Download Duke Patrick's Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat 12.2

Duke Patrick's Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat

SKSE requiered
DawnGuard DLC is NOT required!



This mod and all it's features is a merged port of my Oblivion mods. It is intended to be a melee combat simulator (as much as I can mod Skyrim to be anyway) based on my 30 years of medieval western heavy weapons (SCA tournament) fighting. I was King twice and hold the rank of Duke and Knight in the SCA.

see here: http://www.spookyfx....book/tromp.html

But this is also a work in progress! There are still some features needed to give all play styles more ways to fight. Some features will not be possible until SKSE allows it. This will not stop me from working on the features I can do now.

I will avoid game-ish features and contrived game balance mechanics when I possibly can. Please do not ask me to include such features. And the PACE of the combat will possibly be slower than you are use to in games. But it will also be brutal and you will actually feel the weight in your attacks and blocks!


Real life SCA combat is wonderfully brutal, fascinatingly tactical and unbelievably FUN even if you lose the fight. There is no reason PC game combat cannot be the same way if it is designed to do so properly.




I only respond to inquires on the Bethesda forums:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1351757-relz-duke-patricks-heavy-weapons-combat-mod/

Look for SpookyFX.com or do a keyword search for Duke Patrick mods.




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NEW F E A T U R ES
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REV 12.2
If you are upgrading then a CLEAN INSTALL will be required. Read the read me file on how to do this right for this mod.

Fixed light armor perks issue.

Weapons and shield names will now be appended with the word “Light” if they are ½ the weight of steel of the same type.

Removed register for update loop in a script by replacing it with new SKSE functions.

Tweaked combat style scripts for better aggression in some circumstances.

Your Holy Symbol power will be "fully charged" each time you have to reload the mod now. But only after you pray at a shrine.

Agile Movement
90 LT armor skill needed.
This perk is now just before the Deft movement perk on the tree.

All types of attacks cannot land on you while you are running fast, your stamina is greater than 50%, you are not attacking and you are wearing less than 20 units of armor or you wear no armor on your feet and torso.



REV 12.1

If you are upgrading then a CLEAN INSTALL will be required. Read the read me file on how to do this right for this mod.

Fixed issue with mod added Shields that have improperly scaled bounding box.

Player can now change any weapon they desire into a LIGHT weapon with a "utility" lesser power spell (voice) that is given to the player at game start. The weapon must be in your right hand when you cast, 2h will work as well. This will reduce vanilla damage and script damage and the weight of the weapon and naturally the stagger and blocking force, but it will put it in the class of weapons that are fast and you can stop your attacks with them anytime to block if you have the fastblock perk! Plus the weapon can move even faster with the speed cutting perk.

Weapon and shield changes will now persist into new game sessions as long as you do not uninstall my mod or load a savegame from before the object was changed. (I know that sucks for when you do clean install upgrades, sorry.)

The Behold Perk is now better. You will now get a bonus to your speechcraft and it no longer matters if your targets are low on stamina or health to scare them into keeping distance from you.

Also found and fixed some small bugs in the way the fast block perk works.

A small tweak was also done to try to make the actors attack more when you are shooting them with a bow.




Rev 12a
Some scripts only! Less stamina to swing attacks and a fix for shield weights

No clean install needed if you already installed rev 12. Just replace the scripts!

Lowered the stamina costs for attacks by 20%, That is as far as I am willing to go. I do not want to get go back to the relative button mashing my mod started to slip into.

I did not like how heavy the "light shields" were being generated in REV 12. I wanted to put in a modifier for the shield weight if it is classified as "light". But it turns out that the function to see if armor is light or not depends on if the armor has the KEYWORD or not. And for some stupid reason LIGHT shields do not have the keyword LightArmor. That makes ISLightArmor() useless for shields. So instead I will test and see if the shield is 1/2 the weight of a med steel shield (this is relativistic, that means it is Vanilla WT or what ever you moded the WT of your shields to be) and if it is the mod will treat it as a light shield making it have less Block Rate but also leas carry weight.

