Finger of the mountain

[hoskope]

Is there any tactical benefit of getting this spell later in the game?

[Bomb Bloke]

Only if you don't have access to a spell making altar for some reason. The strongest version of FotM costs more than double the mana an equivalent custom spell would.

The other two levelled spells reward are better deals than custom ones, however.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveled_Spells

[hoskope]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Only if you don't have access to a spell making altar for some reason. The strongest version of FotM costs more than double the mana an equivalent custom spell would.

The other two levelled spells reward are better deals than custom ones, however.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveled_Spells

I'm level 6, working my way through to university at the moment. Reason why i asked.

[John Shepard]

The spell is better the later you get it, but it is static (You get it at level 6, it will still be weak ass no matter what you do).

For example, if you get FOTM at level 3, it will have 20 damage like levels 1-7, and at level 8 if you get it it will have 25 damage from levels 8-14, and so on.


Bottom line, the later you get it, the better it has scaled with your charactor.

[Eternie]

I like the quest and the spell name but always made sure to get it at either level 4 or level 9 for the least bad version of it. With lightning being such a good spell to use FoTM allowed me to use it before getting to the university to make better spells.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by John Shepard:

The spell is better the later you get it

That's... debatable. As your level goes up, the version of the spell received does deal more damage per cast: but the mana to damage ratio gets significantly worse. You're much better off making a custom copy of the top-level version of the spell, especially since you can do that at any level you like.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

As your level goes up, the version of the spell received does deal more damage per cast: but the mana to damage ratio gets significantly worse

I believe unofficial oblivion patch fixes this, but I highly doubt this hoskope guy is capable of considering install such thing.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

I believe unofficial oblivion patch fixes this

Huh, so it does: but it still only ends up "on par" with a custom spell, so it's still not a big deal as to whether you get the "max power" version of the quest reward.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

I believe unofficial oblivion patch fixes this

Huh, so it does: but it still only ends up "on par" with a custom spell, so it's still not a big deal as to whether you get the "max power" version of the quest reward.

Yeah, considering the struggle you'll have to go through, it's not that worth it even with the fixes.

If you have a mod that automatically levels up any leveled items/spells depending on your level, thought, it becomes viable destruction spell that conveniently gets stronger each item you level up.

[Eternie]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Huh, so it does: but it still only ends up "on par" with a custom spell, so it's still not a big deal as to whether you get the "max power" version of the quest reward.

Yeah, considering the struggle you'll have to go through, it's not that worth it even with the fixes.

If you have a mod that automatically levels up any leveled items/spells depending on your level, thought, it becomes viable destruction spell that conveniently gets stronger each item you level up.

Do you know of any mods that do that ... make spells stronger with each level you achieve?
Obviously that should also make any comparable spells just as good.

[Bomb Bloke]

You might not actually want that: it'd be quite a nuisance to have all your "best" spells become unusable because your character level suddenly caused them to be changed into versions that're beyond your casting skill level.

Besides which, there are only three levelled spells in the game, and none of them are actually any good compared to custom spells anyway. To truly break the casting system you need to piggyback Weakness to Magic onto the end of each of your spell's effects lists.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making#Spell_Stacking

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

You might not actually want that: it'd be quite a nuisance to have all your "best" spells become unusable because your character level suddenly caused them to be changed into versions that're beyond your casting skill level.

The mod actually checks your skill level as well, so if you've matched its level, but not its skill requirement, the spell doesn't automatically level up until you up your skill.

So even if you're level 20 but your Destruction is at Novice, you'll be casting Novice version of Finger of the Mountain and not any higher version, as long as you're a Novice to Destruction.