SD Skill Diary v2.3
Oblivion Mod
Author: Malcolm Ware



FILES CONTAINED IN THIS ZIP:
	SD Skill Diary Readme.txt
	SD Skill Diary.esp



DOWNLOAD LOCATION:
	http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=3629

	

INTRODUCTION:
	The skill diary is intended as a useful tool to allow players to track how much each of their skills has leveled up since the last time they gained a level. From this information it is possible to determine better which skills to focus on in order to get the desired attribute multipliers for each level.

	
	
INSTALLATION:
	Place the contents of this zip into the data folder of your Oblivion installation (write over the previous version if it exists), and from the Oblivion launcher enable the SD Skill Diary.esp mod.
	Upgrading the version of the skill diary will not negatively impact your game, it will not forget your current progress or settings.
	
	
USAGE:
	To use the Skill Diary simply pick it up to your left just after you exit the imperial sewers after creating your character, or to use with an existing game make a pilgrimage back to those sewers (you can fast travel there if you want) and collect the book.
	Once you have the book it will attempt to ascertain what your Major Skills and what your Specialisation is, if it is not possible to determine these it will ask you to enter the majors and level progress of your character the first time you attempt to use the book.
	After the Major Skills and level progress have been set you can equip the book on the player in order to bring up a menu which will provide a break down of the level gains for each skill under it's governing attribute, or a summary list of the total skill gains for each governing attribute for the current level the player is working towards.
	
	

TECHNICAL DETAILS/FAQ:
	~ If the autodetection process is successful and you are still a level 1 character, then you can instantly start using the skill diary, in all other cases you will need to progress to the next player level before you can start using the skill diary.
	
	~ The auto-detection of the Major Skills and Specialisation works while there is no ambiguity as to which are your Major Skills and Specialisation, after that point it will always ask you to manually enter them, of course if you don't trust the system you can always check them or manually enter them instead.

	~ Cancelling during any point of the initialisation process will reset the process and begin from the start again (you can pick the book up and carry it around and equip to initialise it at a later date if you wish to).

	~ As of V2.0 the skill diary can be used with modified races and custom races. The autodetection system should not be relied on for such cases, instead make sure to always manually set the majors and level progress.
	
	~ This mod tracks information regarding the current level your player is working towards, this could be quite a bit higher than the actual level of your player, each time 10 major skill increases occur the attribute modifiers for that level are locked and the next set will begin to be calculated, this can continue to occur indefinitely until you choose to rest and perform the actual level up.

	~ To stop using this mod simply disable it on the data files tab when starting the game. The book will dissappear from your inventory.

	~ If you complete the setup process and decide that you want to change the Major Skills and level progress (something that should not happen), you need to... disable the mod, load your save game, save it without the mod present, exit the game and enable the mod, load the new save game up and go back to the starting area to get the book (effectively you have cleared the mod from your save file but then put it back in again).

	~ The mod tests for skill ups every few seconds, on very rare occassions if you managed to have an extremely fast succession of skill gains which inadvertenly caused a level up to occur immediately before some other skill increases the dairy could end up slightly inaccurate for just that level.

	~ This mod has been written to detect and work with vampires (regardless of when you become one or what level of vampirism you currently have), it has received partial testing in this area and exhibited no issues.
	
	~ The Quest 'Origin of the Gray Prince', this quest results in skill gains that do not work as normal skill gains (they wont count to attribute modifiers or leveling). The skill diary has been updated to take this into account, Current skill diary users upgrading from a version prior to v1.1 will find that if they have completed this quest the current level will not be tracked, all numbers will be accurate again at next level gain. (My personal advice is to not complete this quest, as it is disadvantageous to your character in the long run). 
	The 'Night Mothers Blessing' bonus reward from the 'Whodunit?' quest also causes the same issue, and has as of V1.3 also been taken into account.

	~ Currently I don't plan to add in display of what your actual modifiers will be, this is down to personal preference as I don't really use that information and am much more interested in the skill changes, it is not too hard to figure out what the modifiers from the skill levels will be from knowing the skill changes (10 skill changes for the max 5 attribute modifier).

	~ Once the book has been initialised, it will track your progress regardless of whether or not you have the book in your possession (you still need the book to look at the info however).

	~ Jail does cause a decrease of skills, but this decrease does not actually affect the attribute modifiers or progress towards the next player level in any way as such any skill lose is now factored out by the diary. Note that as yet I have not been able to check what effect gaining a skill from sleeping (i.e. sneak/security), so this case may not be handled correctly, however it seems to be very rare if ever that it will occur.

	~ This book will work with other mods that alter the number of skills required to level up. Provided that during a game the number of skills to gain the next level is always constant. Eg. By default you always require 10 major skill gains for a level up. In Francesco's mod you always require 12 major skill gains. Please note there are a few caveats, the first is that if you need to manually initialise the skill diary you cannot be past the 9th major skill gain for the next level. The other issue I found is a bug with oblivion whereby a skill gain quest reward may incorrectly cause your character to level up, this will result in the skill diary having incorrect info until your next levelup at which point things should be fine again.

HISTORY:
	V2.3   - Added check to prevent the Alchemical Brilliance buff throwing the Skill Diary information off.
	V2.2   - Changed to factor out the effects of the Skeleton Key item that can throw the Skill Diary off much like the Night Mothers Blessing and Gray Prince training does.
	V2.1   - Made the Skill Diary compatible with Francesco's level up mini mod and potentially other mods that alter the number of skills required to gain a level (see Faq for more info).
	V2.0   - Re-worked the initialisation stage, to allow manual entering of progress towards next level up. This change allows the diary to work with custom races and races with modified base skills.
	V1.4   - Updated skill diary to detect and cope with a loss of skill from sleeping in jail (this loss does not negatively impact attribute modifiers or gains towards the next player level).
	V1.3   - Updated the skill diary to factor out the bonus reward (Night Mothers Blessing) gained from the 'Whodunit?' quest (see Faq for more info). Also made a minor update to when skill changes are checked.
	V1.2   - Removed uneeded validation test that was preventing skill diary initialising. Corrected calculation of player specialisation so that it should be able to determine it more often now.
	V1.1   - Updated the skill diary to factor out the quest reward from the 'Origin of the Gray Prince' quest since this reward does not factor into leveling and attribute modifiers (see Faq for more info). Also updated text in the Skill Diary book. 
	v1.0.1 - Fixed minor layout issue on the main menu.
	v1.0   - Added support for vampires, this will now correctly display information even if you are a vampire of any level regardless of when you became one.
	v0.8.2 - Beta version, altered the detection of skill gains to be more efficient, also added an extra check when initialising the mod to see if the skill allocation at start up has been some how altered by another mod and would negatively impact this mod.
	v0.8.1 - Beta version, altered the text at the top of the main menu and the summary screen to be more accurate.
	v0.8   - Beta version, introduced ability to confirm and manually enter majors and specialisation.
	v0.5   - Alpha version (un-released), contained initial skill diary without ability to manually set majors and specialisation or ability to confirm them (effectively the book only worked for beginner characters, and proved to work fine for me over the 4 or 5 levels I used it).