This is basically just a small side-project I'm working on, partly because of a PM I got from YX33A, and partly because it gives me an excuse to try out a few things with regards to changing-up the Playstyle a little. Since it's currently a work in progress, these are only the basic details-- but everything listed under "In effect" is done and working.

Premise...
A simple, straight-forwards and enjoyable Lich-Mod, based around creating a semi-unique Magic-oriented playstyle. The Player will be able to become a Lich, gain access to Lich Powers, and reap terror upon the lesser beings.

In effect...
- On becoming a Lich, the Player's Magicka is boosted to 1000 (via Fortify Magicka). This becomes the main pool of their Magical energies, used to execute spells (as in normal gameplay) and as a power-source for their new Lich Powers (which provide a continual drain when they are turned on/used). Each time the Lich activates one of its powers, the total Magicka Drain is increased. The greater the power, the greater the Magicka drain-- if there is not enough Magicka left to use the power, the power deactivates itself. As long as the Magicka Drain is Zero, the Lich will regain 5 Magicka a second. It takes the Lich 200 seconds to regain 100% Magicka, but powers can be turned on at any point during this time.

- Lichs gain 25-point Resistance to Normal Weapons and Magicka

- Lichs do not regenerate Magicka automatically, unless their Energy usage is 0

- Lichs can breath Underwater.

- New Lich Powers

Lich Powers
Lichs have a number of "special" powers that can be toggled on/off using a Lesser Power. Casting the Spell once will activate the power, casting it again will deactivate the power.
Each Lich Power has an "energy consumption" value. When the power is turned on, the Player will continually lose this amount from their Magicka. If there is not enough Magicka in the Player's Magicka Pool, the power will automatically deactivate itself. More powers equals greater energy consumption, and so less duration.

Current completed powers are :
Phase - The Lich becomes completely invisible, via a Chameleon 100 effect. It can attack and interact with the world as much as it pleased. Magicka Drain : 100 (Approx. duration: 10-seconds)
Lich Shield - The Lich gains a 100 point Shield effect, protecting it. Magicka Drain: 50 (Approx. duration: 20-seconds)

Planned Powers include :
Arcane Telepathy - The Lich "reads the minds" of those around it, to locate them (detect life effect)
Spectral Strike - Shock Attack
*more to follow*

This is obviously a rough overview, but hopefully you can see the general idea-- if there's any questions/comments, please feel free to let me know Since it's only a small project, it will hopefully becompleted quite quickly (there are no plans to include Quests/storyline beyond those needed for becoming a lich/curing lichdom).

If you ask me, these powers are a tad weak. At least for a mod designed for a vanilla game (which I imagine most mods are). First of all, these spells use more magicka than they normally would: a strong vanilla magic character with the right enchantments can (almost?) constantly have a 100-chameleon effect on them, while casting other spells. If a lich is supposed to be the ultimate mage, these powers can be powered up quite a bit.

Edit: Also note that 5 magicka/second is a very low number for magicka regeneration. Something like 17/s is quite doable in vanilla.

Thanks for the comment If you've seen my other Mods, you'll know balance is my main area of weakness in design (either too powerful/too weak), so it's helpful to get people's thoughts on this

Sounds good, CDM.
I wonder how difficult the quest to become a Lich will be since the powers gained when completed are quite substantial. I hope it's a big challenge.
The look of a character in Lich form is often "problematic" in some of the other Lich mods I've seen. Have you thought of something about looks of the lich?

The powers gained are outweighed by the stunted magicka as it is now, imo.

To their look, I'm thinking of going for options (via a global): Skeleton + Effect Shader, Skeleton, Normal + Effect Shader, Normal.
If all goes well, the Player *should* be able to choose if they want to be a Skeleton or Normal, and if they want a glowy-mist arising off them or not (how exactly it's going to be right now, I don't know-- but hopefully like the Lichcraft in my old Necromancy Mod).

Hey I've been looking for a good lich mod, but all of them seem to have some flaw. whether it's actually the mod or something I don't care for. So I figured I'd give my two cents.

As for looks, I like the way they look as an enemy, robes/mist/skeleton, and would like them to look that way. No red silk robes or anything elegant, they are undead It would be cool to float, cast and walk like them too if that can be implemented.

