Magic in Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.

[SelectivelyEvil13]

The Birthsigns and Racial powers need to be completely overhauled so that they feel somewhat special and worth the time. Perhaps with some bonuses like the Race spells and abilities, make them improve as you level. A low level Orc should not have the same Resist Magicka as a level 38. The Serpent is certainly worth mentioning; it is the most pointless birthsign and may as well have been removed.

Morrowind's spell variety and freedom in terms of spell limits and spell creation were far superior and should be what Skyrim leans towards over Oblivion's. The later featured such obnoxious restrictions that it made spell-making and enchanting tediously boring. Even if one's mysticism level or willpower/intelligence level influenced your options, at least there would be some room to create unique weapons suited to your own desires.

Enchanted items really should recharge based on one of the magic skills or related attributes so as to make them more applicable to non-magic types who do not fair well with soul gems, while further rewarding those who invest in the appropriate skill/attribute for enchant recharging.

The more complex your spell or the more summons that you have, there should be an increase in difficultly to cast another summon. It would be cool if full soul gems or a sacrifice of health (blood?) could impact the duration, power, or number of summons.

Teleportation, mark/recall, intervention, and boots of blinding speed must make a return.

And the big one: Skill increase should be influenced by the power of the spell and it's usage!

No more numbing your finger on the minor heal spell; if you save restore 50% of your health in a battle, you should get a better experience reward than having full health/stamina and casting a tiny restore fatigue spell. If you successfully cast a massive destruction attack against a wave of foes, you should be rewarded more than throwing the first fireball spell given at an ogre. This would force magic players to not only advance their spells, but in return they they would level at a reasonable, not frustrating, pace.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

6. Total removal or fixing of the game-breaking effects like Reflect Damage or Chameleon. Do like the Shield effect, and make those effects cap at 85% or something similar.

But I love my 100% chameleon constant effect custom made amulet! It made raiding the Vivec treasuries way fun! If you don't like a certain effect, just don't use and stop spoiling the fun for the rest of us! I agree with the rest of your points though.

 

[LogieBear]

Fully agree with bringing back Morrowind effects and spells
SCROLL OF (Incarus. . Icarus . .whatever) FLIGHT!!!!! had some fun with that hehe.

And #1. you could'nt be more right, I despised repeating them, and even if I just wanted one measly spell

 

[IxionIndustries]

Take some advice from mods:

Number one, FUCKING. NECROMANCY.
I hated that shit! There was no way to be truly evil in freaking Oblivion. The fact that I have to be Martin's lapdog is bad enough, at least give me some evil cult I can join if not the Mythic Dawn.

Number two, also expanding on the Necromancy thing: Vampires. Make them better. Give them things that actually make a difference, such as certain spells or buffs. Also, add in the ability to become a Lich and a Werewolf along with the Vamps. I would KILL to be a lich.

A better spell-crafting altar would be nice too. For example, each spell that you learn gives you another effect that you can add, and you can change more than the quality and duration of the spell too. Just summon skeleton in that thing was not enough for me.

All that I can really think of now is better conjuration spells. Such as ones that scale level (Such as familiars), mass summonings, and more varied creatures that you can't find in-world.

 

[brodie21]

i think greater choice in what to do with magic. you read in the in game books that mages could do all sorts of neat things yet all you can really do is throw fireballs and summon things. in morrowind they had spells in enchantments. i would like to see that again. and levitation. multiple creatures like was said before.

 

[Derek_the_Dodo]

Things I want. by the way im on xbox and only joined the series with oblivion so sorry if any of these things have been covered with a mod or in a previous installment.

1. A "pokeball" spell. obviously not called that, but the ability to transport creatures (or maybe even NPCs) into a plain of oblivion then be able to call on them at will by activating the "pokeball" in your inventory, sorta like soul trapping. the spell would fail if they were aggressive or had a low disposition, and it would have to have a high cost to cast the spell for balance, but when you want to release the creature no cost. I say this because it would be so useful for those situations where i run out of magic and need some backup. I know there are potions to refill magic and scrolls but you scarcely find decent scrolls at all. This would also cover the problem of followers which aren't essential or don't have a "wait" option, you can just hold em in your pocket until youre ready to use them. also it would be hilarious fun to kidnap people. XD.

2. Permanent multiple summons. I know some people say it would be unfair having a personal army, but you can get about 8 or 9 essential or respawning NPCs as followers on oblivion anyway, so there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have a horde of tame zombies following you around. on a non magic related note why can't you hire followers from the fighters guild? They are essentially mercenaries that anyone can hire, so why not? I mean from the trailer it looks like we're fighting dragons, so some distractions would be nice.

