Magic Effect

Magic Effects represent the primary visual and functional effects of a Spell, Enchantment, Potion, Scroll, or Shout. They often receive data (typically a Magnitude and/or Duration) from the Effect Item lists that can be found on those objects.

MagicEffect Fields

Base Data

ID: The form's Editor ID.
Name: The name displayed in the Magic Menu's Active Effects window for this Effect (if it has a duration and affects the player).
Effect Archetype: The general type of effect; see the list below.
Casting Type: Specifies how the caster triggers the effect.
- Concentration Effects are cast while the button is pressed, and continually drain Magicka while the spell remains in effect.
- Fire and Forget Effects must charge, then fire when the button is released.
- Constant Effects behave like an ability and are always active. This only works for Armor or Abilities.
- All of the effects on a Spell or Enchantment must have the same casting type.
Delivery: Specifies how the effect is delivered to the target.
- Self: Effect is applied to the caster.
- Contact: Effect is applied to the target by contact (a hit event). This only works for Weapons.
- Aimed: Effect is attached to a Projectile which is then fired at the crosshairs. If it makes contact with a valid target, the effect is applied.
- Target Actor: Effect is immediately applied to an Actor in the crosshairs. No projectile is fired. Note that the aim is off in third person view, making it very difficult to use at a distance.
- Target Location: Effects is applied to the object/landscape under the crosshairs. No projectile is fired.
- All of the effects on a Spell or Enchantment must have the same delivery type.
Magic Skill: The Skill associated with the effect. The skill can modify the Power, Duration, or Cost of the effect, and will accumulate Skill Uses from it.
Minimum Skill Level: Only used for NPCs, this is the minimum Skill level necessary to use this effect. This value also governs which level the spell will display as in the user interface. For example, a value of 25 will display spells using this effect as Apprentice in the magic interface.
Assoc. Item 1: The first Associated Item required for this Effect Archetype, if any.
Assoc. Item 2: The second Associated Item required for this Effect Archetype, if any.
2nd AV Weight: Magnitude multiplier for how strong a second Assoc. Item should be in comparison to the first Assoc. Item. Used with the Dual Value Multiplier archetype.
Resist Value: The type of Resistance that applies to this effect.
Perk to Apply: The indicated Perk is added to the target while the effect is active, if and only if the target is the player.
Base Cost: The effect's base Magicka or Charge cost. Used as input to a formula that calculates the final cost based on Skill, Perks, and any other applicable factors. Modifying Base Cost may not produce a corresponding change in the cost of auto-calculated spells. See the Spells page notes for more details.
Skill Usage Mult: For Spells, a multiplier to the Skill Uses (which feed into advancing the effect's Magic Skill, above) that casting this effect will give the player.

Tapering

Taper curves.

These values will cause the effect to continue after its duration has expired.

Taper Duration: How long the effect continues.
Taper Weight: How strong the effect is at the beginning of the taper duration. For example, a value of 0.5 will make the effect half as strong at the moment the duration expires.
Taper Curve: Controls how quickly the effect magnitude decreases during the taper duration. (Negative values cause the effect magnitude to increase.)

Specifically, the magnitude at some taper time (time since the duration expired) is

magnitude = effect magnitude * Taper Weight * (1 - taper time / Taper Duration)^{Taper Curve}

For damage spells, the total damage done during the taper duration is approximately

magnitude = effect magnitude * Taper Weight * Taper Duration / (Taper Curve + 1)

Note that if Taper Curve is less than -1, the spell will be almost invariably fatal, as the total damage fails to converge to a finite value. (A fun experiment: set Taper Duration to several seconds and Taper Curve to -1.1, and make a damage spell with a small magnitude. Nothing will appear to happen for most of the duration, then the target will suddenly drop dead.)

Note: Tapering does not work the same way on recover marked effects. The magnitude of recover effects can not be changed by the taper formula effectively meaning that taper weight is always 1 and taper curve is always 0, though a taper duration does still cause the magic effect to persist after the effect ends.

