Work on this has continued better than I expected, but there is much left to do before a beta release, and not nearly as much time as I'd like to devote to it. Still, I hope to update every few days with new content time and creativity permitting.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has given ideas, feedback, and game resources to this project. This mod belongs to all of us and I look forward to just seeing it as another part of my Morrowind install some day

First compilation video is now up... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvA4XB8UtjQ

[ Book of Frost ]
-- Snowfall Invocation : Call forth a blizzard, which will empower your other frost-based spells.
-- Snowfall - Encasing Ice : Imprison your opponent within a block of ice, during which time they will suffer immobility, but resist physical and magical damage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNwAOkqyRtE
-- Snowfall - Circle of Binding : Draw upon the raging blizzard to trap your opponent within a swirling ring of snow, immobilizing them temporarily but leaving ranged enemies free to attack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMX3Mcezg2Q
-- Snowfall - Frost Sanctuary : Offer up your prayers and be rewarded with the Frost Sanctuary! While inside the radius of its protective reach, you will be strongly resistant to Frost, with appreciable resistance to Fire, but weakness to Lightning. Your Fatigue will regenerate at a faster rate while you stand in the wake of the Sanctuary, and there is a tiny chance that the Sanctuary will dispel what ails you. Offer up Frost Salts to receive the Frost Prayer blessing, restoring health and magicka over twenty seconds. Unlike your other spells, the Frost Sanctuary will remain where it is cast eternally -- unless the snow should stop! Only one Frost Sanctuary may be maintained at a time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2VxatKBYuU
-- Snowfall - Frost Wave : A column of frost erupts forward from your hands, inflicting frost damage to everything in its path. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTQQ5aFqcJc
-- Snowfall - Frost Incarnate : The essence of frost is drawn into your very body, and you become frost incarnate. For the duration, you cannot be harmed by frost spells, but neither can you cast. With every strike, your hands unleash frost damage upon your opponent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnlM3o9bmk
-- Snowfall - Shielding Ice : Harness the power of the icy winds around you to create an unbreakable defense of ice. For the duration of the spell you are immune to all magical and elemental damage, and cannot move, but may still cast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnhAX8UEFGo
-- Snowfall - Ice Column : Snow gathers at your feet, and explodes upward into a column of ice, bringing the caster with it! The magic lasts a short time, but long enough to reach those high places, and moves fast enough to dodge a ranged attack.
-- Snowfall - Frost Nova : Snow builds between your hands, then radiates into a sphere around you, dealing frost damage to everything within the spell's reach. The caster is excluded.
-- Snowfall - Hailstorm : Ice gathers in your eyes, and hail begins to fall from the heavens.
-- Snowfall - Winter Shards : You draw shards of ice from the ground, and launch them forward at your enemies, exploding into miniature frost novas upon impact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yTY26HXuBM
-- Snowfall - Shard Wall : Crystallize frost in front of yourself, forming a wall of ice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqohdGDM1qU

[ Book of Lightning ]
-- Thunderstorm Invocation : Call forth a thunder storm, which will empower your other shock-based spells.
-- Thunderstorm - Lightning Nova : Electricity gathers between your hands. You clap, releasing a lightning nova!
-- Thunderstorm - Lightning Bolt : Energy gathers within you, surging forward as a lightning bolt! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNh-wTt3S_E
-- Thunderstorm - Cage Lightning : Summon a ring of lightning bolts around yourself, which will shock colliding enemies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fawvv8eoHfs
-- Thunderstorm - Lightning Strike : Call lightning down from the heavens, striking out randomly, and able to hit anything within range including the caster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9EnISLy3wo
-- Thunderstorm - Surge : Short ranged lightning attack. Zap! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffh5qM4Ko5U

