one of the things that has always bugged me about TES games is their end all be all magic system. it completely relegates cure disease and restore health potions to near useless. makes lockpicking a wasted skill to pick as a major. no need to sneak. hell the only thing vanilla magic doesnt do is repair your armor for you, might as well make repair hammers redundant as well.

oblivion also got rid of the having to switch stances aspect making magic even more "easy". and lets be honest, how cool was it when you played dark messiah and used the ice spell to make someone slip off of a cliff. all TES magic does is particular types of damage. nothing else. i want to see people clothes start on fire if i throw a fireball at them. i want to see them get electrocuted even more if they are standing in water. i want them to slip if i shoot an iceball at the ground in front of them. id love to see spells like in other games where you could get people caught up in some vine trap for a short period of time.

ive played rogues and warrior but the only way i would even consider playing a mage is by using a mod like midas magic. please bethesda balance out your magic, make certain diseases require a potion, put a limit on alteration lockpicking so that if you want to open the really hard locks you have to improve your lockpicking skill. and put the stances back in. i feel like im skipping down the street with a balloon in one hand, an ice cream cone in the other just flipping my hands around casting spells while i chew bubble gum. go back to morrowinds stance change.

It realy depends on how you want to role play, There are skills for mages and skills for stealth players. It realy depends on how you want to play the game. Allthough the skeleton key makes lock picking completely pointless.

i changed the skeleton key to only increase lockpick by 5. i agree it was waaaaaaaaaaaay to overpowered.

as for roleplaying. shouldnt a rogue be able to get into places that a fighter or mage couldnt get into. just like a warrior can use more weapon types effectively than a rogue or mage. the best thief doesnt pick sneak or lockpick as his majors. the best thief is in fact a mage that majors in illusion and alteration. that makes rogue charaters meaningless.

Fixing problems always happens in stages. Magic has always had a nice be-all-end-all aspect to it in TES. But in previous games, mana was something that had to be carefully monitored. The situations where you need magic most are situations where you can't sleep. So do you want to spend some magic points opening that locked chest or do you want to be able to torch that enemy behind the corner? Rapid regeneration made that sort of balancing moot.

But, of course, rapid regeneration came to be because there were sooooo many popular mods for Morrowind that made magic a renewing resource plus a lot of people complained that they couldn't play a "pure mage". What D&D doesn't have "pure mages" where you can only cast one particular spell per day? People wanted to be the super-wizard and Beth gave them that ability. But they kept the old "rationed, but very powerful" system in place. That did lead to some oddities.

I think the "open" "charm" and "fortify skill" spells all need to be revamped somehow. With respect to the latter, maybe like how they managed weapon enchantment in Oblivion where certain skills are missing from the "fortify skill" set. Skills that need only 1 second of active time to be useful, like armorer, mercantile, and speechcraft (though the perk system and speechcraft being worthless did kinda help that in Oblivion). For the others, I'd say that they could manage them through perks. Depending on the system they use, you either cannot cask a spell with a magnitude over its governing attribute (like training) or your chance of successfully casting a spell approaches, like, 5% as its magnitude approaches your ability (this is taxing you to the limit of your ability, after all) and beyond that it drops even lower.

magic should be like guns in ratchet and clank.

Okay, I have to comment on Skeleton Key here... so the first time through Oblivion (50 hrs of my life), I learned how to lockpick. When tumbler goes up slow, you move in... badaboom, you have your lock pick. Granted I love fps games so I tend to have some twitch reflexes that aren't the norm for rpg gamers, bit after my second runthrough (another 50 hrs) I learned how to lockpick the whole game with a single breakable lockpick. My third time through, I am so friggin sick of that minigame, I want to puke. That minigame is the bane of my Oblivion experience, and I'd pray to a Daedric Prince just to have some way of taking that off my "holy crap another tumbler to make me want to freaking puke" list... oh wait, Bethesda thought of that! Thank you Nocturnal! Hmmm.... anyone else here after 4 years still want to make a tumbler fall with a breakable lockpick?????? If you think Skeleton Key is too powerful, it is absolutely necessary.

i'm really tired of not being able to use even the most basic spells because i don't have enough magicka. i think all spell schools should tie together with intelligence so that when i have 60 destruction i have enough magicka to use a fireball that does 5 damage.

diverse spell animations would be nice too.

