Druid Mod Remade

... Better, furrier, way more druidy than before ...
by Pimpskinny


"Bring me the pelt of a wolf, mortal, and I shall teach you how to wear it."
- Hircine, Prince of the Hunt

Features include shapeshifting into real animal forms. As a crow you can fly. As a bear you can knock your enemy through the air with a mighty blow, and slam all of your weight into the ground to knock all those around you off their feet. As a wolf you can rip their guts out with a nasty bite, and can sense them when they’re close with your canine nose. While in humanoid form, you can call vines from the ground to poison your enemies or entangle them in place. And of course, you can summon animal companions, and manipulate animals in the wild.

• Requires OBSE v0018 or later
  
• Planning for a Release Date of about April 5.

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Video Links
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I svck at making movies, but here's a little preview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrCCZ7RbZZg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q9Zte66_rM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaYjoopRQw4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBFU9KS5AA4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN0N0RJALTc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7BO4O0CNo

Note: Videos feature the Night Elf Race from the mod "Race Compilation" by Xenius, but that's got nothing to do with Druid Mod.



=========
Description
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• This mod adds 23 custom spells to the game, earned by advancing your Alteration and Conjuration skills during a long, ongoing quest given to you by Kynareth and Hircine. The spells include the ability to shapeshift into several different animal forms each with its own special abilities, custom summons including animal companions and animated vines that attack from the ground to immobilize and poison your prey.
  
• In addition to the custom spells and quest, the mod will include a custom axe and shield (made by http://www.tesnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=821003), a temple that can serve as your home (with a spell to teleport there), a custom bird (made by http://waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/index.php), custom animal textures, a custom staff and armor (made by http://www.tesnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=1196961), some custom spell shaders, and custom sounds.
  
• Three books: One found in Novaroma in Bruma about a mysterious Nord (this book makes it possible for the quest to start), one listing all the spells and the prerequisites to earn them, and another hinting at the lore history related to the mod.
  
• A great deal of work has gone into making the spells behave as vanilla spells with regard to how they are affected by your skill level and spell effectiveness.
  
• A detailed list of the spells is below with their progress noted.

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Advancement
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• You must first purchase and read a book from Novaroma in Bruma called "The Mysterious Norring Red-Cloud." If your Alteration and/or Conjuration skill is at least, 25, you will soon receive a vision, and you will be summoned to a hidden temple. As your Alteration and Conjuration skills advance, Kynareth and Hircine will demand offerings at this sacred and forgotten place. In return, you will be granted unique abilities.

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Shapeshifting Basics
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• While shapeshifted, the different animal forms grant different bonuses like Strength, Endurance, and varying degrees of natural armor that animal hide provides.
  
• You will have a regular attack, a special attack, and a special action, detailed in the spell list below.
  
• To move, you control yourself in animal form as if you are mounted. To attack, Mouse Button 1 performs your regular attack, Mouse Button 2 performs your special attack, and the V Key performs your special action (if you have one).
  
• The magnitude of your physical attacks in animal forms is determined by your Blunt skill, Strength, Fatigue status, Alteration skill, and Spell Effectiveness. And also your target's Armor and Resistances.
  
• Your health in animal forms is determined by your health in humanoid form, plus any bonuses unique to the animal form.
  
• Any resistances you have through race abilities, active spell effects, and armor/weapon enchantments will carry over to your shapeshifted form.
  
• You will also be granted a shield effect through varying qualities of Animal hide, depending on your Spell Effectiveness.
  
• Hitting an enemy while in animal form will increase your Blunt skill. Jumping will increase your Acrobatics skill. If you want your Athletics skill to increase while running in animal forms, download my mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37432.
  
• With this dynamic way of determining various shapeshifted stats, the animal forms will scale with you.

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Summoning Basics
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• In addition to the abilities to summon a wolf, bear, or lion that scale with you (up to a point), you will be able to summon creeping vine companions that emerge from the ground to attack your enemies. There are also two beneficial vines that you can summon on yourself.
  