[ Book of Fire ]
-- Embers Invocation : Calls forth an ash storm, empowering your other fire-based spells.
-- Embers - Four Point Flare : Flames build within you, erupting in each direction and burning everything within a small distance from the flames. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6DFDOKo7y8
-- Embers - Circle of Fire : Fire erupts from the earth, creating a Circle of Fire about you! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmM-HKZ48ZQ
-- Embers - Wildfire : Flames explode in front of you, but once unleashed, the caster relinquishes control of the fire's path. Until the magicka expends itself, fire will continue to explode along a random path, damaging allies, enemies, and even the caster if protective measures are not taken. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGdLOWEbJLQ (though its clearer to see how it is in-game)
-- Embers - Trailblazer : Heat encapsulates your feet, burning the very earth beneath you as you travel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-vorGrX8s4
-- Embers - Fire Nova : Flames build between your hands, then radiate into a sphere around you, dealing fire damage to everything within the spell's reach. The caster is excluded. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V17gPqW5Mxs
-- Embers - Meteor Shower : Fire and rage are mirrored in your eyes, as meteors rain upon the ground! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3bzdBprlY
-- Embers - Cauterize : You focus the heat from around you into a cauterizing blast, purifying and burning all within its reach. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1Ofkt2rSQ
-- Embers - Flameshield : You condense energy around yourself, creating a flameshield. Every few seconds, if your health has decreased, each charge has a chance to expend itself and damage the surrounding region. When the spell expires, all remaining charges will detonate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR7WTTM7Vqc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDl2H_fuNw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPeYPj80Dog
-- Embers - Scattershot : Flames burst away from you, splitting into multiple smaller attacks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI-JvjtNzqY
-- Embers - Curse of the Inferno : Immobilize an enemy at range, and weaken them to fire for the spell's duration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnGhUbuL8T0
-- Embers - Seal of the Inferno : Sanctify the area with a Fire Seal, granting the caster Fire Resistance and Frost Weakness within it's reach, as well increasing the caster's resistance to normal weapons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCz31XPB_A8

[ Book of Earth ]
-- Earth - Boulder : Encapsulating a fragment of earth with magicka, you hurl a boulder toward your opponent, knocking them down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDDg-pApe-o
-- Earth - Pillar of Stone : The caster raises a column of stone from the earth, lifting an opponent into the air. Upon falling, the opponent may take damage or be knocked down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2JvFd_Ules
-- Earth - Stalagmites : Sharp spikes erupt from the earth, hindering opponents. Those struck by the spikes are temporarily weakened, and even targets normally immune to steel can feel its effects. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTP1qWu_OAk
-- Earth - Path of Stone : The caster gathers stone slabs from the Earth, creating paths where none existed. As the magic fades, the slabs return to the earth. http://www.youtube.com/user/NMZmaster?feature=mhw4#p/a/u/0/TL8zMAG7cbQ
-- Earth - Guardian Rock : Hundreds of rocks are wrenched from the earth, forming a protective shield that is held up by your will alone. Full concentration is required to maintain the shield, such that no other spells may be cast for the duration, but all the while the earth will heal and hide you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXIg8NNjJwM
-- Earth - Wardstone : The caster elevates a stone, and sends it circling about himself. When the caster takes damage, the Wardstone has a chance to activate, expending itself to imbue the caster with temporary blessings of the Earth. His skin will become harder, and like stone, his endurance will rise. The blessings will fade after twenty seconds.
-- Earth - Stone Prison : A circle of monoliths is drawn from the earth, ensnaring the caster's target! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQPXVS5QpJI

Thanks to:
-- Dirnae, for his transparent Encasing Ice mesh and animation
-- Kalamestari_69, for his Frost Sanctuary mesh and texture
-- Amael, for his elemental particle effects resource
-- razorfett147, for his Frostball Improved resource
-- rocker, Lady Eternity, and Star Boi for the New Elemental Damage Effects resource
-- Ghostnull, for his fantastic particle arrow resource
-- Manauser and Dongle, for the flat transparent mesh from Chalk 3.0
-- C_Mireneye, for his lightning mesh and texture
-- Everyone else who has commented so far... great ideas everyone!

