Oblivion DLC – Spell Tomes

This post will be about the Spell Tomes official plugin for Oblivion.

This plugin adds a large amount of new books to the game. These books are called tomes, and opening them will give you the option of learning a spell specific to that book. It’s cheaper than buying them off spell merchants, but the tomes can only be found as random loot. A tome has a 25% chance of replacing a scroll, so you can find them anywhere you would find a scroll: chests in dungeons, mage enemies, etc. The only guaranteed place you can find a tome is on the body of a conjurer who is added by the plugin. He appears outside Fort Cedrian at the start of the game, and tracks down the player until he finds you and attacks. Killing him will yield a random spell tome.

The new tomes not only teach you hundreds of pre-existing spells (such as the Summon Dremora Lord spell, which usually becomes unavailable after a certain point in the Mages Guild questline), they also offer new spells which have some interesting effects. These effects, which were not previously available as spells, include Summon Bear (only available to spriggans), Stunted Magicka (usually only caused by disease or the Atronach birthsign), Sun Damage (an effect normally caused by vampirism), Fortify Skill and Resist Frost/Disease/Poison/Paralysis. A few tomes also teach spells which were only listen in the construction set, and weren’t available in-game.

The idea behind this plugin was to make dungeon diving more beneficial to mage characters. Fighter characters could get new armour and weapons in dungeons, and now mages can get new spells. After learning the spell, you can sell the tome to a merchant for some gold. I think that this mod makes a significant change to the game, and while it isn’t as obvious as a huge tower on top of a mountain it still makes a big difference. Other than the conjurer showing up in the middle of the night and trying to kill me and a slight bug which sometimes gives the player a spell upon loading, this plugin is great.

A spell tome (click to enlarge picture).

The next post will be about the Fighter’s Stronghold DLC. To make sure you keep up-to-date on any new posts, you can follow me on Twitter or get notified by email by subscribing using the widget on the sidebar.

Other Oblivion Posts:

• Oblivion
• Horse Armour
• Orrery
• Wizard’s Tower
• Thieves Den
• Mehrunes’ Razor
• The Vile Lair

-legoless