• The three distinct hostile vine types are Entangling Creeper, Poison Creeper, and Thorny Creeper. Entangling Creeper will emerge from the ground and immobilize multiple enemies at once. Thorny Creeper will do the same, but also damage them over time with lacerating thorns. Poison Creeper will quickly strike from the ground to infect them with poison and then find the next target. The vines cannot be attacked by your enemies.
  
• The duration of the immobilizations is determined by your Conjuration skill, Spell Effectiveness, and a small random factor. The magnitude of damage and poison is determined by your Conjuration skill and Spell Effectiveness.
  
• The vines feature custom sounds.

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Potential Issues
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• The shapeshifting spells are very complicated, and will sometimes cause a CTD if there is a lot of other game processing going on. This has also been an issue with other mods that feature real shapeshifting. I've spent a crazy amount of time improving the success rate, but it's not perfect. I will continue to try different things.
  
• Any mod that changes the mechanics of riding a horse could bring conflicts, as all the shapeshifting is done with custom mounts.
  
• Any mod that adds ingredients (Alchemy ingredients) and creature drop items like wolf pelts that are similar to the ones needed for the quest could possibly cause some confusion.
  
• This mod puts you into the creature faction when shifting into an animal (so you can mingle with other beasts), and then takes you out when shifting back. This might bring conflicts with some mods because I know there are a lot out there like OOO that mess with factions. Not sure how to address this. If it's a problem, I could just eliminate all faction changes in the Druid Mod and there would be negligible impact.

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List of Spells
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Commune at the Temple
Granted when Quest begins
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Teleport to the Temple of Kynareth and Hircine. And while remaining inside the temple, you may teleport back to where you came from. But if you leave the temple, you will lose the ability to "recall" to your original location.


The Path of Hircine


Shapeshift into Deer
Requires Alteration Skill of 25
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
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Transform into a deer. You will be able to outrun most enemies and will have a high acrobatics skill. But your attacks are weak.

Mouse Button 1: Strike with Antlers
Mouse Button 2: A more powerful strike with hooves


Hibernate Beast
Requires Alteration Skill of 30
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Causes your target to fall asleep. The duration is determined by your Spell Effectiveness. Only “natural” creatures can be affected such as animals, imps, goblins. Undead and daedra will not respond. Only one creature may be hibernated at a time, and each creature may only be hibernated once.


Shapeshift into Wolf
Requires Alteration Skill of 35
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Transform into a wolf. Significantly stronger attacks than deer, with good fatigue regeneration. Your attacks have a good chance to infect your enemy with Rabies, a disease that drains Intelligence and stunts Magicka. And, you have the ability to toggle a "Danger Sense" on or off. While Danger Sense is active, you will know when a hostile creature or person comes within 80 feet, because you will growl and glow red for a moment.

Mouse Button 1: Bite
Mouse Button 2: Mangle (A powerful bleed over time effect)
V Key: Toggle Danger Sense


Charm Beast
Requires Alteration Skill of 40
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Causes your target to follow and fight for you for a time. The duration is determined by your Spell Effectiveness. Only “natural” creatures can be affected such as animals, imps, goblins. Undead and daedra will not respond. Only one creature may be commanded at a time, and each creature may only be charmed once.


Shapeshift into Ghost Wolf
Requires Alteration Skill of 45
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Transform into a ghost wolf. You have the ability to attack ethereal creatures like ghosts and wraiths, and are highly resistant to normal attacks. But your attacks against non-ethereal creatures have no effect. You also have the ability to walk on water.

Mouse Button 1: Ethereal Bite
Mouse Button 2: Ethereal Mangle (Drain life essence over time)
V Key: Frighten Undead


Master of the Outdoors
Requires Alteration Skill of 50
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
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Being outside automatically boosts your Speed, Acrobatics, Alteration and Conjuration skills, and if it's daytime you have a slight restore health effect.