After testing the new scripts for this REV I like how it works. I found a very heavy daedric shield that was very difficult to use (each movement of the shield wipes out 25% of my stamina) until I figured out that the trick is hold it up for much more time than you attack. The extra weight allows you to withstand more attack force and thus allows you the extra time to wait for the stamina to come back up before you move your shield again to attack. Where as light shields will cost less stamina to move it constantly but will not withstand as much attack force and thus drain your stamina more. In the end it comes down to your style. Fast and versatile or slow and careful .




REV 12

This is a major update using the NEW SKSE combat functions! If you are upgrading from a previous revision a proper clean save will be needed. READ THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS!

Small AI improvements to make the actors switch from aggressive to defensive modes and back depending on the conditions in the fight. This is not as great as I had hoped for because there is still a technical issues where you cannot assign a new combat style to a REF you can only assign it to a BASE actor. But the improvements are noticeable.

The "block recoil" animation is now limited to a much smaller movement. This means attacks can be cycled at a higher rate. But Stamina will now also drain faster than in pervious REV.


Shield weight and armor is now changed based on the shields 3d model size and it's inferred materials and density. The shield weight (once it is changed by the mod after you equip it) will now tell you what the shield's Blocking Rate is.
"
Blocking Rate" is basically a combination of mass and coverage.

The big disadvantage here is that once you start the game the shields you have in inventory will not read the correct AR and Weight until after you equip them, close the menu and then return to the menu again to read the stats. YES THIS SUCKS. And that is why I waited so long to do this. But I see no change in how Skyrim's stats and UI will work for the foreseeable future.

Shield "Armor pts" is deliberately very low, Your shield is not armor anymore than a sword is. I would change all of them to zero but I know that would look funny in the UI and because I use that changed stat now in a way that the mod knows the shield has been processed.

The undead actors now will use their stamina properly. So I removed the artificial combat stamina drain for them.

The endurance feature (when you are exhausted you must sit or rest to remove the stamina bar truncation) will stop working now once an actor has 300 stamina or more. At 300 stamina the effect is so slight that you would no longer notice it anyway and this change will save game resources.





Below is only a brief list of the mod's features, refer to the ReadMe files for details.
(My features work the same for all actors/player except one were noted below.)



Configuration File
Some players may need to more slowly adjust to the new deadly and brutal realism of the combat. So a text based file comes in the mod's zip package called "aadpCombat". You may set all your preferences in this file. Most of the features can be adjusted or turned off if you prefer to "ease" your way up to this whole new level of fighting. See the read me file for more on how to use this configuration file. Once SkyUI mod config menu system is ready for general use I will see if I can change to that system.

Newest Features
Combat Wards: Bounce many kinds of spells back at the caster, hinders arrows and melee attacks, no casting cost but each time it is hit it costs magicka.
Shields now block Spit attacks.
Low Blows (attacking under the block)


Experimental Features (still a little rough but playable and can be turned off in the configuration file.)

Actors play a drink animation when they use potions. This completely changes how you play combat!


Florentine Style (two weapon) Blocking
You can set what key you want to to use in the INI file. Default is the mouse middle button.




Esoteric Combat Perks
All the combat perks have been overhauled. Combat Perks for the most part are now "talents" that one might develop from years of doing something and not a necessarily a "skill" that you normally could be taught to do. Many of the old vanilla perks that really should not have been perks are now just natural to all actors such as the shield charge and running with a bow.





Some Of The New Archery Features:

Strength will be more important than marksman skill for RAW massive damage with arrows. If you are not strong enough to effectively draw a powerful bow you will not do as much damage as those that are. However marksmanship will prevent you from missing what you aim at. So you will hit your critical shots more often and not miss the target as often. If you have very poor marksmanship your arrows will not hit where you aim.

Strength will also help you to draw bows a little faster. There is a perk as well to account for esoteric mechanical skill to draw the bow a little faster.

All actors can now RUN while drawing and shooting a bow. However your aim will be horribly affected unless your marksman skill is extremely high. Running is the worse movement. The moment after you fire a bow will add to your inaccuracy, each time you fire another shot too soon after the last one your aim gets progressively worse.

