Defining your Character
3 minute read
We use two mods that allow us to further differentiate our characters, building a backstory for them as well as defining their “class”. Follow the steps below to set up and understand these two mods.
Dealing with Backstories
I’ve done my best do describe the mod below, but you should really read the mod page at the link above if you are interested in using this mod. It does a lot!
This mod adds three powers to your Spell menu. These three powers allow you to do a few different things in terms of how you your characters backstory will be formed. You should ONLY use the Powers added by this mod after you have left the Alternate Perspective starting room (where you begin on a New Game).
By using the “Forget your Past” or “Focus on the Present” powers, you will start the game like vanilla, with no additional buffs or debuffs, and with normal starting skills. This will also remove all three powers the mod adds from your powers menu.
By using the “Let Time Pass” power, you are able to basically wait for a significant period of time. This allows you to emulate “settling down” after accomplishing a major task such as completing a questline.
If you use the “Remember your Past” power, you will enter a special area where you will “write” your characters backstory. This will NOT clear your inventory. Walk up to the large tome in the center of the room and activate it with E (this does not have a visible activator text, activate it anyways). This will bring up a smithing style menu, where you can use your “resources”, which represent your “trait counts” (similar to how character creation in Fallout games works) to select what traits your character has.
These traits are not made immediately obvious from the selections. This is by design, you are meant to choose options that would suit your character, which will in turn give you a set of buffs/debuffs that suit your choices. You will also receive starting skill changes based on these choices. If you are interested in knowing exactly what each selection does, the mod author has provided images detailing what each choice does on the mod page.
After you have exhausted all options in the tome, walk into the dark end of the hallway and press E (there is another invisible activator here). The mod takes some time to finalize everything and send you back to your original location. You can run around and look at the things that are in the hall to pass time.
This mod is mostly for role-playing, you can completely avoid the mod if it does not interest you.
Sets of Skills
This mod adds a very simple and non-intrusive class system to the game, that can work alongside Dealing with Backstories perfectly. You can access the perk trees for this mod in the Custom Skills menu in your Tween menu (press TAB in game).
Within the “Path of the Warrior”, “Path of the Mage”, “Path of the Thief” or “Path of the Priest” perk trees, you can add new benefits to your character that suit your build, and further differentiate them!