Tes4Mod:Mod Ideas/Activities

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This article provides Activities ideas, as part of the Gameplay section of the Mod Ideas article.

Contents 1 Strategic Elements 2 A fully working resource based economy 3 Craftsmen 4 Bribe the guards

Fishing

I noticed a huge lack in amphibious creatures and got to thinking about a fishing mod. There are rivers, fresh water, and salt water places and all we have is slaughterfish and Mud Crabs. Tons of fish could be added, killed normally or caught by net or fishing poles, cut or cooked, and used as ingredients. Unfortunately I am a college student and do not have time to make such a mod, but I am suggesting it to anyone who has time or to the creators of the next Elder Scrolls.

Slave Trade

One way or another you can put a enchanted chain around a person, he is forced to stay close to you and do what you say and you can sell him/her, make her work, fall of a cliff.

• You can sort of do that, make a spell that adds wrist irons, and puts a permanent "command humanoid" spell.

Give Items to NPCs

What about an option in the conversation menu (Particularly in the menus of the people who follow you around, such as the mages guild apprentices, Dark brotherhood murderers, Knights, etc.) that says "Give item", allowing you to give an item to an NPC, Such as a better sword or a superior set of armor, which if it was superior to their own in terms of protection/attack power they'd then dawn instead of their own. (I mean really doesn't it kinda bother some people that the knights at level 10 are still using steel swords?)

• The Companion Share and Recruit mod does something like this.

• Another option would be a "Turn-to-stone" -- effectively turns the player into an unbreakable, unmovable, frozen stone statue that would be later reversible with a Dispel other type spell. I hate it when I'm trying to protect someone and they insist on running into every battle, attacking every monster! Have they ever heard of "stealth", or "run away" (when health gets low) so they can be "healed"...Don't any of them carry scores of healing-potions like some baddies I've seen? The NPCs don't get to show enough "intelligence".

Home Furnishing

Make some easier way to decorate your home, i.e put books on shelves, set your table, put weapons on weapons rack. It takes hours to decorate your home just right and most of that is spent just trying to get a damn warhammer to stay in the rack. (I am not sure about weapons and books, etc., but "Reznod Mannequins" mod allows you to put armor on a mannequin in your house - like in the stores)

• Buy furniture for your home-redecorate

Make it possible to at least open a window.

• The problem is that what would you see out them? The city doesn't exist when you're inside the house, and the house interior doesn't exist when you're outside. It would be impossible to make them both appear at once.
  • Not necessarily. You could create the illusion that one is still there (like an image on the windows or something, although this would be hard to create.)

Bashing

A mod that lets you kick in locked doors if your strength is high enough, depending on the type of door at that.

• The Lock Bash Total Compatibility mod already allows you to bash open anything with a lock on it using a blunt weapon or claymore.

Eating and Sleeping

Create a mod that requires the character to eat every so often. In addition to food being necessary, sleeping should be too

• The Vim and Vigor mod already incorporates both sleeping and eating.

Get a girlfriend

Romance under moonlights, waterfalls etc, get married, raise kids :) !!

• The Romancing of Eyja mod lets you go on a date

Open your own shop

I think opening your own shop would be awesome. Along with my idea that you should be able to just be a random person in town or a beggar and beg for money. Obviously this would be hard but in the next game possibly they could give you the option to beg and have the NPCs do more. I know they do a lot now.Just an idea.

Hopefully you could be a farmer and own a place outside of a town and have to either do the work yourself or hire workers.Also I love the real market idea, where items that are rare in a city are worth a lot more. This expands the players ability to not only be an adventurer but they could be traders and possibly own a boat if they take fast travel out.

If they could be farmers and have people work for them they could go to their farms and collect whatever it is that they grow and take it to a place that will pay allot for it and make a ton of money.

