Just an fyi; as I've edited the leveled lists myself...

NPC's have their own list that gives them spells from the main list of spells. The NPC's don't actually have their own spells, just a custom list of spells. Hope this helps a bit. If you need some information, send me a PM. I've already gone through all the NPC's and added a leveled list that links to new spells as I wanted to add healing spells to their repertoire, I might be able to provide that. Could create some new copies of spells with vanilla base damage and link them to that.

Very eeeenteresting... I took a closer look at the NPC_ records and discovered that NPCs DO have perks! They are stored as formIDs in the PRKR subrecords. That's good news for me - means I can probably just give em the appropriate perks for the type of spells they're using (if they don't have them already) and not have to mess with making duplicates of any spells. Also explains why a lot of the magic users seem unaffected by the mod - they had the perks to do more damage already anyway!

Thank you very much Plutoman for pointing me in the right direction.

Oh I agree with you there. I currently find wards to be a big waste of time overall. Take away 1/2 of my damage potential, and all of my stagger potential, and give me back around +80 armor? No thank you. They need a serious reworking to be worth it, and it would be more than just some tweaks.

Agreed! Not only do they take away your stagger, they also hit you with a stagger when your ward shatters which cancels any spell you had built up in your offensive hand. Maybe if Wards charged instantly (at least on the initial cast) then they would be more useful. But currently, the cost is doubled simply because you're stuck waiting for the ward to charge up. So really you need to psychically anticipate a magic attack 1-2 seconds before the enemy casting animation even starts. Otherwise, your Ward will be too weak and will shatter causing you to stagger and fumble your counter-attack. This makes the already expensive spell cost skyrocket to astronomical amounts. I've emptied 75% of mana bar defending against an attack that would have taken only 10% or less to heal.

I'm starting to see why they made Colette Marence such a whiney little bi?#€.

So does this mod actually make destruction a viable tree? Or will my thief always be better?

Destruction is certainly much more viable with Balanced Magic installed. The big picture problem for pure mages, is their overall viability in terms of offensive/defensive power when compared to melee types. Since there is far less variety in Skyrim's magic areas than there was in Oblivion, claiming that mages should have less power due to having more options is pretty bunk.

That's why Mysty is taking this on as a complete magic rebalance, so that not only are trees useful and balanced each, but that so pure mages who rely on nothing but magic are able to keep up with their physical melee counterparts.

Ah i see... So is it better to just be a thief then?

Not from my perspective. It all depends on what playstyle you like more - stealth kills, or magic, or full-out physical brawls. Or even a combo, since hybrids are viable in Skyrim. Whichever direction you go, if you use any kind of magic, you'll want a balancer. I don't think Beth did a good job with magic right out of the gate.

It's basically making it so it's actually balanced to play a mage if you want too. If you want the 'best' class, you're better off just playing a thief probably and abusing sneak attack mechanics. If you want to play the game as a mage, then this makes the game more balanced so you don't constantly feel like melee enemies can blow you off the map.

Love this mod. I think it'll get better after the CK makes an appearance, but it's already an improvement.

I have a question about leveling destruction, though. Does anyone else feel that it levels very, very slow? I use destruction in every fight, then a staff, then rarely a sword. My destruction is barely ahead of one handed despite the mage sign and 10x use. Restoration gets 1/2 or 1/3 the use and is about 10 levels higher.

I wish all skills leveled about 5x slower, but that's my old Morrowind and Oblivion playstyle coming back at me. Destruction only levels slower once you break 60-70, roughly. Up until that point I found it far too easy to level it. I think they planned it that way, knowing if you hit those numbers with Destruction, you must be a combat mage and using spells for damage, hence the need to slow it down at the top end.

Glad you like it - I hope to make it even better! A couple of people have mentioned that leveling your destruction skill seems a little slower after installing the mod, so I am trying to figure out how to adjust that now. I'm not sure if experience earned is based on the level of spell cast, the damage done, the magicka spent, some combination of the above, or something else altogether... digging through hex code hasn't revealed anything yet. I am going to look at the mage stone effects and see if I can figure out how it works, but a lot of the data is a black box at this point. I know it's there, I know it works, but I don't know why or how.

Related note: early leveling should still work as usual since I didn't have to nerf the novice spells, and only nerfed the apprentice spells a little bit. If the mod is affecting leveling speed, I would expect to see the biggest change at higher levels. Does that seem to be the case? Unfortunately, for testing, I don't have time to really play through everything, so I sometimes miss the big picture. I just use console commands to increase a test character as needed, test, reload, re-console, re-test with some other slight variation, reload... exit the game, make more changes, reload, rinse and repeat. I don't think I could stand being a full time tester!