Current alpha: http://www.4shared.com/file/TJKVLDsv/WIP_Package_043010_v2.html




And lastly, for anyone interested in using pieces of this mod in their own works, feel free to do with it as you will. I only ask that you (1) credit the proper people for any of the mesh/texture resources used (if you're not sure about a piece, I can probably identify it for you), and (2) if it is a completely separate mod, not some sort of add-on or patch, it'd be nice if you used unique IDs for everything to avoid conflicts. :twirl:

This sounds like an interesting idea to me. I've always thought there was lots of room for more elemental magic in Morrowind without crossing over into cliched fantasy; with such a heavy elemental focus in Destruction, I always thought it would be interesting to see that expanded into more flashy spells. I'll be watching how this develops.

Will it require MWSE?

Downloaded the demo, looking forward to trying it out.

Currently I am trying to go as far as I can without MWSE (which I do use, but know that some people don't), however, if I realize that I need the extra scripting functions and the ability to get/store references I'll have to try and make the leap.

My main concept with the frost-based spells is that they'll all require a snowstorm to activate, meaning that the player can either be in Solstheim or cast Snowfall Invocation to enable the casting of additional frost spells. For other lighting spells a thunderstorm would surely be appropriate, and for fire spells I suppose either proximity to lava (Molag Amur, Red Mountain) or perhaps first casting a "circle of fire" would be a good activation requirement.

I wanted to make the spells look a bit more varied than the typical things you'd cast... does anyone know of any good texture/mesh resources I should look into? I've been browsing PES but haven't come across anything yet.

I guess I don't quite understand what you're trying to do with this, other than add visual effects to some spells. At the same time, it also seems like an excellent area to improve on. It's always bugged me (and sometime killed me!) that a 10 pt Fire spell looks just like a 100 pt spell. There are also some things that I like to "visualize" my spells doing yet can't quite make it work with what I have in-game. Some "concept" spells I always like to make-

-A Frost/Paralysis spell I've always pretended to be freezing my target solid for a time.
-A Shock spell with a large AoE that I envision as Chain Lightning (bad if neutral or friendly NPCs are around...)
-A Poison/Blind spell that's a thick, choking toxic cloud.

Then again, maybe that's not what you're trying to do. But maybe it'll help?

That sort of thing is along the lines of what I've envisioned, though I'm still letting the ideas stew inside my head right now.

For instance, I'm working on a mesh with an animated lightning texture -- one spell that I've started scripting would be to summon a few free-standing lightning bolts at a certain radius around the player, which would explode shock spells on collision with an actor. Perhaps a stronger variant would be able to discharge multiple spells before vanishing.

Your frost idea of encasing the opponent in a block of ice is similar to something that I wanted to try, but I am still thinking about how I'd like it to work. In something I've tried previously I had issues with object collision not properly taking effect, though I've read that a few enable/disables can fix this and will see what can be done.

If anyone has any other ideas, I'd certainly love to hear them -- like I said, I'm not sure what will be implemented yet but a little brainstorming never hurts!

Going with your snow idea, you could wrap them up in a blizzard that significantly slows them down. That way, you only have to script the visuals, the rest of it can be the frost/paralysis spell.

While you're at it, maybe you could make new meshes and stuff for the standard spell effects...? :icecream:

While my limited scripting skills might just be enough to get me through this, my artistic abilities (modeling/texturing) are nonexistent =)

However, if I may make a recommendation, I greatly enjoy using http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6196 mod to replace the hit models for elemental damage, with the NPC-sized addon. There is another replacer floating around that gets pretty much all of the spell effect models, not just the elementals, but I no longer remember the name. If you find it, though, drop me a link please =) !


Edit -- Short video to demo the Encasing Ice spell. It doesn't look that impressive... but it's a step up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAamalIUaPI

Awesome! This must work great with the Theurgist mod!

Interesting; I'd not known of that mod before, but after a quick PES search, it seems like something I might want to try out!


I've coded a new spell today: "Snowfall - Circle of Binding." Like "Snowfall - Encasing Ice," it will hold the opponent in place for the spell's duration, but does not disable them entirely, it merely binds them in place. Archers and mages will still be able to attack you, and warriors too if you get into melee range. Additionally, the spell is pure defense -- no damage is done to the ensnared actor.

