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Sorcerer's Apprentice

Updated 2015-07-22 (Summary available in change notes)

Inspired by the game 'Black and White' - Sorcerer's Apprentice allows up to five NPCs at one time to gradually learn spells - vanilla or modded - through observation of you as you cast them. ANY (yes!) spell. If you can cast it, they can learn it. Why Mickey Mouse? Check last paragraph.

This mod will live perfectly well with any (yes!) mod - including Follower mods like UFO or Multiple Followers Lite. If you happen to be using ASIS I very much recommend you turn off Automatic Spells. There will not be problems if you don't, but why? Sorcerer's Apprentice does the same thing but in a more elegant way (IMO).

When the mod is loaded you will be gifted two new spells - 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' and 'Apprentices Behave'.

Cast 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' on an NPC to enroll them in apprenticeship. You will see a notification if they get enrolled successfully. Cast it on them again to remove them from apprenticeship.

Since your students are stlil learning - their control is not so good. If you have more than one student, inevitably some epic knock down drag out battles will develop between them stemming from friendly fire incidents. When that happens you will be happy to have the second spell handy - 'Apprentices Behave'. The fights are pretty funny to watch, though!

For learning to occur the student must have line of sight with you. They must also have accumulated enough Magicka to be able to cast the spell themselves. Spells too expensive for the student will not be learned.

This is very important to understand. With Sorcerer's Apprentice, as in the real world, an apprentice can not learn a spell for which they are not yet prepared. While you may have mastered 'Incineration', teaching it to a Novice level apprentice is simply not possible. You must start with 'Flames' and work your way up. With that in mind you will be wanting to apprentice your students early in the game and then keep them alive!

So please remember, if you notice a student is not learning a spell, the most likely reason why is because they already know it - OR - they do not yet have enough Magicka to cast it. In that case you must teach them a less expensive spell instead.

The amount of learning that occurs when a student observes you casting a spell is a random amount between 0 and some number based on distance. Sometimes there will be zero learning.

Probably it is worth pointing out that an NPC with a warrior AI will choose very infrequently, if ever, to increase Magicka when levelling up. Keep in mind spells may only be cast (or learned) if enough Magicka has been accumulated. It follows then that a warrIor will not graduate past Novice level spells for a long time - if ever. But they certainly will learn and cast Novice spells! My favorite is when they cast candlelight. Very handy! And Oakflesh on ebony armors looks pretty cool!

The point is that an NPC with a warrior AI will learn a few basic spells and they will use them. But as they level up they tend toward their strength - one-handed or two-handed combat mayhem. By apprenticing a warrior you will not lose the warrior. And of course you can expel them from apprenticeship when they seem to not be learning any more spells due to the difference between the spells you are casting and the spells they can learn.

As far as my experience goes, any NPC - warrior or mage - will cast armor, candlelight, summons, self-healing, shield, and any destruction spells. Absolutely any spell, vanilla or modded, that fits one of those descriptions - once learned - will get action from an NPC.

The following spells are excluded from learning:
All Shouts
All Runes
All Walls
Clairvoyance
Courage
Call To Arms
Detect Dead
Detect Life
Heal Other
Healing Hands
Rally
Telekinesis
Sorcerer's Apprentice

Rune and wall spells are excluded because NPCs do not know to fire these at the ground. They keep trying (and failing) to cast them on enemy NPCs. They will go through an entire battle accomplishing nothing because of this.

All of the rest are excluded because it really makes no sense that an NPC should learn them.

As you can see, by default shouts are excluded from learning. Nevertheless, I have experienced my students learning a few of them. I do not know why this is so - I suspect it may have something to do with a shout mod that I use. Even so, if they ever fully learn the shouts I look forward to finding out if they will actually use them.

And that got me thinking... As of version 4.1 it is now possible to enable learning shouts. I do not know if an NPC will actually shout but it will be interesting to find out, I think! Please read the note 'Sorcerer's Apprentice HowTo' if you wish to learn more about the global variable you can toggle to enable this.

I have never noticed an NPC using any Illusion spell, but I include them for learning anyway on the off chance I am wrong or things change.

I hope you enjoy Sorcerer's Apprentice and Thanks for Looking! You might consider checking out my other mods - they are just as awesome as this one.

And please - give a dog a bone and thumb this mod. Favorite is nice too... :) But a thumb gets a mod rated.

Why a picture of Mickey? There is a famous movie from Walt Disney - Fantasia - which features Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice - accompanied by the fantastic orchestral work also called Sorcerer's Apprentice - by Dukas. And that is why a picture of Mickey. It was the first movie ever released in stereo. The music was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The movie is wonderful Disney fun and the music is glorious. A classic. You owe it to yourself to check it out. HTH.