In Oblivion with OBSE there were animation functions like IsAttacking, IsBlocking, IsCasting, etc.. It appears that Skyrim defers those functions to events and event handling.Here's the problem though: How to detect animations in an effect with no duration (that lasts only one in-game frame)? If I register the effect to listen for an animation in the OnEffectStart event, it will never receive the event it is looking for because it expires immediately at the end of the current frame.tl;dr; Is there an Skyrim equivalent (including SKSE) of OBSE animation state functions such as IsAttacking, IsBlocking, IsCasting?

IsAttacking, IsBlocking, and IsCasting are all http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Condition_Functions. You could add them to the condition list for your magic effect and it will only take effect when those conditions are true.