Oblivion Mod Review - The Scarlet Monastery

Mod Review - The Scarlet Monastery
( http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30028 )

Overall: Download this for a short vacation to endless mindless killing of minion mobs. Gets tired very very quickly. Still needs polish.

Why You Would Download This: You have nostalgia for World of Warcraft's Scarlet Monastery but are not hung up on having a very accurate translation. You want a break from thinking and questing, and instead switch to a marathon of combat, but without introducing a pervasive change to your game (such as by using Martigen's Monster Mod or Adrenaline Oblivion).

The Scarlet Monastery is an uncomplicated hack-and-slash mod. The actual Monastery may have conflicts with the local geography and you may see part of it buried in a mountainside, but all the action takes place in interiors, so there's no harm done and your load order probably doesn't matter too much.

If you stopped playing games like Diablo II because it involves mindlessly hacking your way through mobs of enemies, trawling loot for sale, and killing bosses over and over again to get special loot, then you may want to give The Scarlet Monastery a pass. The variety of special loot is small to begin with, and not worth the effort to re-run the gauntlet even for a 50-50 chance of getting something new.

If you actually like mind-numbing fights, then you will appreciate the monolith outside that allows instant resetting of the monastery so you can do the run again without having to wait or sleep the time away. This makes it convenient to try things such as artificially levelling yorself up or down with the "player.setlevel" command and playing through The Scarlet Monastery at different levels (although you will probably find that your overall experience is largely the same no matter what your level.)

If you are looking for a faithful re-creation of The Scarlet Monastery at the level of abilities, spells, and special loot stats, then this mod isn't it. If you are satisfied with the layout and general cosmetics of The Scarlet Monastery, then this is a fair effort and just for nostalgia you could give it a go.

Some of the loot is interesting, like gloves with a continuous Restore Health 2/second, or enchanted spaulders that use the amulet slot and are therefore complimentary with any other armour you may have.
Except for these unique items, this mod is actually very boring.

Some of the loot requires a closer look and cleanup, like Herod's helmet which has a continuous Drain Health 1 (what is the point of suppressing 1 point of Health?) and Mograine's mace, which hung in mid-air when he finally died and couldn't be picked up normally.

None of the abilities of the items appear to be strongly related to the actual loot dropped in World of Warcraft (which are actually quite boring -- most of the wearable items simply provide armor and stat boosts).
Since such license with the original items is being taken, it would have been nice to see some minor changes, such as Mograine's mace becoming one-handed so that he can use his unique shield.

There is room for a lot of improvement in this mod, although a fair amount of effort has been made to incorporate Scarlet Monastery visuals (such as armor with a custom texture) and the signature scripted final boss encounter with Mograine. Regular troops could have their iron armour recoloured red, for example, and swapping clubs for something else (what kind of army gives their troops primitive clubs?).

The minions you encounter typically carry a good quantity of gold, and clearly you are not meant to haul all their gear to the store in a Storage Sack. There is also next to nothing in terms of decent loot from containers. The combination means there is very little in the way of post-combat logistics and you can, if you wanted to, keep moving from fight to fight until the boss battles, and not really feel you're missing from picking up every saleable scrap.

With so much same-ness to the enemies, especially in the way they fight, this mod can get really tired really fast. With World of Warcraft, at least each enemy type had its own set of abilities and fought more differently than in Oblivion. In Oblivion, fighters all generally fight the same way, and mages need to have their spell lists and staff spawns very closely managed in order to distinguish the various types.
In The Scarlet Monastery, I felt that the fighters and mages were so much the same that their names were merely cosmetic, and there was very little difference whether my character was level 10 or 20, except that at level 20, there was a chance a mage could actually get a useful staff from Armamentarium or Franscesco's lists and possibly kill your Altmer or Apprentice character in one shot.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion mod - Train Skill On Hit

DOWNLOAD GQ Train Skill On Hit
Alternate Download Location (requires login).

This mod attaches a short script onto the Player Character. When the player is hit, it checks to see if the Block, Light Armor, or Heavy Armor skills were improved. If not, it improves either Acrobatics or HandToHand (depending on which ESP) is chosen.

