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Author notes
I'm fine if someone wants to release patches or add-ons for this mod, I am also fine with people creating a separate update for this mod in the event that there needs to be an update, and I am not available.
File credits
IronDusk33 - Spell Research
Voeille - Spell Research - Convenience Add-On
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Changelogs
Version 1.29
Added spell tome keyword to the theses, they can now be sold(somewhat surprised this hasn't popped up before now)
Reduced value for adept rank theses or higher
Thesis Rank: Old Price -> New Price
Adept: 725 ->525
Expert: 1750 -> 1050
Master: 4500->1750
Also Made theses of Expert and Master Rank a bit less likely to appear.
Version 1.27
Okay, so basically, I changed some leveled lists so that theses will be better differentiated between person and chest(so no more 20+ theses on a single wizard). If you want to read how I went about that, I'll put what I did below. Also, a new game should not be required if updating from version 1.25
I'll probably need some more feedback regarding these changes, if needed I could make a few more tweaks for how often things like the expert and master theses show up, if they are still showing up too frequently.
So with the old method I had all the theses types separated between their skill level(novice,apprentice,adept,expert,master), then put that in a single leveled list where there was a larger chance of novice-adept theses showing, I think I've come up with a bit of a better method of going about that.
The initial goal was to have the treasure chests be a bit of a mother load(not as much as 20+ though, more like 5-15ish), however I didn't account for the fact that some enemies use the same distribution as a treasure chest, which lead to some enemies having a library's worth of theses. So now I have theses divided between common(novice-adept), and rare(expert-master). Common will be anywhere between 1-3 theses depending on the theses rank(novice will be more likely to have 2 or 3 compared to adept), I had that as a baseline, so now there should be a max of 3 theses on a person, and a max of 15 in a boss chest, weighted fairly heavily towards novice-adept. There is still a chance of expert and master theses showing up, but it's more heavily weighted towards expert in those cases.
Version 1.25
Okay, so this changelog is actually going to be pretty huge, so I apologize in advance, I did try to be somewhat organized about this changelog
Renaming Things:
I changed the name of the translated form of Gallus' Journal to "Gallus' Journal(Falmer Translation)", so interestingly, you could apparently use Gallus' Journal as a translation tome for Falmer Ancient Texts thanks to spell research, it just wasn't easily visible. I hope my renaming helps with that, but it might still not be immediately apparent. I also decreased the weight and increased the value of his journal... in case you would like to sell it.
I changed the name of the research journal, now rather than "Research Journal", it's " Research Journal"... for those that can't see the difference it's just adding a space to the beginning, basically it allows the research journal to appear higher in the inventory when sorting by name. Now it will probably be one of the highest items in your misc menu since it will be higher priority than the letter "A".
I renamed the theses again, this time rather than changing it to something like "Thesis - Fire - Novice", the name of the thesis would be "Thesis - Magic Type - Fire - Novice" It does make things a bit more wordy, but I wanted it to be a bit more clear which category a thesis is, in order to make things bit more obvious when making a spell.
For example, using "Thesis - Magic Type - Fire - Novice", "Thesis - Spell School - Destruction - Novice", "Thesis - Casting Type - Concentration - Novice", "Thesis - Ranged/Target - Aimed - Novice" would probably make a flame spell, before it would be "Novice Fire Thesis", "Novice Destruction Thesis", "Novice Concentration Thesis", "Novice Aimed Thesis", which would still make a flame spell, but I feel would be a bit more confusing.
Because of the renaming of the theses you craft, there will need to be a patch between this mod and the spell research convenience addon, which I have made, it will be in the optional files section.
I renamed the Ancient Texts and the Translation tomes to whatever language they are. So now it's Ancient Text - Ayliedoon rather than Ancient Text.
So there's a few global settings in Spell research I changed.
The upper chance of an ancient text being destroyed. So basically, when handling an ancient text, you have a chance between 0 and whatever the upper bound is, if your enchanting skill was lower than the chance, the ancient text would crumble. The upper bound was 300, which means that if you have rank 100 in enchanting, there is still a 1/3 chance of the text being destroyed(almost certainly more, definitely not doing the math on this, I am not a fan of calculating probabilities). Anyway, I changed the upper limit to 110, so it you have rank 100 in enchanting, you will have a 10% chance of destroying a text. Do note if you use an uncapper, and go above that upper limit, you will be able to study an ancient text infinitely. On the other hand, by that point you are probably a master wizard, so hey, you do you.