Crouching (sneak mode) will double your aim effectiveness.

Low stamina will be about the worse thing for your aim.

When you are in 1st person and moving around while drawing your bow you will see "bow sway".Marksman skill will reduce the amount of visual bow sway you see in first person.

You will now have Locational Hits with bows up to 60 feet (and locational armor counts just like the melee weapons). For technical reasons after 60 feet it is always considered to be a body shot.

A arrow in the head of an actor with no helmet can be a kill in one shot as you draw back arrow all the way first. However you will find that hitting the head in combat may not be so easy unless your target in close range.




Bow Draw Stamina Consumption
Normal drawing of the bow now consumes stamina. This can be adjusted in the console.


Dynamic Draw Time
The time it takes to fully draw the bow is derived form the bows base damage.


Bow Draw Dynamic Damage
If the archer does not fully draw the bow they will not inflict full damage. As long as the archer fully draws back the bow they will do full damage based on their strength and the bows ability to store the potential energy no matter how much stamina is left with when the arrow is released.



100% Recovery Of Working Arrows Or Broken Arrows

I do not like seeing arrows stuck in dead opponents and yet when you activate them they have no arrows. It is now 100% arrow recovery but with a possibility of the arrows turning into objects called broken arrows.

Thus if you see an arrow stuck in the targets body there will be one in their inventory. However that arrow may be broken.

Calculations for this include:

• Stamina %
• Movement
• Body Size
• Attacking
• Falling
• Heavy (Ridged) Armor *

So the more stamina % they had, the more exaggerated their movements, the bigger they are and the heaver their ridged armor means the more likely something extreme happen to break the arrow. Your arrow supply will now depend on how you play and the conditions of combat.

* Armor is locational! Hit their unprotected leg instead of their closed face steel helm if you want to try to recover your arrow!




Some Of The New Melee Features:
Slower combat pacing and all attacks now consume stamina. The same factors for weapon speed are used to calculate for attack stamina consumption.

Attack Force is calculated including factors such as actor size, health, actor's momentum and weapon size and balance. The more attack force that hits you the more stamina is consumed to block. If the Attack Force overwhelms the actor they will be staggered or knocked to the ground.

Block skill will matter much more now to block. So although your shield and weapons can block a lot more damage you will not do so unless the actor has the skill to prevent stamina drain and you have the skill for timing and footwork. As a low skilled player and actor you will need to use large shields to make up for your lack of skill. The better you and your actor skills get the smaller the weapons that can be used to block.

Swinging Balanced weapons like blades will use much less stamina than when your weapon actually hits a target. For technical reasons this feature only works on living targets not things like trees.

Swinging without hitting a target with a Top Heavy weapon like a mace or axe will use much more stamina than when your weapon actually hits a target. For technical reasons this feature only works on living targets not things like trees.

Combat stamina auto regeneration rate is now very low! However you can FAST REST by not attacking. If you block this fast rest is a little slower and if you move around it is still slower. The fastest "Fast Rest" is achieved by not attacking nor blocking nor moving!

This means you need to use footwork and timing (timing attacks and timing blocks) to get your stamina back up to good levels. The higher your stamina % the faster the stamina rate runs. Good Stamina management will be necessary to keep up a higher rates of attacking.

Actors must have 25% or more Stamina or they will not be able to do a power attack nor a bash attack.
Normal attacks cannot be done unless you have more than 10% stamina.

IF YOUR STAMINA IS ZERO YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FIGHT!




Serious Injury Before Death
Actors (with some exceptions) will stumble around and often fall to the ground crawling in pain if they make any effort to fight when they are at 15% health or less. So you will not have opponents standing tall holding their block or attacking with force when they are on the edge of life anymore.




Smash of the Titians
Any actor can be bat around like a rag-doll if the other actor is much bigger and stronger. The weapon mass you block with and the weapon mass that is used to hit you are factors in this as well. So if you have a large male orc use a war hammer to smash a small female elf blocking with her shortsword she is going to get knock around the room.

