Supreme Magicka mod for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

REQUIRES OBSE v13a and Oblivion patch 1.2

When I first played Oblivion as a mage I found that magic was way too underpowered and it was very difficult to survive as a pure mage. I then turned to a popular mod, Mighty Magick. That just flipped it around and made magic much too powerful. This is my attempt to find the middle ground between MM and vanilla.

This mod overhauls the magic system of Oblivion to create a more balanced, diverse, and fun system. It adds new effects, new spells, and more in order to enhance the game for mages and anyone else who thinks magic is too weak.

The main focus of this mod is to make spellcasting stronger but not overpowered. To that effect, I have decreased the cost of most magic effects and increased the power of their spell counterparts to reflect that change. To maintain balance, I have not touched the spell mastery limits.

* General Changes:

Changes some game settings: armor now penalizes your magical abilities more if you wear more equipment but penalizes less if you only wear a few small objects. Your magicka regeneration rate is slower at the beginning but increases a lot faster at higher willpowers. Magic projectiles are faster and goes further but are still not at the speed of light. Ranged and area spells cost slightly less than before. NPCs also have higher magicka to compensate for their stupidity. Most of these settings are configurable in the customization file.

Magic sneak attack bonuses have been introduced. If you are sneaking and cast a spell at your enemy you is unaware you will do some extra damage. A Master of sneak will do up to double damage with a spell compared to a novice.

Now there are many "circle" spells which deals damage to all enemies around you in an area. Surrounded? No problem! Cast Burning Spiral and blast all your problems away.

Skill and attribute based spells (Absorb, Fortify, Drain, Damage) are now grouped together so that they can be used in more situations. Some are particularly designed to be used against warriors, archers, or mages. Many of these spells are particularly useful for battlemages.

Most positive buff spells have longer duration so that you don't have to constantly recast shield spells and the like during battle.

Included in the mod is the option to have your skill level increase rate scale with the magicka cost of the spells you cast so that higher costing spells will raise your skill level more than lower costing ones. This is to prevent you from needing to spam low cost spells to level your magic skills at higher levels. There are also many other options you can select from the configuration file included with the mod. These options include the ability to give all target spells a small AOE to improve aiming in third person as well as the ability to change the durations of all summon spells to a set, constant amount.

Stealth Magic

* Enchanting, Spellmaking, and Alchemy:

Enchanting has been changed so that you can make more powerful enchantments. Soul gems have higher enchantment values than before and weapon enchantment limits have been raised.

Constant effect enchantments are no longer ridiculously underpowered. Certain effects (such as reflect damage) can now be enchanted upon items at the enchantment altar. But they haved been balanced so as not to be overpowering.

A few effects can no longer be made at spellmaking and enchanting so as to retain balance. Charm spells, for example, can no longer be made into new spells so as to prevent the player from making 100pts for 3 seconds spells and to retain some use in persuasion. Chameleon has been removed as well so that you can't enchant all your armor pieces and achieve 100% chameleon. These spells can still be bought in the game but can no longer be exploited so much.

Alchemy now governs how many potions you can drink as well. At novice level you can only drink 3 potions while master level has the additional perk of being able to drink 5 potions at once.

Most of these changes described here can be edited in the configuration file or via plugins included in the download.

* Conjuration:

Conjuration has been changed so that the number of creatures you can summon depends on your mastery of Conjuration so that you can summon only one creature at novice/apprentice, two at journeyman/expert and 3 at master. I have added some spells that summon multiple creatures at once. Also be aware your enemies are now able to summon multiple creatures. You can set this setting in the configuration file.

Bound item spells have also been improved. Since you're binding Daedra into the form of armor, you should be able to tell it what form the armor should take. Now, you can! Bound Armor will now become light or heavy armor depending on which skill is higher and they shall have appropriate stats to match. Bound bow also summons an infinite supply of arrows for you although each arrow you fire burns a small amount of your magicka. All bound armor and weapons have useful enchantments as well that increase in potency as your conjuration level rises.

