Talk:Altar of Spellmaking (Oblivion)

My Reckless Babble about Spellmaking
While I agree with this article's "Abnormalities" section in that creating a spell to kill yourself is a pretty odd thing to do, I'm not really sure if " Spells lasting 1 second with magnitudes of 100 can be created" could be considered an abnormality; I see it as more of a feature. Usually, one second is all that you need for Damage spells, Disintegrate spells, Absorb Health (especially if the lost health finishes them off...), Telekinesis (a 100-foot reach for one second is usually enough to yank a Welkynd Stone off its perch, though my custom-made Telekinesis spell has a five-second Duration just so I don't have to walk over and pick the stone off the floor afterwards), or maybe even a quick Resist Fire spell for when one of those whirly spire things in the Deadlands launches a fireball your way and you need to throw up a solid anti-fire defense just long enough to shield yourself from the burst (not that my Dunmer Mage has to worry about such trivial things as incoming Fire Damage, mind you...). Why spend extra Magicka on Duration if you don't have to?



For damage-dealing spells, you might only need to inflict 100 damage in one second in order to put down more than a few enemies, and at least ten of my spells even deal damage in two or even all three elemental types — at 100 damage each, for one second each — just to be sure. One of my often-used Touch spells deals Fire Damage + Frost Damage + Shock Damage — all at Magnitude 100, and all for one second — as well as 100% Weakness to Fire, Frost and Shock, all in one very nasty love tap. It eats up most of my mage's Magicka, but it completely flattens most enemies on one hit; heavy-duty enemies like Xivilai and Minotaur Lords might take two or three hits from that spell before they drop, so I make sure to have plenty of Restore Magicka + Fortify Magicka potions on hand. And if I don't feel like sinking that much Magicka into one  spell, I have single- and double-elemental versions of that spell as well. Frost Atronach? Hitting him with Frost Damage is an exercise in futility, so this Fire+Shock spell should do him in just as quickly while saving me a few Magicka points. And so on.



But as these screenshots remind me, one thing that I like most about spellmaking? Being able to name your custom-made spells, so that you can apply naming themes and put spells of a certain type together in one convenient, easy-to-find-in-moments-of-duress spot! No more having to remember the names of all the run-of-the-mill spells that you bought from the Mages Guild! No more scrolling though your entire arcane arsenal and hunting down Beast of Burden, Ease Burden, Lighten Load and Pack Mule so that you can stack Feather and get back to the Imperial City to sell off all the Daedric loot from your last Oblivion raid! Just create ten or twenty Feather spells named Feather This and Feather That (all set to max Magnitude and max Duration, of course), then just burn down the list until you can drag your load all the way to town.

I'm even thinking of using console commands to delete all the spells that I don't use anymore, or perhaps creating renamed versions of those spells to fit my naming themes (then deleting the originals), just so I have them all in tidy bunches that I can easy find and select. I might even cast Snowball if I see a Fire Atronach across one of those seas of acid-lava-death liquid in the Deadlands and my Magicka points are low, so why not stash a renamed Snowball spell next to all my other single-target Frost spells?

Combining magic schools into one spell is fun, as is combining the effects themselves. Some combinations are useless (I mean, would anyone have a good reason to combine Water Breathing and Water Walking into one spell?), and some potentially useful combinations are not allowed by the Altar for some reason; I've tried to create spells that heal all eight Attributes (which could be a real time saver if you've just run a gauntlet of Spriggans and Wills-o-the-Wisp), and I've tried to create spells which summon more than one creature (like hey, here's a Fire Atronach, a Frost Atronach and a Storm Atronach for me to hide behind,) but apparently those spells are against the rules. But at least I can combine Frenzy and Summon into one spell, so I can unjustly eliminate two innocent villagers who have never done me wrong and finish Mephala's quest without racking up a murder charge (and without feeling so guilty about it.  I didn't kill  Nivan Dalvilu!  Some random Xivilai did!  Go blame him!).

Now if only I could add an Altar of Spellmaking to each of my houses, I'd really be in business! Long live the Mages Guild. :-)

BloodyBay from YouTube (talk) 22:33, July 15, 2017 (UTC)