Oblivion talk:Spell Merchants

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About format change[edit]

Mainly, I wanted to add some info that was missing on this page, and make it better organized. Now you can see specifically how many spells in each school and difficulty the vendors sell, as well as any additional services they might offer. Also added the FormIDs, useful if you somehow lose an NPC somewhere. The look is now consistent with Merchants as well. --TheRealLurlock 22:50, 17 August 2006 (EDT)

Things to Do[edit]

What I really want to see on this page is the Mercantile level of each spell merchant. -- Jargon

Should Fortify/Restore Attribute be considered Unique Effects?[edit]

Once you buy one, you can make a Fortify/Restore spell for any attribute, but something like a Gloom Wraith spell can't be made from a Faded Wraith spell.--71.7.100.5 21:47, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Show hide spells[edit]

I was thinking of making all of the spells show/hide, like here with Selene Duronia and Thaurron, what does everyone think? Travb 00:03, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

I can see how it might be useful, but I don't know enough about the wiki software to know if it would be practical... would this be detrimental to the performance of the page (loading, etc.)? --GuildKnightTalk2me 23:47, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

Volanaro does not recharge things[edit]

I just visited Volanaro to get my magic sword recharged but he does not offer that sdervice :( maybe that's an error in the Wiki?

77.180.12.122 15:21, 27 October 2012 (GMT)

Volanaro offers recharging services from 9am-6pm and 8pm-1am, according to his page. If you visit him at other times, you won't be offered the dialogue option. Check again during one of those two time frames and you should be able to get your weapon recharged. Merey (talk) 17:39, 27 October 2012 (GMT)

Spell merchants able to cast their own higher-leveled spells despite having too low magic skill in that school[edit]

I'm writing this new section since there does not seem to be an explanation for this, at least not one I found anywhere: it appears spell merchants don't have to have their magic schools high enough in order to cast higher-leveled spells. I tried this on a Xbox360 with all DLC and official patches installed. M'raaj-Dar appears to be able to cast his Expert-level Black Winter spell, despite his Destruction (and all other magic schools) skill being a mere 44 (Apprentice). A 'normal' NPC should not have been able to cast this spell, but somehow M'raaj-Dar can. The same goes for his Journeyman Baronoff's Bloody Icicle Destruction spell. However, that might be explained away because his DarkMraajDarTrain packages include him casting that spell, which may somehow grant him the ability to cast that spell. But since he can even cast his Black Winter spell, I speculate it may have to do with him being a Spell Merchant. Or is it merely enough for a NPC to have a specific spell in his 'repertoire' (granted that NPC has sufficient magicka off course), as labeled in the Construction Set? I wonder if anyone else has a reasonable explanation for this occurrence.