I tend to agree. Mages are supposed to be "clever" characters. Their spells should be less about direct damage and simplistic rock/paper/scissors elemental bits, and more about creating an environment favorable to the mage. Slippery ice on solid ground, and solid on water surfaces (for walking on, and trapping enemies underneath to drown) are smart uses of frost. Using small fires to create large infernos is a smart use of fire, as is taking advantage of the resulting panic for combat (or stealth -- presumably burning down a city block makes for an effective, if dangerous, distraction for citizens and guards alike). Shock could be a Bioshock style effect, and/or could be tied toward weather control magic.

Magic should focus more on augmenting other playstyles rather than supplanting them. For example:
* Mages could learn how to cast and attack simultaneously, allowing them to inflict touch-ranged magic with attacks. This could also be done with ranged attacks (albeit at a slightly higher cost since the enchantment must last until the missile hits something). This would also be a good excuse for reducing the number (and increasing the value) of enchanted weapons and armor.
* Stealth could be more dependent on environmental factors. Thieves could use magic to create more favorable terrain for sneaking (extinguishing torches, softening loud ground areas) -- in fact, most of Garrett's tricks in Thief were basically magic. Silence, for example, could return as a spell that dampens all sound produced in a certain area (possible with a drawback of creating a visible fog, unless more magic is poured in to purify the effect). Magic would also be more reliable for nonlethal dispatch of guards and civilians (e.g., a Sleep spell), versus whacking them in the back of the head and hoping for the best.
* Open Lock could just let you use magic to pick a lock without a physical pick (and some bonus to chance of success or minigame perk). It would work in conjunction with lockpicking rather than against it.
* Similarly, charm could grant some bonuses when using speechcraft, rather than being a vastly superior way to deal with disposition. The 2-second Charm exploit should be addressed, somehow.

As for limiting uses, I think magicka should be divided into two types (say, Spirit and Magicka). Spirit would only recharge with rest, Magicka would recharge quickly as in Oblivion. In fact, Spirit could be used to set the maximum for Magicka. For the most part, Spirit would be used for semi-permanent effects -- for example, summons, wards, or certain buffs could have an indefinite duration (and the Spirit expended on the effect would not regenerate until the effect was canceled/dispelled/destroyed). It could, however, also be used for spells that would disruptive if overused. Magicka would be for spells that are going to be used repeatedly.

I totally like your spirit idea. I have a thread about some major changes to Morrowind, can I use your spirit idea?


Both will exist in same bar. Magicka will replenish quickly but max limit will be set by spirit as you say. Spirit can be bind to time(real slow, full day maybe?) or number of spells(intelligence or intelligence/4). So resting can be meaningful in this system as much as magicka regeneration.

Really cool idea! :thumbsup:

I don't think anyone has a problem with making magic effects cooler, the only issue may be whether they are possible to implement (correctly) with the available technology.



Meh, I think this would lead to every single character taking magic skills even when they are playing a pure combat or stealth role.



All good ideas.



Why not just use Morrowind's system of a numerical lock range and a numerical range on the spells? Sure, you could use Ondusi's Lockjam (Open 1 to 100 points) to open that 100 Point Lock, but each time you cast it you have a 1 in 100 chance of it actually working. If you really wanted it opened you would case an extremely magicka-intensive spell that does 100 to 100.

Alternatively, Open spells could have two aspects: Strength and Rate (A Morrowind/Oblivion hybrid). Strength would determine the maximum lock level it could open, and Rate would determine how often the spell works (similar to using a lockpick auto-attempt). You could make your own spells that have a high Strength and low Rate or vice versa, or a very expensive spell that has high on both.