I'll add a video shortly to show the new spell... again, it's not too flashy, but I think I'm getting somewhere.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMX3Mcezg2Q video

Also, the Goblin Lab mod features new scripted spells like:

-Crystal: Keeps the npc inside a cristal, so he can't move
-Auspex: Put the world pc vision in vertex vision, so he can see trhough walls ( this is awesome, I used it a lot in my last play)

I really will like to see some earth or sand spells, they aren't common elements!

Hold on friend!

:goodjob:
I like the encasing ice a lot.

Well if you are interested, i created somewhat transparent iceblock for the next update of Welcome to the Arena!. If you are interested in it, i could send you the mesh + textures.

Kalamestari_69

The offer is much appreciated, but if you don't mind, could I make use of the texture/mesh for a different type of frost spell? Dirnae has very generously given me a modified mesh with transparency and an awesome melting animation (which we're currently trying to get working), but I can certainly use all the resources I can get for other effects!

I sended you a message for the download link.



Sure. Use it as you like, but remember to give credit if you're using it.

Kalamestari_69

Great! Puts playing a mage to a whole new level!

Very nice.Heres a mod and a link to the site that might help.

Amael's Particle FX:http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6387/Site

His site seemsto be down at the moment so you'll have to use the PES link.

Thanks for the details -- I'll look into that particle resource!


Updated original post.

I love the idea of the frost sanctuary. That and the other frost spells make it feasible to play a specialist mage in frost...a cryomancer. Looking forward to the book of thunder. I think a good place for the book of thunder would be in the dwemer ruins under Mournhold or in Sotha Sil's lair (since electricity plays a big role in both places).

Only thing I don't like about the frost spells is that the circle of binding and encasing ice are too similar. From what I read, it looks like encasing ice is a more potent version of the binding circle. So, if one has both, what would be the real point of casting the supposedly weaker binding circle instead of the encasing ice? Seems like the circle should have another feature that the ice doesn't, like blindness or silence or noise or something.

I wholeheartedly agree about Circle of Binding being quite similar in functionality to Encasing Ice, however any additional disables (blindness/silence/noise) would not be worth anything since the Encasing Ice already completely paralyzes the victim (strong-willed opponents or vampires could bypass the paralysis but hopefully will get caught by the large Drain Strength component to at least stay put until the spell finishes).

Initially I was going to reply that it would just work out to a matter of balance, that Circle of Binding is less powerful but easier to cast, but now I am thinking that perhaps there could be another component to it... Either I could add some sort of siphoning to it (my initial reaction was an Absorb Magicka spell), or else, I could do something to make the Encasing Ice harder to use. Perhaps even go so far as having Encasing Ice give the player a debuff which would prohibit the casting of other Snowfall spells while the Ice was up. I'll have to think more about the balance between them (for testing purposes the spells all just have a flat mana cost of 25 currently), but I am certainly interested in feedback on particular balances that might be appealing.

Or maybe have the circle of binding have an area of effect and/or be a ranged spell instead of touch? Like any enemies caught in the area of effect are trapped in the circle? And keep the ice one just a single target. In this way, the circle could be good crowd control, and if you happen to have allies w/ ranged weapons, that would make things easier, and the ice could be more useful in one-on-one or close-quarters fighting with only one or two powerful opponents. Of course I don't know if you could extend the circle to an area of effect...

That's certainly an interesting idea...

To extend the area of effect, I'd need two changes: the hit model would have to be set larger (to make the circle look bigger), and the Burden 500pts effect would have to be set to a larger radius. The only problem is that with the methods I'm using, I can't really do an "on target" thing -- it would be moreso a larger circle with its centerpoint a foot or so in front of the player.


I'll test it a bit later and see how it goes =). Thanks for the input!

Updated original post with video links (new video for Encasing Ice, now featuring Dirnae's melting iceblock animation!).

New spell today... Frost Wave! Still working on tweaking the mechanics for it but I like the way the spell works.

That frost wave has to be one of the most impressive spell effects I've ever seen. And I like the new version of encasing ice a lot better.

Thanks! Bear in mind that in that "Frost Wave" video I've got this http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=991190&hl= mod installed alongside mine, so it would look a bit different with the default frost hit model. Knef did an awesome job with that fire/frost replacer.