• Common items in some towns are worth a lot of money in others where the items are rare. E.g. something like fish meat may be cheap to buy in anvil and worth a lot in Bruma. This would allow for more interesting trade and would make for some rich merchant characters who are willing to do the traveling. Also, items expiring. E.g. meat going moldy. Alchemy ingredients going rancid (And possibly having opposite and/or different effects).

Festivals

• Festivals with simple minigames like archery contest
• Regular events such as religious days, Christmas could be Alessia's birthday, character and NPC birthday parties. Invites to dinner parties that could increase speechcraft and personality.
  • I think inventing holidays is a great idea, but they ought to be entirely new. Attaching real-world holidays to in-game characters would feel awkward.

Changing Appearance

There should be an Illusion spell that allows you to look like someone or something else. In the Arcane University, there could be a room that allows you to make these spells. It could be an altar like the enchanting and spellmaking ones and you could make the faces of the people that you what to look like or you could choose a creature from a list that you also want to look like want to look like. There could be a spell effect called "Take Appearance" and when you cast it on someone or something there would be a spell effect added to your inventory and altar of appearance and you would get an NPC's appearance from a list when you make the spell at the altar. You would have to cast it in secret because the person or the creature would run to the guards or fight you and you would have a bounty. When you take their appearance it, would be cool if everyone thinks that you are the person who you look like and when you cause a crime, you don't get a bounty, the person that you look like does, kind of like the Gray Fox Cowl .

Murder Trials

So that if someone was murdered, and you and an NPC were near the body, both of you would be whisked off to a court for questioning. You would have to argue your case, and convince the jury to let you free. If you were found guilty you would be sent to jail for a longer sentence, and if you were innocent, the other NPC would be imprisoned. This would be particularly fun for framing random people for your own murders! ;)

Recreate Events From Preview Video

When I got Oblivion what I was most looking forward to was saving the dog that was killed in the demo and killing the woman who did it, but was understandably disappointed when I discovered that the event was staged to preview the Radiant AI. Please give me my chance…

• Start Fires

We have torches, so why can’t we set things on fire?

Like corpses? I mean, who wants to leave zombie bodies lying around? What if they come back? Great way to dispose of "evidence" too, if need be.

Nighttime Merchants

Merchants have a clerk working night shift, so I don't have to wait until morning to sell my loot. Or, simply make them stay up 24/7 like in Morrowind.

• Some of the script for this sort of thing is already in the game. Guards rotate shifts, and you'll see guards walk up to others and take their place on duty. This could be applied to merchants.
• Just making new NPCs with different hours with the same items and some of the dialog of ones already in the game wouldn't be difficult.

Disguises

If you dress like a City Guard or Legion Soldier or Necromancer or Mage or Dark Brother etc. they should treat you like one of them unless your cover is blown (which is more unlikely if you have a high Speechcraft).

Building

If it's not possible to build stuff dynamically at runtime, then let the player buy buildings by providing the stuff needed to build it. If possible, then have the player ask the count responsible for the domain for a building certificate and let the building project take a month or so while it still has to be protected. This way players can actually go from farmer to owning their own castle with land populated by villagers that work for them and their own troops to protect them and their business.

Value Enchanting

Enchanting in oblivion is too generic. Have values such as if you were to capture a mudcrab it may have only 200 charge but if you capture a Xivilai it will be 5000. If you were to capture a beggar it would be worth 5000, a commoner 6500, an important enemy 10000, Mankar Camoran and his children just a very high,high enchantment.

• Also make Azura`s star a never ending soul collecting gem.ex.2 greater souls 2400 charge and you can add to that
• and sigil stones can combine for multiple effects

Soul Gems can be used to enchant or for Necromancy

If the previous idea from me were to be used, the gem would save the persons name into the gem. Then you can go to a Necromancy Altar, choose if your making a spell or enchantment and make a spell like Summon High Chancellor Ocato for 20 secs.

Juggler Act

You know that juggler in Bliss in the Shivering Isles? Well it'd be cool if you could become her manager, and arrange acts for her to the people of Bliss. The audience could have either an applause animation or a throw food animation.

