Articles

Origin of the Mages Guild Lore

User Rating:  / 1

Details

Category: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Guides

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 September 2011 11:50

Written by Giskard

Hits: 1155

Origin of the Mages Guild Lore

Introduction.

This is where I explain some of the more interesting topics covered in this mod or would have been. You might expect lore to be static, unmoving, unchanging, known, not disputed but the fact is one lore can could not agree on the time of day with another if you asked them. Most ignore certain facts that do not suit their own argument's or selectively choose what they wish to believe. Well I had to do my own research and my research is a combination of books and Oblivion game content where as some Lore fans have a combination of Books and previous game content. Which may make them sound like they know what they are talking about but the fact is many have ignored how Oblivion has taken changed the game lore because they prefer Morrowind.

Well I have no axe to grind here but I needed to know facts and as a result of disagreements, I have had to chose for my self what is or is not game lores right and here is where I get the chance to explain those choices my demonstrating how each GREY AREA fits within the game lore. I say grey area, but I mean solid facts, others consider these grey areas, I do not.

Vanus Quests:

Mannimarco the King of Worms, Mannimarco the God of Worms.

Some endings like the Daggerfall ending for the Worm King show him rising to become a God but that ending was one of many endings and is considered to be only one possible version of events by some lore fans. Which may have been true in Morrowind but Oblivion has made that grey area black and white and removed the confusion. Here some selected notes from Oblivion that can easily be added to a guide to explain what I mean. Other proof exists but Ido not think I need more than this to make my point.

MG11Note
Altars have been raised; Anchorites have been called. Watch the skies; once a week His Grace shines down on us.

MG11SoulGemNote
Place your Grand Soul Gems in the altar. Pray for His Blessing, and strike the altar with your Soul Trap magic. Your gems will become instruments of His Divine Power.

MG11NecromancersMoon
The God of Worms watches over our Order, and will deliver us from these troubled times on the Day of Reckoning. Until then, perform His works in secret, serve His needs, and look to the skies for His signs.

The very way the Grand Soul Gems are converted to Black Soul Gems is an indication that some God is active here. This means the whole story surrounding the Akatosh Jills fixing the Warp in the west and the rise of Mannimarco to God Hood as the God of Worms must be the adopted story for Oblivion, so I have adopted that version of events for this mod. There is simply too much evidence to ignore it. That means there are 2 Mannimarcos thanks to the Jills of Akatosh splitting the God of Worms in two whilst fixing the Warp in the West. A King of Worms who is Mortal and a God of Worms who is Immortal are both Mannimarco and both exist. The the Mage Guild quest line you defeated the King of Worms.

Now here is a question for you, if you where a God and a Mortal at the same time and somebody killed your Mortal self, could you as the most powerful Necromancer of all time and a GOD bring your mortal self back to life at any time you saw fit. I think the answer to that is definitely "HELL YES" and will be exploring this aspect of the game lore further in this mod. Currently this interpretation is entirely optional but I think the case is solid enough to make it a required quest line in the future.

Socially Unacceptable: Daedra Summoning.

The Daedric studies quest was originally intended to be the theory below but the EXPERTS did not have a clue about this and rather than study up as I had to do to make this mod, they just disputed this theory to death until I decided not to use it. I did as an act of revenge turn the quest around and use it as a lesson in daedric summoning. I provided books needed to for YOU to learn what I have learned, not my books, these are books beth wrote. I provided speeches to highlight which area of interest in Oblivion and I put this topic firmly in your minds so when you do explore the game and talk to NPCs, like I had too, you will be paying attention to the small details that prove this theory to be correct. Next time this topic comes up, if you are paying attention, you will not need me to explain the fine print because you will have seen it for your self and may even be able to make amendments to this theory below

The Theory.....

The Everscamp quest suggests the Mages Guide kick members who help others summon Daedra but because we see them summoning inside the guild halls at Chorrol and Bruma and know that the everscamp quest takes place outside the guild halls, the conclusion I draw is that the Mages Guild kick people for summoning daedra in public or outside of the guilds carefully controlled environment. This is reasonable and backed up completely by the book The Doors of Oblivion which suggests Daedra Summoning is dangerous and needs to be done in carefully controlled situations. In that book a Master Conjurer enlists the help of another Master so he can safely summon Daedra for study. It is not because its hard to do, any apprentice can summon daedra, no its because the summoned daedra are dangerous. All of which backs up the case I believe to be true.

Some lore fans disagree. The truth is, I have had to listen to some pretty stupid counter argument's against this, arguments that assume Beth screwed up rather than believe the evidence. Such lore fans selectively choose what they want to believe and advertise their own findings as fact. One even dared tell me that Mage Guild members will summon daedra outside if you smack them over the head with with a sword first and run out of the guild hall. I nearly died laughing. Sure he was right but that is hardly game lore, its game mechanics and those NPCs never EVER leave the guild halls unless you do smash them over the head first. The fact is, if you watch any Mages Guild member, not one of them summons Daedra outside of the Guild halls or Arcane university. That was just one of the stupid counter argument some lore fans presented to me.

