Thoughts on this Illusion overhaul ?

Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:20 pm

Hi,
I was thinking how a way to make Illusion more entertaining and also more viable at higher levels.
As you probably know, Illusion in vanilla is very unbalanced because of the level scaling, and while many mods fix this problem by increasing the level cap of Illusion spells, there is another problem that remains :
Illusion spells are very strong and cheap to use : A single cast of Frenzy/Calm on a group of enemies and you've already won.
I had this sudden idea of making the basic Illusions spells (Calm, Rally, Fear and Fury) concentrated (Like the novice destruction spells) instead of fire-and-forget.
  • You will have to maintain them for some time before the target is finaly under your spell.
  • The time it will take will depend on the target's level, your level in Illusion and the target's agression and confidence (A very confident target for example will be easy to influence with Rally, but hard to influence with Fear)
  • There will be new spells that can only be used on targets that are under influence of a basic Illusion spell, for example a spell that make frenzied/feared targets take damage-over-time, or another that turn Rallied/Calmed targets into permanent allies.
  • There will be other new spells such as "Mind Read" that will sneakily provide information about a target's stats, Confidence and Agression.
This is an idea that I came up with in the last 10 minutes, so I still am thinking of how to improve it.
What are your thoughts on this overhaul ?
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jasminĪµ
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:20 am

Sounds exciting! I would definitely download something like this.

I especially like the possibility of certain spells only working on targets that you have already illuded.

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Trish
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:34 am

I like the idea. I'm not sure how to vote because until we see the implementation whether it's overpowered, underpowered, or just right remains to be seen.

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Lauren Denman
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:13 am

I think that the spells shouldn't be a simple binary on/off depending on whether it passes the level cap, but have duration determined by comparing magnitude against level. If it's about the same level, it's the listed duration. If lower level, duration is enhanced. If higher level, duration is diminished.

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Vera Maslar
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:20 am

Sounds good! I don't like the damage taking one if they're going to be similar to destruction spells but under illusion. Could you eloborate?

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Ladymorphine
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:00 am

My 2 cents: A concentrated spell that's supposed to change an enemy's disposition is not realistic. Starting to cast the spell will have an immediately negative effect, because you've attacked them. The existing instant change is the only one that makes any sense.

However the idea of overhauling the illusion spells is in itself a good one, and I agree with the Mad Cat that the binary nature of success/fail is the problem. It makes it unlike the other spell schools, where you may deal more or less damage, depending on your level, rather than all or nothing. So replace your time to take effect with time to wear off, and the rest works.
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Jonathan Windmon
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:18 am

That's already what I'm planning to do. The time required to control something, aswell as the duration an actor remain under the influence of your Illusions will scale with your skill and his level.

The mod won't be ready anytime soon unfortunately, as I'm already working on Alteration and Conjuration first.

Any reason why you believe that the instantly-control-an-enemy option of vanilla skyrim is more realistic than gradually influencing a character ?

I am not sure if I understood correctly, but by "Negative effect" you mean that the enemy will immediately attack you ? If that's the case, I already thought of making the spells silent and non-hostile, so you can influence someone without getting caught.

It's not really similar to Destruction, it will require that the target is under the influence of another Illlusion spell. If it ends up being similar to Destruction, I could change the damage for a stat debuff instead or something similar.

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Rik Douglas
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 12:16 pm

Personally those tweaks don't really do anything for me. Hell not thrilled with the entire illusion tree in skyrim. I like a more d&d approach.

1)Shadow spells (think of knock off destruction spells, but cost more and potentially have more resist checks)

2)Save or Die (Thinking of the d&d spell that has two dice rolls to kill your target, if you only pass one of them you do a small amount of damage)

3)Or fake your own death spells. (Ever get in a fight in skyrim that you are losing badly? Running not an option? Fake your own death!)

4) Imitate undead. Think of being able to roam various barrows without undead pestering you. Unless you stumble across a a smart undead creature! (vamp/lich)

A good list of ideas for Illusion spells http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Illusion_Spells

Basically my point is, fear/rally/fury is rather boring for the end user.

edit: Basically using the D&D model you can get away with being a pure Illusionist. It has lots of tools that you can use in various ways to beat a fight. Opposed to the current method of casting fury and watching a npc have all the fun.

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Matt Terry
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:03 am

While some of these ideas are cool, I think most of them are too complex for a game like Skyrim.

Some, such as your idea of disguising as an undead, can easily be made and I actually already planned to add a spell that would allow you to disguise as a member of a faction.

Also, if you want Shadow spells, I think Phenderix magic improved already add them. Not sure if that's what you are looking for, but it's worth cheking.

Also, I just had a small idea : Phantom animals.

It has already been done in Skyre and Mighty Magick, but I thought it would be cool having the possibility of creating different types of Illusions. Actors will randomly have a phobia of an animal (that you will be able to discover with Mind Read). Summoning an animal that someone is afraid from will causes him to run (if his confidence is low), or try to fight his fears and get debuffed (if his confidence is high).

Other ideas I'm thinking of :

  • Fatigue Supression : You trick your into body ignoring fatigue for a short amount of time, causing you to always have maximum stamina. But at the end of the effect, you take damage based on how much stamina was consumed.
  • Make Noise : Causes a distraction at the target area.
  • Dream Feed : Cast on a sleeping target to absorb magicka from it every second and prevent it from waking up.
    Whisper : If you are undetected or your target is affected by Calm, causes it to come to your current location.
    Hypnotize : Cause a bright light that staggers all nearby enemies who are in front of you and blind them for 3 seconds. Blind enemies are immune to this spell. Animals will flee.
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Lil Miss
 
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Post » Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:13 pm

The problem there is that with frenzy, they keep fighting their friends after the effects wear off so you just need them to be frenzied for a fraction of a second. If that can be fixed, it would be a good implementation.

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^~LIL B0NE5~^
 
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