I've been trying for the last two days to create a custom spell. The spell is a non hostile aimed concentration spell, and I wan't to play the explosion animation for the explosion FXdustDropMedExplosion when it hits something.

I've found that the explosion does not play when assigned under the Explosion category of Visual Effects under my custom Magic Effect. However, if I modify the projectile to create said explosion it plays, but only the explosion assigned to the projectile. The explosion assigned to the magic effect is ignored or has no effect. What the heck is going on, what am I misunderstanding about this?

Secondly, and my biggest problem. I can create the desired effect by creating a projectile and attaching the explosion to it, and then assigning the projectile to the spell effect. However, it is considered a hostile action by NPC if they're in the explosion despite not taking any damage. Is there any way to make an NPC not consider the explosion a hostile act or get the animation from the explosion to play without actually causing the explosion? Visually I get exactly what I want, a concentration spell emitted and a cloud of dust kicked up where it hits something. However, I end up sending any nearby NPCs into a murderous rage. I'm making a mining spell inspired, by Dementor4's Mining for Mages, but to my own tastes. While sending the local miners into a murderous rage after getting some dust on them is amusing the first time it happens, it gets annoying fast and is not the intended effect.

Also, looking at how Dementor4 implemented it he added both the spell and the projectile to the form list mineOreToolList. However, I find that if I just add the spell it works seemingly fine? I even tried with a fire and forget spell and it works as well. Is there some reason that the projectile used by the spell effect should be add to the form list as well?