The Everscamp Quest demonstrated that daedra summoning and worship is conducted in secret. This is backed up by rumours from hundreds of NPCs around game and various shrines as well as Martin's own comments about the daedric artefact you collected for him and the NPC who owns the Alchemy shop in skingrad that will tell you how she was taken at night to one shrine and there for could not remember the route. The rumours indicate anything Daedra related is socially unacceptable during this time frame but the books and game suggest this is not always the case and differs from region to region around the world (other older game regions). So there are exceptions but the Oblivion world spaces are against Daedric, that's the only fact here worth remembering.

The other thing the Everscamp quest demonstrates is that you can be booted for helping somebody who is practising Daedra summoning because the person the who needs help is not a Guild member and has summoned scamps in her own home. The person she needs help from is a Mage in the Leyawiin branch who secretly helps her. The women who summoned the scamps using the Everscamp staff is worried her friends may think she is a daedra worshiper and wishes her secret to remain a secret. The Mage fears expulsion from the guild if she is caught helping her friend.

Chorrol and Bruma Guild halls both have members who summon daedra inside the guild. These members never leave the guild halls so only ever summon inside the guild.

This demonstrates a good and bad way to summon daedra, summoning in within the Guild halls and Arcane university is good, summoning outside the Guild halls and Arcane university is bad.

The evidence is the NPCs actions, most daedric shrine rumours, The Doors of Oblivion and many other sources.

In case your wondering why I am presenting this argument with ANAL like precision is because I often had to post theories that read more like legal documents whilst debating this with some lore fans who clearly had been caught with their pants down on a topic they had not studied up on. Since I have confessed to not being a lore fan, that was kind of embarrassing for them. So some ripped in to the theory using excuses like "HOME" does mean mean the same thing as "NOT IN THE GUILD HALL".

Anyway back on topic, all the facts explain how dangerous and how socially unacceptable daedric summoning is, and how even Master has to be careful to enlist the help of a second Master of Conjuration to remain safe. Not because it is hard to do but because it is not, any apprentice can summon daedra, it is because it is dangerous to do. After a few incidents of people summoning daedra and then watching them run around, out of control in city killing citizens you can imagine how the population would feel towards Daedra worship and summoning and why the woman with the staff would want it to remain a secret.

You can also see why the Mage would fear being booted if she was seen to get the Guild involved with something like that. Imagine the result of a death caused by some Daedra running out of control and a mages guild member being named as one of those involved. You can see and fully understand the Guilds position on this. Also you can see why they have rules even if we never hear those rules in the game.

Enter the conjurers, these guys look like Mage guild members but they primarily summon daedra. It always confused me why a Mage of the Mages Guild would attack me the Archmage on sight. Playing such an impressive game and then getting attack by those Mages was like finding a Ford escort parked in the stable, it just made no sense, Beth would not screw up that badly and made bad guys that looked like Mages guild members unless they wanted me to see there was a connection, e.g. they where EX members. Until I started researching the Daedric topic for the Daedric studies department, this continued to confuse me. I found that mages could kicked for messing with Daedra, summoned or artefacts (Everscamp Quest, rumours, shrines, NPCs supply the proof here) and that these guys summoned daedra all the time and did not bother taking the sort of safety measures that Master Morian Zenas described as necessary in the book "The Doors of Oblivion".

This is what the book says about Master Morian Zenas.

"The greatest mage who ever lived was my master Morian Zenas. You have heard of him as the author of the book 'On Oblivion,' the standard text for all on matters Daedric. Despite many entreaties over the years, he refused to update his classic book with his new discoveries and theories because he found that the more one delves into these realms, the less certain one is. He did not want conjecture, he wanted facts"

So you could say he is an authority on the topic, this is the procedure he used to summon daedra for study, taken from that book.

"Zenas too was a Master of Conjuration - indeed, a Master at all the known and unknown Schools - but he did not want to rely on his ability alone in the most perilous of his research. In an underground vault, he summoned Daedra to interview them on their native land, and for that he needed another Conjurer to make certain they came, were bound, and were sent away again without incident."

As you can see, what those conjurers do is nothing at all like what the Master Morian Zenas recommends.

So how would the Mages Guild react when some of their members did summon daedra for fun. Given what I have just told you. I think they would be booted out of the guild.

I think the Daedric Shrine Rumours, Martins speech about Daedric artefact and all the many sources that say Daedra are bad, when combined with the hard copy books that most people know about points to 1 conclusion and that is the summoning and worshiping daedra was not only socially unacceptable but against guild rules. And since the imperial battlemages and the arcane university battlemages are actually one and the same, this would indicate that the Mages Guild actually have the job of policing those conjurers and taking care of problems.

Despite firmly believing this theory is 100% spot on, I have so far only used the part that says Summoning is dangerous which comes directly from the book Doors of Oblivion and is beyond dispute.

