Harder Better Faster Stronger (HBFS)

Harder Better Faster Stronger

OpenMW 0. 50 or newer is required

HBFS is a mod that allows you to change Morrowind's difficulty by various simple means.

It is done dynamically for all vanilla or added actors (NPCs or creatures).

Settings are provided to adjust the mod to your taste, including player level scaling options, and can be changed any time during a playthrough.

Features

• []Dynamically increase (or reduce) physical damage taken by enemy hits (customizable)[/]

  []Dynamically increase (or reduce) magic damage taken (customizable)[/]

  []Dynamically alter stats for any NPC or creature (customizable)

  []Supported stats are all attributes, health, fatigue and magicka[/]

  []Configure specific stat alterations for the player's followers and summons (customizable)[/]

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[]Make the game harder or easier based on the settings[/]

[]Scale the difficulty settings on the player's level (customizable)[/]

[]Use presets to ease the configuration (on by default)[/]

[]Improve the difficulty and realism through multiple Morrowind game settings (GMSTs) (optional)[/]

[]Improve the gameplay through specific mechanics:

• []Prevent backwards running for the player and/or other actors (on by default)[/]

  []Prevent repairing too damaged items, if your Armorer skill is not high enough (on by default)[/]

  []Damage actor's equipment on death and items in submerged containers, to reduce the player's wealth and improve realism (on by default)[/]

  []Picking items from a dead guard is a crime (on by default)[/]

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[]Possibility to create patches for excluding some actors from stat changes[/]

Why

Veteran players can find Morrowind too easy. Beginners can find that game too hard.

Vanilla Morrowind only offers a difficulty slider that only affects physical damage.

Some mods make specific enemies stronger, but they only cover a limited set of actors and don't allow you to adjust the difficulty level to your needs.

Other mods allow you to slow down the player progression in order to prevent you from being overpowered too early.

HBFS offers other complementary ways to adjust the challenge:

• []Make actors stronger (or weaker) by dynamically altering actors' attributes, health, magicka and fatigue[/]

  []Increase (or decrease) magic damage dealt to the player[/]

  []Alter various game settings[/]

  []Dynamically alter some mechanics[/]

Adjusting physical damage dealt by enemy hits is possible:

• []Either through a damage percent setting, applied on the raw damage before armor absorption[/]

  []Or by altering actors' strength[/]

Note that altering agility and luck will increase hit chances, and so damage per second.

Magic damage needs a special treatment because no attribute or skill can change the magnitude of spells.

How it Works

• []When an actor becomes active, HBFS dynamically updates his attributes, health, magicka and fatigue, based on the configuration you set in the mod settings page.[/]

  []When an actor becomes inactive, HBFS restores his statistics in order to limit the changes to your game save, and ease the removal of the mod if needed.[/]

If some of the actors' affected stats are modified by another mod while the actor is active (companion leveler?), HBFS detects the change and preserves it.

Actor Level Based Decreasing Boost

As high level enemies might not need the same boost as regular enemies, that setting reduces the boost based on the actor level.

The reduction is exponential and mostly impacts high level actors (above 35-50).

When the player takes damage from a magical source, HBFS alters the effects' magnitude on the player's health.

Handled magic effects are: Damage Health, Drain Health, Absorb Health, Fire Damage, Frost Damage, Shock Damage, Poison and Sun Damage.

Regarding Absorb Health, HBFS doesn't affect the amount of health absorbed by the enemy.

If the "Difficulty Scaling" setting is enabled, HBFS uses the player level and the user defined scaling settings to progressively increase all actors' stats and the magic damage dealt to the player.

If the "Boost Only Weaker Actors" setting is enabled, only actors who have a level lower than the player will be boosted, and the boost will be greater when their level is lower.