Hmm. Pondering.
As we should all know by now, in TESV:Skyrim, we no longer choose our class via a CharGen menu, we will be choosing our class via our meaningful actions within the game.
Our "majors" will naturally fallout as our most used, or more importantly, our most perked skills.

The opening dungeon for Oblivion was really well crafted. They threw some Light and Heavy armour at us; one-/two-handed blunt/blade; a bow and some arrows; a sample Staff even! A Pestle and Mortar, a small stack of Repair Hammers and some lockpicks. All the skills that required a tool to begin using them was represented. Once we decided on our Schools of magic, they threw in some Starter spells. Then some more dungeon to test whether we liked them, and then an option to change at the end. It was fair, and balanced. In order to allow us to choose any beginning for ourselves once we exited the sewer and started our Adventure proper. Every permutation was on an even footing. All the cats were hugged.

The thing that I've been pondering, how will Skyrim deal with this? From word of Todd, initial levelling is going to be fast. In order to for everyone to start defining their character's class, all the little Dovahkiin will be marching through their first few levels rapidly, in order to earn our perks. However... in this critical, formative, (and more pertinently) short period of time.
How is the Illusionist going to define-by-doing out of the gate, without his or her first Illusion spell? Replace with any skill that requires our character to have a prequisite spell/weapon/tool to start developing it. Our important, formative levels hopefully will not be dominated by necessity via scarcity of the basic tools of each skill.

As we know they've brilliantly integrated the Spell Tome dlc idea into the full game in this iteration of The Elder Scrolls. If they place one starter tome from each School into the Tutorial dungeon, I guess this would be one solution to this gameplay puzzle, at least for the Mage-governed skills, which previously relied on CharGen to magically drop basic necessities into character knowledge the most.
This could turn out to be even better than starting with the flame-spray spell by default, as our Warriors and Thieves that as part of our RP should've had no business knowing that cantrip, can just not even read any of the books offered (though they'll be welcome loot). Our hybrids (battlemages, spellswords, nightblades, etc) and pure Mages can learn what they want too.

Just something I've been thinking about. How do you feel?
Will you be ok with being forced to use the tools the game provides, then finding a delicious thrill of setting yourselves a quest out of putting together the basic tools of your new character's identity, via money making, through store bargin hunting, to glorious self-actualisation and being able to play your chosen character as you intended. I know I will, if it ends up being this way.
Or will you find it incongruous they/we'll have to potentially go out of our way for our "conjuror" to find its first Summon Weapon/Creature/Daedra spell to even be considered a conjuror?

I've thought of this as well!! I'm thinking they'll give us items that cover the entire spectrum (1hand, 2 hand, heavy, light, etc.), but how they'll go about this I don't know. Just have every character have everything from the get go? This WOULD facilitate the "I don't want to use anything else until I find the item that will let me use the skill I want for this playthrough!!" dilemma.


HOWEVER, presuming that the intro section will be VERY hectic as I think it will be, I think the best way to go about this is to have a part of the game where an NPC says "go ahead and grab a weapon from that rack!" and said rack would have 1 of each type (same can be done with armor). This would allow the player to start with nothing and choose what they already have planned for that playthrough.

As far as starting spells go, I do hope that only Bretons and Altmers know magic from the get go, and all others need to find tomes in the intro section like you suggested.

Man I need this game already :sadvaultboy:

I guess they can get away with quite a bit with the flexibility inherent in the system too.

Perk points can be saved up.
We can shove them into the root of the perk trees we intend to use as a major, in anticipation of finding the gear, location and means to enable them.
So even if the opening scenario is more Arena/Daggerfall erratic dungeon where one mightn't get something useful. Or Morrowind where we're expected to be very self-sufficient starting with just a release fee, and an immediate short quest that grants us a loan of gold, and a very generous, sharp discount at the local merchant to buy some basic class supplies.
Or if the Prisoner Escapes start event just literally dumps us on the mountainside with a dagger, a fire spell, and a leather jerkin, and the first few levels are all One-Handed, Destruction & Light Armour. Or whatever.
We'll still be able to recover, and get our RP vision on track.