Conjurers can light up those dark dungeons just as well as illusionists. There's a new bound torch spell for apprentices and a will-o-the-wisp summoning spell for journeymen which calls forth a will-o-the-wisp that follows you around, lighting up your surroundings. The will-o-the-wisp does not fight at all and doesn't count towards your summoning limit.

* Mysticism:

Absorb spells have been moved to Mysticism like they were in Morrowind so that Mysticism is no longer a useless skill. A plugin is included to return it back to Restoration if you so choose.

Telekinesis spells have been completely overhauled! Now they are very useful utility spells that can open chests, open doors, pickpocket, and pick up items. You can also use them during combat to push enemies back or pull them close by pressing the left or right mouse key right after casting. Watch out for mentally strong enemies as they are more likely to be unaffected by your telekinesis.

Now you can destroy summoned creatures by casting dispel spells onto them. These spells deal massive damage to all summoned creatures so you can vanquish them in a few hits.

Mystics now have the ability to defeat other mages easily with the Spellfire spells. These spells when cast on an enemy mage will damage the mage's health whenever he loses magicka. They are most harmful when used on pure mages who cast a lot of spells or when used in combination with Damage or Drain Magicka.

Mystics also gain the ability to teleport to different places. New, long distance teleportation spells include Circumvention, Sanctuary/Displacement, Divine Intervention, and Daedric Intervention. Extrication allows you to teleport to your last exterior location so you can easily return to the entrance of a dungeon after clearing it. Sanctuary/Displacement allows you to place a marker at your current location and teleport to that mark any time you wish. There are separate markers for Tamriel and the Shivering Isles. Also when you use displacement, using it again afterwards will take you back to your original location you first used it. It has a time limit though so after some time you wont be able to teleport back to your previous location. Your mysticism skill increases the length of time your original location is remembered. Divine Intervention teleports you to the nearest chapel and Daedric Intervention takes you to the nearest Daedric Shrine at the cost of some health points. The Nine will not help criminals on the run from the law; the Daedra do not care whom they help as long as you pay the price in blood. Besides the long range teleportation spells, there are also a few short ranged ones. Assassin's Rush will quickly move you behind an enemy's back. Blink teleports you a short distance in the direction you're looking. Swap allows you to switch places with a target NPC or creature, alive or dead.

Those highly skilled in Mysticism can now access the Spellmaking and Enchanting Altars of the Arcane University no matter where they are through special spells crafted for just this purpose. The Mages Guild encourage this practice in hopes of greater profits but intentionally made these spells hard to cast in order to reserve its services only for those deserving of them. These spells are sold by Raminus Polus at the Arcane University.

I've also added some spells that allow you to use part of your soul to recharge your weapon. These recharge spells will expend 25% of your maximum health each cast. One cast is enough to recharge your weapon to the highest charge that spell can achieve. The novice spell can only recharge up to 30%, apprentice up to 40%, journeyman up to 50%, expert up to 60%, and master up to 75%. None of these spells are able to recharge a weapon fully so soul gems will still retain their usefulness.

Detect life spells have been re-balanced. By default all detect life spells no longer detect the undead or vampires. Only by being a vampire yourself will you be able to detect them. Also daedra will now be shaded orange while the undead will be shaded white/blue for your convenience.

They are also two new types of detection spells that seek out the magical essences of objects. Detect Ingredients will detect all flora and alchemy ingredients in the area for you. Detect Magic Items will detect all enchanted items and soul gems in the area as well as detect containers that contain any of these items.

* Destruction:

Elemental spells now have unique effects on enemies. Fire spells have a chance of staggering enemies or pushing them away. Frost spells can freeze them solid for a duration or slow them down. Shock spells have a chance of bouncing to another npc at half power or making you fall for the duration of the spell. These effects work for any fire/frost/shock spells even if they are from other mods or made at the spellmaking altar. These effects also work on the player so beware when you're fighting against enemy mages. You can adjust the chances of these effects occurring though the configuration file.