I think that Speechcraft, Personality, and Disposition in general need to be revamped. I know people hate the F word here, but Fable did a much better job with how NPC interactions are affected by your character and some of those things should be copied in TES (having 2 or more bars is a start).



Why make a new type when we already have Fatigue (which currently does not really affect magic users very much)?

The natural regeneration of magicka was a positive step over Morrowind's "sleep 12 hours a day" approach. The sheer speed of that regeneration in OB, unfortunately, made any sort of tactical conservation of magicka or intelligent use of spells pointless. Morrowind had a fairly deep "pool" of spell points, but no way to refill it without sleeping or using potions, forcing a cautious use of your precious magicka. Oblivion had a shallow puddle in comparison, but a solid stream to refill it, forcing you to throw only weak spells, but allowing you to do so over and over.

Some compromise between the two seems like the answer: a deep enough magicka pool to see you through one or two encounters with enough to spare for "light utility" use afterwards, and a very slow recharge rate to allow you to more-or-less regain that expended energy during the trip back to civilization with the loot you collected from your adventure, but NOT enough to matter in the middle of combat. As your magic-related attributes improve, both the depth of the pool and the refill rate should gradually increase, to the point where you'd eventually be able to rely on magicka alone for clearing an entire area. Having the casting cost of spells decrease slightly as your skills in that school increase would make it possible to use truly high-powered spells in your favored areas later on, while still being somewhat limited in the other areas.

Most of the Regeneration mods for Morrowind were way too rapid for a decent play-balance. They essentially turned any aspiring spellcaster into a walking flame-thrower or worse, with no real down-side to expending magicka on a large scale almost continuously. In essence, you ended up with both MW's deep pool and OB's rapid recharge. In my own MW games, using either Fair Magicka Regen or the built-in regeneration in GCD, I edited the regen rates down to about 1/4 of what the mod developers chose. In GCD, that was fine, because GCD also nerfed the magicka pool by about half, but with Fair Magicka Regen, I felt that it was STILL overpowered, and was tempted to halve it again.

Taking away the gradual regeneration of enchanted items between MW and OB made them a lot less useful and interesting. I thought the rate in MW was about perfect: too slow to rely on for heavy use, like weapons, without manually refilling it as needed, but enough for "occasional" use. Taking away Cast on Use enchantments, the vast majority of those used in Morrowind, was another big step backwards. Removing enchantment limits and making any strength enchantment possible on any item (within the very narrow confines of what OB allowed to be enchanted on what), but only by the use of Sigil Stones (which could be done effortlessly by ANY character with no enchanting skills) effectively made the system pointless to play as a major character focus.

The failure rates for spells in Morrowind were a bit steep at the start, but the idea was excellent. By using a set of sliders to pre-set the strength, duration, and area of your current spell, you would be able to adjust those up or down to balance the potential effect of the spell against the potential for failure. You could do that in a limited manner already, by having a custom spell tailored (for a bargain price) to your particular application, but you couldn't do it yourself "on the fly". THAT would make for a truely flexible system, and any failures would be strictly your own fault for trying something slightly beyond your abilities.

Alchemy could/should work in a similar manner, where the odds of success/failure would be determined not only by your skill in Alchemy, but by the difficulty of the attempted potion. Using Novice equipment to produce a weak grade of potion should be relatively easy; using Master equipment to produce a high-strength version of that potion, especially at low skill levels, should be far more prone to failure or unwanted (and possibly hidden) negative side effects. The quality of the apparatus could determine the strength/duration/value of the potion, and consequently the difficulty level, whereas the skills of the alchemist should determine the odds of success or failure versus that difficulty. It would have the added benefit in that potions made with the same level of apparatus would always have the same stats and value, so they'd stack in inventory, whereas the minor variations in both MW and OB created a gazillion marginally different versions of the same thing. In Morrowind, there was no way to modify the chance of success or failure except for changing your skills/attributes. In Oblivion, there was no possibility of failure regardless of your skills, and the higher level apparatus didn't exist in the game until you reached the "appropriate" character level. The game merely rewarded tenure, not talent.