Shapeshift into Rat
Requires Alteration Skill of 55
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Transform into a rat. Very sneaky. Can move close to enemies without them detecting you, but get too close and they will attack. Your distance from enemies, the amount of light on you, and your enemy's line of sight affects if you are seen. Your attacks are weak and your health is very low, so try to stay hidden. Companions have a way of ruining your stealth. You can also toggle night vision.

Mouse Button 1: Bite
Mouse Button 2: Bite (same attack - rat doesn't have a power attack)
V Key: Toggle Night Vision


Shapeshift into Lion
Requires Alteration Skill of 60
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Transform into a Mountain Lion. Faster and more powerful than wolf, and can toggle night vision. But you can't swim.

Mouse Button 1: Claw
Mouse Button 2: Shred (A powerful bleed over time that ignores enemy armor)
V Key: Toggle Night Vision


Shapeshift into Bear
Requires Alteration Skill of 65
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Transform into a large bear. Very powerful attacks and good health bonus. Attacks also damage your target's fatigue.

Mouse Button 1: Maul
Mouse Button 2: Bash (Damage enemy and send them flying from you)
V Key: Slam the ground and knock all around you off their feet


Shapeshift into Crow
Requires Alteration Skill of 70
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
No combat ability, and can only cast if not in combat and while outdoors. You can fly. The direction you fly is determined by where you are looking, including up and down.


Shapeshift into Hircine's Pet
Requires Alteration Skill of 75
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Shapeshift into Hircine’s wolf companion. Very, very powerful. Downright mean, not to mention rude, with horrible table manners.

Mouse Button 1: Bite
Mouse Button 2: Mangle (bleed over time)
V Key: Dread howl (All around you are paralyzed with fear)
B Key: Toggle Danger Sense


The Path of Kynareth


Summon Forest Wisp
Requires Conjuration Skill of 25
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
A small wisp follows you and provides light. It has no combat ability. You also receive a spell to dismiss the wisp.


Entangle
Requires Conjuration Skill of 30
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
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A touch spell. A vine entangles a single enemy so they are unable to move. The duration of the entanglement is determined by your Conjuration skill, Spell Effectiveness, and a random factor. Ethereal creatures such as ghosts are not affected, because they have no physical form to grasp. Only one target may be entangled at a time.


Summon Wolf
Requires Conjuration Skill of 35
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summon a wolf to follow and fight for you. The wolf will follow you until it dies. Cannot be active alongside Summon Lion or Summon Bear. You also receive a spell to dismiss the creature.


Healing Vine
Requires Conjuration Skill of 40
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Calls a beneficial vine to surface and immobilize you while providing a restore health effect. The magnitude of the restore health effect is determined by your Conjuration skill and Spell Effectiveness.


Poison Creeper
Requires Conjuration Skill of 45
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summons a creeping poison vine to follow you. While in combat, the vine will quickly strike enemies one by one, infecting them with Creeping Poison, which drains their Strength and makes them Weak against Normal Weapons. This weakness will also cause your attacks against them while in animal forms to increase. The magnitude of the poison is determined by your Conjuration skill, Spell Effectiveness, and your enemy's Poison Resistance.


Summon Bear
Requires Conjuration Skill of 50
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summon a black bear to follow and fight for you. The bear will follow you until it dies. Cannot be active alongside Summon Lion or Summon Wolf. You also receive a spell to dismiss the creature.


Entangling Creeper
Requires Conjuration Skill of 55
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summons a vine to periodically surface and immobilize enemies. Multiple enemies may be entangled. The duration of the entanglement is determined by your Conjuration skill, Spell Effectiveness, and a random factor. The entanglement does not last as long as the single-target Entangling Vine spell, but does last longer than Thorny Creeper. Will not work alongside Thorny Creeper. Ethereal creatures such as ghosts are not affected.


Summon Lion
Requires Conjuration Skill of 60
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summon a mountain lion to follow and fight for you. The lion will follow you until it dies. Cannot be active alongside Summon Wolf or Summon Bear. You also receive a spell to dismiss the creature.


