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About this mod
Maintained Spells revamps the way \'buff\' spells work, such as Shield for 20 seconds or Reflect Damage for 15 seconds, by converting these spells into \'Maintained Spells\'. Now all you have to do is cast the spell once, and the effect will remain active until you cast the spell again to remove it.
- Permissions and credits
UNSUPPORTED
This mod is buggy and I don't have the time to fix it. It may or may not work for you. If it doesn't work there's nothing I can do to help you.
Use it if you want to.
UPDATE - Uploaded v091. This is a bugfix for the problem with new spells not converting/menu not working from the hotkey. These were actually the result of the same problem, caused by a bug with OBSE and messageboxEx in spell scripts, but I've recoded the menu to work even better than before.
UPDATE - the bug with the hotkey not working when restarting oblivion has been fixed. The new UHK.esm is included in the RAR. Instructions on upgrading UHK are in the included UHK readme, but the bug was pretty bad so you probably had disabled this mod anyway, in which case you can just overwrite the old UHK.esm, enable this mod, and start up Oblivion.
---------------------------
forum thread: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=804260
Name: Maintained Spells
Version: 0.90 BETA
Date: 1/31/2008
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.214, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)
Author(s): qzilla
Requirements
============
This mod requires OBSE v0014 or higher. This mod also requires UHK 1.0, but this has been included. Make sure to enable the UHK.esm file when activating this mod, as described in the Install section below.
Description
===========
Maintained Spells revamps the way 'buff' spells work, such as Shield for 20 seconds or Reflect Damage for 15 seconds, by converting these spells into 'Maintained Spells'. Now all you have to do is cast the spell once, and the effect will remain active until you cast the spell again to remove it.
Details
=======
Maintained Spells works by dynamically detecting and converting 'buff' spells that the player acquires into Maintained versions of those spells. Because it does this dynamically, it is compatible with ANY mod that alters the default Oblivion spells (such as Supreme Magicka). This also allows it to work on spells created using the Spellmaking Altar, as well as any spells added by other mods you have installed. However, it will not convert spells that have previously had a scripted effect attached to them, as it has no way to know what to do with that effect when making the buff have an indefinite duration.
When you first start up Oblivion with the mod installed, an options menu will pop up allowing you to set some basic settings for the mod (More details on the options menu below). After that, the mod will periodically check your character for buff spells and convert them. The included UHK system will also ask you to assign a key to be able to access the options menu later.
The new buff spells will show up as having no duration, but will now have a scripted effect called 'Toggle Maintained Spell'. Cast the spell once and the buff will become active, cast it again and the buff will be removed. Each spell you maintain will drain your magicka pool by an amount relative to the strength of the spell, as well have a periodic 'upkeep' cost of magicka every 10 seconds (also relative to the strength of the spell). When you toggle the spell off, the drained magicka will be restored. Toggling the spell off still requires magicka equal to the amount of magicka drained by the spell, but that magicka is added back when the spell is toggled off.
By default, the number of spells you can maintain at once is limited by your willpower. You can maintain one spell, plus an additional spell for every 10 points of willpower above 50.
NOTE: Due to the strange way that feather spells are implemented in the game, no maintained versions of these spells are possible with this system.
Options Menu
------------
When you first start Oblivion after installing the mod, an options menu will appear where you can set a few basic settings:
Conversion Mode:
This is the most important setting. By default this is set to 'Duplicate' as this is the safer setting. When in Duplicate mode, converted spells will be added to your spellbook, and you will keep the original spells as well.
The other option is 'Replace' which replaces the spells you have with the converted versions. This is the setting I recommend to use, but it comes with a minor but important caveat: disabling the Maintained Spells.esp file while the mod is in Replace mode will cause you to lose your original buff spells in any saves made after that point. This can be avoided by choosing Deactivate from the options menu before disabling the .esp file, which will restore the spells to their original state. Enabling this option via the menu will show a brief warning to remind you of this fact. Switching between one mode or the other has no complications, spells will be restored or removed as needed.