This mod is for characters who like to play with less armour (e.g., you prefer to wear stylish outfits rather than have actual armour); or if they have replaced armour with non-armour-slot items. For example, if you play with Kafei's Armored Circlets, which uses either the Amulet or Tail slot, those slots do not typically get hit in combat, and so you would never get any armor skill training for using them instead of a regular helmet.

Choose only one of the ESPs (if you choose both, whichever is loaded last will be the only one that is used). The script is very simple, and if you want a different skill, or to integrate it into another script on your player character, it is very easy to cut and paste.

Before you install this mod, you may want to use RefScope to make sure you are not already running a mod that attaches a script to the Player Character.

KNOWN ISSUE: Depending on what mods you are running that change a New Game, you may get a CTD (crash to desktop). Simply unload this mod, start your new game, and load it later from a savegame.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion mod - Chapel Altars become WayShrines

DOWNLOAD GQ Chapel Altars become WayShrines
Alternate Download Location (requires login).

This mod changes the script on the small round altars in each Chapel (in front of the painted glass windows depicting the Divines) so that they use the Wayshrine script instead. You can therefore complete a Pilgrimage in any Chapel.

Because it changes the script on an existing object, it can be Bashed. I recommend you instead put it at the very end of your mod load queue, do your Pilgrimage, then remove it from your load queue.

Oblivion Mod Review: Red Headed Gang Quest and Girl Companion Mod

Mod Review - Red Headed Gang Quest and Girl Companion Mod
( http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9252 )

Overall: Interesting story with interesting plot twists, very worthwhile to play through. Needs a lot of clean-up and some quest sequences are too easily broken, but overall the mod is playable. Very basic but functional companion.

Why You Would Download This: You want a couple of well-told stories with some tough fights here and there. You want an uncomplicated companion mod.

Warnings: Buggy in places and can break in a couple of places if you don't let scripts run as they should.

If you are just looking for an uncomplicated companion mod, this is it. You get Cecilia, a Breton girl (not just a woman but literally a girl, resized down from an adult Breton female). She sneaks when you sneaks, follows you around, lets you modify her inventory, even goes hostile on you for live-fire "training". You get access to your companion's house in Skingrad if you have passed the first stage of the quest, complete with bed and chest for storage. It's very basic, but also very uncomplicated, so it is unlikely to break any other mod no matter where you put it in your mod load order. Your companion is also lacking any kind of companion-ish dialogue, however, and as companions go may be sort of boring.

The mod initially came with the story of the Red Headed Gang, but later a second optional story was added, to discover and explore Undergroundia.

Both stories are essentially simple, but scripted with some interesting events and flavoured with some humour -- together, these make the experience an overall more engaging and enjoyable one, and certainly more than mere hack and slash (of which there is definitely a goodly amount, but not such a gratuitous surplus as to be tiresome). For the story alone, this mod is worth a download and occasional reload because the author didn't account for every contingency (probably played it as a fighter without using too much ranged magic or stealth).

If you like to be involved in the lives of NPCs around you, doing at least the Red Headed Gang quest lets you bond more with your companion, though she has, sadly, very little to say.

The mod, however, does require a heck of a lot of clean-up in almost every aspect. The dialogue, for instance, is rather poorly translated into English, although you will definitely get the gist of what is being said.
Custom items are haphazardly given stats -- some are set to 0 value, some are given overpowered enchantments, some are given unusually high stats like 10000 Health on armor and 1.50 speed on melee weapons. Some NPCs don't react properly (e.g., the first Undergroundian you meet never changes from sitting in her chair and asking you how your visit went, even after you wreak havoc all over Undergroundia and the other civilians run about "fleeing" like chickens with their heads cut off).

Overall, when you play the quests, you will want to keep various savegames handy because there are various parts of the mod which could be buggy or break.