Shield Vine
Requires Conjuration Skill of 65
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Calls a vine to surface around you, immobilizing and shielding you while reflecting physical damage onto attackers. The magnitude of the shield and reflect damage effects are determined by your Conjuration skill and Spell Effectiveness.


Thorny Creeper
Requires Conjuration Skill of 70
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summons a vine to periodically surface and immobilize enemies while doing damage over time to them. Multiple enemies may be affected. The duration of the entanglement is determined by your Conjuration skill, Spell Effectiveness, and a random factor. The damage done to them is determined by the same factors (except that a random factor does not affect the damage). Will not work alongside Entangling Creeper. Ethereal creatures such as ghosts are not affected.


Kynareth's Pet
Requires Conjuration Skill of 75
Progress: ||||||||||||||||||||
====================
Summons Kynareth's Pet - the very bird that rests on her shoulder - to follow you. It does not attack, but grants bonuses to you and negatively affects undead and daedric attackers. You also receive a spell to dismiss the pet.


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Credits
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• Even lone modders like me don't really make a mod alone. I'm sure I'll be adding more credits as Druid Mod Remade progresses.
  
• Creative Input and Technical Help: Koniption, wetblanket, spookyfx, The Vyper, haama, Bruneauinfo, MorganaNiNuala, tejon, WillieSea, CDM_, Khettienna, QQuix, ghastley, washington, gyshall, Psymon, Elric of Grans, scruggsywuggsy the ferret, DragoonWraith, and Arkngt.
  
• Resources Generously Shared: The http://obse.silverlock.org/ for making OBSE, http://waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/index.php for the bird model, http://www.tesnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=821003 for the custom axe and shield, and http://www.tesnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=1196961 for the custom armor and staff, and Hel Borne for the wolf statue.
  
• Tools Used: The "http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Making_Ridable_Creatures" Tutorial at the CS Wiki (by Andrew Maneri I think), The Oblivion Mount Project Animation Warper (by Andrew Maneri), http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8665 by TeamGecko, The Oblivion Construction Set, Notepad, Nifskope, XVI32 hex editor, and Adobe Photoshop Elements (with the DDS file plug-in).

This is really slick. Keep up the good work.

I. Am. Interested.

Wow, that looks really cool, especially the animal morphing part.

Nice! :goodjob:

And yeah, in particular the shapeshifting. Very cool.

Thanks!

Just added link to wolf form video. Mmmm, deer are tasty.

You might be able to take care of the athletics-in-animal-form issue and the sneakiness-as-cat-or-rat issue the same way, by having a constant-effect bonus to those skills granted when you shift in to those forms, and stripped when you shift out of those forms. I suspect you thought of that, though - do you have a specific objection to that method?

I don't know if you're looking for ideas from the crowd, but have you thought of changing the appearance of the druid's animal forms based on various factors about the druid? The very simplest thing you could do - and one that seems very 'natural' to me - is changing the 'scale' of the player's animal forms based on the druid's (or the animal form's) power. A big bear is a strong bear.

More complex things you could do might involve granting the player cooler-looking forms as they progress (you might be able to find decent "dire wolf", etc. forms somewhere as modder's resources) or different appearances based on the player's humanoid appearance, or alignment (as manifested by fame/infamy). I get the feeling that these ideas have little relevance to what you actually intended for this mod, though.

I'm curious, do you intend for NPCs to recognize the shape-shifted player as a druid, or react as if to an animal? Or will they know the player only if you shift into/out of your form in front of them?

That's even cooler. I'll play this mod the second it comes out.

How are the powers acquired? I'm not familiar with the previous version of your mod at all, though.

Any plans for other animal forms? Say, maybe a spider form, or the ever hilarious mudcrab form?

THe original Druid mod was excellent - and this looks like a major improvement. Also, why not create some more quest mods? The Demon bane quest was one of the best adventures I have played. Just a suggestion.

Actually what I meant was that while you are running in animal form, your Athletics skill should tick up, just like when you run in humanoid form. This is not so straight forward, as you are "mounted" while in animal form. And unfortunately, running on a mount doesn't increase your Athletics.