Willpower Limiting:
This allows you to turn the Willpower limit on the number of spells you can maintain on or off. I recommend leaving it on, as otherwise you can easily overpower lower level characters with a bunch of shield 10 effects, etc., but the option is there if you really want to change it.
Cost Scaling:
This allows you to choose from different presets for how much it costs to maintain a spell. Several mods alter the magicka cost of spells relative to the magnitude of the spells, and I can't balance the maintain cost against all of these mods at once, so this option allows you to choose from a number of presets for how much magicka is drained per spell, as well as how much magicka the upkeep cost is. The options are:
Exact -- With this setting, maintain a spell for X seconds and then
toggling it off will cost exactly as much magicka as the original
spell would have cost. There is no drain on your magicka pool.
Tweaked -- This is the default setting, values have been tweaked to be balanced for vanilla Oblivion.
Supreme Magicka -- Values have been tweaked for the modified costs of spells in Supreme Magicka.
This option is best chosen when first activating the mod on a character. Changing the option will only affect new spells that your character acquires. To update the costs of spells you already have, deactivate and reactivate the mod from the options menu.
Activate/Deactivate:
This allows you to turn the mod on and off. Deactivating the mod will restore any original spells that have been replaced and remove any maintained versions from your spellbook that have been added. New spells will no longer be converted. You can reactivate the mod at any time by opening the options menu again and choosing Activate.
Beta Notes
==========
As described in the section on cost scaling, any mod that alters the relative effectiveness of spells will affect how overpowered/underpowered the maintained spells appear to be. I can't test all these mods to figure out the right values, but you can!
There are two global variables that can be adjusted via the console that control how much magicka is drained relative to a spell, as well as how much the upkeep cost is. These variables are OSEBuffDrainFactor and OSEBuffUpkeepFactor. Please adjust these values as you play until you find values that work well for your set of mods, then post these values to the official forum thread or the TESNexus comments page for this mod, as well as which magic-altering mods you tweaked them for. That way when the next release comes out I can include more presets for the Cost Scaling option.
Please do this even if you don't use any magic mods--I've only made a rough guess for the values for vanilla Oblivion!
What the variables do, exactly:
When a spell is first converted, a copy of the spell is made with all effect durations set to 10 seconds. The cost of this spell is the Effect Base. This cost is then multipled by OSEBuffDrainFactor to determine the magicka pool drain, which shows up as the cost of the spell. When you activate the spell, the Effect Base is multiplied by OSEBuffUpkeepFactor to determine the magicka upkeep cost. These values are calculated each time you activate the spell, so that as your magic skills improve and the spell cost goes down, the cost to maintain the spell will adjust accordingly.
There is one small exception in the case of OSEBuffDrainFactor, which is that if it is set to 0, the spell cost will be set to the full Effect Base cost, although no magicka will be drained.
Upcoming Features
=================
Planned for future versions:
* Manual conversion -- This will let you force the mod to convert a spell that has a script effect attached to it. Use this when you know that the script effect will work over an indefinite duration for the spell.
* Scaled skill training -- Spells in the current version count for skill leveling up only when you toggle them on or off. This will (optionally) be changed so that maintained spells award a scaled amount of skill XP every 10 seconds, relative to the strength of the spell.
* Drawback detection -- This will allow you to create 'buff' spells with drawbacks, such as weakness to magic or a continuous fire damage effect--any negative spell effect--and the relative strength of the drawback will lower the overall cost of the buff! Amazing!
* Maintained Curses -- Because Drain Agility 10 for 15 seconds just doesn't DO anything on it's own!
* Maintained Summons -- Because summoning that scamp every 27 seconds is just as annoying!
* Maintained Mind Control -- Command a small army with the power of your mind!
* More cost presets for your favorite magic mods!
* qzilla's staggering mod of heartbreaking genius! -- Okay so this one's not a 'feature', but if you like what I've done with this, be prepared for something that will shock and awe you into post-imperial submission and inner turmoil the likes of which the TES community has never seen. But it's super secret for now.