Flags

Hostile: This Effect is treated as an attack. Only Hostile effects can be resisted.
Detrimental: This Effect is applied as a negative value (damage) to the specified Actor Value. Note that not all technically harmful Effects need this checked. God Mode prevents "detrimental" Effects from working on the player.
Recover: When this Effect expires, the attribute returns to its previous state. If checked, Value Modifier and Peak Value Modifier archetypes will modify their actor value once at the start, then modify it back once the Effect expires; if unchecked, the actor value will get modified every second and will not be reset at the end. Note that for Magicka and Health, this works as follows: If checked, the Maximum and Current values are changed (buff/debuff). If unchecked, only current value is affected (heal/damage).
FX Persist: If checked, the visual effect on the target persists for the entire duration of the Effect. Otherwise, it only plays once.
Snap to Navmesh: If checked, the Aimed or Target Location target point will be snapped to the nearest point on the Navmesh. Used for summoned creatures, to make sure they begin in a valid location.
No Recast: Once the magic effect is applied to a target, it cannot be cast again on the same target until it has worn off or been dispelled.
No Hit Effect: No visual effects play on the target of this Effect.
No Death Dispel: If checked, the effect persists even if the target dies.
No Duration: The effect is instantaneous. The Duration field is not available for objects with this effect.
No Hit Event: The effect is stealthy; the target does not register a hit event when struck.
No Magnitude: The effect does not use the Magnitude field.
No Area: The effect does not use the Area field.
Painless: If checked and the spell is Hostile, the target of this effect does not cry out in pain. If the target is the player, prevents the hit blur and ouch sound.
Gory Visuals: Not used.
Hide in UI: If checked, the Effect is not displayed to the player in the Magic Effects section of the interface, nor will this effect's description be displayed in the spell's concatenated spell-effect description.
- If all Magic Effects attached to an Enchantment have this flag checked, the enchanted equipment will appear unenchanted and in the case of weapons, not display a charge bar. This is only visual however; the enchantment will still function as intended.

Keywords

Has one of two mutually exclusive effects, depending on whether the Dispel Effects with these Keywords checkbox is checked.

If the box is unchecked, the list of Keywords are associated with the Magic Effect. These Keywords are not applied directly to the target, but can be checked by scripts or used in other ways.

If the box is checked, then the list of Keywords indicates Keywords to dispel. If a Spell that is currently active on the target has any Magic Effect that matches any of the Keywords in the list, the Spell will be dispelled when this Magic Effect is applied.

The checkbox is all-or-nothing. The same Magic Effect cannot both have Keywords applied to it and dispel Keywords. However, a Spell can contain two Magic Effects, one of which has Keywords and another that dispels Keywords.

Counter Effects

Not used. Spells are now canceled through the Keyword system described above.

Target Conditions

If these Conditions evaluate to True, the effect will be applied to the target. Frequently used in conjunction with Keywords to exclude specific types of Actors from the effect.

Conditions can be placed on a magic effect itself, or on its entry in a spell's Effect List. Effect-side conditions are checked when an effect is applied and determine whether an actor will ever receive the effect, while spell-side conditions determine when the effect is active.

In most cases, an effect's spell-side conditions are checked every second while an actor has the effect (if the effect duration is longer than instant), and the effect is only applied once (when the spell is cast). However, concentration spells invert this pattern: spell-side conditions in a concentration spell are only checked once, when the caster starts casting the spell; the effect, meanwhile, is reapplied every second, so effect-side conditions are checked once per second.

This means that if you for example try to make a non-concentration effect that doesn't stick if it's already there, you can put the check into the effect's condition window; but if you put it into the spell itself, it will get canceled because it finds itself.

Visual Effects

Menu Display Object: The visual representation of the spell or effect in the Magic Menu.
Casting Art: The art object on the hands while preparing to cast.
Casting Light: The light on the hands while preparing to cast.
Hit Effect Art: The art object attached to the target on impact.
Hit Shader: The EffectShader attached to the target on impact.
Enchant Art: For Enchantments only, this is the art object attached to the object.
Enchant Shader: For Enchantments only, this is the EffectShader attached to the object.
Projectile: The projectile fired by the effect. If multiple effects are attached to a Spell, only the projectile of the first effect will be drawn.
Impact Data Set: When the projectile hits an object, the impact data set is used to determine which decals, if any, are applied.
Explosion: The explosion object created when the projectile hits an object.
Image Space Mod: The image space caused by the effect when it is triggered.

Dual Casting

Alternate art and scaling to apply to the dualcast version of the effect.

Spellmaking

Power Affects Magnitude/Duration: Determines whether the magic effect's magnitude and/or duration will be scaled when dual-casting, or by the player's Alchemy and Enchanting skill and perks when making potions and enchantments containing the magic effect.
Area: If the effect has an area associated with it, it is indicated here. Area is measured in feet, not units.
Casting Time: The number of seconds the casting button needs to be held down before the spell can be cast. Usually 0.5 seconds. For spells with lengthy cast times and using two hands, using the keyword RitualSpellEffect is recommended: this keyword changes the cast animation to a more appropriate animation.

Script Effect AI Data

Score: Determines how likely the AI is to use this Effect. Higher-valued abilities will be used more often.
Delay Time: The amount of time that must elapse before the AI will use this Effect again.