Damage Health effects also have an added ability. Now, Damage Health spells will nullify any restored health on a target for up to 8 times its magnitude. For example, if an enemy casts a Restore Health 20 pts spell while affected with a Damage Health 5 pts for 10 seconds, all restored points will be nullified. But if the spell heals 50 pts instead, only 40 restored points will be nullified and he'll still restore 10 pts of health. This effect is especially deadly when used with Drain Health spells. Vampires are not affected by the effect. Since Damage Health spells removes life force and undead are the opposite of life, they will regain health from such spells instead.

This mod features a brand new spell effect, Poison Damage! These spells takes several seconds to go into full effect. The damage starts out low at first but increases quickly. These spells cost more than elemental spells but enemies are generally less resistant to it (notable exceptions are Redguards and Argonians). They also have the potential to damage enemies' attributes. This effect can be used at the spellmaking altar to create custom spells.

Drain spells are actually useful now! Drain Fatigue completely knocks an enemy out for a short period if their fatigue is low enough. Drain Health can be used to instantly kill an enemy whose health is below a certain limit. Drain Health has been removed from spellmaking and enchanting to prevent explotation of this effect with Drain Health 300pts on Touch custom spells.

There are also a few new Rapidfire spells so you can spew out a constant stream of weaker fireballs rather than just fire a few powerful ones. Each fireball will drain some magicka so make sure your reserves are high.

* Alteration:

Burden spells can now do what they're supposed to do: hold an enemy in place for a duration. They can now root an enemy to the ground for a short amount of time if the enemy is weak enough. Burden spells also add a slowing effect to there target.

All feather spells now prevent those affected from taking fall damage if their encumbrance is at least 100 points below the limit. Burden spells can be used to nullify that effect.

New repair spells with four levels allow mages skilled in Alteration to restore the durability of their weapons. Less skilled mages can only repair mundane weapons and only to a certain point while the experts in the field can fully repair any weapon and masters can even improve its condition above full repair.

Levitation comes to Oblivion! A group of mages from Morrowind brought it with them to Cyrodiil and have taught their secret to a few select members of the mages guild. These amazing spells allow you to take the battle to the skies and fire at enemies down below. Comes with full collision and can be used during spellmaking. There is an optional levitation penalty adjustable in the configuration file that stunts your magicka and/or silences you while levitating.

Levitation's not the only things those mages brought with them. Now the new Jumping spells allows you to leap higher than you've ever gone before! In some cases watch out from using the high level spells without enough acrobatics skill or it will really hurt when you land.

Apparently one of the cheydinhal mages has mastered a Missile Shield spell that protects you from all fired missiles, arrows etc. The exception to this is spells and melee attacks.

* Restoration

Now roleplaying a cleric or paladin is as easy as selecting Restoration as a major skill. Since Restore Health restores life energy and undead are the opposite of life, they will take damage from these spells instead. As such, all Restore Health spells (including custom and modded) can now damage the undead.

New fortify Jump Spells that allow you to jump higher than you�ve ever gone before. Unlike alterations one time jump these allow you to jump as much as you want over the duration but the benefits to the alteration spells is greatly reduced.

* Illusion:

Level-based spells (Calm, Frenzy, etc) are now twice as potent and go up to level 50 rather than 25 so illusion's actually useful at higher levels. You can adjust this value in the configuration file to make illusion spells stronger or weaker according to your personal tastes.

Vampire hunters rejoyce! Now concentrated light spells (cast on touch or target) can be used to deal damage to vampires proportionate to the concentration of light.

Chameleon now has a max benefit of 95%. Over 100% you will instead get a permanent invisibility with a twist. If you do an action people will notice you and for 15 seconds will be able to know where you are. After that they will lose you and you will be permanently invisible again. This now makes 100% chameleon less of a god mode. You can adjust these values or disable in the configuration file.

You can now buy a detect attitude spell that shades your enemies in orange, neutral in green and guild mates/allies(disposition over 85) in blue.

New spells can be found at spell merchants in the cities and Mages Guilds. The Arcane University holds most of the more powerful new spells. A list of all of the added spells and their locations and the configuration text file can both be found in the folder "Supreme Magicka Files" (or in your Data folder if it's in OMOD format). Also includes many optional plugins such as support for Shivering Isles and a standalone plugin allowing you to make custom enchanted staffs.