But if that same orc is slapped by a dragon that orc is most likely going to fly across the battlefield.

Factors include: Weapons mass (modified by blocking skill), Strength (size of actors + 25% health), Stamina of the attacker
and Power Attack.

This means weapon's no longer automatically stagger just because they are 2h war hammer or what ever. The stagger stats of all weapons is replaced with this new system.




Duke Patrick's Realistic Feint System!
Now you and the other actors can be tricked into opening your defense with true to life feinting mechanics that is part player skill and part actor skill!



Timed Blocking
Timed Blocking can reduce the amount of stamina you burn and any stagger you may receive when you block an attack. Your actor's Block skill determines the time window, so the more block skill they have the easier the time block will be for you and also the more effective the time block can be.

The bigger the weapon/shield is that you use to block the more stamina you will burn when you first move the weapon/shield into your block position. Blocking an attack with smaller weapon/shield will burn more stamina if the other weapon is larger, but holding a smaller weapon up in anticipation of the block will burn much less stamina. This means that static blocking with a shield is a better idea than static blocking with a sword but timed blocking with a sword is better than with a shield.




Dynamic Blocking Stamina Burn
Giant or extremely hard hitting attacks will still hurt and kill you through your shield or weapon blocks, however blocking can now stop almost all the damage as long as your stamina is not drained. The end result of how much stamina is burned to block will be a combination of:

How hard you are hit. (attacker's strength, power attack, stamina, weapon size, momentum etcetera ).
Top heavy weapons used to attack get a bonus.
How strong the defending actor is.
How good the actor block skill is.
How big the weapon/shield used to block with is (bigger reduces ensuing stamina drain).
How big the weapon/shield moved for the block is (bigger burns more initial stamina).
How well the player Time Blocks.
Plus blocking perks that pertain to stamina burn.





Dynamic Shield Charge
"Shield Charge" has been overhauled and given to all actors that can use a shield including the player at level 1.

The success and power of the shield charge is no longer static (in vanilla Skyrim it was a pushactoraway effect at power of 10 no matter who did it or what you hit as long as it was not a giant or a dragon). Now it is calculated including the following factors:

- Momentum
- Strength
- Angle of collsion
- Shield charge PERK gives a bonus to momentum.

Momentum factor will mean that this cannot be triggered until you have had a little run time first. Before the effect could triggered even if you only had 2 feet of "sprinting" before you hit the targets.

And direction of the collision now is a consideration as before you could run into them while moving almost BACKWARDS and it would still work.




Weapon and Shields Blocks Arrows
Swords and other weapons by default can now deflect arrows IF the arrow hits the weapon with no perk needed!.
Player only for now as there is no "working" method to dynamically give actors Perks in this game.


Shields Block Elemental Damage & Spit Attacks
Actors can block almost all the damage of FIRE and Frost and creature spit attacks IF they use a shield and only if they are facing the attack while blocking.


Shields Feel More Realistic
Shield and weapons block a LOT more damage now, you will now actually feel a difference when you allow a weapon to hit you or when you succeed with a block.




Dynamic Damage and Momentum Bonus
Stamina now affects how much damage actors will do! Rotational movement and Liner Movement in the direction of the attack will increase the damage done.
This can be devastating if on a mount, spinning around to hit a rear flank opponent or when used with the supernaturally fast shout sprint and your timing is very good!




Locational Damage and Locational Armor
A power shot to a head that is not protected by armor can be a fatal one shot! A blow that does enough damage to the legs can trip your opponent.

Head shots give the most damage, the body does about half of the head and the legs/feet do the least amount of damage. However the locational damage multipliers are player configurable in the Configuration file or by the console.

So fights could be fast and brutal or go on for a long time depending on how well they block and what armor they are wearing versus what weapons you are using and where you hit them!

This mean weapon's no longer "critical hit" just because they are 2h blade or what ever. The critical damage stats of all weapons is replaced with this new system.