Example: If you do not speak to Marlson early on, he might be Disabled later (hidden from the game) and you cannot get the quest to visit Undergroundia. You can work around this by either talking to him (again) after the initial dialogue with him when you rescue him from the Red Headed Gang. Or, if you know your way around Form IDs and the console, you can use the "Enable" command to make him reappear so you can have that dialogue.

Example: At certain points, an NPC must speak with you, and you are prevented from moving or moving past a certain point by an invisible barrier. If you provoke that NPC into fighting before they talk to you, it can cause you to be stuck because certain scripts never get the chance to run.
For example, shortly after you grab the magic crystal in the Red Headed Gang quest, when you turn to leave you may see an assassin has appeared in the room from which you came. He stands in plain sight and can be attacked at range, but he needs to speak with you. If you kill him first, you cannot leave the sewers because you are blocked by a barrier that is supposed to freeze you and let him approach to talk.
The final confrontation with Dogo is also scripted this way. He is sort-of-hidden behind some robjects, but you can see him and snipe at him even before he rushes in for the final scripted scene and necessary dialogue.

SPOILER: In the Undergroundia quest, there will be a time when you have no gear but your companion still has hers. Typically, the Oblivion engine causes creatures to prioritize attacking your companion, but not in this case. Depending on your skills and resources, you can either fight your way out of it, or depend on your companion to save you -- and interesting turnaround as, by then, you'd have saved her a couple of times at plot points (as opposed to in random encounters). The Arena trick works here -- Block (which can cause your opponent to do the same while they wait for you to drop your block) and occasionally heal with spells. Meanwhile, your companion, who is not engaged by any hostiles, can get in some free hits against your foe.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion mod - Trap Souls

GQ Trap Souls
Alternate Download Location (requires login).

This is a simple mod for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to create filled Soul Gems. It requires the Oblivion Script Extender.

This mod adds five Conjuration spells that let the player capture a soul from an already dead target. A soul gem is created automatically.
If the target creature is an NPC (soul level 5), a Black Soul Gem can be created, but there is an increase in Infamy (to offset the plentiful-ness of NPC souls).
The base Magicka cost is equal to half the vanilla Soul Gem Capacity of the corresponding Soul Gem when Conjuration skill is 50.

FormIDs:
Novice - Petty Soul - xx00ad28
Novice - Lesser Soul - xx00ad26
Apprentice - Common Soul - xx00ad24
Journeyman - Greater Soul - xx00ad21
Expert - Grand Soul - xx00ad20

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion mod - Conduit Magic Unlimited

DOWNLOAD Conduit Magic Unlimited
Alternate Download Location (requires login).

This mod for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is based on Conduit Magic v0.5 by Kamikaze1.

The original Conduit Magic essentially allowed the creation of enchantments that could be put on or taken off, and without using an Altar of Enchantment. The resulting enchantment drew on the player's Magicka pool, and players could get skill gains as if casting a spell. Spells were used as the basis of what effects were put on the weapon, and were checked for whether they were normally allowed on the item or not.

This variation on the mod changes the code to remove the checks, so that, in theory, any effect could be placed on any weapon -- for example, on Self enchantments to be triggered on Strike with a weapon.

WARNING: Since this obviously deviates from what is allowed in The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, there is no telling what it could do to your savegame. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Example Video: Restore Health on Self on Strike
Notice in the sample video that on each strike, the player's health increases (lower left corner horizontal red bar), although there is no visual effect.

Example Video: Invisibility on Self on Strike
You can Conduit Magic an On Self invisibility spell to a weapon, so that on each hit, you become invisible.
Notice that in the sample video, although the duration of the spell is 10 seconds, the actual enchantment cast on the player on striking a target is greater than that because the character has active Weakness to Magic effects as an Altmer Apprentice.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion mod - Create Tools

GQ Create Tools
Alternate Download Location (requires login).

This is a simple mod for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that provides two Alteration spells that create tools out of thin air. The chance of successfully creating a Lockpick is equal to the player's base Security skill. The chance of successfully creating a Repair Hammer is equal to the player's base Armorer skill.

FormIDs:
xx000805 Create Lockpick
xx000804 Create Repair Hammer