Imperial Palace

Once becoming the Champion of Cyrodiil I always wondered, the lower ranking guards can enter but i cant. Be able to climb to the top floors, and maybe get on the roof of the Imperial Palace, or at least make the Imperial Palace able to break in.

Laundry

I find it funny that NPCs wear the same clothes all the time (they even wear their boots to bed!). They have other sets of clothes (we've all tried to loot their dressers before), but don't wear them. Can someone at least give them a wash tub to clean their clothes, or give them clothes-changing routines?

Windows

It would be cool and useful for a thief if you could use a crowbar(new item) on a window, and if your strength is high enough, you get in someones house, and out. Extremely useful for when someone comes in, but run as soon as you do it, for when you leave through the window, they go out and if they see you, they call the guards.

• There is a mod on Tesnexus which allows you to use most windows as entrance/exits. Name is Window Entrances.

Seafaring

Come on, all those boats and only one takes you anywhere, you should be able to take over the Marie Elena after you kill Captain Tussaud, or maybe a way to rebuild the black flag and sail around, what would also be cool is water based mounts, like the sea serpents the maormer use (maybe you could play as one, and summon a sea serpent as a mount with a special ability)

• There is already a mod that allows you to navigate a boat, but water based mounts seem like a good idea. I personally would love to ride a hippocampus.

Magic Gun Battles

A different gun idea- use staves to simulate guns with spells! Use special enchantment restore items as reloads. keep daggers as "combat knives" give enemies the staves as well. and simulate gun fights in oblivion. it will require A LOT of changes mind such as enemy equipment lists item lists and someway to stop leveling (would mess with the balance if not done carefully) shop lists generally a whole gameplay change.

Mage/Divine/Deadric games

Its kind of like this. a room or a couple of rooms filled with portals. each portal taking you to a different room. like my first idea is Chess y ou choose which peice you want to be (Emperor slot is already taken by a replica of Urial or Martin) the diffrent classes would have different roles and stats. the Knight would excell in the class atributes and skills of the Knight class. the Bishop would take the Priest class. the Pawns would be generic Leigon troops with the Guard Class (without the PC+10 level) the Rook with its strait forward aproach could be the Barbarian class.the King could take the Noble Class and the Queen with its power could take a versetile and powerful class prehaps a custom Queen class. you select which position you want and you recive the apropriat skill amodafiersand you have direct comunication with all other allie peices to tell them when and where to move. like tell the bishop to move northeast five spaces et cetra.and depending on whos peice reaches the ot hers first the peice to reach the others first recives a sugnificent skill modifer while the other recives a skill drain. (prehaps somthing along the lines of an obsorb skill/atribute effect) and ifyour peice dies you have to select another one. noone goes untill a surrender (Yeild) is made or all the peices are struk down at which point you areremoved from the game. wow i spent so much time thinking out Chess i didnt think of an ythign ellse

Dying

You can become a vampire, why not be able to join the ranks of other undead? A mod should be created where, upon dying, you can have the option to change into a ghost, zombie, or skeleton (or load your previous save, like you can already). Each would have different strengths and weakness from one another (and from your normal character, clearly) including diffrent (power) attacks, spells, encumbrence, etc. The longer you remain as one of the undead, the stronger you become. Ghosts could eventually become Gloom Wraiths, Skeletons could eventually become Skeleton Champions (or maybe even Liches) and Zombies could become Dread Zombies. However, like being a vampire, most people, barring quest-NPCs, would be afraid to talk to you (most afraid of zombies, least afraid of ghosts), and would attack or flee on sight. There would also have to be a mini-quest to get a Revival Potion or something that would restore you to your former self (however unlike the Cure for Vampirism, it would not make you immune in the future), and after the Revival Potion quest is completed, the player can purchase the potions at a price without having to do the quest all over again (sort of like the Nirnroot quest, just not as long, boring, or stupid). Just a note: this would be a nice thing to have even if you didn't want to be undead, because if you had died without saving in a while, you could continue your game without having to load a prior save.