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5. VERSION HISTORY
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*0.76b - Fixed some minor issues with the quest spell levelling and a double scripting issue.
*0.76 � Added Quest Spell Levelling system where finger of the mountain and wizards fury spells will improve as you level up. Note your destruction skill will also limit these improvements so you can always cast these spells at your current skill. As always you can turn this feature off in the ini in required. Detect Attitude spell added to Ita Rienus and Athragar. Added some cheap apprentice resist element spells to some vendors. Added an optional plugin that enables enchanting of restoration and magicka effects (Not Recommended). A non gameplay change to allow shivering isles manipulate weather power to work in tamriel, with the exception that none of the bonuses you would normally get will work.
*0.75b - Added Ini options to turn off supreme magickas detect life system if using another detect life shader mod or enable detect life to always pick up undead. Also dulled down the standard detect life effect so npcs are not a purple glob and helps match the deadra and undead sets.
* 0.75 - Added OOO compatibility plugin that makes sure enchanted item prices match those of OOO. Detect life spells no longer detect undead/vampires unless you are a vampire and now colours daedra orange and undead/vampires a lightish blue. All enemy fire, shock and frost should now apply elemental effects onto the player correctly. Fixed a bug where you could summon an apprentice number of summons at novice skill. Consistent summons and AOE target spell ini options are now working correctly. Detect Ingredient and Detect magic item spells are now available at the arcane university and Agata. Shock spells over a duration will now see if there effects will be applied every second unlike frost and fire spells which only check the on the moment of hit.
*0.74b - Fixed a critical bug where no spells on self over 1 second long would work.
*0.74 - REQUIRES OBSE 13a. Finally all effects are fully individual from each fixing numerous issues with spells and totally supporting instant cast spells. This is a stepping stone to improve effects on the player. Fire, frost and shock elemental effects percentages are now based on the spells skill level so for example a master fire spell has a 20% stagger compared to a novice that only does 5% stagger (default values). Fixed many bugs with the conjuration system, The multiple summon spells can no longer be used to create an army of summons over the summon limits, they will instead summon less creatures and none if you already are at the summon limit meaning those particular spells are suited only to the start of a battle when you haven�t summoned any summons, also enemies can now summon multiple summons just like you so be careful out there. Improved Shock Spell reliability in bouncing and also added a chance of the shock pushing or pulling the enemy. Updated magicka progression and hopefully fixes all problems while still providing automatic compatibility with mods that change skill rates. Stealth magic attacks have been re-implemented and don�t use the crashy area spell methods either.
*0.73 - Readme and description fixes. Fixed compatibility issues with multiple summons and mods that change the perk skill limits. A calculation error fix to burden spells sometimes increasing the opponents speed instead of decreasing and burden spells now slow by 1 pt per 1.5 burden magnitude pts on enemy npcs. Corrected maximum slow limit of burden spells. Decreased chance of default frost effects from 40% to its correct 25% and increased chance of recovery from frozen paralysis to 33% from 20%.
*0.72 - Supreme magicka effects are now correctly applied to all spells including scrolls and spells from other mods which use those magic effects, Assassins rush is no longer a hostile spell, Mark and recall spells changed to sanctuary and displacement (thanks deathless aphrodite), added some additional detection to prevent custom healing spells being detected as hostile, Burden spells will now slow your opponent based on the the spells magnitude (note if you are affected you are slowed based on the percentage of encumbrance you are using), Fixed issue of summon sometimes instantly dispelling on cast, Some other misc scripting optimizations.
*0.71 � Fixed all other known issues with summon will o wisp, New jump spells that make you do a onetime super jump, the original jump spells are now fortify jump spells for the school of restoration, More balancing to the telekinesis push effects to use mysticism and intelligence levels to determine push chance, lower level telekinesis spells have less chances of success to push the enemy, and fixed abuse with quick duration custom made telekinesis spell, rapidfire spells now slowly drain your magicka and no rapidbolt is fired if low on magicka, higher level rapidfire will drain magicka faster as it fires more bolts in a second, Added a master spell to alteration (missile shield) that protects you from fired missile projectiles (based on Midas magic spell) available from Orintur in Cheydinhal, Updated MMM compatibility plugin for 3.1 RC, Attempted to make pushed telekinesis targets continue to fall instead of popping back at their original position.
*0.70 - Fixed the missing icons for the cure disease,paralysis and poison spells, Fix the detect life spells as they are not consistent in there magnitudes and durations, For gameplay issues the casting projectile of telekenesis has been returned, The Telekenesis effects are now applied to custom telekenesis spells, Telekinesis will now simply have no effect on mounted npcs to avoid paralyzing them, Telekinesis no longer 100% pushes an actor, it has a chance based on the actors and players spell skills, this is configurable in the ini to always be able to push again, Removed "possible (not definate)" bloating with summon will o wisp spell, fixed issue where it would not always follow the player into a new cell, and attempted to reduce chance of allies entering combat with a will o the wisp, Included fix for the ini file not registering correctly and added troubleshooting global "set ResetIni to 1" to force the ini to re-initialize in game, Added optional plugin to use vanilla spell stats but with all supreme magicka features, You can now cast multiple summons of the same spell once again. I have preventing the player from being able to multiple summon the spells that summon multiple creatures at once as otherwise it�s easy to abuse number of creatures you can go beyond, Greatly reduced the potency of earlier jump spells and also corrected the number of points boosted on the spell info. Rapidfire spells no longer continue firing when you are knocked down, Fixed issue where friendly spells were marked as hostile so using on an ally made them attack you, Fixed a bug with the magicka progression system and spells with multiple script effects, Summon Skeleton horde only summons the best 3 skeletons. The default conjuration summon limit in ini also reduced to 1,1,2,2,3.