I'm not sure that this mod is the cause of the slow leveling. I'm already using a few mods, and have switched the mods and load order around a few times. That being said, default Destruction seemed too slow (compared to other skills), and it feels amplified now--though I don't know whether that's the mod or not. I'm around 41 Destro, but noticed it starting around 30 - 35.

FWIW, if you haven't seen it yet, http://uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:SkyEdit might be handy in addition to TESsnip. It's still alpha, but it already makes browsing settings easier, IMO.

BTW. Right now the way the mod is set up it renders staves almost completely useless for few reasons:

- Now that offensive stave damage is closely linked to destruction, non-destruction mages can't do bugger all damage using staves

- Destruction mages can do more damage using dual casting

- Improved mana handling reduces usefulness of a spammable fallback skill.



There's 2 ways this could be fixed:

a. If it's possible, give staves some kind of damage bonus. As you noted yourself, scrolls do more damage than they should, use this same quirk to boost the damage dealt by staves so that staves do slightly more damage in trade-off for the fact that they cost charges/are hard to acquire/cannot be dual cast/don't benefit from impact.

b. Unlink staves entirely from destruction or their respective schools and instead link them to enchanting for damage calculation so non-destruction mages have a way to cast offensive magic.





I was kind've dissapointed when i installed this mod, hoping to rebalance it so my artificer (Staff-wielding enchanter) could do better damage in the late game with their staves... only to find my damage *vastly* decreased, it didn't even stay static, it got slashed in half >.<

Good feedback, thank you. I replied to your comment on Skyrim Nexus, but to summarize, it has to do with how magic effects and keywords are used. I need keywords to make the spells level, keywords are stored in magic effects, and magic effects are shared by spells/staves/scrolls. If spells level, then staves and scrolls do too. The ideal solution would be to create a new magic effect that is basically the duplicate of the existing effect, but remove the keyword and then assign that effect to staves and scrolls, but for whatever reason, I'm having trouble creating new magic effects (can create new spells or items, but the magic effect is what I really need)

Ryuujin, you might want to check out http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1304144-relz-tejons-simple-spell-scaling-solution/.

Your idea about swapping enchanted items to the Enchantment "school" is interesting, and I'm 99% sure it's possible. (The data format clearly allows it, though I'm not 100% sure the game code supports it.) Thing is, it's charge costs that are affected by your actual skill... I believe damage increases would come from Fortify Enchantment potions. This could be changed, but it would take a bit more effort.

@Ryuujin - P.S. I also read your guide to playing as an artificer - sounds pretty cool!

Thank you!!!!! I had Skyrim Viewer, but for some reason it keeps crashing every time I try to scroll through the list. This should be extremely helpful!

Just wanted to say, I've started using this and I'm very happy with it.

Many Thanks.

This mod makes me sad. It disappoints me that this is a magic rebalancing mod, and not a magic expansion mod and rebalancing mod rolled up in one. Mysty's pretty much hit the nail on the head with this mod, but now I keep hoping for a Supreme Magicka equivalent using mysty's rebalanced mods with new spells as well.

@LordofBones - Once I get everything balanced, and the creation kit is available, I hope to add plenty of additional spells as "add on packs" for the mod. Also, if any other modders want to work collaboratively, that would be great too!

Oh gods please talk to Xilver lol. Midas Magic creator. You guys would do good things together I think. Amazing things even!

I nominate Tejon. And possibly the author of Midas magic.

But that's just what I think would be cool. *whistles*

Quick question about the new 'Less is More' perks regarding compatibility with another mod (AutoPerks - http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1311296-relz-auto-perksstatslevel-plugins/)

Are these brand new perk records, or did you simply change the existing mage armor perks (so they still have original id)?

Thanks

EDIT:

P.S. Still a little confused about compatibilty with tejon's mod - if using both, should tSSSS be loaded last? Thanks again

But I'm the competition!

Seriously though, I've already given myself entirely too many tasks. Not sure I should get wrapped up in another, though I agree that mysty's doing great work here. My own stuff is going in a different direction -- making minimal patches to pull the vanilla system into line, rather than basically ripping the whole thing out and building a better one in its place. Both are interesting, I did plenty of the latter for Oblivion, and I'd be lying if I said I don't have some ideas. But I really can't commit to anything more than I already have!