The Necromancer Guild

User Rating:  / 1

Details

Category: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Guides

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 September 2011 11:52

Written by Giskard

Hits: 1222

The Necromancer Guild.

Correct for Kvatch Aftermath 5.3

The Necromancer Guild was founded in Kvatch after the attack, later it expanded in to other areas and established Necromancer Guilds in the Country side around Cyrodil. Necromunda is the Necromancer Guilds equivalent of the Arcane University and holds many ancient Necromancer secrets that were lost long ago when Necromancers joined the Mages Guild after the guild act was passed and things got all civilized. The Kvatch Branch is the largest branch outside of Necromunda but other smaller branches are opening up all the time.

Setting the Scene for Necromancy.

Necromancy is the study of death in the hope of preventing it. Sometimes that study requires guild members kill something as part of their research, just as the Fighters Guild and even Mages Guild members kill for their own purposes and for less important reasons too. The aim of every Necromancers study is to preserve life, rather than destroy it, but outsiders often call Necromancy evil when it fact it is pure science free of moral obligations that hold progress back. It is often more Evil for a Knight to force his own will on others than to allow a Necromancer to study and hopefully preserve life.

So you see, the common assumption that Necromancy is Evil is a myth spread by those who disagree with the Study of Necromancy and has nothing at all to do with good or evil, it is merely a difference of opinion. The fact that Necromancers are surrounded by death most of the time is just part of job.

Other Necromancer Groups.

There are 2 unique groups of Necromancer these days, one group formed a new guild and battled for their right to exist, the other turned bandit and moved in to caves and ruins. Whilst the Necromancer Guild may be perfectly legal, those Necromancers living in caves are not and will attack you on sight.

Grave Robbing

Some items cannot be found in Cyrodil very easily and Necromancers must look in questionable places for items they need. The Human Heart is one such item, these can be found in coffins kept in Cathedral Undercrofts prior to burial the next day. The coffins appear there from time to time but are usually not left there longer than 1 day before they are buried. So if you time it right, you might get lucky. Of course the condition of the body will vary a great deal and you may or may not get the item you need.

You should becareful here because grave robbing is illegal and tresspassing in the Undercroft of any Cathedral is also illegal.

Forms of Lich Hood

Necromancers ultimate aim is to live longer and Lich's are just Necromancers that have under gone treatment so they can live longer. The degree of success is a measurement of how much of their original body was preserved. The easier the path to Lich Hood, the less of the body is preserved, the hardest and most risky paths often save most of the body but cannot stop it rotting away over time. This leads to skeleton like Lich's that are outcast by society generally.

Currently there are 2 forms of Lich Hood that are known to work.

1) The Preservation of the Soul in an Ethereal form.

2) The Preservation of the Soul inside the body in a Zombie like form.

Option 2 usually extends the life by a few hundred years and represents cutting edge research but the Ethereal method is safer for less talented Necromancers and thus more common.

Necromantic Devices and what they do.

Corpious Summonus
(Broken in versions before 5.3, well not broken, just not right)

This device spawns undead creatures for it's user, creatures spawned this way stay until killed. There are a few creatures that can be spawned using this device and each requires special items for it to work. Here is a list.

Corpious Summonus at the Kvatch Necromancer Guild Branch

(This list was wrong in versions prior to 5.3)

Skeleton = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 4 Bonemeal, 1 skull01
Zombie = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 1 Skeleton Rib Cage, 4 MortFlesh
Wraith = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 5 Ectoplasm

Corpious Summonus at the Necromunda Branch.

Hell Hound = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 3 Bonemeal, 1 Fire Salts, 1 Skull
Fire Skeleton = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 3 MortFlesh, 1 Fire Salts, 1 Rib Cage
Fire Lich = 1 Full Black Soul Gem, 1 Ectoplasm, 1 Fire Salts, 2 Mort Flesh

Markus Enchantus Lichicus

This device provides The Mark of Lich, it is used to test candidates to make sure they are suitably prepared to receive this powerful gift. To pass the test you need to have the following.

1 Varla Stone
1 Empty Black Soul Gem
60+ Strength
40+ Personality
40+ Agility
200+ Health

If you are considered worthy, the Mark of Lich Amulet will be given to you.

The Mark of Lich when worn makes the following modifications to the wearer.

Strength -50
Personality -30
Agility -30
Intelligence + 100
Willpower + 100

The Mark of Lich allows the Necromancer to stack very powerful spells on top of each other, this can provide projection, magicka boosts and anything normal spells can provide. It is best used with Lich spells that run for longer periods than normal spells. The Mark of Lich will effectively keep your Magicka regenerating at a higher rate that normal to off set the number of spells you have cast on your self on in use at the time. Lich's often use magical means to increase things like strength that was lost when they became a Lich. In fact it is common for Lich's to run spells to restore common attributes to former levels and to maintain them at those levels using spells through out their life times. Such is how Lich Spells were developed in the first place, the need for longer lasting spells has driven this field of research forward from the very beginning.