OBSE has a great function to trigger an incremental increase in skills. I've used that function to make Blunt tick up when you hit something in animal form and for Acrobatics to tick up while jumping in animal form. But Athletics I think would require a script to execute every second, and I don't know if I want that to happen. Because it's just a good rule to reduce the script intensity of your mod as much as you can to be nice to mod enthusiasts and their memory usage.

As far as the sneakiness thing, the trick is that when you are in animal form, you are "mounted" as far as the game mechanics are concerned. And how do I trick the game into making me sneak while mounted? I don't know yet.

And regarding different animal form bonuses like you say, I've got those covered (strength for bear, athletics for wolf, etc.)



I did think of that and tried "big" sizes, but there are problems. A big bear can have a hard time functioning correctly in a dungeon. Makes it hard to turn around, hard for the shapeshift spells to work, and hard for the Player line of sight that can do bad things like let you see above the ceiling and go outside the walls in a "mounted" state.



Actually I did have the idea to make the animal textures a little different based on the race of the druid. But I would need some serious motivation to get that fancy and it would be something I'd consider only after I've got a fully functioning released mod.



I don't plan to get too complicated with such things. But it's important to me that you can't talk to NPCs while shifted. Right now, if you start dialogue with them, it just closes automatically as if they ignore you. But I think I might borrow the "Get away from me you filthy beast" sound and lips files that Vanilla uses for the vampire condition and make them say that whenever you try to talk to them.

Happy for the interest!

NM

I'm pretty sure that powers will be granted automatically when your Alteration and Conjuration are high enough (all the spells will fit within these two schools). For instance, you'll have a revelation of how to turn into a wolf when your Alteration skill reaches 30 (maybe), and then later when your skill reaches 70, you'll learn Crow. With some in between. I don't know the specifics yet.

Holy crap, spider form sounds cool! You could have a poisonous bite. I'd need permission from someone who made a spider creature though. So far the planned forms are: Wolf, Ghost Wolf (so you can attack Ghosts and other 100% normal resist creatures), Lion, Bear, Crow. I thought about deer/stag, but not sure of the point, because you can run fast as a wolf already. And rat - if I can get a sneak script working for it, you can turn into a rat - you won't have combat ability, and you'll be easily killed, but you'll be very hard to detect. Mudcrab? Nah don't think so

wow, it sounds amazing. Keep up the excellent work! Man, I always have your mod loaded since a long time now and never went past the first meeting with the ghost... shame on me, I have to make a truly Druid character right now!

As for the sneaking stuff, it'd be great if it could be done. I guess it's not possible to trick the game into thinking the mount itself is sneaking, but maybe you could lower the footstep volume so foes have to have line of sight over the creature, or trick the game with some of the values that are considered for calculating when the AI spots you, in the case some of them still applies when not sneaking, wich I don't know.

It'd be cool too if you could add some non-agressive animal form, like a small, dirty dog or something inoffensive, so you could just lurk around unrecognized without alerting the enemies. That'd be really cool, just being ignored like an old dog and taking beneffit of that to get where's none's suposed to get in. wow, now that I think of it, will the player be able to go throught doors when in animal form? Maybe the spell ends when player takes a "human" action like grabbing or taking an item?

MMM has a giant spider that is essentially a spider daedra with the top female body cut off.

I've found huge black widows with MMM.

Also was thinking - what about the ability to recruit wildlife in the area. If you are a druid should bears and wolves even attack? And further maybe as a lesser post of call wildlife and animals with certain key words would get recruited to your faction or aid - temporarily and with normal RPG/stat checks for duration and amount.

Yea, Arkngt, there will be abilities to charm beasts and perhaps eventually make it so they never attack you. But that might be tricky with mods that mess with creature factions like MMM and OOO.

I've encountered a tough problem. Physical melee attacks successfully hit the player while shapeshifted, but magic attacks don't. I don't know what's up with that. Arrows and magic hits fly near the player, through the player, or directly under the animal form to hit the ground. Weird. This could be a hard one to solve.

