» Mon Oct 20, 2014 12:25 am http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32799/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D32799%26preview%3D&pUp=1
So... I spent the past... Weeks? Months? I don't even know how long on upgrading my Morrowind vampires mod. Now it's much more balanced and lore friendly. With 35 fire damage per second, a 50% weakness to fire, blunt weapon bonus damage for Quarra, dagger bonus damage for Aundae, more stealth bonuses damage for Berne, and all of their 24 hour cooldown abilities now having weaknesses attached to them, that force you to use at least a tiny bit of strategy when using them. Both Vvardenfell vampires and NPCs both take sun damage now.
You can also choose one of four versions now, one where they roam exterior Skyrim at night and respawn, one where they never respawn but still attack Skyrim, because multiple people have made requests wishing to be able to play this mod as a vampire hunter or kill rival vampires, and a version where the Vvardenfell vampires in Skyrim never leave their exterior, because some people didn't want to use mods that add protection to their quest giver NPCs called a "safe Skyrim" version, in one safe Skyrim version the NPCs added by this mod respawn and in the other they don't.
I even included the formlist IDs of many important NPCs, items and effects in this mod, in case a bug or glitch had occured, or just in case someone wanting to alter my mod slightly to their tastes via console commands. I also nerfed a bunch of overpowered NPCs, the NPCs who aren't inside of their factions specific headquarters anyways. And I added Quarra/Aundae battlemages, because in hindsight it made no sense to me neither of them had battlemage NPCs, the Berne now have executioners and rogues, with the rogues being their version of the Quarra warriors, and the executioners being melee glass cannons like the berserkers.
Quarra players now have a three times higher chance to intimidate successfully as well... Because... Well, they are extremely strong, like capable of literally ripping off limbs in the lore, and that's AFAIK just what an AVERAGE Quarra vampire is capable of lore wise, so I gave them an intimidation bonus to make their strength seem more realistic and immersive.
Here's the powers in question, hidden behind a spoiler as to not take up space, that the Vvardenfell vampires get now. On top of the ability to now turn NPCs into vampires of your bloodline as well.
Spell: Advanced Drain Life, drain 17 health from your enemy. (Aundae vampires get the slightly stronger Aundae drain life).
Aundae vampires have 60 more Magicka, 5% faster magicka regeneration,10% stronger Illusion spells, 50% stronger Destruction, 20% stronger Conjuration, Alteration spells, 20% longer lasting alteration, illusion and conjuration spells, and are 20% more effective with daggers.
Spell: Aundae Drain Life- Drain 20 health from your enemy.
Power: Aundae Focus Casting Destruction spells do 150% more damage for 24 hours, but they cost four times as much, and you are also 50% more vulnerable to magicka damage, 35% more vulnerable to fire damage, and take 75 extra damage from silver weapons for 24 hours. (Was changed from Aundae Hypnosis). Requires 500 magicka just to cast it.
Power: Aundae Blood Channeling Fortifies Destruction by 88%, reduces cost for destruction spells by 75%, and increases Magicka regeneration by 115% for 20 seconds, also causes 85% weakness to fire, and 75 additional weakness to silver weapons for 8 hours. (Used to be called Aundae Focus Casting).
Quarra vampires have 60 more health, 20% stronger unarmed attacks, 175 more carry weight, 20 better heavy armor rating, 15% more powerful melee skills, and are 20% more powerful with blunt weapons.
Power: Wrath Of The Quarra 115+ health, and 20% increased melee and 20% damage resistance for 20 seconds, at the cost of 85% weakness to fire, and 75 weakness to silver weapons for 8 hours. (Used to be Quarra Berserking).
Berne vampires have 60 more stamina, 40% better unarmed damage, 10% better archery, 35% more effective sneak, regenerate stamina 20% faster, 10% stronger melee skills, 30% faster movement speed, 20 better armor rating if unarmored, and 20% more powerful pickpocketing and lockpicking.
Power: Berne Blood Rush 95% better sneaking, 15% stronger one handed and two handed, 75% additional movement speed, 40% stronger pickpocket and lockpicking, 30% faster stamina regeneration for 20 seconds. 85% weakness to fire and 75+ vulnerability to silver weapons for 8 hours. (Used to be Berne Adrenaline Rush).
Power: Berne Poison Bite slows victim by 75% for 60 seconds and slowly does 600 total damage after a minute, and for 120 seconds absorbs 33 stamina per second from the victim.
Quarra Juggernauts are now very hard to kill, but they have very low magicka, and their movement speed is under 100%, they also carry massive shields with them that weigh 120 pounds, equip it and you'll get about 70+ health, and a lot of armor but you will also move 30% slower, and have 120 less free carry weight. It's there for roleplay value- not to be a gamebreaking god item. The Quarra also have one other new item, a Massive Golden Hammer, which does more damage than a dwemer warhammer, but it's extremely heavy, heavier than Daedric, and does less damage than ebony. I wanted to give the Quarra some faction specific stuff that's extremely heavy for roleplay value... And those hammers are quite huge,
Aundae destruction bonuses have been buffed, because of destruction being much weaker than weapons are, and further more the Aundae now have an ability called "Focus casting" that costs 500 magicka, and makes you do 150% more destruction damage, but makes destruction spells 4 times more expensive, and makes you 50% more vulnerable to magicka, 25% weaker to fire damage, and have a 75+ weakness to silver weapons for 24 hours. It's supposed to be there to make more classical glass cannon type mages more viable, and it has all sorts of weaknesses to prevent it from turning you into an iron cannon. Requiring 500 magicka just to cast it will also mean that's 500 points that could've gone to health, so that's another balancing factor.
