
Rhianna, Goddess Companion
by Jumonji
Version 3.03 - Rhianna the Goddess!
Date Aug 9th, 2007

Rhianna is a goddess, in more ways than one. You played with her when you were kids, now she's well on her way to mastering her craft. She will support you fully with ranged magic from day one, and with heals and some surprises after level 3. She will follow orders, but she can be creative in the way she carries them out. She will accompany you on stealth missions as well as all-out-combat raids. She will live in your home, sleep in your bed, share your equipement, and make your travels in Tamriel complete.

Version 3.0 has a large amount of improved code, although no really new features. Her combat
magic will tend to focus more on the specific enemy and her variety of spells will increase as you 
level up. See the release notes for more details.

Version 3.03 has patches for fast travel graphics and lagged-following glitches.

KNOWN ISSUES:

1) Send her home before taking a Sigil Stone to prevent her from resetting her inventory, then 
summon her back when your out of the gate. This is a workaround for a common companion bug.
2) On rare occasions she will lose her AI and quit taking commands, although she will still talk with you
and continue following if that's what she was doing before. (Its rare, but annoying.) Just save
your game and restart Oblivion to get her full attention back. She will then do whatever you asked her
before you saved the game, as if nothing happened.

Please, as always, FEEDBACK REQUESTED!

Installation: 

1) Unzip the files to your data directory under Oblivion, keeping the directory structure from the zip file.
The Rhianna.esp file should be in your Data directory under Oblivion, and the voice files should be nested under the sound directory.
2) Execute the OblivionLauncher, and select the Rhianna.esp data file before launching. There are no other files or prerequisites required. 
3) Rhianna is designed to be useable with other mods. She has no graphic components at all to conflict with your game.

You will run into Rhianna in Imperial City. She often hangs out in "The Feedbag" and she also goes shopping in the afternoon.

***************
Rebooting from previous versions:

You probably should reboot Rhianna to avoid conflicts. You can do it without losing your current progress. Here's how:

1) Remove any items from her inventory that you have given her.
2) Leave her waiting somewhere, go to a different cell (if she's inside, go outside, etc.)
3) Save the game.
4) Uncheck the old Rhianna.esp using OblivionLauncher.
5) Restart the saved game.
6) Save again- this removes any broken references to the old Rhianna mod.
7) Install the new version as defined above after backing up the previous Rhianna.esp for safety.
8) Go meet Rhianna again, for the first time. She will be at your level plus 1.

****************
Credits:

I was inspired and motivated by the groundbreaking companion mods before me that I had a chance to play and learn from. Special thanks and kudos go to:

- Rsdnt-Evle: for the well-scripted Neeshka Companion where I learned many implementation techniques.
- anonymous: for the infamously sexy Heather Golightly. (No, I didn't copy ***that*** part.)
- Aridale Noblebrook Belmont: for Gabrielle.
- Blocky: for Ariana Trudeaux.
- And all the contributors to the Construction Set Wiki at: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page where I learned everything I know about modding Oblivion. 
- And thanks to my wife for still being here after the last several months of me playing with Rhianna every night after work. :)

****************
Rhianna, The Character

Race: Breton

Class: Goddess (custom)
-- Primary Attributes: Willpower and Agility
-- Specialization: Magic
-- Major Skills: Restoration, Destruction, Alteration, Marksman, Blade, Sneak, Light Armor

Combat Style: Goddess (custom)
Prefers ranged magic combat, but uses whatever it takes.

Factions at start: 
Rank	- Guild
0	- Player Faction
0	- Goddess Faction (custom)
2	- Mages Guild
2 	- Nine Divines
1 	- Nobility

Inventory at start:
Book to read
Bread and cheese to eat
Ale to drink
Starter Furs (Light Armor)
Upper blue dress and shoes
Lesser staff of lightning

Spells:
Much destruction and restoration magic. Be surprised.