Character Customisation.

(Artist Licence applied here to give the player some extra choices)

Not every Necromancer wants to look like a half dead ghost, but those that feel the lifestyle is not complete without the Lich effect will be happy to know that Necromunda holds 6 devices offering 6 new looks for the budding Necromancer. Plus a seventh to reset the customisation you have previously added to your character. These are experimental at the moment and may change in the future.

Each custom feature requires you have the following items on your person.

1 Mark of Lich
3 Human Heart
3 Mort Flesh

Providing you have those items you can choose a new look for your self.

Lich Spells Overview.

Most Lich Spells cost 50 magicka to cast (with the odd exception) and use between 1 and 3 magicka per second to maintain for the life time of the spell. Lich spells like the Lich Burden Lvl3 can be maintained for 900 seconds and apply 200 weight to the target. Making it very useful at stopping people from running off. Other spells such as summon type spells are also extremely useful and the Necromancers spell book tends to benefit the type of spell that needs to last longer to work well. Spells were a more instant effect are required tend to work less effectively for Necromancers. Especially at lower levels.

For example a Necromancers Lich Fireball Lvl1 Spell will only cause 1pt of damage when it hits unlike he standard Fireball spell that causes 30pts of damage instantly, but the Lich Fireball uses 1pt of magicka per second to maintain and lasts for 30 seconds. In those 30 seconds it will cause 30pts worth of damage to the target. Meaning if the Necromancer avoided dying for 30 seconds, his target may well die from that single fireball hit eventually, it just takes a little longer to work.

But during that 30 seconds the Necromancer is vunrable to attack, as such Necromancer defensive spells tend to be better than most defensive spells.

At higher levels Lich Spells cause a lot more damage over the 30 second period than normal spells can do instantly, but early on the cost to cast the spell is relatively high compared to the damage they can do. For this reason, Necromancers tend to use normal destruction spells until the Necromancer Lich Destruction Spells become worth using.

The Necromancers tend to favour summon spells for combat anyway and keep the summoned creature alive via magical means as long as possible. Necromancers often wear magical armour such as shield and resist magic protective spells. Thankfully the Necromancer Spell book excels in those areas, no other magic user can beat the Necromancers protective spells early or late on in the Necromancers Career.

Like all things, Lich Spells have some major benefits but also some major draw backs, only those who excel in the field of Necromancy learn to use the Lich spells well and those what achieve that are often extremely powerful due to the combination of spells they cast for defence and attack on a regular basis.

One thing should be noted however as a major weakness for destruction spells in the Lich Spell Book is that 2 spells of the same type will normally not stack, the last one cast is the only one causing at damage. But as any good Necromancer will tell you, other spells can be mixed with Fireball spells and the like and can double or even treble the damage caused per second of your good enough and are familar enough with the Necromancer way of doing things.

Those who take a passing interesting in Necromancy will probably never achieve the sort of expert knowledge needed to true become a Master of Necromancy.

( Designers Note: Lich Spells use the Damage Magicka Spell to drain your own magicka per second to pay for the cost of casting a spell, the reason this is used and not the Drain Magicka Spell is because the Drain Magicka Spell works on Targets not your self).

Cyrodiil Upgrade Overhaul Mod Guide.

User Rating:  / 1

Details

Category: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Guides

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 September 2011 11:44

Written by Giskard

Hits: 1206

Cyrodiil Upgrade Overhaul Guide.

Introduction.

Unlike the original game where everything levels up with you, CUO unlevels everything and that makes a big difference to the level of excitement you get out of Oblivion. Just as a school kid leaving school and getting a job thinks he knows everything and gets cocky about it, you leave the prision in Oblivions open scene in much the same way. You get a sword, you see a baddie and you charge in ready to prove your worth thinking you can easily win because beths original game is very easy to do well in. As you get closer the word (HERO) appears next to the baddies name and you realize this is a level 50 NPC your attacking and your game ends fairly soon after that in your death.

In CUO you are the snotty nosed school kid and out there are real heros and real evil characters waiting to smite you. You are not the hardest being on the planet, nor are you the only being with a heal spell. These NPCs have the same features you have and will use them. Unlike most players these NPCs role play their parts EXACTLY as intended. So a Necromancer will always act like a Necromancer and a bandit will always be a poor mans Marauder.

And that makes every cave, fort or ruin a vastly different experience from the default game and a lot more exciting too.

Difficulty levels.

The first thing to do is adjust your difficulty settings from Oblivions Options menu. I have mine set to about 45% and it produces a pretty exciting IF difficult game. If you are new to CUO, try setting it to 25% at first. This gives you room to increase or decrease the difficulty as needed. Lowering the difficulty lowers the hit points the NPCs have making them easier to kill but you still get the full CUO experience, its not watered down by lowering the difficulty that way and you will still see level 50 heros appearing too so everything you read here applies just as much to you zero difficulty types as it does to you 100% difficulty types.