Combat Endurance
This kind of combat is so physically intensive that sometimes the victor is not the most skilled, she or he may only be in much better condition than the loser. You can literally defeat your opponent by outlasting them as long as you make no mistakes in your defense. This fact will make building your stamina base up to high levels just as important as your health and skill.



Combat Endurance Movement Speed
Actor's movement speed will be effected by their Endurance level. The lower the Endurance level the slower the movement speed. This will also act as another clue that your opponent is exhausted and it is time to use your weaker feints or any trick you have been saving in the fight for the best opportunity.



Increased Backwards Speed Plus Trip And Fall Risk
THIS IS NOT DONE WITH RANDOM DICE THROWS!
The falls result from running into objects in Skyrim! This Trip and Fall feature can be adjusted or turned off in the console. However this is a very important aspect of combat and if you want realistic combat you need to keep this on.



Logical Health Limits
Now Mudcrabs (and all other small actors) do not take the same number of sword blows to kill as a troll just because you are playing a high level character. Actor health is limited by the size and strength of the actor. If an actor looks like it should die with 3 sword blows it will die with 3 sword blows (unless it is protected by magic means such as wards or spells or potions).



NPC Can Fumble!
NPC might hit each other by accident if they miss hitting you and they are crowding in and around you.




Left Hand Weapon Attacks Are More Difficult To Defend Against!
Forget all the movie and game nonsense you have heard about Florentine style (two weapons) the real reason fighters used this style when it was their choice to do so (not just out of necessity in the fog of battle) was because it can confuse and mentally overwhelm the opponent adding effectiveness to the feints. When you or any actor attack with the left hand weapon this adds bonuses to your success to bypass their defense!



Hand to hand now has a chance to block a melee weapon attack
If you have the Block skill, you can do close in grapple blocks that can even stop a war hammer by impeding the limbs that swing the weapon instead of taking the force of the weapon from the weapon's head straight into your arm.


Attack Blocks
If you attack with a normal or power attack while you have a melee weapon and while your opponents is attacking and you hit the weapon (aim at their arm) that is attacking you may be able to deflect their weapon attack depending on skill and stamina. This gives you an attack and block in one move.



Actors Show Pain
All actors react to getting hit! This is based on damage done not by a random dice throw! If the player or other actors are hit with only a little damage no pain reactions ("stagger") will trigger, but if hit with a lot of damage (20% of current health on each attack) actors will stagger. This means anything that reduces the power of the attack (such as armor, magic or actor low stamina ...and more) could prevent the pain reaction.




Dynamic Weapon Speed and Less "Arcade" Like Weapons Speeds
Weapon stats including speed and damage are now calculated on the fly using many factors including stamina, weapon weight, weapon balance, weapon length and to a lesser degree attack stage (start, middle end of the attack). Weapon speed slows way down when stamina is under %25. The start of the attack will be very slow as the actor struggle to engage the weapon. But it will swing at a normal speed. This is a big clue to the player that the other actor is in a depleted state of stamina. Weapon length has a dramatic effect on the speed so longer weapons will tend to move slower than shorter weapons. This dynamic attack speed feature will work on all weapons even from other mods.




Combat Geometry

Rear Flank attacks do extra damage and get bonuses to tripling and other critical hits.



More Realistic Attack Range
Melee combat range is set way down and now will play much more realistically and allow for more intuitive action. Each weapon's range is now directly set per the length of the 3d model of the weapon and not by the "guess work" of the weapon's artist. This will work on all weapons even from other mods as long as the custom weapon is made with a proper bounding box length.



Brawl Bug Fix (works for other mods as well)

This mod prevents erroneous triggering of the "no spell rule" in fist fights (known as the Brawl Bug). It is a very simple script edit with no changes to keywords, spells, dialog, event conditions or quests and will work to stop the bug in other mods as well. It is not as elegant as other Brawl Bug patches but it gets the job done effecting only 2 vanilla records unlike other solutions I have seen (at the time of this writing).



No Auto Aim! (the attack magnetism)
Attacks for all actors will miss more often making dodging a practical defense now.