I agree that the powers should be more powerful or at least not so draining and the lich should be able to regenerate magicka. And as for power ideas, some reanimate spells would be nice as well as some multiple undead summons. Crafting black sould gems possibly, have a soul trap spell that has a scipt effect automatically adding a filled black soul gem into your inventory after killing the effected enemy.

The lich should also have a bonuses to magic skills and perhaps a weakness to fire just to balance the great power just a little bit.

And finally I would like to be able to toggle out of lich form, so that quests may be taken and everyone doesn't flee from me. But in human form, there should be some disadvantages, perhaps then you can stunt magicka or drain willpower as well as the fire weakness and return of natural skill levels.

Thanks for listening, hope this helps and good luck :tops:

Why don't you do something similar to this?
http://www.silgradtower.net/Websites/Misc_ST_Related/HostedWebsites/Lichcraft.silgrad.com/lichcraft.php
It could be awesome!
Anyway If you can , you should add the possibility for a lich to wear whatever armor he likes. I heard that in fact someone succeded on fixing the major problem of the lich constricted on using a single armor.
Also, why don't you add the possibility to make minions? Like undead unicorn or hound?

Or why don't you take the lichcraft inside Oblivion modular project, make it compatible with Shivering Isles, fix the armor problem thing, clean it of every scripts regarding Lycantropy, and add the possibility to make undead unicons/minions/hounds? THIS WOULD BE AWESOMENESS INCARNATE!

Oh shi-
OK, good to see my idea was taken in, but wow. Why wow? Because I seem to be the only person who remembers why CDM's necromancy mod's lich feature was so awesome(with the possible exception of CDM_).
The goods were as follows: Bunch of handy but not overpowered effects, no reason why the player couldn't wander around town without having half the world try to kill him(no bounty added in other words) yet they still had to pick their friends carefully(needed at least 75 disp to even ask about rumors, otherwise the NPC was just all like "my god you're soooo cold. Soullessly cold even. Dear Talos and whatnot"), couple buffs that use soul powa!(then again, all lich powers used soul powa!, though this was done with something called lore), and some fun stuff on the side(torture rooms had their uses, not to mention they add some nice ambiance to a otherwise quiet dungeon).
The higher level powers were really handy, I think one transformed grand soul gems into black soul gems, and a potent pocket nuke spell was added when you were at full lore and had the highest evolution in lichdom. It's been a while since I've played it(since I lost all my old mods, it has been a really long time anyway), but it was one of my favorite pastimes, raiding a dungeon to drain enough souls to reach the next level of lichdom.

The best mod for Oblivion about lichcraft with nice added features.. I'm dreaming.

that sounds like a cool idea, becoming more powerful as you devour souls

Thanks for the input, everyone

First, the bad news: my Video Card has apparently died I can't even get Windows to start outside of Safe Mode, which means no CS right now. I am hoping I can get it replaced quiet quickly, however, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue (fingers crossed)-- also going to see if I can get my Laptop running the CS

On to the Good News/Mod News:
Soul Devouring/Lore is sitll going to be part of the Mod, but in the background as "Levelling" the way it is in my Vampirism Mod. You'll be able to devour souls from enemies at approx. 10% of their Health, with the remaining Health Value being equivelent to how much Experience you gain (so someone with 10-Health left gives 10-Experience.

Lich will be able to wear any armour-- I believe there is a Lich Armour Mod, already made, so I may see if I can find it, and ask the Author's permission to use it (to have Vanilla-looking Lichs), but it will be entirely optional if so (so you can make pretty/well-dressed Liches I may even try and add floating (no idea if it will actually work yet, but if so ) I will probably also add Water Walking, since if they can float they should be able to float over Water.

Lich Powers will be being altered-- I'm thinking reducting Cost to 20% of their current value (So, 100 becomes 20), which should considerably boost their effective duration. The Lich will still only regain Magicka when not using its powers, however. This is mainly intended for balance-- I'm boosting the Player's Magicka pool to represent the overall power the Lich possesses, and as a power-source for Lich Powers (plus, you'll be able to see directly how much you have left).

As YX says, I'm going to try and go for that social interaction build: Talk to anyone as long as their disposition is high enough (probably have three levels: <40 - They threaten/attack you; 41 - 70 - They don't like you, and end conversations; 71 > - They are content to speak to you, either being influenced by your passive Lich power "coolness" or just willing to put aside their ideas because "surely you're not a Lich... You just have bad circulation, and are a little ill!").