* 0.69 - Fixed unexpensive enchanted items with water walking, water breathing and night eye enchantments, Due to changes and nerfs to chameleon i have enabled enchanting chameleon again by default, Many stat changes fixing inconsistency errors and some balancing problems, Levitation is a much more expensive spell as otherwise it�s much too easy to abuse the spell at lower skill levels to complete certain tasks, Fixed the missing restore magicka from spellmaking menu for consistency reasons, Fixed another overlarge magic item affecting the drain attribute spells, Fixed a issue with current selected spells becoming a spell school higher and not able to cast it, Added new UninstallMode variable that when set to 1 should disable near everything of the mod as possible to aid not being able to remove it from your save.
* 0.68 - Fixed a spell progression system implementation bug messing up the levelling rates when using spells, Changed how chameleon works over 100%, you are affected as if you had casted an invisibility spell, so doing an action you can be detected only for 15 seconds but after that you will return invisible again automatically, Removed restoration as an enchantable spell as is overpowered even with just 2hp a second constant effect.
* 0.67 - Major spell effect re-write to finally be rid of the major CTD's, due to these major changes, magicka stealth attacks are currently not working and now requires OBSE version 12, Updated Magicka progression system to version 2.0, Fixed some overlarged and buggy spell icons, Spell Prefix's have been removed, Removed some bloating from conjuration scripts but we lose functionality to summon the same spell multiple times. We can still summon different spells multiple times. (Side effect of this change has fixed the two conjuration rings appearing), Some tweaks to spell stats, and default ini values as well as fixing some stat errors in the optional plugins and some fixes to bound items, Fixed some bugged percentages where it was more likely that you would push actor away then stagger them, Fixed the issue where shock attacks could end up being sent into the sky, Added SM_DLCSpellTome optional plugin that balances the official spell tome plugin spells, Added MOBS and MMM compatability plugins, Improved debugging tools available in the ini for those who experience any new problems or crashes, Included the fixed NoPoisonLevitationEffects plugin which fixes broken posion and levitation spells.
* 0.66 - Made it so only one Rapidfire can be active at a time, made shock circle effects work better indoors, added even more safeguards against CTD, fixed OMOD script
* 0.65 - Tweaks and fixes, implemented leveled bound armor enchantments, weakened spellfire, strengthened Restore Health, added recharge spells, made casting Restore Health on undead cause them to attack you, rebalanced enchantments yet again and added back in restore health and magicka to enchanting, made Daedric Intervention be added to you when you finish a Daedric quest, added a book to DB santuary quarters when you become Listener which teaches you Assassin's Rush, improved collision detection on Blink, added configuration file with loads of new features, cleaned up readme, added EnchantStaff, NoPoisonLevitationEffects, NoSpellLights, and UnlockSpells plugins, and really fixed the CTD bug
* 0.60 - Rebalanced enchantments even more, a lot of fixes and tweaks, made damage spells a little stronger, made shock circle effect look better, increased telekinesis ranges, Restore Health and Restore Magicka are no longer enchantable, balanced Drain Health spells, implemented recastable summons, removed Conjurer's Boon, added SI support, consistent summons for SI, consistent bound, and NoEnchWeapon plugins, lowered chances of fire spells knocking away an enemy, added cooler shaders for frozen enemies, added Blink, Swap, and Assassin's Rush, added Enchanting and Spellmaking spells, reduced CTD on save bug
* 0.54 - Fixed a bug with the undead damage removal plugin not working, added Rapidfire spells, fixed a bug with the startup quest not starting, added Spellfire line, rebalanced enchanting, made dispel damage summoned creatures instead of killing them instantly, added Jump spells, added Mark/Recall, added Divine Intervention and Daedric Intervention, added Extrication spell, included a list of all spells added by this mod and where to find them
* 0.53 - Moved Bound Torch to apprentice, added summon Will-o-the-Wisp for light, added levitation spells, added EnableCharmChameleon plugin, added Damage Health effects, made Damage Health heal undead
* 0.52 - Fixed cut off icon bug, added bound torch, upgraded for OBSE v10, added no Restore Health undead damage option, added repair spells, made spell projectiles even faster, made summons last longer, made fire and frost special effects also harm player, fixed a bug that made all npcs wear rings, made summon spells slightly longer, added Conjurer's Boon and added ability to dispel summoned creatures directly, added consistent summons plugin
* 0.51 - Rebalanced most spells, positive buffs now last longer, added AbsorbRestoration plugin, bundled Raised Enchantment Limits, balanced light spells on vampires even more, added magic sneak attacks, fixed a few bugs, added feather slowfall encumbrance limit, apparently fixed a crash bug on quicksaving
* 0.50 - Beta Release

