Oblivion was a great game, but the worst thing about it was the leveling system with major skills and minor skills. The way it was set up, you could actually become a master of minor skills before your major skills. I spent a lot of time trying to make the perfect character and eventually had to make a spreadsheet and keep track of my leveling points in order to have an awesome character. But then I ended up with ridiculously overpowered characters like my altmer mage who had 750 magicka (because of sigil stones) and was master of almost all magic skills. After that character, it was kind of pointless to make any more magic-based characters and it got boring.

I'm excited about Skyrim because of the leveling/perk system. This time I'm going to play the "right" way and have ten different specialized characters that are good at a few things. I'm really going to base my characters on racial abilities and skill bonuses instead of making a bunch of overpowered characters. My orc will use smithing, enchanting and heavy armor- his main talent will be at making awesome armor and weapons, maybe dual wielding weapons that have multiple enchantments, but he will use no magic. My dunmer assasin will use mostly offensive skills, but not blocking and will only join the dark brotherhood. I might see how far I get with a thief character that uses little magic and weapons. How far can I get with pickpocketing and alchemy and avoiding actually fighting? These are some ideas for my specialized characters and I'm going to try to make one for each race. Not all of them will be doing the main quest, and each character will join one faction that is suited to them.

Anyone else going to play like this and do you have ideas for these types of characters?

I do this more or less.

Bosmer- Thief, Woodsman
Breton- Mage
Redguard- Warrior

Argonian- Thief with alteration/Illusion, No Markmen.
Altmer- Necromancer
Orc- Two Handed Warrior, Some Restoration

Maybe:
Nord- Battlemage, frost magic only
Imperial- Socialite Warriorish

And I just don't play as Dunmer, Kahjiit,

I'm also thinking of Nord with just frost magic, but a two-handed barbarian wth frost magic

AYUP. Well, not so much on the elves and bretons... [censored] bretons.

Nord: Warrior that uses 2h axes.
Orc: Berserker that uses 2h axes. Or two 1h axes.
Khajiit: Warrior that uses two curved blades.
Argonian: Assassin, two daggers.
Imperial: Fire mage.
Wood elf: Archer.

That's what I have planned. Although y'know, I may make more.

I'm not sure what to do with the argonian now based on the skill bonuses. Argonians used to be good at illusion and mysticism in Oblivion. Now they have restoration magic and a lot of thief skills. It seems like a strange mix to me.

I've planned out at least one character for each race. Don't know if I'll be able to get through all of them though. I still have a backlog of 5 characters for FNV.

The main reason i keep coming back to these forums is to find out all the racial skill bonuses, perk trees, and what spells are in each magic skill. If I had that info I could just start planning these characters and stop checking these damn forums every day. it's driving me insane!

I don't know...

Dunmer: 2handed, smithing, block, heavy armor.
Imperial: 1 handed, Light armour, Marksman, destruction, conjuration, illusion, smithing, enchanting, speechcraft/barter, alchemy. (yeah i know allot but he's the ''main'' character I will create and my ''real'' Dovahkiin and I never used illusion in Oblivion and it seems good this time)
Imperial 2: 1 handed, sneak, alchemy, enchanting, speechcraft/barter.
Khajiit: Destruction, sneak, light armour.
Altmer: Destruction, Alteration, Illusion, restoration, 1 Handed.
Breton: I don't know yet )

From that I bet everyone here understands I never make ''pures''

Im totally gonna go with a breton Two Weapon Fighter (not the same as two handed) and spells that cover restoration and illusion... and if they say that as you play it develops my skills in a way that mimics the way i fight.. that's great. I did the same as you up there^^ in oblivion, i kept track of all the skills i leveled making sure that i didn't sleep (level up) until id maxed out the number of skills that i could get on the level i was already on.. I kept a spread sheet and totally just screwed up my experience. i found myself going to this Deadric shrine (i forget which one but you get the spellweaver shield or something shield for finishing it) and just attacking the frozen people with spells and attacks until id maxed out my skills then ran around and jumped up stairs(which looks a lot like floating lol) but in all seriousness i didnt get to enjoy the quests as much and i was just focused on leveling and making my character the best i could make it. so im saying is that i hope they allowed for the leveling to go more.. smoothly and it helps me create an awesome character!! none the less oblivion was a freaking awesome game and i love how all the people demoting skyrim slowly disappeared as we got closer to the RELEASE DATE so i cant wait for this game and i know itll be cool :tes: but if all goes wrong? :brokencomputer: .. yeah.

I'm presently running eight characters in Oblivion. Some I've been playing for years. I cycle between them to keep things fresh.. Each has a different skill sets, goals and quest selections as well as different mods loaded. Playing a lone Nord warrior is a very differntt experience from an Altmer mage traveling with companion Vilja, for example . I can't really get into playng the beast races but I've tried all the humans and elves and each is fun in their own way.