[edit] Strategic Elements

The general concept is to add some elements found in strategic games (eg: Civilization, Warcraft, etc...) into the real time, 1st/3rd person perspective of Oblivion. Consider the basic elements of a strategic game:

• Gather resources (can be one or many different types)
• Build/upgrade buildings with the resources
• Increase your population with your resources or over time
• Build a military force to protect your population and buildings
• Defend against enemy attacks
• Mount an offensive against enemy positions

To a certain extent many of these elements are already found in Oblivion to some degree. All that is needed is a mod that increases the strategic level of detail in various areas.

A strategic game playable within Oblivion might go something like:

• Start of with nothing but yourself to gather resources which include gold, stone, wood, and food.
• Gold maybe used to purchase amounts of the other resources depending on the available supply.
• When you have sufficient resources you can begin by building houses/huts/shacks (the technical details of how to do this are omitted but it was possible to do this Morrowind and thus most likely possible in Oblivion as well).
• Buildings may be built by talking to an appropriate NPC who accepts payment and arranges construction once a location is specified.
• New houses are put up for rent and may be eventually moved into by NPCs (randomly created peons). You might also aggressively search out and recruit new tenants.
• Peons living in your rented houses can begin to collect resources for you. This can be specified by talking to them and specifying what they should gather and where. For example, "I want you to gather food but don't go too far from home".

• Your population would require certain resources, such as food and gold, to keep living in your houses. Peons might require just food while hired guards might require both food and gold. You would also acquire whatever resources your peons had gathered. Resources would have to be monitored to ensure sufficient quantities were being kept in stock. Lack of resources would result in people leaving.

• As you collect more resources you can build more houses as well as other building types that grant certain bonuses (like commonly found in many strategic games).
• As your population grows you may begin to assign some form of hierarchy to help reduce the burden of micromanaging every individual. You might create a 'leader' peon in charge of a number of other peons and then assign tasks to the leader.
• You can also begin to recruit/assign military units to protect your population. Attacks might be randomly simulated in some form.
  • You must be notified when you are under attack, or wake up from your dreams by a yell outside your house or something.

Obviously many details and possible features are omitted from the above example but it gives a rough guide of how it could be. Technically this all should be possible to mod within the game although definitely not trivial. A simple demo for a similar strategic element was created using Morrowind and Oblivion adds a good amount of further flexibility to scripting and modding.

A way to possibly make this happen is after you become grand champion of Cyrodiil you are given a small estate with maybe 1 or 2 peasant shacks and you build up from there adding houses and attracting villagers. You can build warehouses to better store food. Chapels to attract priests and eventually small guild halls to attract Fighters, Mages and maybe even thieves and assassins guild. As well as that you should have small inns, shops blacksmiths and such. And a great Idea is to have refugees from Kvatch come to your town and you can persuade other people to join to. And eventually declare war on the Empire That would be so fun but suicidal

[edit] A fully working resource based economy

Gathering resources in order to provide food, armor, weapons, buildings and cash

Aside from the already existing options to hunt and gather herbs and make potions to sell I'd like to see a mod that expands the economy of Tamriel so that a player (and NPCs) can set up a farm, grow herbs and vegetables, breed cattle, horses or pets, or run a mining company, dive for pearls, hunt or fish to gather basic resources.

• Also when you have a scythe, rake, or hoe then you can get more out of plants and digging for gold.(pickaxe)

This will make the player or NPC gain resources in larger quantities than they need to keep themselves and their employees alive, which opens the game for even more trade between the player and the NPCs, as well as between the NPCs themselves. We might even remove the respawn of wares in shops and have the shop owners buy the goods they sell from the ppl who produce it.