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9. CREDITS
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* The OBSE team (Stephen Abel and Ian Patterson) for being so dedicated to this game.
* Scruggs for his Divine Magicka scripts and for all he's done for the community.
* TheFlyingBuddha for allowing me to implement his Telekinesis ideas into my mod.
* Forsaken32 for his magic effect icons.
* Damar Stiehl for his Mighty Magick mod which was the inspiration for this mod.
* Bloodbob for his excellent Raised Spellmaking and Enchantment Limits.
* Comit for allowing me to use his sigil torch mesh from his Torch Compendium.
* xilverbulet and Rellek for helping with some nif problem.
* SaidenStorm whose Akatosh mod gave me the inspiration for the levitation spells.
* DragoonWraith for being the official mod lore checker.
* Marty81 and a few others for helping me with the CTD bug.
* PJYelton for his Spell Compendium mod which gave me ideas for certain spells.
* Heaven's Door for organizing the spell documentation for me.
* tejon for releasing the first magicka based spell progression mod.
* TheWolfGirl (Setemkia Fallingtree) - huge thanks for finding the solution to the CTD issue.
* Najaknevrec for fixing some of the few bugged icons
* Deathless Aphrodite for his interesting new idea to mark/recall spells.
* Isatin and Haama for inclusion of ideas from Finders Keepers: Tesnexus.com
* Kyoma for continued aid and help finding/ fixing multiple issues

Thanks to all the people who have contributed ideas/reported bugs.