Hi,

I have a question regarding my followers, and I couldn't find an easy answer online.

I have a follower (serana) who uses spells, but the damage they deal is rather underwhelming and barely tickles most enemies.

What's the easiest way to increase the individual spells' damage?

I use SkyRe, and don't have any other follower / gameplay changing mods. I tried using the "setav DestructionPowerMod" command

to increase her spells' power. However, while the number goes up in the console (checked using "getav"), in practice I do not notice any difference

in her spell damage, even when increased to obscene amounts. I also tried to give her gear with +% increased Destruction spell damage. Again,

it gets counted in the DestructionPowerMod variable but doesn't actually do more damage.

I tried to give her new more powerful spells through the console, but she still seems to be using the default ones.

I tried to remove the default ones through the console, but they're some weird levelled or specific ID that I could not find even through the construciton set.

I considered just manually deleting all of her spells from the construction set entry and adding new ones, but I'm worried that will mess with some script or levelling thing.

If anyone knows an easy way to make her spells actually do more damage, help would be greatly appreciated!

Open up the CK, make a perk that increases magnitude of destruction spells, and give the perk to Serana.


You can't do it in-game because the AddPerk() function doesn't work on NPCs.


It might conflict with other mods you might be using that change Serana.

If the perk is on a new MGEF in a new Ability-type spell, would AddSpell work?

On that matter... wouldn't it be easier to just do it through a spell effect? Alchemy potions work on MGEFs and have the SPEL/ALCH-level variable magnitudes.

I'm... not actually sure? I remember that years ago I tried using an ability on every race to quickly give a perk to every actor in the game and it... didn't work? But there are a lot of specific scenarios that I can't speak to.

As for doing it through a spell effect, that may work (in 20 years of playing Elder Scrolls games I have NEVER done alchemy or explored it in the CS, so GIANT SHRUG?), but whether or not it's "easier" depends on who's doing it. I like the Mod Spell X perk entry points more than trying to do anything with magic effects; I find them easier to conceptualize and work with. But your mileage may vary, etc. etc.

In any case, one would need to open the CK and create SOMETHING and then add it to Serana.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I will try to add her a perk.

Incidentally, I wonder how the default combat AI chooses which spells to use.

Giving certain followers certain spells definitely works, and sometimes they'll happily use a particular staff you give them.

But it sure doesn't seem to be as simple as "choose spell with highest numeric magnitude and spam that" ...