New Faction Dialog

CUOs new faction dialog contains about 400 lines of dialog designed to bring each faction mentioned below to life. But is an optional addon for those who love voice acting. I think it creates the unique feeling needed to make the bandits and necromancers feel like bandits and necromancers. However, as a modder I find people moan if I add voice work and moan if I do not. So just this once, I gave you the choice.

Preparing for an Adventure.

As you know, in the default game you get a good sword and after a few levels you need to replace it because better stuff has appeared and you start dying a lot. Those early enchantments you made become useless over time and the armour you are fond of is no longer as good as it use to be. In CUO we do away with that effect. Right from the initial escape from prison you can run in to a hero or a level 1 NPC and if you kill them, you can get their equipment. Even if you are a level 50, you will still see level 1 bandits from time to time, so nothing ever becomes obselete. You have a chance to get good equipment right from the start of the game and if your lucky, it will give you a slight edge depending on what you find.

Without any special equipment it is usually wise avoid difficult encounters and stick to easy adventuring and to at least carry a selection of heal potions and sorcery potions. Restoration is a good school of magic to learn for any class with CUO so you want to make sure your able to heal your self too because most of the NPCs you will face can do this already. The degree to which they can do it depends on what class they are. Fighters are not as good as mages for example at healing but priests are very good at it.

Whilst CUO tries to bias the encounters towards the low end for low level players and towards the high end for high level players, at all levels you could encounter a level 1 or level 50 NPC or beast at any time. You can find any loot from any level at any time, so good and bad enchantments can be found anywhere in any chest, so its worth a look just in case. Early on, finding a good staff or sword can make your life a lot easier for example.

As general rule I find carrying a couple of swords or staffs a must, preferably enchanted and not enchanted with the same effect either, if both are fire based for example and you come across something immuned to flame, then you are in for a beating.

Remember anything can appear.

Encounters.

Unlike other overhauls you might have tried, CUO focuses on bringing the existing bad guy factions to life. Making bandits more like bandits, conjurers more like conjurers and necromancers more like necromancers. Each of these was given their own unique loot, their own unique fighting style and their own dialog to curse you with. Each faction has its own heros too and those heros can appear on any leader spawn in place of a normal leader but will not appear if no leader normally spawns in a location in the default game. Heros usually are named (HEROS) so you can see they are going to be hard to beat.

Unlike other overhauls, CUO does not ADD spawns as a rule, so it avoids the incompatibility issues new spawns cause. That means if you already know a leader spawns in a certain place. Then CUO will also spawn heros there too. So what you learned already in the default game still counts for something in CUO.

Depending on how prepared you are for the encounter you have 3 choices.

Fight
Run
Hide

Usually people just fight but understanding you can run away and come back is a key feature of CUO and you should learn to spot when to run an when to fight because your survival depends on you knowing when the tide has turned against you and its time to beat a hasty retreat.

Stealth is a powerful tool for a well equipped thief, so for them hiding is the option they must look for. A good dagger or bow with +20 Shock will do lots of damage in a x6 sneak attack. But if you play a thief like a fighter and your sneak sucks, then your going to have a hard time because being a little of both makes you no good at either and CUO will be harder for you.

Also as you look at the bad guys, if they look well dressed, they are a higher level than those who look badly dressed. The difference is visible and you can make the decision to risk it or not simply based on what they are wearing in many cases. So pick your fights carefully. Only Conjurers and Necromancer cannot be identified that way easily but usually there is something that will give away their abilities if you look for it.

So take time to size up a room before charging in.

The other thing to note, some bad guy encounters have a strong bias towards specific levels because they are supposed to be harder or easier than normal. So even though you are a low level NPC, the type of baddie your facing may mean you have a higher than you think or lower. For example Marauders tend to be a higher level rather than a lower level, where as bandits tend to be a lower level rather than a higher level. This means the factions skills and expertese are taken in to account and are what you expect them to be.

Encounters: Bandits

As a rule bandits tend to favor low to middle class armour and equipment, they are not very rich and usually not very good good. They do have heros that are good but bandits make good entry level encounters because the chances of running in to anything deadly is slightly lower because these are not especially talented individuals.

Encounters: Marauders

Marauders are very dangerous, not only are they fighters with the best equipment and armour but they specialize in raping and pillaging and enjoy the fight. These will challenge you at higher levels even if you are a good fighter and they do use tactics and do include some talented mages too. As with other encounters you can meet a level 1 marauder or a level 50 marauder or both at the same time but in the case of marauders, the chances are it will be a higher leveled encounter rather than a lower level. I recommend only well equipped fighters take these on or a nice strong battlemage because this combat will be up close and personal and there is a good chance they will disarm you.

