Skyrim animation swapping-- is this possible? (DAR)

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm looking for the infamous "use your staff as a walking stick even with weapons sheathed" aesthetic, and while I can't find anything quite right, I've gotten close:

• Fulcimentum has "shield staffs" that are, well, shields that use a staff model. And, thus, continue to show up when you put your weapons away. The downside is that they're shields; they can't do anything but block and bash.
• Battlemage is a nice straightforward cast-a-spell-when-you-power-attack mod that includes "bash" as an option. It relies on a custom enchantment, and I'm not sure how the directional power attack options will work with Combat Gameplay Overhaul, but hey, the bash works pretty well.
• Goetia Animations - Enchanted Staves has an amazing use-your-staff-as-a-walking-stick animation pack, but it only functions when you've got the weapon drawn.
• Staff Casting has some awesome mechanics--including animations!--for channeling your normal spellcasting through a staff or wand, but they're weapons and, thus, disappear when sheathed.

I figured out how to make the first two work together with a little judicious xedit tweaking, but the animations are a bit off-- Fulcimentum continues to use the normal shield idles, so with weapons sheathed you kind of run around dangling this big stick perpendicular to your body. To take it to the next level, I figure one could replace the normal walking-around-with-a-shield animations with the no-combat-but-staff-drawn ones from Goetia Animations and the bash animations with the casting ones from Staff Casting.

I thought it would just involve swapping out and renaming the individual hkx files. But, uh... turns out I don't understand how DAR works well enough to do that. And Staff Casting doesn't seem to have actual animation files at all.
Help?

[Rynjin]

Ergh. DAR is very cool, but it's a relatively new tool, so I don't think people have made everything under the sun for it yet. And I'm no guru.

Though I do wonder, what's stopping you from using Goetia straight up and just walking around with your weapon out? Wouldn't that give you exactly the aesthetic you want?

If you're worried about the drop in speed annoying you, can always use <player.setav speedmult [number]> without either of the bracket types to boost your speed. Speed is based on percentages, so eg. normal speed is 100, 10% faster is 110, etc.

I can (probably) clarify that the reason Staff Casting likely doesn't have animations is that it probably just uses the vanilla animations for staff use.

I can also suggest that rather than Battlemage, you should use The Wizard Warrior for weapon casting, or just use Ordinator, as the Enchanting tree has perks that allow you to Power Attack to cast spells anyway. That tree also includes boosts to scrolls and staves, so relevant to your playthrough (and every playthrough, Ordinator is top tier).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Though I do wonder, what's stopping you from using Goetia straight up and just walking around with your weapon out? Wouldn't that give you exactly the aesthetic you want?

I thought about that, but I'm pretty sure that would upset NPCs-- I don't need constant "those flames look dangerous" commentary. Though I guess I could probably find a mod that keeps them from commenting on drawn weapons...

I can (probably) clarify that the reason Staff Casting likely doesn't have animations is that it probably just uses the vanilla animations for staff use.

It definitely had custom lightning effects when you cast; I thought it had movements too, but I could be wrong.

I can also suggest that rather than Battlemage, you should use The Wizard Warrior for weapon casting, or just use Ordinator, as the Enchanting tree has perks that allow you to Power Attack to cast spells anyway. That tree also includes boosts to scrolls and staves, so relevant to your playthrough (and every playthrough, Ordinator is top tier).

Oh, I'm already using Ordinator--I'm at the point where the game doesn't feel right without it. The problem is that I want the spell to come from my shield (that looks like a staff), not my right hand weapon--Battlemage lets you assign a spell to a shield-bash without messing with your normal power attack stuff.

I looked at Wizard Warrior a little while ago, but I had trouble parsing the description. From what I could tell, it looked a more complicated to use than I'm interested in. I'm also not sure about the compatibility with Attack Behavior Revamp and some of my other combat mods.

[Rynjin]

I thought about that, but I'm pretty sure that would upset NPCs-- I don't need constant "those flames look dangerous" commentary. Though I guess I could probably find a mod that keeps them from commenting on drawn weapons...

