Hello everyone, as the title suggests i'm looking for lich mods. I know there are a couple of lich mods out there, Im just having trouble locating them. I'm mainly interested in the ones that allow for lich casting animations. As I understand it, if the player uses lich casting animations, so do all the npcs in the game. Is there a way around this or has any progress been made to fix it?

Any information on this topic would be greatly appreciated, as I'm trying to create my own mod with lich casting animations

I am pretty sure ya found these mods already:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19413
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5522

As for just ya using it only, try using http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19796 with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368, then one could have the player use the animation while all other NPCs affected with the Patch get the MAO animation (which is the normal animation found in Oblivion).

This is perfect, thank you very much!

I've never bothered with animations before - is there a way to give the players this animation or must base animations be replaced?

As I'm imagining it, if I were to give the player these animations, their base animation would change before they became a lich, since they are replaced. Is this correct? Could animations be related to specific pieces of armor?
Would you mind explaining how this works to the best of your ability?

Just install any animation mod, then install MAO. What MAO does is switch anyone that isn't the Player to the MAO animation folder (which is just vanilla animation) while any animation mod ya install would only effect the Player.

Now than, MAO would only work with Vanilla, so the only way to get any NPC (Vanilla and Mod), is to run the Bashed Patch that Wrye Bash have. It would get any mod with NPC so they would use the MAO animation folder and not the Normal one (which the player would use and is altered by animation mod).

What relevent options in the bashed patch would I check when I rebuild it?
Most of the animation mods are replacers though, arent they? What if I need the old ones back? or wanted to wait until the player actually became a lich to use the lich animation mods you linked?

Look under Tweak Actors and click on the "Mayus Animation Overhaul Skeleton Tweaker" in rebuilding the Bashed Patch. (As of version 290)

Most of the animation mods are replacer (though some mod would use a subfolder "Specialanims", which is usually player only). If one want the old one back, just backup the animation folder/meshes beforehand (which can be found in the path Data/Meshes/Characters/_male/).

In using one of these replacers, can I trigger the animations from in game somehow? and can I give those animations their own subfolder? if so how would I make them work?

Thank you for all the help and advice, I really appreciate it!

The first question, just go to folder path I mention earlier, backup it up, put in the mod animation, and try it. Don't like it, delete the animation mod file and put the backup back into the folder.

The second question, it usually require using the Construction Set and making an ESP file to make it all work, which I have no knowledge of how to do that (not to mention before MAO, I literally try to make it myself and fail'd many time).