3. Two magic buttons. just make the weapon button interchangeable with another magic one. not many mages wield anything other than a staff anyway. This would open up so many possibilities. imagine using a healing spell with your left hand whilst shooting fire out of your other hand. or sending twin streams of force lightning out of your palms. or if you were to have a fighting character who never uses magic, allow duel wielding of one handed weapons instead of a magic button. or shield bashes if its a shield equipped , or special attacks with claymores and other duel handed weapons. it would vary combat loads.

4. Tone down game breaking magics. i.e. 100% chameleon, reflect damage, reflect spell etc. make it top out at 85% or something like a previous poster suggested.

5. More than one enchantment on a weapon or item at once. this will mean i can look like an awesome mage in my robe without only having the one enchantment. often i just go for the black top and pants so i can have two and i look like a retard. make robes have 4 slots maximum (power of enchantments limited by the soul gems you use) shirts and pants with 2 apiece or something.

6. Be able to write your own scrolls. have requirements such as having to read a certain number of books as research before you can write them, and the more books you read the better scrolls you can make. makes use of all the crappy bits of parchment and quills lying everywhere. maybe better quality parchment gets better results, from scrawling on the back of a wolf hide to engraving tablets with godlike powerful spells on.

7. Teleportation as opposed to fast travel. it should cost a little gold and teleportation stations should be at all mages guilds as well as other random locations. mages can cast a spell. There should also be a seperate spell for items. cast a spell on a crate you own (finally a practical use for the houses) then cast again in the wilderness and have access to that crate. only 1 crate may be registered at once persuading you to buy a house with a bigger storage cupboard. (this would only work if crates have encumbrance which i think makes sense)either this or a spell which permenantly alters encumbrance of equipment.

8. A wall/mountain climbing spell. makes you able to stick to vertical surfaces so no more annoyances of running round the side of a mountain until you find some purchase. also it looks like we get dragons in skyrim so if possible, make it so we can grab onto the sides of some of the huge ones, climb them, then ride them. Or just let us ride dragons bethesda, PLEEEEASE!!

9. For you stealth lovers, do you remember the sticky cams from splinter cell? why no have a spell for them? Why not be able to shoot a third eye at walls to look round corners? save having to swap to third person all the time. Oh wait there's detect life... still, if you could use it as a distraction or explode it into flames it could prove very useful.

10. Some kind of decoy. Think the hologram in halo reach where you point at a spot, use the decoy, and it runs over to that spot, well use that. this is similar to the last point of sticky cams. it would help stealth tactics a lot more. Sometimes I prefer to sneak past enemies instead of killing them. This and no.4 would probably end up being made redundant by invisibility and chameleon though...

11. Another little note on stealth. every enemy should have some kind of weak spot where you have a chance to 1 hit kill them with a stealth move. The current stealth bonuses are useful, but it breaks immersion not being able to just slit peoples throat if you catch them unaware from behind. It would give stealth characters the edge they need.(I've always thought of them as way underpowered compared to warriors or mages.)

12. Magic armour. Rare badass looking armour which doesn't affect your spell effectiveness when worn.

13. ability to equip many different clothes at once. more than two rings, more than one necklace, capes, jackets over shirts etc. some gloves instead of only having gauntlets, bracer's and wrist irons.

well that's it, wow that was a long post. thoughts?

 

[T8B95]

Just gimme back Morrowind's magic system and I'm happy.

Why? What was so sacred about Morrowind's magic system that everyone gets so nostalgic over it? It took way too long to cast spells, and you couldn't easily switch from magic to melee in combat, which was a major problem for me. The only thing I will say for Morrowind's magic system is that it "looked cool". If Skyrim can get it to "look cool" while integrating it intuitively into gameplay, then it will be more godly than it already will be.

OT: Multiple summons, some sort of "binding" spell so your summons stay around, and caps on enchantments such as Chameleon and Reflect Damage. Seriously, I can only have 85% shield, but I can have 100% Reflect Damage and Reflect Spell?

 

[Lacsapix]

Mark and Recall, enough said.

 

[BlackStar42]

Things I want. by the way im on xbox and only joined the series with oblivion so sorry if any of these things have been covered with a mod or in a previous installment.

1. A "pokeball" spell. obviously not called that, but the ability to transport creatures (or maybe even NPCs) into a plain of oblivion then be able to call on them at will by activating the "pokeball" in your inventory, sorta like soul trapping. the spell would fail if they were aggressive or had a low disposition, and it would have to have a high cost to cast the spell for balance, but when you want to release the creature no cost. I say this because it would be so useful for those situations where i run out of magic and need some backup. I know there are potions to refill magic and scrolls but you scarcely find decent scrolls at all. This would also cover the problem of followers which aren't essential or don't have a "wait" option, you can just hold em in your pocket until youre ready to use them. also it would be hilarious fun to kidnap people. XD.