Install
=======
1. Extract the files in the archive to (install folder)\Oblivion\Data\
2. Start Oblivion Launcher, click 'Data Files', place a checkmark next to BOTH Maintained Spells.esp AND UHK.esm.
Uninstall
=========
1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck Maintained Spells.esp and UHK.esm.
2. Delete Maintained Spells.esp and UHK.esm from \Oblivion\Data\
Incompatibility
===============
Mighty Magick and Mighty Magick: Reborn--
Because of the way Mighty Magick changes the basic mechanic of how magicka is used/restored, the way this mod alters the new cost of maintaining spells isn't very compatible, and may make converted spells either ridiculously overpowered or cripplingly useless. I don't use MM or MM:R so I can't really get in there and tweak the settings, but feel free to try and figure out tweaked values as described above and post them on the official forum thread, and they may find their way into the next version as a Cost Scaling preset.
Script Effect in General--
Maintained Spells works by dynamically checking the player's spells and replacing 'buff' spells with maintained versions of those spells. As mentioned above, it will not convert scripted spells (yet). Any mod that adds scripted effects to buff spells will make those buff spells unable to be converted into maintained spells. I don't actually know of any mods that do this.
Known Issues or Bugs
====================
If the mod has been set to 'Replace' for the conversion mode option, disabling the mod via the Oblivion Launcher/OBMM/Wrye Bash will cause you to lose any spells that were replaced. To avoid this, deactivate the mod via the in-game options menu before disabling it externally.
Due to the way converted spells are stored for backup/information, if you deactivate and then re-activate the mod via the options menu repeatedly then your save game will start to bloat with unused spell IDs. You'd have to do this a lot for it to have any noticeable effect--and besides, why would you want to deactivate this glorious mod?
History
=======
1.0, 2008/01/31 - Initial release.
Contact
=======
You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'qzilla'
You can find me on TESNexus as 'quetzilla'
Credits
=======
Thanks to the OBSE team, and everyone who helped me on the official forums.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on
Licensing/Legal
===============
You must contact me and obtain my permission before re-packaging the Maintained Spells.esp. If I do not respond within 2 weeks, feel free to do whatever you like with this mod.
For the UHK.esm, please read the accompanying UHK readme file.
This mod is buggy and I don't have the time to fix it. It may or may not work for you. If it doesn't work there's nothing I can do to help you.
Use it if you want to.
UPDATE - Uploaded v091. This is a bugfix for the problem with new spells not converting/menu not working from the hotkey. These were actually the result of the same problem, caused by a bug with OBSE and messageboxEx in spell scripts, but I've recoded the menu to work even better than before.
UPDATE - the bug with the hotkey not working when restarting oblivion has been fixed. The new UHK.esm is included in the RAR. Instructions on upgrading UHK are in the included UHK readme, but the bug was pretty bad so you probably had disabled this mod anyway, in which case you can just overwrite the old UHK.esm, enable this mod, and start up Oblivion.
---------------------------
forum thread: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=804260
Name: Maintained Spells
Version: 0.90 BETA
Date: 1/31/2008
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.214, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)
Author(s): qzilla
Requirements
============
This mod requires OBSE v0014 or higher. This mod also requires UHK 1.0, but this has been included. Make sure to enable the UHK.esm file when activating this mod, as described in the Install section below.
Description
===========
Maintained Spells revamps the way 'buff' spells work, such as Shield for 20 seconds or Reflect Damage for 15 seconds, by converting these spells into 'Maintained Spells'. Now all you have to do is cast the spell once, and the effect will remain active until you cast the spell again to remove it.
Details
=======
Maintained Spells works by dynamically detecting and converting 'buff' spells that the player acquires into Maintained versions of those spells. Because it does this dynamically, it is compatible with ANY mod that alters the default Oblivion spells (such as Supreme Magicka). This also allows it to work on spells created using the Spellmaking Altar, as well as any spells added by other mods you have installed. However, it will not convert spells that have previously had a scripted effect attached to them, as it has no way to know what to do with that effect when making the buff have an indefinite duration.