Ethereal Ghosts
Bethesda changed ghosts so any weapon can kill them now. This had to be "fixed". Now when they are not attacking they will not be solid enough to hit. Magic and silver weapons do almost triple damage. So the end result will be that you will land blows a heck of a lot less, and using a silver/magic weapon is going to be very important to effectively “kill” the ghost.


Classic Vampires

Vampires will burn up quickly in the sun, holy water staggers them, wood stakes can kill them very quickly if you hit their heart, when they die they bust into dust, but they are supernaturally fast and strong with lighting quick dodging and can throw you into the walls and ceiling. Unlike the Ethereal Ghost feature this is an optional feature that can be turned off if you prefer the vanilla "half" vampires.



THIS IS NOT THE READ ME FILE! YOU MUST READ THE READ ME FILE TO USE THIS MOD PROPERLY.


Table of contents for the FULL read me file includes but is not limited to:



C O N T E N T S

• Timed Blocking
• Florentine Style (two weapon) Blocking
• Locational Damage And Critical Hits
• Dynamic Damage System
• Logical Health Limits
• Bow Draw Stamina Consumption And Damage
• Crossbows Game Mechanics
• Silver Arrows And Bolts
• Momentum System
• Horse Combat
• Combat Endurance And Movement Speed Reduction
• NPC Fumbling
• Feint System
• 3rd Person Head Shot Assistance
• Increased Backwards Speed Plus Trip And Fall Risk
• Attack Blocks!
• Evasive Ducking
• Hand To Hand Now Has A Chance To Block A Melee Weapon Attack
• Combat Geometry
• Weapons Block Arrows
• Shields Block Elemental Damage
• No Skyrim Auto Aim! (The Attack Magnetism)
• No More "Dice Throw" Critical Chance
• More Immersive Kill Move Events
• Classic Vampire Weakness And Vampire Hunter Tools
• Ethereal Ghost
• Silver Melee Weapons
• Thanks to others that contributed to this mod.

Q&A

Why don't actors always die as soon as I hit them? (script lag?)
Why are the actors blocking so much?
Why am I getting one shot killed all the time?
Why are attack speeds doing strange things? Sometimes they are faster and sometimes
they are slower.
Why did change the combat perks?
Why do all the features only use the same % of stamina? Why would I put any points in
Stamina and not just put them all in Health?
What about the using "Brawl Bug Plugin" by Jonwd7 for the brawl bug issue?
Why would crouching with a bow make it a more accurate shot?
Why do the wolves knock me to the ground all the time?
Why are the actors dying in only a few shots?
Why am I getting pop up messages about conflicting mods? Is there any way to disable these messages?
Why am I staggered when I block a very large weapon with a very small one? Can you just make the blocking weapon drop to the ground instead?
So you use a simple text based configuration file? Can you use the SkyUI MCM instead?


Q- Why don't actors always die as soon as I hit them? (script lag?)

A- Skyrim scripting management was implemented to help prevent low FPS but it is HORRIBLE for combat scripts that require more precise timing than 1/2 a second cycles. Bethesda's even says in their wiki that the combat in this game is not intended to be moded and that very little is intended to be done in that area of moding.

From the Skyrim CK wiki:

"...the specific decisions made by the Combat AI cannot be controlled through the Creation Kit"

"...the mechanics of combat are not something you can control."

This is for several reasons but one of the most annoying is the script lag (the way the game gives time to each script to execute.) My mod has more unique combat features than any other with calculations based on dozens of combat conditions not random dice throws. But I have been forced to drop many of my original (from my Oblivion mod) 300 to 1000 lines per script, physics and AI calculations and some of my preferred logic from my features. And I am forced to drop entire features I would like to include so that the ones I do have are not taking more than a 1/2 to a full second delay to execute.

The players that use my mod feel that my features work fine with even with the occasional 1/4 to 1/2 second delay and IN MOST CASES THERE WILL BE NO DELAY AT ALL, but you must follow the mods installation instructions or your script lag could be as much as 1 or 2 seconds. Skyrim script lag is a very sour subject for me, so please do what you can on your end by following the mod read me file directions and making the ALL the needed changes to your Skyrim INI file (including turning off the console logging). This will help to prevent us both from unnecessary annoyance.