2. Permanent multiple summons. I know some people say it would be unfair having a personal army, but you can get about 8 or 9 essential or respawning NPCs as followers on oblivion anyway, so there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have a horde of tame zombies following you around. on a non magic related note why can't you hire followers from the fighters guild? They are essentially mercenaries that anyone can hire, so why not? I mean from the trailer it looks like we're fighting dragons, so some distractions would be nice.

3. Two magic buttons. just make the weapon button interchangeable with another magic one. not many mages wield anything other than a staff anyway. This would open up so many possibilities. imagine using a healing spell with your left hand whilst shooting fire out of your other hand. or sending twin streams of force lightning out of your palms. or if you were to have a fighting character who never uses magic, allow duel wielding of one handed weapons instead of a magic button. or shield bashes if its a shield equipped , or special attacks with claymores and other duel handed weapons. it would vary combat loads.

4. Tone down game breaking magics. i.e. 100% chameleon, reflect damage, reflect spell etc. make it top out at 85% or something like a previous poster suggested.

5. More than one enchantment on a weapon or item at once. this will mean i can look like an awesome mage in my robe without only having the one enchantment. often i just go for the black top and pants so i can have two and i look like a retard. make robes have 4 slots maximum (power of enchantments limited by the soul gems you use) shirts and pants with 2 apiece or something.

6. Be able to write your own scrolls. have requirements such as having to read a certain number of books as research before you can write them, and the more books you read the better scrolls you can make. makes use of all the crappy bits of parchment and quills lying everywhere. maybe better quality parchment gets better results, from scrawling on the back of a wolf hide to engraving tablets with godlike powerful spells on.

7. Teleportation as opposed to fast travel. it should cost a little gold and teleportation stations should be at all mages guilds as well as other random locations. mages can cast a spell. There should also be a seperate spell for items. cast a spell on a crate you own (finally a practical use for the houses) then cast again in the wilderness and have access to that crate. only 1 crate may be registered at once persuading you to buy a house with a bigger storage cupboard. (this would only work if crates have encumbrance which i think makes sense)either this or a spell which permenantly alters encumbrance of equipment.

8. A wall/mountain climbing spell. makes you able to stick to vertical surfaces so no more annoyances of running round the side of a mountain until you find some purchase. also it looks like we get dragons in skyrim so if possible, make it so we can grab onto the sides of some of the huge ones, climb them, then ride them. Or just let us ride dragons bethesda, PLEEEEASE!!

9. For you stealth lovers, do you remember the sticky cams from splinter cell? why no have a spell for them? Why not be able to shoot a third eye at walls to look round corners? save having to swap to third person all the time. Oh wait there's detect life... still, if you could use it as a distraction or explode it into flames it could prove very useful.

10. Some kind of decoy. Think the hologram in halo reach where you point at a spot, use the decoy, and it runs over to that spot, well use that. this is similar to the last point of sticky cams. it would help stealth tactics a lot more. Sometimes I prefer to sneak past enemies instead of killing them. This and no.4 would probably end up being made redundant by invisibility and chameleon though...

11. Another little note on stealth. every enemy should have some kind of weak spot where you have a chance to 1 hit kill them with a stealth move. The current stealth bonuses are useful, but it breaks immersion not being able to just slit peoples throat if you catch them unaware from behind. It would give stealth characters the edge they need.(I've always thought of them as way underpowered compared to warriors or mages.)

12. Magic armour. Rare badass looking armour which doesn't affect your spell effectiveness when worn.

13. ability to equip many different clothes at once. more than two rings, more than one necklace, capes, jackets over shirts etc. some gloves instead of only having gauntlets, bracer's and wrist irons.

well that's it, wow that was a long post. thoughts?

1) That's a really, REALLY good idea and I want it!

2)Eh, why not. I just want the AI for them to be better. A lich should not die to a Scamp because it was too dumb to blast it.

3)YES!

4)I'd go with no on this one. If I want to do those things, as long as I'm skilled enough, I should be able to.

5)Agreed.

6)Meh. Why not just use spells?

7)What about other characters? Can they still fast travel? What was wrong with using Shadowmere as a crate anyway?

8)Just put Levitation back in. From the trailer, you might just get dragons.

9)Sounds cool, why not?

10)Why not distract them with a conjured creature?

11)Agreed!

12)Meh, not really bothered.

13)Sounds good, but I doubt it'll happen with coding restraints and whatnot.

 

[unnunn12]

In Oblivion when you grabbed something it floated in front of you, change it!
What would be great is that if they made it when you try to hold something, your hand comes out and actually grabs it!
Maybe they could even make it if you were wielding something in a certain hand it would grab with the other hand, or if you were wielding with both hands, it wouldn't even grab at all!