I believe No NPC Greetings fixes this.

Oh, I'm already using Ordinator--I'm at the point where the game doesn't feel right without it. The problem is that I want the spell to come from my shield (that looks like a staff), not my right hand weapon--Battlemage lets you assign a spell to a shield-bash without messing with your normal power attack stuff.

I looked at Wizard Warrior a little while ago, but I had trouble parsing the description. From what I could tell, it looked a more complicated to use than I'm interested in. I'm also not sure about the compatibility with Attack Behavior Revamp and some of my other combat mods.

Ahh, gotcha. Well, Wizard Warrior is simpler than it looks. Basically you have a power you can use to store your left-hand spell, and then you can assign it to certain behaviors.

You can actually key up multiple spells to different actions. Eg. a standing power attack casts Fireball, while a sideways power attack casts Ice Lance, but you don't have to interact with that more complex functionality if and until you're ready for it.

Wizard Warrior works fine with my mod setup and I have stuff like Valhalla Combat installed.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ahh, gotcha. Well, Wizard Warrior is simpler than it looks. Basically you have a power you can use to store your left-hand spell, and then you can assign it to certain behaviors.

You can actually key up multiple spells to different actions. Eg. a standing power attack casts Fireball, while a sideways power attack casts Ice Lance, but you don't have to interact with that more complex functionality if and until you're ready for it.

Wizard Warrior works fine with my mod setup and I have stuff like Valhalla Combat installed.

Hmm. That's sort of the exact same thing Battlemage is doing: use a power to assign spells to each of the directional power attacks (plus shield bash and unenchanted staffs), which can be the same or different. Maybe I'll give it try with a throwaway character and see how it works in play--maybe it'll be the opposite of Spellsiphon, in that it looks overcomplicated but is actually pretty straightforward in play.

[Rynjin]

Hmm. That's sort of the exact same thing Battlemage is doing: use a power to assign spells to each of the directional power attacks (plus shield bash and unenchanted staffs), which can be the same or different. Maybe I'll give it try with a throwaway character and see how it works in play--maybe it'll be the opposite of Spellsiphon, in that it looks overcomplicated but is actually pretty straightforward in play.

The big thing with Wizard Warrior is it's still being updated, so if you run into a weird bug there's a strong chance it might be fixed, unlike Battlemage which is completed (and may not be AE compatible for example).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Though I do wonder, what's stopping you from using Goetia straight up and just walking around with your weapon out? Wouldn't that give you exactly the aesthetic you want?

Unsurprisingly, you were absolutely right. After a few days of farting around and way too much time staring at xedit, this seems to be the best solution (coupled with a staves-on-back mod). I could almost get cast on block/bash working with Fulcimentum's staves-- and it looked really good with the auto-ward enchantment said mod adds)--but was ultimately driven away by Skyrim's tendency to replace your shield if you hit any other hotkey. Ordinator has some great perks to support classic staffs, and Dino's Spell Discovery makes crafting custom new staffs a breeze.



(Also, if you haven't tried Dino's Spell Discovery, I highly recommend giving it a shot--it has the same general idea as Spell Research, but is waaaay easier to use. It also includes scroll and staff crafting, an optional "learn new spells by casting a bunch of similar ones" feature, and a way to store spells you're not interested in and retrieve them later. Combining it with No Vendor Spell Tomes makes a mage playthrough way more interesting)

[Rynjin]

I'll have to look into that. There's an upcoming "magic combat overhaul" mod (Valence) I'm waiting on to start a new mage playthrough. It's by the same guy who made Valhalla Combat, and that one is really fun.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'll have to look into that. There's an upcoming "magic combat overhaul" mod (Valence) I'm waiting on to start a new mage playthrough. It's by the same guy who made Valhalla Combat, and that one is really fun.

I love Valhalla Combat. I'll have to keep an eye out!

[Rynjin]

I love Valhalla Combat. I'll have to keep an eye out!

I'm checking Nexus every day, because dTry seems to pretty consistently upload a mod per month. Guy's a workhorse for modding.