Q- Why are the actors blocking so much?

A- The actors are intended to block a lot more than in vanilla.

So all the Combat Styles for actors that can use weapons have been changed with high preference for blocking. You need to find other ways to land a blow other than the actor moving their shield out of the way for you.

Real life sword and shield combat is more about defense than offence unless you are in a large battle were you are crowded by dozens or hundreds of other fighters. The combat geometry in that situation changes a hell of lot of what you would normally do when you are in a fight with only a few opponents and have more room to maneuver and swing your weapon. In such a battle (crowded) you almost never get hit in the leg, and Head shots are a majority of what does strike you. It is too bad this is not seen in these games. We probably will not see this in games until weapons no longer pass thru walls, trees, people to your flanks and other obstacles for the entirety of the weapon swing.

Circling shots, feints and counter attacks will be your best friends until you get up to higher skill levels and have perks that will provide alternative ways to defeat their defense.

To do a circling attack you must throw the attack and move around them to their side or even their back if you get really good at it. If you are slow, this will take some practice to get the correct timing. To achieve the needed clearance past their defense you will need
to throw the blow first then move so that the attack lands just at the moment you arrive at the required minimum location and angle.



Q- Why am I getting one shot killed all the time?

A- The very first attack from an enemy will be their most powerful. After the first attack the stamina will almost never be 100% again during the fight unless both of you stand down long enough for one or both to regenerate your stamina to full again. When you first exchange blows be sure you are moving sideways (to make head shots harder to land). If you can do so, use a timed block to reduce the stagger force. And Keep in mind Head Shot damage can easily be reduced with a good helmet. If all else fails then maybe you need to turn down the head shot damage level in the configuration file.




Q- Why are attack speeds doing strange things? Sometimes they are faster and sometimes they are slower.

A- Attack speed (per my mod) unlike most other games is now dynamic. Different conditions and various phases of the attack will change the speed. Read the read me file for more information. I have been wanting to do this for many years. This is one of the great things about Skyrim over Oblivion that the new animation system can now change speed partway thru the cycle. It is a shame that Bethesda did not take advantage of this for the vanilla game.



Q- Why did you change the combat perks?

A- At first I was just going to ignore the perk system because it was so broken. The original system was full of either perks that would break game play or had perks that should have been normal combat features such as blocking arrows with weapons. So I made my features with no consideration of the existing perks at all (at first). Eventually I realized I could not ignore the perks, so now I am trying to edit them, the problem is that I want the perks to be things that you would not normally learn from a trainer and instead only be the kinds of esoteric tricks and skills you would pick up from years of doing something. Coming up with those kind of perks is more difficult than it sounds.


Q- Why do all the features only use the same % of stamina? Why would I put any points in Stamina and not just put them all in Health?

A- They do not. Sprinting, Dodging, Blocking, and Power attacks and several other features are flat costs to stamina where a high base is very important. But the bottom line is that Combat Endurance (unless you turn it off or down too low) has a profound effect on your combat (directly effecting ALL other stamina related calculations and features) and is almost completely dependent on your base stamina not the stamina %. If you try fighting opponents with 500 base stamina and you only have 100 you are going to find they survive longer, aim arrows better, dodge more, hit you harder, attack faster, feint you out more, get to use more finishing moves, stagger you more and get staggered less, attack block and bash more compared to your own attacks unless you become very good at finishing the combat very quickly before you become exhausted. Which is exactly how it is suppose to work. And if you turn this feature off or too far down you need to reconsider your question.


Q- What about using the "Brawl Bug Plugin" by Jonwd7 for the brawl bug issue?

