Wards Functionalities Extended

A magical ward overhaul. Customize range, cost, charge rate and absorption rate. Use your wards to block melee weapons. Use your weapons to break enemy wards. Protect yourself from arrows Let the shouts pass through the ward. Play with new specialist and master level wards.

Ward function expansion:

Disclaimer:

This is the backend for Wards Functionalities Extended, the legendary version of Skyrim.

Backports are somewhat experimental. While I didn't find any issues during my testing, I can't guarantee you won't run into any.

I recreated the .esp files using TES5Edit and passed them through the SLE Creation Kit. I recreated the mod mesh from the SLE mesh.

This page is mostly copied from the SSE page. Images and videos captured on SSE.

I don't plan to install SLE on my machine, which means active support for this backport won't last long (a few months at most). Please be sure to report any issues you encounter while I can still fix them.

Preface: How wards work in vanilla and what's wrong with them:

Magic Ward is a defensive restoration spell that protects the caster from other spells. They are concentration spells, which means the caster must continue to cast them and have a constant magic cost.

Wards in Skyrim have two effects:

1: They add a number of armor points to the caster equal to the size of the ward.

2: The caster accumulates Ward points at a rate specified by the "fMagicWardPowerMaxBase" game setting, with a maximum equal to the size of the ward. When a spell hits a ward, the spell's size is subtracted from that ward's value. If it drops to 0, the ward is broken. If not, the ward will recharge itself.

So, what's their problem?

First, they are very expensive. Novice level "Small Ward" costs more than twice as much as novice level destruction spells like fire. When a ward is hit by a spell, the "Ward Absorb" perk, which is supposed to mitigate the situation by absorbing magic, does almost nothing, as it only absorbs 25% of the spell's cost.

Secondly, the capacity of the ward is insufficient for two reasons. Their size is too low: novice wards can only absorb fire/frostbite/spark spells for about 5 seconds. Skilled wards ("bigger wards") can only absorb two or three fireballs. Additionally, the lack of expert and advanced level wards means that the wards are useless for higher level spells.

Third, wards only interact with magic. They provide no meaningful way for mages to protect themselves from ranged and melee weapons (the ward armor point bonus is next to nothing). They're also annoying to melee users (at least visually), as enemy mages tend to throw their wards in your face and you can't break them.

Finally, Shout is treated like any other ward spell, a very anticlimactic effect for an ancient powerful magic archive. Many times, a novice mage will use a small ward to block out the strong shouts and laugh at the dragon's roaring face.

feature:

Customize ward size, cost, charge rate and absorption rate.

This mod comes with a mod configuration menu (MCM) that allows you to customize almost all values ​​regarding the wards.

You can choose independent multipliers for the amplitude, Magicka cost, charge/charge rate, and the absorption rate of the "Ward Absorb" trait. Based on the previous paragraph, I recommend using the mod defaults to improve wards.

Guards can block and interact with melee weapons.

This option can be toggled in MCM. This applies to both players and NPCs.

You can choose to count wards as blocked. When blocking with a ward, damage is calculated using the same formula as blocking with a weapon: % Damage Blocked = (30 + 0.2 x EnemyWeaponBaseDamage x (1 + BlockSkill x 1.5 / 100)) x (1 + Shield Wall Effect) x (1 + Enchantment 1 + Enchantment 2 + Enchantment 3) x (1 + Potion) Blocked damage reduction will be based on your Blocking skill and bonus damage rather than your armor. (Normal armor damage reduction still applies to the remaining damage, as always.) Blocking with a ward will cost you Stami …