How does the Dragonborn teach Vilja how to cast a fireball?

[darthorc]

OK - Vilja, who is happily married to the Khajiit Dragonborn (she has some sweet comments she makes about his fur), with a nice home (Lakeview Manor), two adopted girls and Leifur, keeps asking to be taught how to cast a fireball. When the Dragonborn, with the spell tome fireball in his inventory, tries to give it to her as a gift it doesn't show up as an option (other spell tomes in his inventory do show up).

So how does the Dragonborn teach her this spell?

[CollinMacleod]

Lets' talk fighting strategy, concerning your spells, learn new spells.

She will then look at the spell tomes in YOUR inventory and either agree or disagree that she can learn it. Once she has learned it, you can then go back to concerning your spells and select it. She can't learn all spells.

[Sniffles]

Oh FRAK! I think I've sold well over 100 books without knowing this.

[wotan]

Didn't you listen to Heneri? She told you why Vilja wasn't taught the fireball spell. And as far as I can tell, there will never be an option to teach her that spell either because then she would never stop nagging you or other npcs about teaching her

[Sniffles]

I meant just teaching her spells in general. Which is another little irony. Without teaching her spells she is still better at magic than my character and my char is the archmage. That has to be one of if not the dumbest part of the entire game. All my character's magic skills together probably don't total to 100.

[Seyheb]

If you give her a fireball staff, she will use it, though not as frequently as her preferred spells. However she will still ask you about fireballs and about buying her a staff.

I gave her both a lightning staff and a fireball staff and she will dual-wield them against dragons. She'll also use just her lightning spell at other times without using her lightning staff. She will also use her bow at other times too.

[Sniffles]

And blast you in the butt in narrow corridors.
When I first played Skyrim my char was maybe level 10 and I had Lydia as a follower. We went into some keep and  \encountered about 6 bandits, Wham, dead and reload. I set up an ambush. Wham dead reload. I set magic trap on the ground. Reload. I spent over 2 hours trying to perfect the ambush, go and incite the bandits, run back, get everything ready and ... reload. I finally came dashing back as usual, missed the turn, careened down the corridor and ended up behind Lydia. Wham, fried bandits. Never equipped her with a staff after that.

[Seyheb]

She uses her staffs out of doors mostly and prefers her plain lightning spells or a bow indoors, though she will use the staff. I also keep her close by me in corridors. She won't attack when sneaking unless hit; she's very reliable that way and will allow me to get off some arrows at range. Usually I then let the the melee girl(s) go in first. Standing up will trigger Vilja to attack, which she will usually do at range at first then go in herself with her sword. I don't have her restricted to ranged combat. If anyone gets hit, it's usually the other girls.

[Sniffles]

Getting off the topic a bit. I've got a weird problem. At level 61 and no combat skills but bow no enemy now stands a chance. When pressed, Vilja steps in with melee weapons but I can take out legendary dragons in about 10-12 seconds. A dragonbone bow moderately hyped and dwarven arrows with dragonbone arrows to fall back on. But anyway, with Vilja taking the buffets, it's no challenge. But the problem is I can't learn new tricks so to speak. All magic and other combat skills are miserable. Trying to up destruction by using it usually results in Vilja and often my chars death. Same all other melee weapons. It's like I'm level 15 again going up against level 50.

Anyway, I'd like Vilja to cover for my character more so I can level up, but I really don't know how to get her beefed up to handle things while my char goes wuss.

[Seyheb]

Well, if you need her to be tougher tank for a time while you level up some skills, you could configure her by going to:

"Travelling Together" > "Off Topic - Configuration and Settings" > "Configuration of Damage Dealing and Receiving".

Then let her act as a tank while you practice those skills. Of course you could also level them up some more on any passing bandit or wolf that happens to cross your path.

[Emma]

On the spell tomes: Vilja can not learn *all* spells. She's not a mage character, so the ones that requires high skills she won't master. And not the ones that we felt were not "right" for her (Vilja isn't into necromancy, for instance, so that kind of spells would not fit her). And, above all... she can not learn to cast fireball. Hey, if she could, so many dialogs with mage followers and chatter with you would get redundant. But she is very good at fireball staffs...

[darthorc]

Thanks for the info - She does cast frost type spells and uses any staff given her so far (no necromancy type staves have been given to her).

As the flash from fireballs and chain lightning is annoying, and can even obscure enemies, and because ice spikes linger in corpses (making them easier to find in brush, etc.), the Dragonborn only gives his follower staves that throw ice spikes.

[Sniffles]

Seyheb, you touched upon a very sensitive point with us and maybe Emma would help out here.
Call us purists, we have adamantly refused to use the options to modify any of Vilja's actions or dialogue with the thought in mind that her vanilla set up is what Emma intended and the options available are for people who's styles and tastes ... differ from errr, you follow, yes?
In other words, we play with what is in place and love Vilja the way she 'came out of the box' without the optional air conditioning, padded bucket seats and anti lock brake mechanism.
So, yes, I'd love her to tank sometimes but the thought of turning her into a tank ala Dark Souls aka 1001 ways to build a tank as enjoyed by tens of thousands of semi adolescent drooling wham wahm bang bang hurt them a lot gamers.

Anyway, we all know how superb I am at destruction magic:


So it's going to be a long body strewn road before Vilja can take a break and my char comes up to snuff to cope with things. That is why I went facepalm, not knowing I could have taught Vilja all sorts of spells instead of jusr selling off the books.

[CollinMacleod]

Vilja desperately wants to use magic, she always has. So letting her have a few spells isn't changing her from default. Of course she prefers to use a feary sword with soul trap. (Yes I spelled it that way on purpose)

[Sniffles]

May 30, 2014 1:34:59 GMT CollinMacleod said:

Vilja desperately wants to use magic, she always has. So letting her have a few spells isn't changing her from default. Of course she prefers to use a feary sword with soul trap. (Yes I spelled it that way on purpose)

That is just what we want. In fact I have been working for RL weeks to buff up my enchanting to give her that exact sword. But I am still very very very very very very leery of having someone with a fireball staff standing behind me.