The Aundae passives, and Blood Channeling power are quite powerful on their own though, so it's not something essential, just intended to offer an alternate playstyle that doesn't exist in vanilla Skyrim.
Also your health will not automatically regenerate unless you sleep, which is middle ground between Skyrim's regeneration, and Morrowind's vampires not healing at all from sleeping. I also added a perk to all Vvardenfell vampires that many any restoration spell so expensive, that even the weakest one costs well over 1000 magicka, so now you can't rely on casting restoration spells to survive anymore, and I think it not only makes sense, but acts as a balancing factor for otherwise overpowered characters.
Also remember Helnarr-Jo's "laboratory" and the Aundae player home, and how tiny it was compared to the other homes? And how it didn't even look like a laboratory? Well I fixed that issue. Now it DEFINITELY looks magical, and I promise it now looks like some type of laboratory, rather than just somewhere with enchanting and alchemy tables.
You can also now turn any humanoid NPC into a Quarra, Aundae, or Berne vampire... Technically you can turn animals machines and stuff to I suspect, but I highly recommend you don't do that, cause it doesn't make sense, and could cause serious glitches. It's on a 24 hour cooldown so it's not too abusable. The spell is considered hostile so you can't just cast it right in front of guards with no consequences, though if you wait 3 days for an NPC to calm down, or use it on a companion, or cast calm afterwards, I think you should be able to turn them into an ally.
Just be careful, not to turn any important killable NPCs who spend any amount of time in sunlight... Or else you know, their AI sadly won't change with the sun weakness, and they'll be fried to death by sunlight. Also be aware that if used on some important vanilla NPCs like jarls this can break or destroy the MQ, so use it with caution. Also lastly even though you can cure yourself of Vvardenfell vampirism with a purgeblood potion, any NPC turned is a vampire forever.
Here's some screenshots now.
Aundae Blood Aquarium. http://i.imgur.com/Bp9snYW.png
Aundae vastly improved lighting. http://i.imgur.com/6LWSpQx.png
Aundae Improved Maze. http://i.imgur.com/5y9uoUJ.jpg
Aundae Improved Cave. http://i.imgur.com/m68qrPZ.png
Aundae laboratory. http://i.imgur.com/8vDDcCy.jpg
Aundae laboratory 2. http://i.imgur.com/zfUKmfY.jpg
Aundae laboratory 3. http://i.imgur.com/AjeCgFD.jpg
Aundae laboratory 4. http://i.imgur.com/AV4B84t.jpg
Aundae laboratory 5. http://i.imgur.com/zMKhe9D.png
Aundae laboratory 6. http://i.imgur.com/pTLXb4A.png
Aundae Laboratory 7 http://i.imgur.com/SHmaSkW.png
http://i.imgur.com/8QpEVqz.jpg Learn to tell the difference between a Berne Rogue, and a Berne Executioner! It could save your life... Or your undeath or whatever.
Aundae Fledgling in the new sewers. http://i.imgur.com/FaKaofM.jpg
Sewer entry. http://i.imgur.com/z7JcWGg.png
Burning in the sun. http://i.imgur.com/wN18oW4.png
Moar sewers. http://i.imgur.com/gZsJ8vk.png
The ridiculously massive Quarra Juggernaut shield. http://i.imgur.com/4NgeRXL.jpg
Another view of this shield. http://i.imgur.com/Tgkz0cI.png
An updated Quarra Juggernaut with the new shield. http://i.imgur.com/Cn3OTll.png
A Quarra Battlemage with a gigantic hammer. http://i.imgur.com/fkRIiSQ.png
Another Quarra battlemage with said hammer. http://i.imgur.com/HoluyRa.png
The new improved bridge in the Aundae base.http://i.imgur.com/tcpW0He.png The last one... Well it was put together right, but lets just say, some statics when snapped together, have these jarring gaps if rotated vertically... So I replaced it with something else, and personally I also think it looks a lot more unique and better.
http://i.imgur.com/ytBwZbA.jpg Lealmal sewers entry.
Lastly now that I showed some of those images... I'm gonna take a break for now, My wrist and fingers have been aching, and I've been mentally exhausted by working on this mod nearly all day for... Weeks months, I don't know.
Future possible ideas: New versions that use stuff from Dragonborn to really bring out the fact these vampires came from Morrowind, things like Bonemold/chitin armor/Morrowind clutter, maybe even some pets from Morrowind.
Possibly the addition of Daggerfall vampires, including one the Thrafey who will get a heal ability that the restoration perk doesn't interfere with. And this isn't very likely so don't get your hopes up, though possibly maybe eventually adding dialogue to the vampires, and making members of these factions call their enemies fetchers and s'wits in combat, to REALLY hammer in the immersion of them having come from Morrowind, unlike Volkihar vampires.
Anyways... With that out of the way, I'm going to take a much needed break, hopefully these new versions fare significantly better than the old ones. The npcs are much more balanced now, and the abilities are much more like Morrowind.