Equip Ability

A spell to apply to the caster when this effect is equipped. These are not chainable - a spell that is added via an equip ability will not then add what is assigned in its own equip ability slot.

Sounds

Draw/Sheathe: The sound that plays when the player draws or sheathes their weapons with this spell in either hand.
Charge: For a Fire and Forget spell, this sound plays when the player first presses the button.
Ready: For a Fire and Forget spell, this sound plays when the spells reaches its 'Ready' state. Releasing the button at this time will cast the spell.
Release: For a Fire and Forget spell, this sound plays when the player releases the button and successfully casts the spell.
Cast Loop (Conc.): For a Concentration spell, this sound loops while the button is pressed.
On Hit: Sound that plays when this effect is applied to its target.
Casting Sound Level: The 'volume' of the Detection Event created by casting this spell.

Magic Item Description

A description of the Effect. This description will appear:

In the Magic Menu's Active Effects list, whenever this Effect affects the player.
In the description of any Spell, Enchantment, Potion, Scroll, or Shout that uses the Effect, unless that item has a description of its own (which overrides any inherited descriptions).

This text field supports text replacement tags similar to those found in quest text. Text replacement tags will be displayed as bold text.

<mag>: The effect's magnitude. If the effect has been flagged as having no magnitude, then nothing is displayed.
<dur>: The effect's duration. If the effect has been flagged as having no duration, then nothing is displayed.
<area>: The effect's area. If the effect has been flagged as having no area, then nothing is displayed.
<global=EditorID>: The current value of the Global with the given editor ID. If no such global exists, then nothing is displayed. (Writing "<global>" has the same effect as failing to specify a valid global: nothing is displayed.)

This is the same basic syntax as quest text replacement: <Token.Subtoken=Target>, where the "subtoken" and "target" are optional (and ignored) unless noted above. When an unrecognized token is encountered, the token name is displayed in bold, but the subtoken name and target value are thrown away. This means that you can bold any text you want inside of an effect description, but only if that text doesn't contain a period (which denotes a subtoken) or an equal sign (which denotes a target). For example, <Hello, Dragonborn. How are you?> will be rendered as "Hello, Dragonborn" in bold, while <Hello, Dragonborn>. <How are you?> will be rendered as "Hello, Dragonborn. How are you?" Similarly, <E = MC squared> should be rendered as "E ", while <E> = <MC squared> should be rendered as "E = MC squared".

Papyrus Scripts

Any Papyrus Scripts applied to or by the MagicEffect. These typically extend the ActiveMagicEffect Script.

Notes

No Magnitude, No Area and No Duration do not actually affect the inner workings of the effect, checking them just makes it so these parameters will be unavailable when you assign the effect to a Spell, Scroll, Potion, Shout or Enchantment. (The area is always unavailable when creating a Spell unless Auto Calculate is turned off in the Spell dialog.)

Effect Archetypes

Effect Archetypes are essentially code-based effects that can be triggered by the MagicEffect. These effects occur in addition to any scripted effects that may result from the Papyrus Script on the MagicEffect. The available Effect Archetypes are listed below.