Encounters: Hedge Row Bandits

You can encounter any type of bandit here as well as mages, conjurers, necromancers etc. Any type of NPC can pop out of a hedge on the side of the road and attack you but as a rule these are not high levels and usually all dress in poor clothing to reflect this. So they can usually be beaten easily. The dialog they speak often gives away what type of character they are even if the clothing does not.

Encounters: Conjurers

Conjurers are Daedra worshipers and you should expect to encounter daedra when ever you see a Conjurer. These will provide you with daedric loot and ingredients so if you need those types of items, just go looking for some Conjurers. These NPCs tend to summon daedra to fight for them and run away whilst the creature attacks you so if your not a fast runner, buy a bow or use spells to get them otherwise you will be chasing them around ruins all day and getting no where. They are not especially brave these baddies but do come in all levels and the type of summoned daedra they can produce usually gives away their level to you. There is a full set of Daedric staffs available as loot from these as well as a lot of other daedric equipment.

Encounters: Necromancers

These are my favorite for a reason, there is a lot of cool necromancer loot kicking around and they really do shine as a faction in CUO.

They come in 2 favors, spell casters and knights of the order of the black worm. Mannimarcos person body guard represent the hero versions of the Knights and are very hard to beat. The Armour has either a white or red necromancer hand on it. If I remember right, the white ones are heros. They are very good fighters and can disarm you. Against mages with no swords, they can chop you to bits quickly so a good tactic is to keep moving and shooting against these Knights. The spell casters which also includes the knights btw, cast my lich spells found in the Necromunda quest of Kvatch Aftermath. I made a complete set of spells in support of the Necromancer life style and these spell casters follow that life style to the letter.

For example a Necromancer favors fists or blunt weapons because they want your body intact. The spells they case tend to be undead summon spells or drain spells so they can zap your strength and beat you to a pulp whilst your helpless without damaging the body too much. Necromancers do not run away but instead close to take you with their fists after casting spells. So they will get up close to you. As a result, if you are not prepared for close combat, you need to use a hit and run tactic against these. Then tend not to be such a big threat in a fist fight but the punches can keep you from doing anything long enough for another Necromancer to finish the job.

Necromancers only carry necromancer loot, so you if want a good necromancer staff or black soul gem, you kill these guys for it.

Encounters: Undead

If you are a mage, the changes are you will go looking for undead lairs in CUO for 1 very important reason. They follow the Morrowind rule and when killed have a chance of providing soul gems as loot. So for a mage, a quick visit to an undead lair is a good way of toping up your staffs and other enchantments. As a mage undead encounters are easier for you than other encounters. Only a fast moving zombie might take you by surprise. As a fighter, Undead encounters are a lot harder because magic tends to dispatch them quicker than swords.

Encounters: Daedra

I will probably remove the Shivering Isles Daedra from the Dagon lists because it is really a breach of the game lore, every Daedric lord has its own followers and those should not really be in the daedra lists for Dagon so I will not mention those again here.

The Dagon lists include all Daedra creatures and NPCs and a full set of Daedric staffs and equipment and can be either very easy to do or very hard for a mage or a fighter. It is really just the luck of the draw as to what you get. In one game I practically strolled up the sigil tower, in another I was battling for my life all the way up and got nailed by the Daedric Hero of Kvatch within sight of the sigil stone.

There is no doubt at all that the Daedric lists produce the most excitement in CUO and some of the best loot too. If your lucky, you will get a good staff after 1 hard fight and be able to use that to blast your way to the top of a sigil tower. If your unlucky, all your preparations for taking out an oblivion gate will be used up before you get anywhere near the base of the tower and you will have to battle your way through several high level daedra to get to the top with something that might as well be an ordinary Iron Longsword.

The best advice I can give is check every body, every chest, if a weapon has an enchantment and a charge, and one your carrying is used up, drop the used one and get the one with some charge left and use that one until its used up. This is the only way to handle the daedra in CUO. If your mage, you will eventually end up using swords, your magic will barely help you in large fights, a combination of sword play, staffs and spells is needed. Bows are probably a good option and Daedric levels tend to produce a lot of good quality high enchantment bows and arrows to help you.

In fact if your a bow user and want good arrows, try doing a few oblivion gates to get your supplies, Archers have the easiest time of all in daedric encounters, all very stealthy :)

Encounters: Black Bow Bandits.

These bandits are specialist bow man and as a result have slightly better bows than other bandits but are still bandits and still fairly noobie friendly. They too have heros to beat that may surprise you but they are effectively fairly easy to take on. Loot is of course bow based.

Encounters: Vampires

Vampires in CUO can be any member of society so the Vampire lists reflect that, you might encounter a level 1 cook or a level 50 hero in most vampire lairs. The scope here is huge and you really get the broadest range of bandit style baddies in the game from Vampires. Even the loot changes considerably. You might consider these a bit of everything type of encounter. Combat with these tends to be an ordinary affair most of the time but with good or bad equipment depending on the level of the NPC. They sit somewhere between Bandits and Marauders in difficulty.