----------------------
Rhianna menu-driven capabilities:

-Follow in "attack on sight" combat mode. (Will often initiate combat against known enemies and creatures.)
-Follow in stealth combat mode. (Only retaliates against threats.)
-Follow in casual mode. (Will change into non-armor clothing if she has it.) Will swim without clothes if you lead her into water.
-Go Home. (to a place you've designated already, or The Feedbag if not.)
-Stand Guard. (Just like it sounds. She will stand right where she is unless threatened.)
-Wait. (Stay in general area, in casual clothes. She eats, drinks, sits, reads, or even swims.)
-Conjure a repair hammer. (It appears in your inventory - 5 of them. You have to repair her stuff too.)
-Get some sleep. (Take a nap in the nearest bed - without clothes. Switches to "wait" upon waking.)
-Companion Share. (You can move anything in your inventory to hers, and vice versa. No more skin flash either!)
-Hold a torch. (She will hold a torch for you when it's dark.)
-Recharge magic items. (She conjures a varla stone and a welkynd stone for you.)
-Display stats. (She shows you all her statistics.)
-Live here. (She sets her Home marker here.)
-Sleep here. (She sets her sleep marker here, and sleeps from midnight to 6 am when she's home. It's a separate sleep process than the nap.)
-Hangout here. (For afternoon outings, when she's otherwise sent home.)

You also get a new spell to summon Rhianna to wherever you are. It's great for when you get separated in a dungeon while she's fighting her own battles.

----------------------
Rhianna behavior:

Lots and lots (and lots) of effort went into making her combat as realistic and varied as possible but without being overpowering. She is biased to use magic at a distance, but she will use whatever weapons you give her and whatever she picks up in your travels. She can't always win by herself, but she she can be pretty clever.

She will try and heal you when your hurt, if she has enough magika to spare. (after level 3.) However, if she's in combat and you're not, she will let you suffer.

She will sometimes go invisible to sneak up on an enemy at the start of a fight, if she's in stealth combat mode.

If you join a faction, she will join too - and stay with you in rank.

Oh, and if I forgot to mention, she TALKS!

----------------------
Limitations:

What limitations? She's perfect! Ok, there are a couple:

-She often makes poor armor/weapon/clothing choices. If you don't like her choice, take it away from her.
-She is a scavenger when her supplies are low or in bad repair. She can pick up more junk than you imagine.
-She's a goddess... but you still have to repair her armor.
-She will sometimes ignore your requests, but it's pretty rare and I can't figure out why. Just ask again.
-You can't interrupt her when she's talking. (Except in her menu.) Just like real life....
-uh... that's all I can think of. Let me know what I missed.

--------------------
Tips

- She will reload her lightening staff (remove and re-add a new Staff of Lesser Shock Damage) whenever she recharges your magic. She will use this opportunity to swap to a higher one at levels 15 (Staff of Shock Damage) and 63 (Staff of Greater Shock Damage.)
- If she gets stuck, move to over 20 yards (metres) away from her and then you can summon her to your side. If you try and summon her when she's closer than that, she makes fun of you.
-The range at which she attacks is a function of being inside or outside, of being in sneak posture or not, and of being in stealth mode or not. If she's in stealth mode and sneaking, you or she has to be attacked directly in order for her to fight. 
-If she hesitates to sleep in a strange bed, you might try warming it up for her. Sleep in it for an hour, then she will use it. (Thanks to PunisherX100/FALCON for that discovery! I can't take credit for it, it's a feature of how the faction ownership works I think.)

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 3.0
Date July 28th, 2007

This release has a large amount of improved code, although no really new features.
 
- I completely revamped her magic usage. Instead of the grab-bag of spells she had before,  
she now loads special spell packages based on the specific enemy, with some random 
variation to keep it interesting. The variety of spell packages increases as you both level.
- I gave her a permantly charged lightening staff with 21 damage. This is about equal to 
a good bow and arrow combination, and she should use it less and less as her natural 
magic powers grow.
- I added a special combat mode for indoors so she will get closer to the enemy, but still
prefer ranged magic. This greately reduces her tendancy to try and fight through walls.
- She will tend to break off her dialogue when you get far away from her, so she can catch
up with you.
- I tweaked and cleaned up the idle dialogue and removed some faction-specific greetings
between Rhianna and the player but I probably didn't catch them all.
- I added workarounds for the fast travel graphic bug so that should virtually never happen now.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.8
Date June 21st, 2007

Reduced the likelihood of Rhianna fighting with your allies or other companions. If a fight is started accidently by a stray spell or weapon, Rhianna will now stop combat if she would not normally fight with that person or creature. I also added a speed adjustment so she will track your speed when running with you. Finally, I removed some of her self-targeting buffs so she will spend more time fighting and less time primping. 