I also changed the base chance of your character being able to translate an ancient text without a translation tome from 10% to 30%(actually deceptively low, especially since ancient texts crumble fairly easily until late game). With some basic testing it took my character like 50 tomes to learn the ancient text language from scratch without a translation tome. Though they also had low enchanting because it was just a testing character.
I also increased the amount your character learns the language when they translate something from 3% to 5%. So yeah, with all the above settings it still took 50 ancient tomes in the beginning of the game, I could use some feedback if this makes ancient texts "too easy", if it does I'm open to making it more difficult.
I also made grimoires marginally easier from the difficulty of 250 to 225
I changed the Message Boxes for Most Ancient Texts and Translation to be a bit more flavorful.
Same deal for a decent amount of spell crafting, artifact usage, grimoire reading, etc.
I don't want to get into it less because I want to keep things hidden, but more because it's like 30 separate message boxes, and getting into specifics is a bit much. I will however give a few examples to give you a feel for it.
Here's an example of a change regarding an Daedric Ancient Text
Before:
On glancing at the text, the characters appear sharp. The edges often have small jagged serifs, that makes the text appear almost dangerous. You recognize the symbol for conjuration several times in the text.
After:
Glancing at the text, the characters used within appear magical in nature, with some of the letters changing as I shift my gaze to look at the other pages. I recognize the arcane sigil for conjuration several times throughout the text, as well as a few symbols that are used within rune based magic.
Basically that sort of thing, but over like 30 message boxes. Pretty happy with them. The only one that I'm not sure if people will like is the dragon one, where I state that it makes your character feels nostalgic, but I'd also argue that doesn't necessarily have to be because your character was dragonborn, dragons walked through nirn in ages past, what's to say you didn't happen across similar markings randomly in the past?
So along with Quills and Ink, you can now use charcoal and charcoal sticks as writing utensils. Do note that I'm not sure how they operate when used together. For example, if you have charcoal, but also some ink, no quill, and you write a thesis, you may just use the ink when writing, rather than the charcoal. So I would say choose between a quill and ink, or charcoal.
For the Macabre of you, there's also a new type of ink called Blood Ink. That's right, you can now write using blood. More on this below under "New Items".
Ancient Parchment: Basically it's pieces of an Ancient Text, There's like 7 types, you can use 5 of the same type and a roll of paper to make an ancient tome. More on this below under "Constructible Items" and "Leveled Lists"
Translation Parchment: The Translation Tome equivalent of the Ancient Parchment
Blood Ink: Rather self Explanatory, it's ink made using blood. You can find it in the boss loot of wizards, vampires, or the forsworn, or you can make it using a blood potion, which can show up in whichever leveled lists spell research adds to vampires. You can use it as a replacement for normal ink, not sure how this and normal ink operates, like if you make a thesis and both are in you inventory, you may just use normal ink rather than the blood ink, or vice versa.
I also added Translation Tomes for the missing Languages, so now Daedric and Falmer have Translation Tomes.
I also added a new Ancient Text and Translation Tome for the Forsworn called Druidic. So, not actually sure as to how lore friendly this is. Like, there's not really anything in skyrim that shows Forsworn have their own language, but then again, not much is shown in regards to forsworn society at all. Anyway, open to suggestions, I'm thinking of changing it to something like "Hagraven" rather than druidic, though I don't know that Hagravens have their own language either.
Okay, so basically, the "Create Thesis" option of your research journal has been changed to "Create Thesis/Translation/Item" Basically it now acts as a more overall crafting menu.
Filters. Basically, I created filters for each of the different types of items that can be made in the menu. This was done because I wanted things to be organized, and quite frankly, this was a bit of a pain to make, but I think it turned out pretty well.