Most of those things you listed as longer lasting would be intelligence spells, and the way you described them working, I think it would work better if they drained your daily fatigue. Daily fatigue determines how long you can go without rest. Intel magic has more to do with rituals and long lasting effects, Willpower magic should determine your spell points and have the most to do with the immediate magic.

Willpower
Alteration
Enchanting
Restoration
Destruction
Thaumaturgy

Intelligence
Mysticism
Conjuration
Necromancy
Alchemy
Medical

Disadvantage in Character Creation: Inability to cast spells

• For characters who do not choose any magic schools for their chosen skills, they will not be given any starting spells, thus- they cannot cast magic unless they train those skills through a trainer to be able to use even basic spells.

i like the idea of open spells simply augmenting the natural lockpick ability. say adding 5 points of lockpick skill for every level of spell. certainly beats simply waving your hands and all locks just unlocking. whats the point in bothering with locks at all at that point.

i actually didnt mind morrowinds lack of regen. my current game of oblivion has the regen slowed down to a crawl so that i have to carry them around. im fine if i dont use many spells but if i get into a fire fight then i definitely need them.

i also liked how thief series "magic" worked. i dont necessarily have a problem with invisibility or chameleon, i just think that they should be very expensive short term spells. as it is now i can make an invisibility spell that lasts 2 minutes or use a smaller 30 seconds invisibility spell making me essentially immortal since i can backstab, invisie, backstab, invisie. etc. i wish they had a cool down timer on certain spells so you cant spam them. if you cast too many fire spells in a short period of time your hands start to burn etc.

one of the reasons midas magic was so fun was that lots of his spells barely did any damage at all. but were a major hindrance to anyone attacking you. either allowing you to run away or to cast offensive spells from a safe distance. i certainly hope that bethesda looks at some of those spells.

I think doing so should require sacrificing some skill in combat or stealth ability.



A valid point, although I was thinking that Health and Fatigue could have a similar relationship to Spirit and Magicka -- that is, health governs max fatigue and as you take damage, you get tired very easily (call it blood loss, if you want). That said, using fatigue for spellcasters has the benefit of sticking with what we know.



Enchantment was a little too powerful in Morrowind since you could essentially create and cast any "spell" without skill in the related school. One thing you could do would be to merge enchantment in with the other schools. As it stands, magic is a little flavorless (meaning, there's no real clear picture of what a spell is or how it works). Mages could use non-soul-gem enchanted items to act as focus items for specific spells -- basically, dumping magicka into the item for a while to make it conducive to casting a certain spell. Then, when the time comes, the item can improve success rate or reduce casting cost or actually cast from a limited number of charges or whatever.

In general, magic could be improved by dividing it into a preparation and use phase. In addition to alchemy, of course, preparation could involve laying down long-lasting buffs, summoning creatures and items, enchanting items, creating or adjusting spells, and other "ritual" sorts of magic. Use would involve drinking potions, controlling minions, or using a wand to light things on fire. The ritual part should include a limited ability to "enchant" oneself -- which would give Constant Effect boosts (long-term buffs, basically) or Cast on Use boosts (spells, as they were in earlier games, basically). However, most mages would probably find it more useful to carry a few tools and props to work more effectively. In addition, Mages' Guilds could provide the "preparation" services for minor practitioners, for a fee. A warrior could pay the guild to give his weapon a special enchantment that would last for his next adventure, but not permanently. A nightblade could have the guild imbue him or his items with Illusion spells, rather than try to do so himself. And, of course, everyone would rely on mages for potions.



Agree with creating/adjusting spells at any time outside of combat (pretty much whenever you could make potions or repair items).