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.7
Date June 2nd, 2007

Converted Rhianna's "go home" command to use a transport spell instead of just having her walk home. This provides a convenient way to get her out of a gate before you take the sigil stone and avoid the bug in Oblivion which often causes companions to lose their inventory when exiting a gate with you. Once you're out of the gate, just use her existing summon spell to return her to your side.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.65 - minor tweak release.
Date May 28th, 2007

I restored Rhianna's face from the original version, as shown in the pictures above. After all my endless tweaks, it had drifted too much and I couldn't get it back with the editor, so I implored Wrye and his Bash for help - he came through of course and walked me through it.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.6 - minor tweak release.
Date May16th, 2007

-Decreased Bealteine's timer so he leaves a lot sooner after Rhianna dismounts. This was due to requests to keep him out of the fighting so much. He should also wait until Rhianna is in real danger before attacking, even when he's still around.
-Disabled Rhianna's healing of Bealteine while she's riding him. This should reduce the likelihood of having her "ride on air."
-Tweaked her face to fit with the latest texture mods.
-Tweaked her sitting behavior a bit.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.5
Date April 13th, 2007

-Found an obscure setting that should keep Bealteine and Rhianna's scripts running full speed even if you get separated. In my testing, it seems to improve the horse following behavior quite a bit, but don't bother updating unless you have noticed problems with Bealteine or Rhianna getting out of synch or jerky (or the occasional levitation act.)
-Reduced Bealteine's tendancy to run in front of Rhianna when fighting. Can't seem to remove it entirely.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.1
Date April 8th, 2007

-Moved most Rhianna and Bealteine scripting to the Rhianna quest scripts and set quest script to run every quarter second. This improves performance quite a bit, although you probably won't notice it on fast PCs.
-Recompiled with the latest version 1.2 of the construction set. This version will NOT RUN without the latest Oblivion 1.2 patch.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 2.0
Date March 25th, 2007

-Added Bealteine, Rhianna's mount. Bealtine means "White Fire" in old Celtic. Bealtiene is not just any mount, he's a Unicorn!
-You have no control over Bealteine. He answers only to Rhianna. If you ride your horse, Rhianna will summon him.
-He will help Rhianna with fights.
-Rhianna will resist combat when riding in stealth mode, just like when she's on foot. She can ride in casual clothes, too.


*************** 
Release Notes
Version 1.3b
Date March 17th, 2007

-Drats. I was testing her and forgot to set her level back before uploading. She should be one level above the player now.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 1.3
Date March 16th, 2007

- Added racial attributes and birthsign to boost magika restoration and prevent her from getting stuck at zero magika. While not immortal, she's closer to a tru goddess now. If you feel she's unbalancing, just push up your difficulty slider a tad.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 1.2
Date March 12th, 2007

- Fixed a quest launch bug which prevented Rhianna's quest from starting under some conditions. 
- Adjusted health/endurance calculations to keep Rhianna from becoming so drained that she couldn't recover in the higher levels.

*************** 
Release Notes
Version 1.1
Date March 11th, 2007

-Fixed bug in healing and chameleon spells that caused her to fire blanks a lot.
-Added "QuickShare" to Rhianna's top-level menu due to player requests. Must reboot the mod to enable it or use "AddTopic 0cmQuickShare" from the ~ menu.
-She will sit when you do now, if she's following you. Or perhaps take a nap - who knows?
-Changed her primary attribute of Agility to Intelligence, as befits a goddess.
-Changed hand-to-hand skill to blade skill in her top seven attibutes.
-Tweaked her attribute settings and how fast they grow as you gain levels. (Her key attributes will increase faster than yours during lower levels  - she is a goddess, after all.)
-Tweaked combat ranges and stealthy caution. Calmed her frentic combat just a bit.

