Hello,

Just as the title says, I'm wondering if there is a way to set the priority for the spells and weapons for an NPC to use.

I've always had an interest in using the Creation Kit, but just got around to trying my hand at modding for the first time today. The mod I made was rather simple, just turning Nocturnal into a follower (I wanted my thief character to literally have "Lady Luck" on his side). I'm surprised at how easily I got things working. However, while I can get her to be my follower and all, her combat prowess is a little wonky.

I wanted to set her up to use daggers (due to her relation to the Thieves Guild) and destruction magic (because she's a Daedric Prince), but she only wants to use the magic. On top of that, she seems to only want to use lightning spells, when I've given her fire and ice spells, as well. I can get her to draw her dagger when I pull out my weapon but, once combat starts, she automatically switches over to pure lightning magic.

Is there any way that I can give her an equal chance to use all her types of magic, along with her dagger, or is my problem just a limitation of the CK? As I said, I'm completely new to modding, so if you wish to explain this to me as if you were speaking to a 5 year old, I'm perfectly fine with that. This isn't an emergency for me, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Faust

Have a look at her RACE Form (becareful, she will almost certainly share that race with other NPCs).

You should see some base skills etc for her race ... chances are her race is low or non-existant in one-handed? And probably majors in magic? If so, she will use magic whenever possible and ignore her blades.

If that is the case, you have two choices:

1. Make a custom race - duplicate the existing and change - which may give you VOICe and other similar problems down the line (but most issues are solveable)
2. Edit the existing race - editting vanilla stuff is almost never a good idea

So ... check out her race and make a decision ^^^ ...


There is also her COMBAT STYLE: Check out what she currently uses, duplicate and amend ... that may also be going against her using her blades

AND there are her own "Character" attributes and so forth (though in my experience it is usually an issue with one of the other forms I posted above)

I'm pretty sure you needn't mess with her race. It's almost certainly her combat style and class. If her class favors levelling strongly in destruction magic, then that is what she will use. Her combat style will also effect her "personal preferences" for what to do once combat starts.

Race has a relatively minor contribution in all this, really it's just her bonuses to skills, which are generally small. Furthermore you could override that by going into the stats tab and giving her bigger bonuses in the things you want. Also, I believe the NPC AI might have some way of calculating their total damage with a given weapon, so check her perks to see if she has some sort of lightning thing going on, and maybe give her a Modify Combat Damage perk with a condition that the weapon HasKeyword WeapTypeDagger.

EDIT: Okay, so in all likelihood we were both wrong. She's a redguard of all things, which combined with her class of 1H weapons, and combat style of deafult should make her more than willing to use daggers. I see no reason why she would be using lightning magic of all things.

You're right, Ducey ...


Some odd things about her:

Her BaseActor has a SetAsGhost Script attached (can ghosts use blades?! Never tried ...)
She has a Combat STYLE of: Default (which should be good for anything)
She is NOT set to Dual Weild ... But, in this example that's not an issue, I think


And so ... Just to do the idiot check ...

Take away all of her spells and just give her a knife ... does she use it?

I think there is a perk called CanDualWield or some such nonsense that NPCs need in order to do it. Also make sure that her geared up weapons is set to two.
EDIT: Also, get rid of that script, and deflag her as invulnerable and a ghost, or she's going to be super OP.

I removed all of her spells and left her with only a daedric dagger and she uses it just fine. Now, she'll use a bow when the enemy is at range (I'm guessing followers automatically get a bow, as I haven't given her one), and she'll beat them down with her dagger if they get close. So, it seems like at least that much is working.

Also, I have her class set to a Witchblade, which gives her extra points in One Handed and Destruction magic, but she still only uses spells, and lightning magic at that (when I've given her spells to use, that is).


Yeah, the first thing I did with her was removed her script and unchecked those flags. I have her set to be incredibly strong (my reasoning being that she's a Daedric Prince), but she can definitely still be taken down. Having her be invincible would be boring.

Where can I find that dual wield perk? I went to the Spells tab and looked through those perks, but couldn't find it (though I definitely could have overlooked it). Is the perk located there or is it somewhere else?

Thanks a lot for the replies so far; I appreciate it.

Dual-Wield will work without the perk (I think it is a dual-wield perk ... enhances it ... not a requirement for it to happen) - I have a custom NPC Follower who dual-wields just fine, without the perk



As for why the spells ... I suspect that because the spells are ranged-attacks, she uses them because she has no other viable weapon to attack distant npcs with?

You might try setting her to be extremely aggressive and foolhardy ... that way she MIGHT decide to charge at enemies, rather than standing back and hitting them with ranged-magic


NOTE: There is a warning, somewhere on the wiki ... from the CK's first release days ... informing modders that micro-control of combat type systems was not going to be possible (or at least, was not going to be easy at all) ... So you may start to see what you are trying to do here, in that light?

AND: Magic is - it seems - overpowered. So it does seem likely that an NPC allowed to use spells will do so all too frequently.





(and yeah ... the bow just appears, on all NPC-Follower-Types, whether you give them one or not!)

You could start looking into combat override packages. They're...complicated, but might do what you're looking for.