So there's 2 main categories,
Non-Thesis
Thesis
Under Non Thesis there will be Ancient Text Recovery where you can make 5 Ancient Parchments and a roll of paper into an Ancient Text
Translation where you can make Translation Parchments into Translation Tomes, or you could make 3 Ancient Texts into a Translation Tome
There's also Mundane Crafting, where you can Breakdown items, or Create an item.
In regards to breaking down items, you could make an an Ancient Text into 5 Ancient Parchments, Why would you do this? So that you can make the ancient parchment into rolls of paper. 1 ancient parchment will be 5 rolls of paper, so an Ancient Text or Translation Tome could basically be broken down into 25 rolls of paper each.
In regards to creating an item, you can make a quill using hagraven or hawk feathers.
Okay, so, I replaced Translation Tomes and Ancient Texts with Translation Parchments and Ancient Parchments, basically making Translation Tomes and Ancient Texts much more rare. On the other hand, I haven't been able to test this in depth, like, I may have added too many ancient and translation parchments, so some feedback regarding this would be fantastic.
I added some Macabre items having a chance to show up in certain vendor shop inventories. Mainly imbued bones, no human parts.
This mainly affects the owner of "The Hag's Cure" in Markarth, Enthir in Winterhold, that one merchant from the thieves guild when you get after doing some special city quests, his names Herluin. Also some vendors in the Orc Strongholds.
I also added Macabre items having a chance to show up... including human bones. This is used with the Volkihar castle vendor, and Babbette in the Dark Brotherhood.
I also made spell theses much more likely to show up, I will need some feedback whether I made it too frequent.
I made shop vendors more likely to have spell research artifacts, general merchants will more likely have broken enchanted blades. Wizards will be more likely to have soul gems. Each will have both, just more focus on the one mentioned.
I also included DLC Npcs, like the npcs at Tel Methryn, and the vendors in Dawnguard and Volkihar factions. No changes to blacksmiths in the DLCs yet though.
Misc: I also changed the look of Ancient Texts so that they don't use the look of burned/ruined books and instead look... not actually sure how to describe it? More like a somewhat damaged worn out book I guess?
I made this for myself, but thought it would be good to share on the nexus. I do apologize for the following wall of text.
Mod Features: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spell Theses Have Value
you can sell or buy theses. Which I feel opens up some new dynamics. Find a wizard's research notes? Sell it. A court wizard is selling a master level thesis and you have a gigantic pile of gold, you can buy that thesis to study it. If you're a poor master wizard, sell some of your research for some gold.
I also carried over the changes that the Spell Research Convenience Add-on made regarding thesis weight, that mod is not required, but it is recommended, if it is installed have it above this mod in your load order. In regards to the value and weight of the theses, it follows the below format:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spell Theses Have a Magicka Requirement to Craft Them To somewhat balance out the fact that theses are worth money now, crafting a thesis has a magicka requirement. If you don't have the required amound of Magicka, you will not be able to craft a spell thesis of that level(the option to craft it using the message box won't appear).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spell Theses Renamed I changed the names of the spell theses.
So rather than Novice Fire Thesis it's Thesis - Fire - Novice This was done to keep my inventory a bit more organized, so now all spell theses should be in about the same area of the inventory.
I also changed the name of the Ancient Texts, now they are Ancient Text I, Ancient Text II, Ancient Text III, Ancient Text IV, Ancient Text V, and Ancient Text VI This was done to be more clear if you got a new ancient text, rather than having them all be named the same thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Study Spell Theses You can now study spell theses. The amount of archetype experience gained depends on the level of the thesis, and will scale based on the artifact study experience set in the Spell Research mcm. You cannot actively break a thesis, but you can accidentally destroy one.
Theses Amount of Experience Gained Novice Fire Thesis - Novice fire archetype experience Adept Water Thesis - Adept Water archetype experience etc.
Basically the main reason I made this mod. I wanted the possibility of having my character stay in a cave researching magic as a hermit, but there was the limitation of which spells he knew, and he would have to study a large amount to get to the next level of spell, now you could potentially create spell theses of a level higher than what you know, based off the research your character has already done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You no Longer Need a Hammer and Tongs
I did also remove the need for hammer and tongs to study artifacts, I also removed the crafting recipe for a hammer and tongs from the Spell Research mod.