Encounters: Witches

The rumor has it witches are extinct in Cyrodiil but as you know if you did the vampire cure quest from Oblivion, some still exist. You will not see a witch vary often because of this and when you do, she might even be friendly. Witches have special spell books and unique spells in them and tend to make some of the more powerful potions available in the game. The only witch known to the mages of the Arcane University lives somewhere north of Bruma (Origin of the mages guild required) but there is rumor that others might exist in isolated areas and may appear in future updates of CUO. Especially since CURP already includes them and I just need to add them to the game as I did with the Dwemer :)

Encounters: Dwemer

The Dwemer encounters take place in the mountains along the border with Morrowind. CURP probably contains the single biggest collection of Dwemer resources available in one place and they all appear in the Dwemer addon. Some are authentic, some are not. But all give you that Dwemer flavor and so make a rather unique encounter to enjoy. There are a number of Dwemer mines to explore, full of Dwemer ghosts and Dwemer machines. A full set of weapons and armour to get as well as dwemer furniture and other stuff. Dwemer fighting style differs a lot but as a rule they tend to be a mix of sword play, spells and creature attacks so an all round defense is needed.

Avoid getting caught in the middle of several Dwemer, they will hack you to pieces in no time.

Wilderness Encounters.

You can encounter any animal at any time, for a low level player, lions and bears are VERY dangerous because they are fast and attack quicky and often and should be avoided. As a rule its usually better to give wild life a wide berth if your not confident of your own characters abilities.

It should also be noted that not all creatures can be seen if grass is enabled. Their are spiders that can creep up on you unseen and attack you with health draining poison from short range. These spiders spit poison because I could get them to work the way I wanted them to work. It is possible for these to kill you after you kill them. So always watch your health if attacked by spiders, they do not cause full instant damage but instead damage you over time.

Many safe areas spawn friendly wildlife in CUO but even high in the unfriendly wildness there's a very good chance that harmless creatures will spawn. Meaning deer, foxes, cows, horses and such spawn a lot too depending on the area of Cyrodiil your in. These are regionalized just like the default creatures of the game, I just expended the lists and tweaked them. CUOs wilderness adventures favours more realistic chance of being attacked by wild life so not every creature you see is out to kill you. Some will run away rather than fight.

Your Character and CUO.

Whilst you can play any character you like, to expect any character to be good against ghosts, daedra and bandits at the same time is unrealistic. In CUO (assuming your role playing your character) you may find some characters can take on daedra for example easier than other characters can. Some have an easier time against ghosts. Encounters with ghosts for mages at least makes the mage stronger thanks to the soul gems ghosts drop as loot. The same is true for fighters with lots of enchantments they need to charge. So a good old ghostly dungeon adventure could be just the thing to recharge your stuff.

Knowing which type of opponent is going to be hard for your current character to deal with is part of the survival skills you will need to learn quickly. Once you know a fight is going to be hard because of a type of enemy, you can prepare for it better and thus greatly increase your chances of coming out of it alive. As a rule, the harder the fight is the more expensive the preparations will be.

Final words

CUO is my own personal overhaul, designed to give me a challenge but can be made easier using the standard in game difficulty slider and I do recommend you adjust it to suit your need's. I do not necessarily want you to feel the game is too hard but I do want you to feel like your really in a necromancer lair when you go in to a necromancer cave and that does not need a high difficulty setting to work. So you can have a game as easy or hard as you need. CUO will be happy either way.

If you are a role play fan and play pure characters or carefully created characters then you stand to gain the most from CUO because switching between a thief and a mage will definitely produce a vastly different game. This is in keeping with what beth tried to acheive. I have simply enhanced the effect by adding more and more layers of detail on to the baddies that make them more bandit like, more necromancer line and that in turn, makes them feel different when encountered as different player characters.

For example Necromancers vs a good fighter stand no chance unless a Knight of the Black Worm is around to stop you but verse a mage, the mage will have a fight on his hands.

I can tell you now you will be tempted to learn spells as a thief when you realize mages have it easy in some areas, take my advice, do not do that. Work out how a thief would handle that situation instead. You will get a lot more out of CUO if you stay to the character than you do if you start trying to be all things at the same time.

Enjoy :)

Mod Installation Guide

User Rating:  / 0

Details

Category: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Guides

Last Updated on Monday, 12 September 2011 21:41

Written by Giskard

Hits: 1170

Mod Installation Guide

Topics Covered

Oblivion Mod Installation
Fallout Mod Installation
Oblivion Mod Manager
Fallout Mod Manager
Guild Exe Installers

Introduction

Some of you out there are having trouble installing mods so I am going to write a guide to help you do it. Try and remember there is no way I can help people that do not read the docs, asking for help always results in you having to do some reading. Failing to read the docs results in you having to do more reading than you would have done, e.g. this guide is an example.

So this guide is for those who read the docs and still do not understand why the mods are not working. Its not for people that do not want to read, those people cannot be helped. They are lost causes and we ignore them usually.

