Another Hearthfires Mod, with added Dremora Options

[ghastley]

I put together a Nordic Tower home for my latest Dremora character, and have started making it into another Hearthfires mod, so you can find the tower empty (except for a workbench and anvil) and start making it more comfortable by adding furniture etc. The location is between Valthume and Lost Valley, near the Cradle Stone Tower, but closer to the edge of the map. So close, that you can't fall off the back side as "you can't go that way".

I've managed to squeeze in all the crafting stations, and a double bed. There's no room for kids, which avoids having to support adoption. It has an observation platform on top, copied from one at Valtheim.

I'm thinking of providing a spell book that teaches "Summon Dremora Housecarl" which combines the long duration of the elemental thralls with a bit of the Dremora Merchant and Butler powers from Dragonborn. To make it useful, I'd select one of several "builds" according to the player's skills, so a mage gets a tank, and a melee character gets a mage or archer, etc. However, the gender of the summoned Dremora may need player selection, somehow. Maybe two spell books, and reading one destroys the other?

The reason for summoning, rather than just using a Dremora NPC, is that the Dremora can be levelled when summoned, so re-summoning when the player levels will keep them in step without re-equipping. Since a Dremora can't wear most armour, this would offset the inability to swap out their gear, and also provide the in-game reason for not doing so.

[ghastley]

The summoned Dremora Housecarl has given me a whole bunch of quirky problems I wasn't expecting.

First off, I cloned from the summoned Dremora Lord and changed from a fixed level, to "player level multiplier" using 1.0 as a start point, although I suspect it will need to be slightly higher. What I didn't notice was that the Lord had a health level offset to avoid him being OP, so he gets -200 off his calculated 600+. The housecarl was getting the same 200 taken off hers, and I'd summoned her at a level where she got about 205, so nett 5. Colliding with a butterfly could kill her! Presumably at lower player levels, she'd have spawned dead, and immediately disappeared again!

Fixed that, and now she groans all the time. Discovered that all commanded humanoids with a playable race voice do that. Had to change her voice back to CrDremora, but now she has male battle cries. She's due for a custom compilation as a new voice type. Males are OK with the standard voice, of course.

I gave the base NPC template a levelled weapon, and discovered that I hadn't checked the box to inherit inventory on the summoned one, so she got an enchanted Daedric Battleaxe at level 5. So I set it, and it switched her to L1EnchWeaponDremora1H and she spawned with a Greatsword! Discovered that the list is not 1H, as it's named, but allows all melee weapons. Made my own list. Now it will be a levelled mace (always with fire enchantment). I've given them a left-hand shock spell, but I suspect I'll need to change the combat style before it gets used, as I've not yet seen it in action.

The next issue will be outfits. You can't interact with a summoned character to swap out their equipment, so her Daedric-like armour is the same downgraded Dremora gear that they all get. I need to create various levels of it, and make a new levelled list of outfits. I might as well try and make visual variety at the same time, for both male and female. That could be just clones of regular armour as Dremora versions, which is what Bethesda did with the Daedric, but I'd prefer it all to look "not from Nirn", so I'll likely be adapting a few custom ones.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Feb 4 2016, 04:10 PM