player's capabilities and reduce challenge.. for example, the first mod listed lets you exceed your encumbrance limit for a significant combat penalty. The default game makes it impossible to move at all if you exceed encumbrance!

"Combat Fumbling" looks perfect, though. It looks like it will be easy to configure it to paralyze me for 1/4 of the time I spend in menus.. huzzah!

What the devil! If I enable "Combat Fumbling", Oblivion can't load. It thinks a moment and then crashes to desktop. Looking in my data files it says it requires cobl.esm to work. Cobl.esm seems to change a LOT, especially adding more ingredients for alchemy. Is it possible to get Combat Fumbling to work without all this interference!

No. If a mod depends on another mod, you have to get the dependency or drop it. COBL extends the functionality for many mods. I highly recommended. It is a library mod, so its changes are pretty subtle. You have to add mods that take advantage of its resources to make it really DO something. COBL is very modular, in-game too, so it is about as disruptive as you want it to be.

Dammit.. I installed and activated Cobl Main.esm and Cobl Glue.esp and reactivated Combat Fumbling.esp. Now Oblivion no longer crashes on startup but Combat Fumbling isn't doing anything at all! No configuration screen, no paralysis/fatigue loss! What am I doing wrong ><

COB is version 171.7z.. obse is v0017b.

Get the latest version of COBL. That is what Phitt's mod says it requires anyway. OBSE beta releases are fairly stable, so do not worry. I have not used Combat Fumbling, but I found something in the http://wryemusings.com/Combat%20Fumbling.html. Use the following console command to start up the Combat Fumbling config quest (if it is working): "startquest wrFumblingQ"

That is odd...Then again, I have not used that mod.

I am dumb. I was testing Combat Fumbling out of combat. It works!! :celebration:

Good to hear. Well, now you have met both of your mod requests in a couple hours. That has to be some kind of extremely lucky record, at least where one mad had not in fact existed at the time the request was posted, haha.

Instead of the No Backwards running mod above, try to find Duke Patrick's Backwards running risk. You can still run backwards, but if you run into anything (including dead bodies) you will fall. Supposedly, it is possible to run backwards in a circle continuously, but I have not been able to do that yet.(This is not a cheatery tactic, it was designed that way, apparently such a tactic is actually used by SCA fighters.)



I use ABO's Realistic Fatigue. It could be described in a similar way, but trust me, it makes the game FAR more difficult. In Vanilla Oblivion, you can be one encumbrance unit below your maximum, and have no penalty. But With RF, you generally want to be at 25% or less of your maximum encumbrance, (which is increased) as all actions take far more fatigue when you are more heavily encumbered. When heavily encumbered, you will not be able to run very far before running out of fatigue. When low on fatigue, you take a chance of tripping or stumbling. When you run out, you will fall. Combat is already dependent on fatigue without combat mods. Just imagine being held up by a lowly highway man back into town after you foolishly tried to load yourself up with loot after sacking a dungeon.

Consider basing your game on OOO. It will significantly ramp up the difficulty, but in a realistic and very cool way.

If you can get a hold of Duke Patrick's, combat mods, do that as well. These will make combat much more interesting, and fast paced.

As you start adding more mods, you will want to get rid of the Ironman mod. If you run into a glitch that kills you, you know what happens. And besides that, getting used to Realistic Fatigue and OOO will have you end up dead many times. Especially if Duke's combat mods are in the mix.

I was just about to post something similar.. especially since I believed when I made this topic that both my requests were impossible. I love this community :foodndrink:

Oh really.. that does sound pretty compelling. It would make looting a far more tactical and contextual activity. Not to mention immersive, feeling your character loaded down like that. I might try it!



OOO is already my base and I could never have made the game even interesting without its basic gameplay fixes



Ironman is not a mod, it's just self-enforced . OOO definitely makes things more deadly, but ironman's way too exciting to give up. The "clink" when I step on a fallen axe or something makes my heart absolutely freeze because it sounds like a trap trigger

Ok. I just know that there is an OBSE plugin, Ironman Oblivion, that makes all savegames invalid when your character dies.

The SM Encumbrance & Fatigue mod I linked earlier does what RF does, and you can set RF's settings if in the INI if you want. It actually provides you with information for the settings for three different mod and vanilla Oblivion settings. The SM Combat Regen mod makes combat even more challenging by cutting down further on fatigue regeneration and even goes so far as to affect magic regeneration. I am sure you can toggle whatever you want in the INI if it comes impossible to defeat rats with all of these mods installed.

Yeah, I saw that.. but magic regen in combat doesn't seem like that huge a deal. Regen BETWEEN combats is more important, if it takes too long I'm forced to use potions. And this mod actually regens my *health* between combat, which will take too much away from the issue of recovery between battle. I'm not a fan of the Dragon Age model where all battles are totally isolated events that don't drain any resources if you win!

The balance between physical, stealth, magic, and recovery seems pretty good with the rules I have. I don't need to increase challenge just for the heck of it anymore, OOO and ironman together are already kicking my ass to the moon

Mainly, further rules are used to close up exploitative tactics or increase immersion. Which brings me to my next musings..

1. How hard would it be for me to modify No Running While Shooting or Casting to also include drawing/sheathing weapons? I see that the code for it is only 3KB! Would this adjustment be easy?

2. Limiting the number of total potions that can be used in combat. Even with OOO making potions non-instant, they're still so powerful that it's too easy to win a battle easily just by chugging them. I limit myself to one potion of EACH TYPE per battle. So, one each of a healing, mana, fatigue, poison, etc. Any way to model this, or some other potion-per-battle or even potion-per-day restriction, in a mod?

Wow, it sounds like you have a bunch of easy battles. If I had only one potion of each type, I would probably die 100 times before reaching level 2 in the FCOM world.

Those two modifications you want to do do not sound too hard. Send Phitt a PM or something to get a push in the right direction, in terms of what type of scripting you need to do.