When you first start up Oblivion with the mod installed, an options menu will pop up allowing you to set some basic settings for the mod (More details on the options menu below). After that, the mod will periodically check your character for buff spells and convert them. The included UHK system will also ask you to assign a key to be able to access the options menu later.
The new buff spells will show up as having no duration, but will now have a scripted effect called 'Toggle Maintained Spell'. Cast the spell once and the buff will become active, cast it again and the buff will be removed. Each spell you maintain will drain your magicka pool by an amount relative to the strength of the spell, as well have a periodic 'upkeep' cost of magicka every 10 seconds (also relative to the strength of the spell). When you toggle the spell off, the drained magicka will be restored. Toggling the spell off still requires magicka equal to the amount of magicka drained by the spell, but that magicka is added back when the spell is toggled off.
By default, the number of spells you can maintain at once is limited by your willpower. You can maintain one spell, plus an additional spell for every 10 points of willpower above 50.
NOTE: Due to the strange way that feather spells are implemented in the game, no maintained versions of these spells are possible with this system.
Options Menu
------------
When you first start Oblivion after installing the mod, an options menu will appear where you can set a few basic settings:
Conversion Mode:
This is the most important setting. By default this is set to 'Duplicate' as this is the safer setting. When in Duplicate mode, converted spells will be added to your spellbook, and you will keep the original spells as well.
The other option is 'Replace' which replaces the spells you have with the converted versions. This is the setting I recommend to use, but it comes with a minor but important caveat: disabling the Maintained Spells.esp file while the mod is in Replace mode will cause you to lose your original buff spells in any saves made after that point. This can be avoided by choosing Deactivate from the options menu before disabling the .esp file, which will restore the spells to their original state. Enabling this option via the menu will show a brief warning to remind you of this fact. Switching between one mode or the other has no complications, spells will be restored or removed as needed.
Willpower Limiting:
This allows you to turn the Willpower limit on the number of spells you can maintain on or off. I recommend leaving it on, as otherwise you can easily overpower lower level characters with a bunch of shield 10 effects, etc., but the option is there if you really want to change it.
Cost Scaling:
This allows you to choose from different presets for how much it costs to maintain a spell. Several mods alter the magicka cost of spells relative to the magnitude of the spells, and I can't balance the maintain cost against all of these mods at once, so this option allows you to choose from a number of presets for how much magicka is drained per spell, as well as how much magicka the upkeep cost is. The options are:
Exact -- With this setting, maintain a spell for X seconds and then
toggling it off will cost exactly as much magicka as the original
spell would have cost. There is no drain on your magicka pool.
Tweaked -- This is the default setting, values have been tweaked to be balanced for vanilla Oblivion.
Supreme Magicka -- Values have been tweaked for the modified costs of spells in Supreme Magicka.
This option is best chosen when first activating the mod on a character. Changing the option will only affect new spells that your character acquires. To update the costs of spells you already have, deactivate and reactivate the mod from the options menu.
Activate/Deactivate:
This allows you to turn the mod on and off. Deactivating the mod will restore any original spells that have been replaced and remove any maintained versions from your spellbook that have been added. New spells will no longer be converted. You can reactivate the mod at any time by opening the options menu again and choosing Activate.
Beta Notes
==========
As described in the section on cost scaling, any mod that alters the relative effectiveness of spells will affect how overpowered/underpowered the maintained spells appear to be. I can't test all these mods to figure out the right values, but you can!
There are two global variables that can be adjusted via the console that control how much magicka is drained relative to a spell, as well as how much the upkeep cost is. These variables are OSEBuffDrainFactor and OSEBuffUpkeepFactor. Please adjust these values as you play until you find values that work well for your set of mods, then post these values to the official forum thread or the TESNexus comments page for this mod, as well as which magic-altering mods you tweaked them for. That way when the next release comes out I can include more presets for the Cost Scaling option.
Please do this even if you don't use any magic mods--I've only made a rough guess for the values for vanilla Oblivion!