The player then gets the option to sell the resources and make a profit, or refine them and make an even greater profit, or produce goods and have them transported by a caravan to cities with high demand in order to raise the maximum profit for the player's business. Either transport the goods yourself or hire a convoy of NPCs to sell your goods and buy cheap resources while they travel from city to city and back to your shop.

Sell to merchants unless you want to open up a shop and have the RAI NPCs come buy from you.

Making the different regions have abundance/lack of different resources could make the NPCs request shipments of resources from other regions(as well as higher/lower availability and demand due to date/season?). Demand and availability will affect the price. Trade routes used by NPC and player will be able to be interrupted by bandits (or bandit player character).

Basic resource gathering

Mining, forestry, farming, fishing and hunting

• Wells produce water (which can be transported in buckets).
• Forestry lead to lumber (with the use of a saw and axe)

• Mines produce iron, silver and gold ore and salt (using a pick axe, lumber and water)(mines do produce ore/nuggets. Check the veins -Xalaen)
• Stone can be gathered from quarries (might use another type of mine for this)
• Pearl diving and gem extraction produce their respective resources (pick axe for gems)

• Farming lead to cattle, grain and vegetables with the use of different tools already found in the game
• Hunting lead to leather and meat (using a bow and arrows produced by a weapon smith)
• Fishing lead to fish, crab meat using a fishing rod or a net (from a boat that you could hire a crew to operate)

• Clay can be gathered from riverbanks and swamps
• Salt can be acquired at beaches

Refining

Producing new resources from basic ones

• A mill produces meal (from grain)
• A bakery produces bread and cake (from meal and water and berries)
• A butchery prepares meat so that it can be stored and transported (using salt)
• An oven can produce different kinds of food (from vegetables, fish and prepared meat)

• A lumber mill can produce wood used for building furniture, houses and parts of weapons
• A smelter produces purified metal from ore and lumber
• A weapon smith can use purified metals to produce weapons and armor
• A tool smith can use purified metals to produce tools
• A gem smith can produce nice trinkets
• A glass smith can produce among other things, empty bottles needed for new potions

[edit] Craftsmen

A new skill altogether that allows for the creation of dozens of new items to augment your existing repertoire. By taking exiting, mundane objects that would commonly be used as 'Vendor Trash' such as jewels and alchemical ingredients, the player can break down these items to useful components.

For example, a craftsman with a few lumps of venison or boar meat can take an hour to strip the meat down to the tough sinew, then treat it with another agent, such as Troll Fat or Monkshood Root Pulp to produce a new bowstring that grants a small effect on the bow in respect to what materials were used. Also on the nature of bows, fletching is a sorely missed opportunity, but that will be explained next.

Breaking down items could extend to iron and steel items, also, giving craftsmen the opportunity to forge arrowheads for their bow, cutting down on restocking costs. Obviously, this wouldn't be a failsafe idea, if the breaking down process fails, the item is ir-repairable thus lost. Nor will the yield be certain for any item - the object's weight determines the maximum yield of 'Raw' material, but it can fluctuate between 1 to 30. Other items, such as silver swords, can also be broken down to its raw state, but the same rules still apply.

Augmenting other weapons has not been neglected, either. Using scales, hides and pelts, the grips of weapons can be improved to prevent being disarmed and shields can be lined to absorb impact and prevent staggering.

Breaking down rare items, such as gold and silver nuggets, rubies, topazes, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and pearls will also yield specific results in terms of damage caused:

• Silver: Typical undead damage.
• Gold: Extra damage against Daedra.
• Ruby: Small level of fire damage.
• Topaz: Small level of shock damage.
• Emerald: Small level of poison damage.
• Sapphire: Small level of cold damage.
• Diamond: Armour-piercing, can pass through multiple targets, causing substantial damage.
• Pearl: Water-resistant, can be fired under, into or out of water without penalty.
• Obsidian: Explodes on impact, extra damage against undead and Daedra.