A- While I applaud his effort in trying to solve this issue for everyone and I was the one to encourage him to make it a mod for players early in it's development (before I realized how it works) I cannot use it myself. Unfortunately (as of this writing ) the way that fix works is by editing vanilla scripts, keywords and spells. Editing such vanilla items can have repercussions I do not want in my mod such as possible conflicts with SKSE. However my mod includes a similar fix that will work for other mods as well and It only edits two scripts (nothing else).


Q- Why would crouching with a bow make it a more accurate shot?

A- In real life combat archery (unlike shooting at paper targets) going to one knee allows you more time to take aim as you are a smaller target to physically hit yourself. You will feel less panic and this helps to improve your shot. Practically speaking this is really only a small benefit and it is for the most part physiological with little mechanical advantage to the accuracy.

However Skyrim (like Oblivion) also has this hard coded and cannot be changed. The NPC think that crouching improves accuracy and will sometimes stop moving to crouch if they are missing their shots! And it is in fact a fair game mechanic (less mobility for more accuracy).




Q- Why do the wolves knock me to the ground all the time?

A- The wolves in this game are almost the same size as humans (the mod checks their actual 3d model dimensions). Most players do not realize this because they are prone to the ground not standing on their hind legs. On top of that they are of a type of creature that has a special take down to the ground attack (see lions attacking a wildebeest bull that is twice their size/weight). However you will "grow out of this" both by learning not to let them get behind you, killing them fast before they can pounce on you and by getting stronger (raising your health).



Q- Why are the actors dying in only a few shots?

A- As of REV 10 my mod removes a vanilla perk that some actors (mostly Guards) got that could one shot kill. That Perk was not used in a way that worked well with my mod. However in my mod damage depends a LOT on stamina, location hit and the locational armor worn. So yes under the right conditions a few shots can kill or even just one shot. Lower the damage settings in the mod INI if you do not like this level of realism (see the read me files). Adjusting the game difficulty level has NO effect on my script damage only the vanilla damage.



Q- Why am I getting pop up messages about conflicting mods? Is there any way to disable these messages?

A- No. The message is triggered when it finds that the record that is needed has been changed from what is needed. If the message is popping up then you are overwriting the records my mods needs to work as intended. Load my mod DEAD LAST no exceptions. Do not "clean" the mod. It has intentional ITMS and the mod is precleaned for unintentional ITMs before it is uploaded.



Q- Why am I staggered when I block a very large weapon with a very small one? Can you just make the blocking weapon drop to the ground instead?

A- You would have both, the weapon would be knocked from your hand AND you would be physically effected as well. So all I am doing is NOT implementing another way for you to lose your favorite weapon down the side of a mountain or in a pool of lava. And I will not do “dice throws” or auto transfer the weapon into your inventory just to “balance” the penalty. So if I knocked the weapon from your hand every time a bear, troll, or dragon hit (or even just a large Nord male using a war hammer to hit a small woman with a sword) you would have to have a gaggle of squires to hold all your spare weapons. Blocking will get much easier as your strength and blocking skill progress There are Perks to help and you can also use TIMING blocks (parry). But as a small or Low level PC you will most likely need a shield or a large heavy weapon to block with.



Q-So you use a simple text based configuration file? Can you use the SkyUI MCM instead?

A-I started looking over the moder's documents for setting up a configuration menu in SkyUI. I am afraid it is going to be a long time before I can replace my simple Configuration TXT file with their GUI system. They are expecting a higher level of programming familiarity than I command at this time.

I spent my lunch hour reading the set up documents and I did not see anyway to input numbers like 33.345 for my mod settings. I am worried that the only way to input any kind of range of numbers will be the sliders. And a slider for xx.xxx numbers is not practical. Now I could be wrong, there may be a way to input numbers like 33.345. But I did not see this or I saw but did not understand it yet. I know that I could ask questions on their thread but from what I have seen on their thread so far they do (just as I do with my mod and my read me files) expect you to first learn about the system by reading the docs. I do not use any mods that I do not first read and understand the documents for. I am willing to do so, but as I said that is going to take me a while to "goggle" much of the technical language as I am unfamiliar with many of the terms they are using such as “"uni-directional option stepper".




Q- Why?
A- Because!