What the variables do, exactly:
When a spell is first converted, a copy of the spell is made with all effect durations set to 10 seconds. The cost of this spell is the Effect Base. This cost is then multipled by OSEBuffDrainFactor to determine the magicka pool drain, which shows up as the cost of the spell. When you activate the spell, the Effect Base is multiplied by OSEBuffUpkeepFactor to determine the magicka upkeep cost. These values are calculated each time you activate the spell, so that as your magic skills improve and the spell cost goes down, the cost to maintain the spell will adjust accordingly.
There is one small exception in the case of OSEBuffDrainFactor, which is that if it is set to 0, the spell cost will be set to the full Effect Base cost, although no magicka will be drained.
Upcoming Features
=================
Planned for future versions:
* Manual conversion -- This will let you force the mod to convert a spell that has a script effect attached to it. Use this when you know that the script effect will work over an indefinite duration for the spell.
* Scaled skill training -- Spells in the current version count for skill leveling up only when you toggle them on or off. This will (optionally) be changed so that maintained spells award a scaled amount of skill XP every 10 seconds, relative to the strength of the spell.
* Drawback detection -- This will allow you to create 'buff' spells with drawbacks, such as weakness to magic or a continuous fire damage effect--any negative spell effect--and the relative strength of the drawback will lower the overall cost of the buff! Amazing!
* Maintained Curses -- Because Drain Agility 10 for 15 seconds just doesn't DO anything on it's own!
* Maintained Summons -- Because summoning that scamp every 27 seconds is just as annoying!
* Maintained Mind Control -- Command a small army with the power of your mind!
* More cost presets for your favorite magic mods!
* qzilla's staggering mod of heartbreaking genius! -- Okay so this one's not a 'feature', but if you like what I've done with this, be prepared for something that will shock and awe you into post-imperial submission and inner turmoil the likes of which the TES community has never seen. But it's super secret for now.
Install
=======
1. Extract the files in the archive to (install folder)\Oblivion\Data\
2. Start Oblivion Launcher, click 'Data Files', place a checkmark next to BOTH Maintained Spells.esp AND UHK.esm.
Uninstall
=========
1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck Maintained Spells.esp and UHK.esm.
2. Delete Maintained Spells.esp and UHK.esm from \Oblivion\Data\
Incompatibility
===============
Mighty Magick and Mighty Magick: Reborn--
Because of the way Mighty Magick changes the basic mechanic of how magicka is used/restored, the way this mod alters the new cost of maintaining spells isn't very compatible, and may make converted spells either ridiculously overpowered or cripplingly useless. I don't use MM or MM:R so I can't really get in there and tweak the settings, but feel free to try and figure out tweaked values as described above and post them on the official forum thread, and they may find their way into the next version as a Cost Scaling preset.
Script Effect in General--
Maintained Spells works by dynamically checking the player's spells and replacing 'buff' spells with maintained versions of those spells. As mentioned above, it will not convert scripted spells (yet). Any mod that adds scripted effects to buff spells will make those buff spells unable to be converted into maintained spells. I don't actually know of any mods that do this.
Known Issues or Bugs
====================
If the mod has been set to 'Replace' for the conversion mode option, disabling the mod via the Oblivion Launcher/OBMM/Wrye Bash will cause you to lose any spells that were replaced. To avoid this, deactivate the mod via the in-game options menu before disabling it externally.
Due to the way converted spells are stored for backup/information, if you deactivate and then re-activate the mod via the options menu repeatedly then your save game will start to bloat with unused spell IDs. You'd have to do this a lot for it to have any noticeable effect--and besides, why would you want to deactivate this glorious mod?
History
=======
1.0, 2008/01/31 - Initial release.
Contact
=======
You can find me on the official Elder Scrolls forums as 'qzilla'
You can find me on TESNexus as 'quetzilla'
Credits
=======
Thanks to the OBSE team, and everyone who helped me on the official forums.
Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on
Licensing/Legal
===============
You must contact me and obtain my permission before re-packaging the Maintained Spells.esp. If I do not respond within 2 weeks, feel free to do whatever you like with this mod.
For the UHK.esm, please read the accompanying UHK readme file.