Update: Even though this is still not quite an answer to my question, I at least found out spell merchant NPCs can cast spells far above their magic skill level. Selena Orania was able to successfully cast the Expert-level Superior Wound after I cast a custom Fortify Magicka 100pts for 30 seconds spell on her (with 100% Spell Effectiveness) when her Destruction skill is a mere 15. It was successful since I noticed the Drain Magicka effect on the active magical effects page in my journal. I'm still unsure whether this is a trait unique to Spell Merchants, or a trait granted to all NPCs as long as they have a unique spell in their repertoire, combined with sufficient magicka. C0rTeZ48 (talk) 13:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Very interesting observations! My only immediate thought is whether this is only the case for spell merchants or whether you've also tested it for other NPCs? E.g. might be interesting to test whether Telaendril can actually cast her Journeyman Chameleon spell despite only having Illusion skill of 6 if given sufficient magicka (should need about 155 I think...) --SerCenKing (talk) 11:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
As I an update, I looked into this further across 5 NPCs:
  1. M'raaj-Dar: Confirmed he used both Black Winter and Baronoff's Bloody Icicle Destruction spells. He also seemed to cast Will of Sithis and Night Mother's Caress.
  2. Selena Orania: She was also able to cast her Summon Daedroth spell if given sufficient magicka, despite it being an Expert-level spell and her Conjuration being only 44.
  3. Borissean: Was able to cast Cloak, Silence, Paralze and Electrocution spells: all Master-level spells when his Illusion and Destruction skill levels are both only 74. When I removed all of his spells with a base cost below 489 (the max base cost for his skill level of 74) he simply attacked me with his fists.
  4. Abhuki: As a "fresh" NPC who had no spells to begin with and is not a spell merchant. I gave her a bunch of spells via the console and played around with her magicka and skill levels. She was able to cast Summon Skeleton despite it being an Apprentice-level spell (her Conjuration skill is 7) and also Bound Cuirass and Summon Dremora (both Journeyman-level) if given sufficient magicka. I couldn't get her to cast any "offensive" spells even when she should have enough magicka: e.g. Leach Health for Restoration and Flame Touch for Destruction, both Apprentice-level spells for skills where her level is 7. Instead she just ran "into" me constantly without actually attacking, but think this might be unrelated as M'raaj-Dar also did this once.
  5. Telaendril: Was not able to cast her spell normally nor when given extra magicka via the console. I added an Absorb Health spell and again she wasn't able to cast it initially, but was able to when I gave her sufficient magicka via the console. Tested this a while back and appear to have misplaced notes, so not much more detail...
In conclusion, the observations lead me to conclude the following:
  1. The determining factor for whether an NPC is able to cast a spell or not is their magicka, not their skill level
  2. This holds true for NPCs generally, not just spell merchants - or at least for those with specific spells in their repertoire
Another thing to test (when I have a bit more time) is whether this works for NPCs whose spells come from leveled lists. It would be great if any other user could do a bit of testing themselves to confirm my/C0rTeZ's findings, as if replicated this will mean quite a few changes to NPC pages that currently have "bugs" noting inability to cast spells based on skill level. --SerCenKing (talk) 14:25, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
This is indeed a great find! Good of you to have checked. However, a few things I still wonder about:
  • On Teleandril: very strange behavior indeed, very curious to why she's unable to cast Chameleon. This also makes me think of Mannimarco, since he always seems unable to effectively cast his Immobilize spell, even at higher levels. He should be able to, considering your results (the fact that he has sufficient magicka and mana efficiency at slightly higher PC levels). Would be interesting to see if you can get him to cast the Immobilize effectively (effectively meaning it also affects the player on the magical effects page in the journal). I'm sure I've seen other NPCs with likewise weird spell behavior, but can't think of it right now.
  • You've tested on giving certain NPCs specific spells, would be interesting to see if the same goes for leveled spell lists.
  • Also, did you test on vanilla Oblivion with merely all official patches, or also including non-official patches? And did you also use specific mods that could've influenced the data? C0rTeZ48 (talk) 23:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

() Bit of an update. First a correction, M'raaj-Dar was not in fact casting Will of Sithis (which makes sense given he shouldn't have enough Magicka). I also re-confirmed all of the above with Gaspar Stegine. I then tested Falcar and had the following results:

  1. Saves 1 & 2: He was only able to hit me with either Flare or Burning Touch.
  2. Saves 3 & 4: He was able to cast either Absorb Skill: Light Armor (Apprentice-level) or Absorb Skill: Marksman (Journeyman-level). This despite his Restoration skill being 8 and his Restoration spell list (LL1RestorationMajorLvl100) containing only Apprentice-level and above spells. Both spells however were within his "magicka range" (53 and 88 cost respectively).
  3. Saves 5 & 6: He was only able to cast either Snowball or Cold Touch.

My first thought was that again, magicka was the main factor rather than skill level, and that this also applied to leveled lists. However, I checked in the CS and it turns out that Absorb Skill spells from the relevant leveled lists (LL0AbsorbSkillCombatMajor100, LL0AbsorbSkillMagicMajor100 and LL0AbsorbSkillStealthMajor100) all have a "level" set to 1. OTOH, all other Restoration spells in the list have the usual 25, 50, 75 levels. So actually I think the answer is that the leveled lists work as intended: Falcar cannot cast any of his "major" spells as these are all Apprentice-level or above, and so do not even get picked from the leveled list. The exception is the Absorb Skill spells (will add a note/bug on that list somewhere). As a side note, it is not possible to remove specific spells via the console when they are part of a leveled list: I tried doing this with both Flare and Firebolt as Falcar was attacking me and it didn't work.

To test this again, I had a look at Dro'shanji, whose Illusion skill level of 6 should prevent him from acquiring any spell from his Agent leveled list (though he could technically cast Chameleon as he has enough magicka). Lo and behold, even when giving him loads of magicka, he was unable to cast any spells on multiple saves.

I will try to test out other NPCs whose leveled lists/skills are messed up to the point that they shouldn't be able to cast any spells. However, I couldn't immediately locate any, though I remember seeing a number of bugs about them. If anyone could suggest a few more such NPCs to test I'd be grateful. Likewise if anyone could attempt to replicate these findings, that'd be grand. Oh and of course all testing done with base (GOTY) version with no unofficial patches (also tested with KotN/DLCs installed/uninstalled and this had no impact). --SerCenKing (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)