This is because I made the spell theses into artifacts so that they could be studied, the issue with that is you would then need a pair of tongs when studying a spell thesis, which is a very funny mental image, but also a bit strange.
The solution to this was also rather strange I didn't want to break the mod by messing with the scripts, so now septims are counted as both hammers and tongs for the purposes of studying, so now as long as you have at a minimum 1 septim, you can study and break artifacts. I did also change the message boxes to not refer to tongs, or hammers. For example, rather than breaking an artifact with a hammer, you are overloading it with magic.
There is Now a Chance for Theses to Show Up in the Leveled Lists I only touched the leveled lists the Spell Research mod already uses, and added a chance for each type of spell thesis to show up. The following are the leveled lists changed from Spell Research. Depending on the leveled list, there is a decent chance of spell theses, weighted more towards novice-adept, with a small chance of expert or master theses. With the way I implemented it, it's going to potentially be higher or lower than the numbers I give below. Basically theses can now be found in shops, dungeon loot, or on enemy wizards.
_SR_LVLMerchantWizard - 5 Wizards probably sell some research in order to fund experiments, soul gems aren't very cheap after all. _SR_LootFalmerBase - 1 I feel like Falmer may grab a spell thesis or two, but not necessarily know what they are. _SR_LootDwarvenBase - 5 Dwarves are known for having knowledge, not sure how much focus the dwarves had on researching spells though. _SR_LootDraugrBase - 2 I think there may be some research the ancient nords have done in the past, not sure how much there would be intact though. _SR_LootWizardBase - 8 Wizards are probably going to experiment a lot, so they are probably going to have some theses to support that. _SR_LootVampireBase - 10 Vampires probably don't actively research spells, however, they do have time on their side, and depending on your mods, vampires are going to be a pain, so I am letting them have the most theses.
I excluded the following Leveled Lists _SR_LootAnimalBase - Not sure why an animal would have a spell thesis. _SR_LootForswornBase - I don't feel like the forsworn would be interested in "new" magic, they would probably focus more on magic based on nature, curses, or the old ways, but I don't think they would make a thesis regarding those things.
Do keep in mind that depending on your load order, there may be some patches needed, but with the way this mod works, if Spell Research's leveled lists work, so should these. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message Box Changes
I also changed some of the message boxes for a combination of flavoring, and also trying to make things a bit more clear. One thing to note is I did base my changes off the Spell Research convenience add-on.
Before: What aspects of this item should I study? Primary properties are inherent to the base object, independent on what enchantment or other effects it has. Secondary properties are due to what enchantment or other effects are applied to the item. Unique items likely won't have any secondary properties.
After: What aspects of this item should I study? Base properties are inherent to the object, independent on what enchantment or other effects it has. Secondary properties are due to what enchantment or other effects are applied to the item. Unique items likely won't have any secondary properties. Due to the nature of my experiments, my skill in enchanting will affect whether or not things go awry when experimenting.
As far as I am aware, this mod should be compatible with both Spell Research and its Convenience Add-on. Due to the leveled lists changes make a bashed patch just to be safe. I'm pretty sure it's compatible with the Experience Book Add-on, but I am not sure.
Future: So there's a few features I was considering for the future:
Tweak some of the formulas regarding artifact studying so that rather than the chances of an artifact being destroyed based purely on enchanting, also including the other magic schools, or magicka, maybe even pickpocketing and alchemy, or something.
Increasing amount of research gained based on your character's skill in magic(maybe something like total magicka multiplied by a fraction of your skills in the different schools of magic, or vice-versa?) Not great at coding so I'm not fully certain how to do this. Like, I know it would be through the _SR_MiscArtifactScript from the Spell Research Mod, but how would I actually go about it? The same would probably have to be done regarding grimoires and ancient texts.
Changing the names of Spell Theses to being something along the lines of Thesis - Theories Regarding Fire Magic - Novice Main reason I didn't do this was because it would be a bit long, and depending on the thesis would be a bit strange.
Maybe further limiting theses crafting to require a specific amount of skill in a magic school, So something along the lines of requiring a skill of 25 to craft an apprentice thesis, 50 for adept, etc. I had decided against it because I didn't want to overly limit people, but it may still be an interesting idea.