*************** 
Silent Rhianna - previous release notes, for historical interest.

Version: 0.85B

After complaints that  Rhianna had too much misplaced aggression in 0.86, I went back to 0.85 and simplified the aggression computation based on stealth mode, and re-added the skinny-dipping feature when relaxing. 

Enjoy.

***************
Version: 0.85
Date: 2/8/2007

1. Reworked her NON-combat behavior during "wait" to be more realistic with eating, drinking, reading, etc.

2. Added a "take a nap" instruction for camp bedrolls or rented rooms. After she wakes up, she goes into "wait" mode.

***************
Version: 0.84
Date: 2/3/2007

1. Reworked her combat behavior yet again for balance between aggression, stealth, combat distance and dynamics.

2. Gave her a Staff of Lightening to start out with. Better than having her pick up random swords I think. If you don't agree, then simply take it away from her.

3. Added a recharge spell for her. When asked, she will recharge all her magic items and yours. It can only be cast once every 15 minutes of play time (not game time.) That's roughly twice a day, game time.

BACKUP YOUR SAVE GAMES AND YOUR OLD VERSION of RHIANNA (IF ANY.) YOU MAY NOT PREFER THESE CHANGES.

***************
Version: 0.83
Date: 1/31/2007

1. Fixed bug when Aggression became too high when she's relaxing. High aggression should only be under the commands "Attack on sight" and "Stand Guard," and even then I toned it down a bit to avoid fights with friends. All other commands should mellow her out.

2. Removed duplicate food bug in her inventory.

***************
Version: 0.82
Date: 1/30/2007

1. Added choices for aggressive combat or stealthy combat when following you. Under stealthy combat, she should not enter combat unless she (or you) is attacked or about to be attacked. Under aggressive combat she will often attack first.

2. Reworked her combat quite a bit. She should disengage enemies if she can't reach them, and generally be more dynamic in her combat.

3. Added option to use torch or not under "Requests"

4. Cleaned up the sneak mode so it "shouldn't" hang or cycle anymore. Turned it off if she's not following you.

5. Changed "agility" to "hand-to-hand" in her custom class since she seems to want to duke it out when her magic is low. This actually fits the concept pretty well - a goddess should be able to throw a mean punch is she wants to. :) Be aware that she will gladly pick up a weapon if it's useful. Kinda fun to she what she come out with during a dungeon run.

You should be able to just replace the old version with the new one - but be aware that it "may" not always work. You "may" have to start from a save game that didn't have the old verson to get all the new options working correctly.

***************
Version: 0.81
Date: 1/28/2007

1. Reduced combat range. Rhianna tried to stand so far back in the dungeons, that she was out of sight. Plus she kept hitting me in the back...

2. Redid the "sleep while naked" script a bit, although I don't know why it didn't work for some users before.

3. Removed the automatic escape teleport because it wasn't working correctly. I will try and add it back later, if I can figure out the issues.

4. Cleaned up the dialogue tree a bit and added more introductory dialogue.

5. Removed the auto-torch "feature" from every command.

***************
Version: 0.8
Date: 1/27/2007

First release for testing. Rhianna is functionally complete but no voiced dialoge and the backstory is not fleshed out. However, she should be bug-free and ready to rumble by your side. FEEDBACK REQUESTED.

Author's notes:

Rhianna is a goddess, in more ways than one. You played with her when you were kids, now she's well on her way to mastering her craft. She will support you fully with ranged magic from day one, and with heals and some surprises after level 3. She will follow orders, but she can be creative in the way she carries them out. She will live in your home, sleep in your bed, share your equipement, and make your travels in Tamrial complete.

Please, FEEDBACK REQUESTED - Rhianna is my first mod!

--- Jumonji  (adamselene@comcast.net)