I'm expecting it to start pretty much the same way as Oblivion; a tutorial dungeon with a sampling of everything, and with the spell tomes added, we wouldn't even need to start off with the healing spell already equipped. We'll probably also exit the tutorial with enough loot to give us a good start financially. It's about a half hour long (maybe longer, for those of us who like to take our time).

Thing is doesn't it start out with our character escaping an execution? If so, I would assume it would be a public display and you'd either start out in or around a town or something not in an interior cell.

This is a good thread.



I don't think they'll do either of those things. Choosing a weapon off a rack may be confusing to newcomers to the game, who might think it acted like a class choice screen. They might not realise that picking a 1-handed weapon doesn't preclude you from using 2-handed weapons later, and may be worried/put off by the fact that they have to choose just one.

As for starting spells, that would also be very offputting for new players who don't know too much about how gaining new spells works. In fact it'd be pretty offputting for players more used to the Elder Scrolls. My second character is going to be an Argonian pure mage; just because Argonians aren't the "standard" race for mage playstyles, it doesn't mean that I should be handicapped to start with. The whole point behind the Elder Scrolls system is that you're free to choose, and shouldn't be limited beyond a few lower stats to begin with (which can be recovered very quickly anyway).

I'm sure there will be a 1-handed and a 2-handed weapon available in the starting dungeon, as well as a bow and arrows. What I can't figure out is how they'll do the first few spells. It would be a shame to be stuck with just a Destruction and a Restoration spell to start with, especially if there's no indication of how to get hold of some spells from other schools.

Great post OP! :goodjob:

Seriously i do hope that we will NOT start with spells since i do not want to use/have them! How this is done is unfortunately unknwn at this point...

Personally I would like it to be as realistic as possible; being dumped on a snowy mountainside wearing prisoner get up with no spells and maybe one small rusty dagger? Yes please :biggrin:

I'm sure the tutorial will lead you through all features, give you the appropriate items to get you started and give you your direction. Bethesda is really good at blending the tutorial so you don't even feel like your playing a tutorial.. Since they haven't allowed the beginning to be seen by anybody yet it's anybody's guess. I hope they are able to keep the beginning a complete secret this time around. Oblivions and Fallouts appeared a few weeks before the game release.

The tutorial should be similar to Oblivion item wise. Nothing incredibly powerful but still some decent items that can last you until you reach Riverwood or find something better.

Yeah, from what I've read and seen so far, all spells are sold and acquired via the Tomes now. They'll just sit in the Barter list with all the other items a vendor sells.
No more specific spell barter area for them. Different from how the previous games have done it. However, this seems rather simple and elegant. I love this feature.
Not only does it streamline the shopping experience, opens up the ability for you to steal a spell from a mage's library or something. As well as them turning up as loot, just as the Warriors and Thieves would find weapons as loot, the Mage will find the tools of their trade too. The more I think about it, just how bad a deal unlawful mages had it before, compared to the other two Archetypes. They had to legitimately get aaaaall their things.

With the new Skill list in TESV:Skyrim.
Block, One-handed, Two-handed, Archery, Heavy Armor, Light Armor, and Lockpicking can have a few basic items in the start of the game.
The three crafting skills require static workshops now, but they can still throw in some Alchemy ingredients, some sample ore for Smithing, and a few Soul gems for Enchanting.
Pickpocketing, Speechcraft and Sneak need no tools just NPCs to use them on so they're chill.
But, let us look at the rest of the Mage-governed skills.

The five schools of Skyrim's magic: Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion and Restoration.
In Oblivion, we all started with Flare and Heal Minor Wounds.
Alteration got Open & Shield; Conjuration got Turn Undead & Summon Skeleton; Destruction gave us Shock & Frost to round out the elements; Illusion started with Light & Calm; Restoration only had Absorb Health on top of the default healing spell. For completion's sake: Mysticism started with Detect Life & Dispel.
The theme with all these seemed to be an example of utility, and then something useful for combat.
But, I don't know about you, if Skyrim's starting dungeon threw the Skyrim-equivalent Spell Tomes of all these spells at us, with the new spell system, I feel they'd be giving away too much... but at the same time, if they don't, Mages of the School would be getting a rougher deal when they start out compared to previous iterations of TES. Dilemma.