Archetype	Assoc. Item(s)	Description
Absorb	1: The Actor Value to be absorbed. Usually Health, Magicka, or Stamina.	Does up to <MAG> damage to the target's attribute, and restores the caster's attribute by the amount of damage done. If not "detrimental", will instead drain the caster to replenish the target.
Accum. Magnitude	1: WardPower	Linked to ward charging mechanic. Grants up to <MAG> of a chosen actor value, but starts at 0 and increases over time.
Banish		Banishes Summoned Actors up to level <MAG>.
Bound Weapon	1: The Weapon to create.	Creates the specified Weapon, and dispels it when the duration expires or the weapon is sheathed.
Calm		Lowers the Aggression of a target up to level <MAG> to minimum.
Cloak	1: A spell representing the Cloak's damage effect. Must be Concentration/Aimed or Concentration/Target.	While this spell is active, casts an effect spell on all targets in the area. Note: the <MAG> of the Cloak effect is not the damage (which is determined by its 1: spell) but the radius within which the cloak attacks targets, in Units.
Command Summoned		Takes control of Summoned Actors up to level <MAG>.
Concussion		Not Used
Cure Addiction		Not Used
Cure Disease		Removes all disease effects from the target.
Cure Paralysis		Removes Paralysis on the target.
Cure Poison		Removes all poison effects from the target.
Demoralize		Lowers the Confidence of a target up to level <MAG> to minimum. Allies affected by Demoralize prior to combat will not flee until combat begins.
Detect Life		Applies a visual effect to all valid targets in range. Detect Life will paint targets around the caster only when the effect is first applied: a concentration effect is applied continuously, so the paint will update as the caster moves; but a fire-and-forget effect will only paint whatever targets were within range of the original casting location at the time of the original cast.
Disarm		Disarms targets up to level <MAG>.
Disguise	???	???
Dispel		Removes magic effects with a duration from the target. <MAG> seems to be unused.
Dual Value Modifier	1: The first value 2: The second value	Modifies both Actor Values. The first value is modified by <MAG>, the second value is modified by <MAG> * AV Weight.
Enhance Weapon		Any equipped (melee) weapon receives the specified enchantment until unequipped or until the effect wears off. Used by Elemental Fury.
Etherealize		Causes the targets to become ethereal, preventing them from dealing or taking damage.
Frenzy		Maxes the Aggression of a target up to level <MAG>.
Grab Actor		Can pick up and throw selected NPC. Used by Vampiric Grip. Doesn't effect Dragons, Mammoths, Dragon Priests, Mistmen, Bonemen, Wrathmen and Skeletons. Distance at which the target is held is based on the GrabActorOffset actor value of the caster.
Guide		Creates a trail of Hazard objects from the caster to the nearest quest target. Typically used with the Clairvoyance Hazard. The trail does not extend very far and needs to be continuously refreshed to be of use.
Invisibility		Causes the target to become invisible. This effect is automatically dispelled when the invisibility is broken. Note that invisibility does not mean inaudibility and any magic effect that isn't silent will in fact continuously emit noise until Quiet Casting is taken.
Light	1: The light object to create.	Creates the specified light object. Note that a Hit Effect Art must be applied, and the light will emit from there^{specific Node?}.
Lock		Locks the target. Note: it is actually impossible to target objects, making this archetype more or less useless. The only effect that can target objects is Script.
Open		Unlocks the target. Note: it is actually impossible to target objects, making this archetype more or less useless. The only effect that can target objects is Script.
Paralysis		Paralyzes the target. Make sure to include a condition in your effect that checks for the ImmuneParalysis keyword. This archetype only works if the 'Recover' flag is set. This will also set the boolean actor value Paralyze to 1 to prevent movement.
Peak Value Modifier	1: The value to modify. 2: A keyword for effects it does not stack with.	If there are two PVMs with the same keyword active at the same time, the one with the lower <mag> will be dispelled automatically?
Rally		Maxes the Confidence of a target up to level <MAG>.
Reanimate		If the target is dead, reanimate them, putting them under the caster's control.
Script	1: [Not Used]	Has no effect other than any Papyrus Scripts specified.
Slow Time	1: [Not Used]	Slows time for all but the player by the indicated amount (a multiplier, with 1 being normal time).
Soul Trap		If the target dies while this effect is active, fills a soul gem carried by the caster.
Spawn Hazard	1: The Hazard to spawn.	Creates the specified Hazard object at the target. The hazard is owned by the caster (meaning it will only hit enemies) and the hazard spell scales with the magnitude of the spawn spell. If you want the hazard to hit allies, you need a script to PlaceAtMe the hazard object, which doesn't retain ownership (but also doesn't allow scaling). Note that a "constant effect" effect will only spawn one hazard every time the effect activates.
Spawn Scripted Ref	1: [Not Used]	Used for Throw Voice. You can't directly choose a reference, but Throw Voice instead contains an explosion that places an activator object that says something.
Stagger		Staggers the target. Value between 0 and 1. Duration determines how long before the target can be staggered again. Should not be "detrimental".
Summon Creature	1. The creature to summon.	Summons the specified creature, placing them under the caster's control. On death, the creature automatically fades out and leaves no corpse.
Telekinesis		Applies the Telekinesis effect to the target object, allowing the caster to manipulate it at a distance. This will also set the boolean actor value Telekinesis to 1 in order to allow you to see item stats at a distance.
Turn Undead		Causes the target to flee from the caster, similar to Demoralize. Allies affected by Turn Undead prior to combat will not flee until combat begins. This archetype is hard-coded to require that the target have the ActorTypeUndead keyword in order to function; targets that do not have that keyword will not be affected even if the conditions of the effect would otherwise allow it - the effect will refuse to function altogether.
Value and Parts	1. ???	???
Value Modifier	1. The value to modify.	Modifies the Actor Value by <MAG>.
Werewolf	1. The Race to transform into.	Changes the target's race to the specified race.
Werewolf Feed		Used to set HasBeenEaten property on actor from 0 to 1. Seems to require actor to be dead and to ignore duration, working instantly.

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