Agree- one thing that made alchemy so wonky was basing potion power on your skill, and letting reagents have nothing to do with it. I think reagent choice should determine the power (and difficulty) of the potion as well as the effects, so that there's a reason to use more expensive reagents instead of ham sandwiches. Mortar/Pestle would give a boost to success rate, but the other three tools should grant a fixed bonus to the potion (say, weight of .25 instead of 1, 1/4 side effects or toxicity, +300% duration) at ever-decreasing penalties to success rate. That would help constrain the number of permutations -- and would make it much more feasible to keep player crafted and bought/found potions on a similar price scale. Could even allow for random creation of potions that would theoretically be player-craftable.



You were a union hero in Oblivion, I guess. Explains why you could take an indefinite break while the world needed saving.



Not bad, but a couple of suggestion:
* Enchanting should definitely be Intelligence and preparatory. Actively casting spells from an enchanted object should require knowledge of the appropriate spell school as if you were casting a spell, though the object's properties might effectively grant you a huge bonus to your skill for this purpose.

* Ditch Alteration. We hatesss it!

* Illusion is missing. Should definitely be in the Willpower category.

* Not a big fan of restoration, actually. The buffs are prep stuff that could be handled better in a different skill. Plus, there's too much functional overlap with Medical. I would move all the out-of-combat curing and healing into Medical (which would get some magical backup in the form of a more elaborate take on wortcraft, along with non-magical surgery and first aid). For short-term self-healing, I would use alchemy, but would add some long-term drawbacks (toxicity, side effects, addiction, inebriation, whatever).

* Not sure whether Necromancy should be a PC skill, or even a skill in and of itself (rather than a philosophy on the use of magical skill).

* Conjuration should be long-term, but probably still based on willpower

So, more like:
Short term (will): Destruction, Illusion, Thaumaturgy
Long term (int, except conj): Medical, Alchemy, Enchantment, Conjuration, Mysticism

Most long-term skills would have some short term uses too, so it's not as imbalanced as it looks.

Enchanting was mainly "broken" in MW because you could use Alchemy or enchanted items to boost your enchanting capabilities far beyond normal. With a "fixed" set of potion strengths dependent on the apparatus used, you couldn't go beyond the maximums. Boosted stats would merely allow you to use higher grade equipment than normal without the associated increase in failures. A bit of rebalancing, to make the enchanting costs match the usefulness of the effect a little better, would also help. Making the original act of enchanting a spell effect onto something at least partially dependent on your skill in that particular school would be another way of avoiding abuses.

- Necromancy could cover about half of what's currently in "Restoration".

I wanted enchant changed a whole lot from Morrowinds method, and I made it a willpower skill because it is mostly the hard application of Mysticism to objects, drawing magic from the other willpower skills. For longer term or permanent enchantments, I definitely see it more as a ritual thing, but I want the mainstay of Enchanting to be short term or practical enchantments that you use lesser souls for without storing them in soul gems.

I haven't heard yet why. What was it?

It's always been in the personality category for some reason, I left it there.

Restoration does need a re-work if they're going to keep it. If Illusion was worked into willpower replacing the restoration slot, some of the restoration spells could be worked into Thaumaturgy, and the other effects taken care of like you said with the Medical and Alchemy. Good call.

It would be trickier, but if they put some thought into expanding what you can do with it, I think it would work out.

I've been thinking lately of striking the name conjuration and replacing it with Daedric. Same sorts of things going on, but under a clearer purpose. Even so, I don't think that summoning a critter from Oblivion should be a quick spell to cast or that they should only last for a short while. If you bring a daedra into the world, it stays. You should only be able to control them to a certain point though, you shouldn't be able to have an army of spider daedra or something like that.