I like the Power suggestions What I want to try and avoid, if possible, is making it into a full-on Necromancy Mod (it is only meant to be a small project, after all), but some of the old Necromancer Powers should be suitable And *possibly* a tower/dungeon.

sounds good. Just got one question, when in lich form will you be able to use melee attacks?

nice, I was waiting for something just like this

Sloblivion, lich forms normally use clothing force equipped on the player. The beauty of this Lich mod is that that doesn't happen. You still have your normal body, and you can wear any clothes you normally can. Plus, unless I'm horribly mistaken, we can't change the players animation set, but we can change their animations. So, we can't remove melee attacks, but we can allow http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5522.

thanks for the answer, I was more worried about having a red silk robe force equipped or something of the like. I just don't particularly like the dead skeleton in fancy clothing. But if it is as you say then that would be perfect.

Yes, as YX says, clothign won't be force-equipped unless the Player WANTS and SPECIFIES it, via a Global Variable Set. Even then, it is going to be that your Skelton appearance only occurs if that body part has no clothing: for example, you can wear any armour you want, and when you remove a piece, that area is skeletal.

Nice to see another one of these mods in the works. The available lich mods all have their plus points like the floating and casting animations, and another has different types of lichs, and another has lich levelling. It would be good to see all the good stuff rolled into one.

If i could make a suggestion. Instead of the skeletal form for the lich, why not make it more like the appearance of the lichs in the game? A sort of rotting corpse type effect, as this would make more sense. If the mod gets really advanced then you could have stages where the flesh withers away until what is left is a skeleton.

I'd like to be able to do that-- but I would have to ask someone for help with developing the meshes; I'm happy to do that, of course

Just a heads-up, y'all: I'm afraid I'm still without a modding computer right now: my LT can JUST play Oblivion (about 20-seconds between hitting punch and punching ), but nothing is abandoned

If you check out this http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1066318&view=findpost&p=15540024 you'll see that someone created this type of model for their character.

Maybe you could get his permission to use his model for the lich?

Just an update. There is not much modding I can actually do, but I have been able to get some stuff working:

- Skeleton form. Togglable-via-ini, Skeleton form makes you a Skeleton when armour is not equipped to the relevant slots. For example, take off your face mask, and your head will be a skull; take off you gloves, and see bony fingers. Allows you to equip any item of clothing, and still be skeletal. However, because some armours have skin as part of the mesh, certain items will give you flesh, and may look odd (for example, the prison clothes at the start of the game, showing your lower-arms and lower-legs, look weird with skeletal hands/feet/head).

- Lich Smoke. That smoky stuff Lichs have. Available in seven colours: Black, White, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Purple.

I like the sound of being able to equip any item of clothing. Not that my Lich character would run around in leather armour, but it would be nice to mix it up a bit.

On a related note, would you be able to do some clothing/armour to go with this mod? I'm thinking the robes and crown that the Lichs wear. I know there is a mod that adds these, but the exposed limbs wouldn't be skeletal.

The Lich aura sounds great too. Not seen another mod that adds that.

Thanks for working on this BTW, and hope your modding PC gets fixed soon.

I can't promise anything directly, I'm afraid-- but I find that the crowns from Quests look vaugely-Lichy, and with the Red Silk Robe, you get a "more recently dead" lich look. Not perfect, I know, but for now probably the best I can do; I believe someone has done a skeletal version of the lich robes-- can't swear to it, and would have to look around, but if so I'll get in touch with them

May also try and get floating working later-- I have an idea how to do it without messing everyone up, but we'll have to wait and see

I understand. It's not of great importance, and there's many other ways of looking Lichy

As for the floating, it was done successfully in http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6002, aswell as including the Lich walk. Here's a video of it in action, and as you can see the NPCs move as they usually do, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0OSIzNEt-8

Would you be able to figure it out just from this mod?

Possibly, yes I'm going to try my own method, first-- but from looking at that Video clip, it looks like something similar to my idea, although time will tell I'm thinking of using OBSE to intercept the keystroke, and playing the animation that way-- from the look of it, that doesn't use OBSE, but the other idea I had of using the animations and conditions (but without looking, I can't say)