I've got an addon I've published to the workshop already to address spell scaling in Skyrim, and it works out well. It modified the spell "level" perks (such as Novice Destruction) to not only reduce mana cost, but added an Entry Point to scale magnitude based on the spell school times 0.25.

Using the method adds "rough" spell scaling to the magic system, and I'm working to refine it. My question is... Does anyone know of a way to scale spell magnitude through scripting? I know you can run a script to modify the "DestructionMod" values, etc. But, this can adversely affect other things (such as RestorationMod making weapon/armor enchants extremely powerful).

I like the way the Entry Point system works, but I'm wanting to add more flavor to it. The allowed options under Entry Point are extremely limited, and only allow you to access a single ActorValue at a time for calculations. I'd like to expand that,.

I am Wondering this as well. I am trying to make spells Scale with the associated School's level, but the entry point options are very limited.
The Problem is that you cannot scale with less than ActorValue * 0.01, which equals 1% per skill point, which is a little bit OP.

Is there any way to access spell Magnitude via Scripts? I am guessing you can modify a spell once it's cast with an onEvent script, but the disadvantage of that is that you cannot see the changes until you actually cast the spell.

You can attach scripts to perks, but I can find no information on what this actually does. The Creation Kit wiki is woefully incomplete. I don't even know if there IS a script command to change a magic effect's magnitude...

Sorry if I'm missing something, but you want the magnitude of the spells to scale with skill, i.e. the power of say "flames" to increase as you increase your Destruction skill? There is no need for scripting. I have done this in my own magic overhaul through some basic changes in the associated perks and it works like a charm. I'm not at my PC at the moment, so I cannot describe it well, but if this is what you want, I can give you some tips when I get home.

Were you able to do it without adding like 20 entry points for every perk? The Problem I have is that while it is easy to just do value = http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1345606-spell-magnitude/1+Destruction * 0.01 in a perk, everything thats lower that 1% is impossible. So if I want to e.g. make Augmented flames scale from +10 up to +40% bases on your Destruction level, I have to use multiple entry points. It's possible, but hardly optimal.

It would be good to know how scripts that are attached to perks know, because that may open up a whole lot of possibilites.

Ah, well, no. Using that is what I did. I do not know about any way to limit the scaling . Well good luck anyway.

I guess I'm wondering why you can't just select Spell Magnitude from the left dropdown in a Perk Entry Point, then do whatever math equation you want? I'm using that method to increase spell magnitude 10% as a rested bonus in one of my Nexus mods and it works. With a little scripting, you can do other things to make it scale with the game, such as multiplying by the player's level or skill.

I thought the question was skill level though, not perks. If you're changing the perks, it won't really affect casters who might have 100 destruction skill, but no perks.

Well because it does not give me the option to do any math equation I want, does it? Have I just overlooked that option?

Scripting does not work well either. The only event that you can use would be OnEffectStart, and from there you have no way to modifiy Duration or Magnitude of the spell, much less its cost. I would need an event "OnSpellCast" at the very least, but even then I probably could not modify the Magnitude according to what I read on these forums.


Which, sadly, makes any complete restructuring of the magic system impossible without breaking NPCs....
Perks are pretty much the only way to do spell scaling other than completely remove all existing spells (or rather, all spell effects) and make them all scripts, doing damage based on the caster's destruction level.
Well, thinking about it, thats not actually too hard. There aren't really a lot of spell effects that the player uses anyways, and you could probably do one basic script and use it for all damaging effects...
It gets more complicated with summoning and stuff, but there all you really could scale is the duration, which is easy enough with perks, and the summons, which is pretty much impossible without creating like 10 different versions of each summon (if you want to scale of conjuration level, scaling of player level is only one checkbox).

Maybe I misunderstood what you're trying to accomplish. I was thinking, for the Entry Point:

Mod Spell Magnitude

Plus

Function Multiply Actor Value Mult

plus Value = http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1345606-spell-magnitude/Value * Destruction * 1.10

Wouldn't that cause a perpetual increase in Destruction spell magnitude until Destruction was maxed at 100? I mean, it would always be a 10% increase, so at Destruction 20, it would only be 2. But, at Destruction 80, it would be 8.

Except that would give you a huge damage increase. If we take Ice Spike as an example, you get: Magnitude = 25 * Destruction * 1.10, which at 50 Destruction is 25 * 50 * 1.10 = 1375. Thats a 110 % increase per point in Destruction, not 10%. The Problem with that formula is that Damage actually get's lower than the base Magnitude until Destruction 50, and then goes upwards.

If you do that and apply it to, say, novice Destruction, taking that perk will actually lower your damage until you reach Destruction 50. Plus you'd need to restructure all the Magnitudes. And even then you still cannot scale for say 25% increase at lvl 100, because you need to many Decimals to do that. What I want is Value = http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1345606-spell-magnitude/Value * (1 + Destructin * 0.0025). I don't even need more decimals, all I need is the option to add in another divisor, like Value = http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1345606-spell-magnitude/Value * (1 + Destruction * 0.01 * 0.25). I don't understand why the CK wont just let me write an expression...

I was wrong about the Scripting though. There IS an event OnSpellCast, but still no way to get any information other than the name of the spell...
This is really strange. I mean the Magic effects obviously get all kinds of parameters from the Spell, like Magnitude, Duration, and whether it was dual cast or not. Yet I have no way of getting these values in a script. But aren't does magic effects essentially premade scripts? The information is passed over to them, there has to be a way to get to it.

Why couldn't you just apply the skill mod ONLY if the caster is == Game.GetPlayer() ? I fail to see how that would break NPCs...

Yeah its possible via scripts. Maybe I wan't making myself clear. If I wanted to restructure the magic system using perks (e.g. making spell damage ONLY dependant on Destruction level and Magnitude only a "modifier"), that would break NPCs, because they don't have perks.

But with scripts, you cannot access the Magnitude of a spell, so as of now, that does not work either.