A couple points on Magic:

1. Magic skills are a bit more powerful and flexible than other skills, and I think they should be - BUT, magic stats (Willpower/Intelligence) are useful for nothing but powering magic. The other stats are useful for everyone including mages: Strength lets you carry stuff, Speed improves travel rate and ability to flee, Agility prevents you from getting stunlocked by heavy blows, Endurance lets you take more damage, Luck helps you with everything, and Personality.. is useless. So, the more someone relies on spells, the more he reduces his overall adventuring fitness.

2. The lockpicking minigame's easiness [censored] up the entire business of opening locks in Oblivion. However, Lockpicking and Alteration could be balanced - just make Lockpicking more powerful at equivalent level than Alteration is. That is, at Journeyman level for each skill I should be able to open Average locks with Alteration but Hard locks with Lockpicking. So Lockpicking is still a useful skill. Same with sneak - make Chameleon weaker at same-level than Sneak. Health potions aren't useless, they're great for emergencies whereas Restoration is limited healing over time.

I couldnt agree more with this. After playing Dark Messiah I came to realize how much I disliked TES magick system. In Dark Messiah I would reload countless times just to kill the same enemy because that game has so many different ways to kill. I could freeze him and shatter him, throw him down a cliff with telekinesis, burn the bridge he is standing on, start a fire on the boxes he is near or even burn the rope holding the bridge he is standing on. I remember spending about half an hour reloading killing this one enemy since the magic in DM is so much fun. On Oblivion I cant say I can do any of that.

I also would like to see Bethesda incorporate the system that DM and Bioshock did with their "magic" For example in Bioshock when you switch to Ignite you can see the PC's hand light on fire and when you shoot it the fire goes out and the enemy gets lit on fire. In DM when casting a fireball you can see the PC charging it up as it gets bigger and bigger. One of my last favorite things to do in Bioshock is set enemies on fire then when they go to jump in the water electrocute them. TES would be way more fun if Bethesda managed to incorporate any of this.

I always thought that magic regeneration should function like health regen in newer FPS - you have to rest your character for it to reload. If you're attacking a bunch of goblins you would have to stop moving and stand still for a while before your mana would come back. Have it function kind of like fatigue- if you're running for your life, you wouldn't be able to concentrate to reload your internal stores. Something like that. Of course, the stronger your abilities, the faster it comes back. Maybe have spellcraft affect your fatigue - have the spell caster wear himself out. Think about how the strain of casting a spell tires out wizards in most movies or books if you can read.

It would be pretty cool. I'd like to see different animations for the spells you cast while you are using weapons. Say you cast a quick ice enchantment on your weapon for use on strike. I'd like to see the ice crawl down your arm onto the weapon, then leap onto the enemy when you strike them, freezing them in place a bit like Bioshock.

One thing I was happy about in Oblivion was magic use...which i thought was a huge improvement over morrowind (lightning bolts are alot cooler than a cheesy shock ball). Once we get into making enemies slip, or clothes igniting and so on, we stray further from tes being an rpg and head more into fantasy action realm which imo wouldnt be so great. If theres one thing i hope for its for the dev team to concentrate more on rpg elements and basic functionality of every skill. Before anything else, I'd love to see a return of spears/lances as a weapon, horseback combat, and more factions to join....such as the imperial legion and possibly a religious cult or group. Last thing im hoping for is an improved magic system, being that i enjoyed playing as a mage in oblivion, and felt it was very balanced in almost every aspect. If a tough enemy got into striking distance i got my buttt handed to me and if i got the jump on an enemy or enemies, it made for some fun and quick battles.

Are you suggesting that adding more tactics in the use of magic versus having several interchangeable spells with different particle effects somehow makes the game less of an RPG?

i did the same thing. my fave being aforementioned ice slip making them fall off a cliff. with dark messiah you also had to go into cast mode like morrowind did. it actually made you feel like you were concentrating on casting. oblivion it felt like an afterthought where you would just flick your wrist and a fireball flew out. i still have dark messiah on my computer and play it every few months. i really wish they would make an open world sandbox version of that game. would be freaking awesome.