I'm a long-term fan of Morrowind, and I've used the editor for it far longer than that of Oblivion, so the scripting for Oblivion is eating my brain. I've made a VERY simple spell that's supposed to mimic an ability of the Zerg Queen from Starcraft called "Spawn Broodlings." For those of you who don't know, the ability shoots a projectile at any organic ground unit (including a few small machines, presumably targeting their pilots) which instantly kills its target and spawns two very weak creatures called Broodlings which die a short time after they appear.

I wanted to recreate this classic ability in my first mod and give it to some of the Desert Mages that I'm creating. What I'm trying to do to keep it from being overpowered is to give the spell 2 effects: the first is a simple Damage Health 10 points on target, then the next is the Brooling's spawn ability. I'd like to script the spell to detect if it kills its target, but I"m not sure how. Here's what I'm using for the moment:

Scriptname BroodlingSpawnScriptBegin SpcripEffectStart   kill   Placeatme SpellEffectBroodling 2   endifend

And the Broodlings themselves have a very simple script that makes them disappear on death:

Scriptname BroodlingDeathScriptBegin OnDeath   Disableendifend

Frankly, the Broodlings are too weak to even bother with their timer; all I want to do is rid the spell of its OHK effect. My idea for a possible workaround is to add a "broodling egg" or some strange item like that, that detects its owners death and deletes itself, spawning a broodling at the same time. It'd give the spell a nice stacking effect if it had to be done.

Why not use GetActorValue Health? Set that if the health is 0 (thus is dead) create a broodling

That makes sense...I tried that but i was using "GetHealth"...still new to the scripting language. I'll try that, thanks.

I think GetActorValue gives the maximum, not the current. The OBSE function GetActorValue2 returns the current health. I think something like this will work though:
The spell has 2 effects, Damage Health 10 on target, and this script effect for 1 second on target:

scriptname BroodlingSpawnScript

ref target

begin scripteffectfinish
set target to Getself
if target.getdead == 1
placeatme spelleffectbroodling 2
endif
end

What this would do is deal 10 damage, then after 1 second, the scripteffectfinish block triggers, checks if the target is dead, and if it is dead, it spawns 2 broodlings.

No, GetAV returns the current, I've tested it myself in-game. To get the maximum you'll need GetBaseAV and a check for fortify enchantment/abilities.

Also, placeatme has a few http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/PlaceAtMe, mainly save game bloating.


Might want to try other methods, for example, creating 20 broodlings in a dummy cell like test cells, and move them accordingly to the desired place. 20 broodlings by itself might be too many, you might want to limit the number of spawnable broodlings at once because too many characters on screen is not a good idea either. Imagine using Finger of The Mountain with 30 broodlings around

By the way why not use getDead ?

The script is running on the target of the spell so a simple if getDead would suffice - no ? Maybe a gotcha on scripts not running on dead actors (EDIT : no prob - the script will run for at least a frame which is just fine) - but maybe this only for their scripts - worth testing anyway.
Use getDead.

Oh sorry your right GetAV is current. I was thinking of SetAV and ModAV.

I'm still confused...so will getdead work, then? Cause it'll make this a lot easier. I was using "OnDeath target" which didn't work....I still don't understand scripting in this game. Seems like a timer will work for this.

Test it It should work :

begin scripteffectfinishif getdead == 1placeatme spelleffectbroodling 2endifend

Avoid placeatme though. Follow Raestloz idea with the dummy cell - and you will need some OBSE probably to check which broodling is already movedto the target...

Maybe 2 different broodlings? spelleffectbroodling1 and spelleffectbroodling2, and when either dies they get sent back to the dummy cell and resurrected?

EDIT: Wait wait wait...nevermind I forgot to look at the link. So place 2 broodlings where the target is, then move them to a dummy cell...Then use a global variable to detect how many broodlings are currently placed maybe? I'll go test it out. Thank you everyone for your help!

PS: Any other SC spells you think would be good to see in Oblivion?

Btw now that I come to think about it I am not sure placeatme actors cause bloat - I started a thread once - I had noticed OOO's golems are summoned via placeatme - they seemed to be cleared alright

I don't know if this was in SC, but it seems like a good idea -
how about a spell that you cast at a dead body, which then spawns the broodlings?
I think you can script it to detect if the spell targets a corpse. Then you may also need to disable the corpse so it can't be exploited

and sorry for digressing, but what does bloating mean?

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Common_Mistakes#Savegame_Bloating

It looks like that once an actor is killed the reference is cleared by the engine itself, so I think (I think) using placeatme for several actors that you expect to be killed is alright; using placeatme for activators is not

Yes - and http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Talk:Common_Mistakes