Ideas for better standing stones.

[GoatLiver]

I am halfway through making a mod for the standing stones as I found them to be a little lack luster, but I wanted to know what stones people here like/use and any ideas for making better powers for standing stones. I grouped all the standing stones that have a "skills increase faster" together so I could fit them all in the poll and you can choose 2 options.

I am also thinking of changing some of the racial powers, for example the imperial luck power that lets you find more coins. It seems pretty average compare to other powers and I was thinking of incorporating that with the thief stone and some other increases like 20% better chance to pick locks and pockets. So I would need to make a new power for the imperials. I also will probably change the dunmer ancestral guardian to an actual summoned ethereal dunmer warrior that will level with the PC.

Spoiler:

So far I've changed Apprentice to all spells do double damage - take double damage from hostile spells
The Lord now has 50% weakness to fire, health heals 100% faster and adds the blood of the north spell from the old games
The Mage now has all spells cost 10% less
The Warrior now has all weapons do 15% more damage
The Lady now has 100% faster regen on stamina and power attacks cost 25% less stamina
The Steed now has 20% faster movement on top of its standard power
The Atronach has been reverted to is old 150bonus magicka + 50% spell absorption and Stunted Magicka that does not regen.

The Shadow I will probably leave since that is what it has always been
The Ritual I am thinking about adding the mass turn undead spells it used to have on top of its current spell
The Serpent, Tower and Lover stones I have not really though about yet.

So any thoughts on any of the stones/powers new or old would be appreciated as I am always open for suggestions.

[DikaSmausha]

You could make the Thief stone give 5% better in Lockpicking, Sneak, and Pickpocket.

[I_am_one]

I think you should change the apprentice stone to something different. If all of your spells do double damage, and all spell spell damage done to you is doubled, all you've done is just make it so magic kills you twice as fast, and your magic kills other people twice as fast.
Basically, your spell that does 10 damage now does 20. Their spell that does 10 damage to you now does 20 damage. There are no extra pros or cons, just magic kills everything twice as fast. Sorry if this doesn't make much sense.

Having the Apprentice Stone make all of your spells twice as powerful (For example, a healing spell that heals 15 points now heals 30, a calm spell that affects people up to level 7 now affects people up to level 14, ect.), that'd be good, along with the enemy spell damage doubling.

[Derp53]

maybe increase the percentage magic skills increase on the mag stone

[Yaije]

I think you should change the apprentice stone to something different. If all of your spells do double damage, and all spell spell damage done to you is doubled, all you've done is just make it so magic kills you twice as fast, and your magic kills other people twice as fast.
Basically, your spell that does 10 damage now does 20. Their spell that does 10 damage to you now does 20 damage. There are no extra pros or cons, just magic kills everything twice as fast. Sorry if this doesn't make much sense.

Having the Apprentice Stone make all of your spells twice as powerful (For example, a healing spell that heals 15 points now heals 30, a calm spell that affects people up to level 7 now affects people up to level 14, ect.), that'd be good, along with the enemy spell damage doubling.

Actually, it means magic damage you deal and magic damage you take are doubled. Magic damage your followers deal and take should remain the same according to that phrasing.

With regards to the stones. Honestly, outside of the atronach, steed, and lord stones I don't much point to any of them. % bonus to xp gain for skills was too boring to justify taking, and the rest are all once per day powers of abysmal use or matched by a piece of gear without the downside.

Serpent and tower have all been borderline useless imo in every game (at least in oblivion and morrowind it hard the reflect damage spell)

[GoatLiver]

I think you should change the apprentice stone to something different. If all of your spells do double damage, and all spell spell damage done to you is doubled, all you've done is just make it so magic kills you twice as fast, and your magic kills other people twice as fast.
Basically, your spell that does 10 damage now does 20. Their spell that does 10 damage to you now does 20 damage. There are no extra pros or cons, just magic kills everything twice as fast. Sorry if this doesn't make much sense.

Having the Apprentice Stone make all of your spells twice as powerful (For example, a healing spell that heals 15 points now heals 30, a calm spell that affects people up to level 7 now affects people up to level 14, ect.), that'd be good, along with the enemy spell damage doubling.

Yeah the way I have The Apprentice at the moment means all spells are doubled. This includes healing, conjurations, wards, calms etc. every spell has either double magnitude or duration (conjuration). I am actually wondering if this is too much though I wanted it to be balanced so I though that you take double damage (default apprentice weakness) was perfect to go with you do double magnitude spells. Anyway thanks for the feedback.

You could make the Thief stone give 5% better in Lockpicking, Sneak, and Pickpocket.

5% seems a little underwhelming I think. I was thinking more along the lines of 15-20% increase.

maybe increase the percentage magic skills increase on the mag stone

On top of spells cost 10% less or instead of?

With regards to the stones. Honestly, outside of the atronach, steed, and lord stones I don't much point to any of them. % bonus to xp gain for skills was too boring to justify taking, and the rest are all once per day powers of abysmal use or matched by a piece of gear without the downside.

Serpent and tower have all been borderline useless imo in every game (at least in oblivion and morrowind it hard the reflect damage spell)

Yeah I agree I am changing all the % xp bonus to an actual real bonus. I don't mind the once a day spells TBH though as long as they are interesting and have a powerful effect that you cannot replicate without the stone. I am thinking of making a once a day reflect damage spell for the tower along with changing the open expert lock to a lesser power that can be used as many times as you like during the day.

[Derp53]

i was thinking 10 percent less magicka to cast and magick skills increase 10 percent faster, but its up to you what you want to do

[DikaSmausha]

Now that I think about it, shouldnt this be moved to the Skyrim Mod thread?