I'm not Arkngt - I think he would be greatly offended if you were to mistake us for one another.

Haha - he asked the same thing earlier.

About deer form - this could make the player very fast, faster than wolf form and very athletic, but almost useless in combat. That might make it sufficiently distinct to be worth including. Wolves may be faster than humans, but they're not normally the avid jumpers that deer are.

Thanks! I'm very happy with how Quest for Demon Bane turned out. But dang that took me forever. And this should be a significant improvement over the original Druid Mod.



Thanks, grmblf! OBSE has some possibilities for the seaking issue that I can try out. As far as a "non-agressive" and also "inoffensive" animal, I like that idea. As a rat, you can lurk around, but my plan was that if you get too close to an enemy, they'll one-hit kill you . But the idea of a totally anonymous dog is nice. At this time, the act of "activating" a door results in you "dismounting" and cancelling the shapeshift. I have no problem with this. I don't know if I want a druid to be able to operate a door while in animal form anyway.



Good idea. Deer could be an earlier skill than wolf - fast but without combat ability. So wolf would be like an upgrade.

Wow, real flying as a crow! That's great! I thought that it's like imps. This I will definitely have to try.

No, sir, not imp flying! Crow is 100% operational. A couple days ago I flew from Bravil to Bruma with the world far below. Unfortunately, since I discovered that in animal forms casters can't hit you, crow is the only form now that works 100% because it's a non-combat form.

This magic thing is a serious mod-breaking issue that I need to fix. I don't want the druid to be immune to magic when shapeshifted - that would be way too overpowered. The only options I see so far to fix it are:

1. Somehow change the Player mesh to the creature mesh. Not sure if a method exists to do that.
2. Attach an invisible bubble to the Player mesh that acts as part of the Player's body so magic has an easier time hitting the Player.
3. Somehow "get" the magic cast against the Player through scripting and force the game to apply it to the Player.

That is the issue with the flying hack - as seen in races that fly - most of the time you can't be hit which makes it very unbalanced.

Also flying in caves and interiors will be an issue to as you will go right through the walls and ceiling.

Actually my problem is not being hit while in wolf and bear form. In Crow I'm not worried about it because I don't allow the Player to attack anything while in Crow Form. And I disallow Crow Form in interiors too.

Though I think I'm making progress on the issue. I've got it so magic is hitting the mount (your shape-shifted form) a lot more reliably, and I've scripted a half-second health check on the form, getting the damage, and applying it to the Player. Looking good, but needs tweaks. I'm seeing that Vanilla's way of handling how ranged attackers shoot at the Player while mounted is pretty screwy. I've been fighting a ghost to test, and it looks like if the game knows you are mounted, then ranged attacks have a set elevation from the ground they will follow, regardless of where your body actually is. While not mounted, you can decrease the Player scale to be tiny and ranged attacks aim down and hit you. But while mounted, the game mechanics make your ranged attackers a little dumb.

The wolf form is pretty short (a normal wolf), so the ghost's ranged attacks would ALL fly over head, missing. But I increased the wolf's size to a certain point, then attacks started hitting. I didn't intend for wolf form to make you a big wolf, but it might be necessary to work around Vanilla's not-so-good combat mechanics when a Player is mounted. Luckily, bear form is tall enough so the magic attacks are hitting.

This meshes so well with my planned next character it's scary, especially the deer/rat/crow non-combat forms. It sounds well-balanced and innovative. I look forward to the release

Thanks, Wetblanket! Slogged through the CS today for hours. Little new content created, but had a productive day with tweaks and debugging. I added a video link for Ghost Wolf Form. Why a Ghost Wolf? The animal forms are pretty much powerless against creatures like ghosts and wraiths that resist normal weapons. And they should be. So that's when Ghost Wolf comes in handy As a ghost wolf, you are 100% resistant to normal weapons, but can only do damage against other ghostly creatures. While testing I discovered that zombies' punches will still harm you even if you're 100% resistant to normal weapons. Who knew? :shrug: It's weird the stuff you discover while making a mod.