Installing a Mod

First a word about packing.

I pack my mods so when you extract them anywherethey create a folder called Data where you extracted them too and all the mod folders are put in that Data Folder. The Data folder is where Fallout 3 and Oblivion put the mod files. All you need to do is find the game, and extract it directly in to the games main folder (its root directory) So this extra step in packing means you do not have to know the mod files need to go in to data. I have taken care of that for you.

Other modders pack their mods so when you extract them some place they do not create a folder called data. The files are dropped loosely in to what ever folder you extract them too. They require you to know they need to be extracted in to the games Data folder. If you do not know that and you extract them in to the games main folder (its root directory), they mod will not work.

I choose to extract my mods in to the games main folder because decades of experience has taught me that over time, players forget where these mods go, its always fine when a game is new, but wait a few years and even those who played the game to death start forgetting these things.

Installation

Depending on whether a mod was packed with the data folder intact or without the data folder as described above, all mods are installed by extracting them either directly in to the game folder or in to the game folders data folder.

E.G.

Mods without a data folder packed in to them extract to

Oblivion\Data
or
Fallout 3\Data

Mods like mine that do have a data folder packed in to them extract too

Oblivion\
or
Fallout 3\

After that you enable the mods from the Data Files menu that pops up when you insert your Oblivion or Fallout 3 DVD. When you run the game the mods will be enabled.

Special Step Required for Fallout 3 Mods.

If your using a Fallout 3 mod that contains textures and other things, you have to Toggle Invalidation on or the new textures will not be used and you will see some rapidly changing textures on your models that gives a bit of a freaky 60s hippy effect in game. The easiest way to deal with this is to download the Fallout Mod Manager and just click the Toggle Invalidation Button in that problem.

Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) and Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM)

You can use these mod managers without creating Omods (Oblivion mods) or FOMods (Fallout mods), they allow you to adjust your load order, enable or disable mods and if your using Omods or FOMods, uninstall them easily. Since the programs are very easy to use I'll focus on making Omods and FOMods and throw in some tips and tricks you might be interested in knowing about.

If you want either of these problems, just Google them, you will find them easily.

Creating Omods that can be installed or uninstalled easily.

If a mod creates a data folder when extracted, just extract it some place safe and then load up the Oblivion mod manager. If the mod does not create its own data folder, create one first and then extract it in to that new data folder and then load up the Oblivion mod manager. When your ready, follow the instructions below.

For Oblivion you do the following.

Load up OBMM and click on the create button. Fill in the details for the mod the best you can, these are information only except for the data compression stuff, which really translates too how fast these mods can be installed or uninstalled. High compression is slower but takes up less hard drive space basically.

Find the "Add Folder" button and a window will appear asking you to browse to a folder, go and find that Data folder where your mod was extracted too. When you have found it, select and press Ok. Bow select Create Omod. When it finishes packing the files the new Omod will appear with the name you gave it in the mod list of OBMM on the right side of the program. You can select it and "Activate" it easily from there. OBMM takes care of everything for you.

All OMODs you create are stored at Oblivion\obmm\mods.

Creating FOmods that can be installed or uninstalled easily.

Fallout mods should be extracted to a folder named after the mod because FOMM uses the folder name to name the FOMOD it creates. You can leave it at data and just go to Fallout 3\fomm\mods and change the name from Data to what ever the mod is called later after the FOmod has been created. That works too if you prefer to do it that way.

For Fallout 3 you do this.

Load up FOMM and click Package Manager, then select "create from folder" and browse to that folder containing your Fallout mods files and select it. Then press OK FOMM will do the rest, the new FOMOD will appear in the Package Manager list and you can tick the box and start using it right away. If you have to rename the file, close FOMM, and go to Fallout 3\fomm\mods and find the file you have to rename. Then reload FOMM and enable that mod.

All FOMODs you create are stored at Fallout 3\fomm\mods.

Tricks using OBMM or FOMM.

Removing an old mod:

If you still have the archive for an old mod, make it in to an Omod or an FOMOD as described above, then install and uninstall it to remove all the old files from your game directory. This is a 100% accurate way of getting all the files that mod originally installed.

The Engineering Guild Exe Installers

The exe files offer me a method of protecting my self legally from the assholes out there that I used to allow to edit my mods freely. Unlike normal reasonable people, those folk banded together and thanked me for allowing them the freedom to edit my stuff by attacking me. So I put a stop to that freedom to edit my stuff for that reason. Is it really too much to ask for a simple thank you ? Seems so.

Anyway, the point is, I refuse to share these mods with people unless they agree to the licenses first, no agreement, no mod. That is why I use exes not zip files, it a way to defend my self from the idiots out there. Other than that, they install the same way as the zips.

You just click on the exe and select the Games main folder (the games root directory) and the exe will automatically install things in the right places for you. Creating a data folder in the process if one does not exist.

If you install these files some place else, you can easily make the mods in to an Omod or FOMod as outlined above and install or uninstall these at will.