[GoatLiver]

I was thinking of posting it there but not many ppl read that thread and its also about what stones people use/like as well as changing them.

[D0VAHK11N]

I think since you find the guardian stones (mage, warrior, and thief) early in the game, they should have a downside. Maybe a large increase to one category and a decrease to another.

Example:
Mage: 30+% increase to magic skills but a 15+% decrease to combat skills (if you use magic you generally aren't focused on strength)
Warrior: 30+% increase to combat skills but 15+% decrease to stealth skills (generally if you are a warrior you are more focused on attack than hiding, as hiding is generally thought of by stereotypical warriors as cowardly)
Thief: 30+% increase to stealth skills but 15+% decrease to magic skills (because magic attacks do not get a stealth attack bonus, for destruction anyway, and you are more focused on using your wits than magic to talk your way out of things)

This could be an interesting dynamic in my opinion

[Mattbott]

i agree with the positive/negatives idea above,

what about:
steed stone with -50% speechcraft penalty, so you have to lug around more loot to make the same money?
but still worth getting if you use it a certain way

[D0VAHK11N]

i agree with the positive/negatives idea above,

what about:
steed stone with -50% speechcraft penalty, so you have to lug around more loot to make the same money?
but still worth getting if you use it a certain way

It would also make selling all the loot easier without having to accept 0 coins for things.

EDIT: you could make the Serpent Stone make the user immune to poisons, and make the spell a AoE spell that lingers like a poison cloud.

[GoatLiver]

Good suggestions and interesting thoughts on the guardian stones with a weakness. I was thinking however that in the late game when all skills are at 100 and skill increase bonuses would be completely useless and hence the stone would have no value. Having a bonus on them like fortify attack 20% for warrior makes your attack stronger and is useful at any stage of the game which is something I was hoping to change.

It could be an idea to make all stones give a %faster increase to a set of skills based of its constellation on top of a bonus of some type. For example Mage would be 10% faster in magic skills and 10% less to cast all spells, but warrior skills are 10% slower. Another example might be Apprentice gives a bonus to magic and magic skills increase 10% faster but stealth and warrior skills increase 5% slower each.

Serpent Immune to poison makes sense too.

I assume you would mean prices are 50% worse with steed stone, but other speech things like bribes and intimidates are not effected?

[Gideon Dragontongue]

I would add in the 'Lover's Kiss' power from previous games to the Lover Stone; the ability to paralyze one target within a certain range, once per day.

[GoatLiver]

Yeah I was thinking about this. What do you think about the serpent stone which already has a paralyze spell, think it should be changed/removed?

[D0VAHK11N]

Yeah I was thinking about this. What do you think about the serpent stone which already has a paralyze spell, think it should be changed/removed?

Maybe the serpent's paralyze should be changed to a lingering poison effect.

[Gideon Dragontongue]

Yeah I was thinking about this. What do you think about the serpent stone which already has a paralyze spell, think it should be changed/removed?

Give the serpent stone a ranged combination poison and absorb health effect; say, three points each for twenty seconds.

[GoatLiver]

Current changes are;
The Lord now has 100% weakness to fire, and health regens 100% faster.
The Mage now has all spells cost 15% less.
The Warrior now has all weapons do 20% more damage.
The Lady now has 50% faster regen on stamina and power attacks cost 25% less stamina and do 25% more damage.
The Steed now has 10% faster movement on top of its standard power.
The Atronach has been reverted to is old 150bonus magicka + 50% spell absorption and Stunted Magicka that does not regen.
The Shadow will remain the same.
Reasonably happy with these unless someone can come up with a really cool idea for them.

The Ritual is currently the same but looking to add new spells to it.
The Serpent I am thinking about a ranged poison that will damage Health, Magicka and Stamina over a period of time + 50% resistance to poison. Spell would need to be pretty potent especially if it is to be useful in the late game.
The Tower I am thinking of making the spell as many times per day as you like to open a lock, and adding something either a once per day spell that reflects % damage and spells for 60s, or a permanent effect similar to the old lord stone with 15% resist magic and +50 armour rating.
The Lover stone at this stage will probably be reverted back to the old paralyze spells, maybe 2 once per day spells with slightly different effects.


I am also thinking of incorporating some tweaks to the racial powers and bonuses. Not sure if I should make it a new thread, but one that I really want to change would be Adrenalin Rush for the Redguards. Currently I want to add on top of the stamina regen bonus that all weapon attacks are 25% faster and power attacks are 25% stronger. Also am thinking about adding an IMod to all the powers so they look unique. Complete revamp of crappy races like Imperials to have something actually worthwhile instead of Imperial Luck. Also probably looking to change the racial starting attributes, for example High Elf 150magicka (+50 from their power for 200 starting) 70health 80stamina, Nord 60magicka 120health 120stamina to better separate the magic warrior and stealth type races. Each race would still have the same total points just spread out differently.

[Mattbott]

what about the warrior stone gives +50% punching damage and +10% weapon damage across the board? (or something, i am not sure that's the right balance) - its a shame they nerfed hand to hand, you could set up a stone purely for boxers (weapon bonus is a pretty common trait already)

[GoatLiver]

H2H is a pretty cool skill its a shame they removed it, adding something like +10 damage to unarmed attacks is pretty cool but the 20% bonus damage I put on the warrior already effects unarmed so I don't want to put too much on. I think I'll test it out tonight with +10 unarmed damage and try to get a good value. It will make the cats insane at unarmed especially in the early game.