Of course, there is the matter of new technology entirely, Dwemer and Ayleid alike. Both firearms and explosives. These wouldn't be machine guns that would cut through a horde of enemies, nor would they be easy to attain, but they would offer a substantial one-shot punch at the beginning of a battle. Before you could even begin to think of owning such a weapon, you would first need to find where a schematic is located, then get hold of it. This will probably require either theft, bartering or a dangerous dungeon run. Once you have hold of the schematic, you'll find out what you'll need to actually make it. Dwemer and Ayleid schematics have different basic requirememts:

• Dwemer: Iron or Steel raw materials, Rare animal parts (Minotaur horn, etc), Rubies, Topazes, Animal hides.
• Ayleid: Silver or Gold raw materials, Welkynd or Varla stones, Pearls, Diamonds, Animal pelts or cloth.

From these, there are other, sometimes quest-specific items which need to be found, such as: Glass, Torches, Soulstones, Bones, Human/Daedra hearts, Vampire Dust, etc.

With these materials and schematics (not to mention the right tools), you can finally put your weapon together over the course of 24 hours. The end product also varies on the type of schematic:

• Dwemer: High strength, high weight, slow reload time, medium accuracy.
• Hammerlock pistol - A standard pistol. One handed, single shot.
• Bombs - Thrown, effected by marksmanship skill. Causes fire and kinetic damage.
• Blunderbuss - Two-handed, short range rifle. Massive damage at close range.
• Flamethrower - Long range, powerful flame-based weapon. Incinerates enemies at all ranges, and sets structures on fire, causing damage over time.
• Portable Cannon - Requires momentary set-up when readied, slows movement. Accurate and VERY powerful, but the slowest firearm available.
• Air Strike Beacon - Extremely powerful, infinite range air attack called in from Dwemer Gunship. Requires Aerial Dreadnaught Schematics.

• Ayleid: Low strength, medium weight, medium reload time, high accuracy.
• Wrist Blaster - Attaches to the wrist, but much like the hammerlock pistol.
• Vorpal Devices - Thrown, effected by marksmanship skill. Causes random attribute and kinetic damage.
• Eagle-Eye Rifle - Only zoomable firearm, long range, very accurate. Low damage, however.
• Kinetic Ballista - Lighter and more maneuverable than the cannon, fires a number of bullets at once in a dense cluster.
• Nuclear Mana Bomb - Extremely powerful, infinite range air attack called in from Ayleid Skybase. Requires Ayleid Skybase Schematics.

The firearms can be treated like any other weapon, and can be repaired like any other. Disposable items (Dwemer Bombs and Ayleid Vorpal Devices) can be remade at a fraction of the materials first used. They cannot be enchanted. Creating ammunition is the same as making arrowheads. When you have a firearm in your inventory, the option to make bullets will come up. 'Rare Item' bullets have the same effect as arrows of the same type.

Ok, after reading the firearms part, I'm amused. Where exactly do firearms and explosives belong in a medieval based game? We already have explosives, so to speak, in some of our fire spells, if you create a Fire based spell with an Area effect of several feet. As for guns, really now, are you serious? I'd rather die, than see guns in Oblivion. Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 00:59, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Bribe the guards

Suppose you're getting hitailing it to your local doyen to pay off your bounty, when the guards catch up with you. You either have to resist arrest and HOPE that you make it to the doyen before they can kill you, or forfeit your stolen goods, some of which may be of great value, either for your gameplay, or if you want to resell them.

But imagine, based on your personality, speechcraft skill, the guard's disposition towards you, his responsibility, and with a little luck (meaning it's still governed by a random element, not your luck attribute), you can offer the guard twice your bounty to try and keep your stolen items. You loose the bribe even if the guard refuses, and even if he accepts, only HE won't arrest you; you still have to contend with the rest of them. Also, if he refuses your bribe, your bounty will go up. These three things are included to balance the bribing system.

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