So Destruction spells are in great and they will look great if nothing else. But What about defense for a mage they cant wear armor and wearing a shield will take up one hand and cut the effectiveness of a mage in half so lets look at some defensive options.

It has been confirmed that fireball is in and that it has 3 lvls of effectiveness Fireball, trap spell and Flamethrower. that was followed by Tod saying that all the spell will have as much flexibility so with this in mind i was trying to think up some realistic defensive spells. So far i have come up with one that basically works like a shield

lvl1 - quickly tapping the spell button puts up a transparent shield (like a one armed shield that a warrior would use but magical and cooler) that when hit by like a arrow sword , mace ect cracks and 3 consecutive ( if no follow up hits shield dissipates) hits break it dragon, troll, giant ect breaks it in one and knocks you back with severely reduced damage to mage.

lvl2 - if used while crouching creates a much stronger dome of force around you that uses 4 times as much magica at one time and can take 2 times as many hits.

lvl3- hold down ate activation button and it makes a slightly larger shield in front of you that takes the 4 or 1 hit like before but instead of breaking afterward it lasts until your magica runs out.

lvl4-dual wield same as the crouching spell but used when standing and activated with a single tap and a larger radius that enemies cant walk in or out of and no spells or attacks can leave 15 hits breaks it or 5 larger monster hits.

_not that i care to much about balance in a single player game every one has its nich and it makes sience that if you can actually land a hit on a mage the damage should be crippling but getting that hit should not be easy, this is balanced because the shield breaks quickly and when any but the lvl 1 or 3 is used you either cant attack or cant move_

this is just one of a few i thought out what are your ideas for realistic defensive spells?

Are you sure that armor reduces the effects of magic by half? In Oblivion I've noticed a 5% debuff but thats it, and it's hardly noticeable.
Anyways, Whenever I'm a defensive mage I wear heavy armor with a shield and enchant the crap out of it. Then again, I always play that way.
Beth has been great with giving the player arcane abilities for every situation. Shield spells, reflect spells, etc.
For aesthetic effects, I suppose a shield spell would surround the player, so I don't know what it should look like. Unless you're hit I don't want to see it at all. I suppose distortion effects when you're hit or something.

it depended on how much armor you had on, plus the your skills. I can assume that spell effectiveness will return to balance magic.

We know that there will be a Circle of Protection spell. That would be interesting to talk about

The shield will reduce magic by half because it takes up a hand that only leaves one spell hand open.

What about the spell in WOW Power Word: Sheild like the priest or pally sheild. I think it could work with some tweaks.

The only problem that could come with this is nothing would stop warriors or rogues from using these spells.
Also, balance is important because of mages were to powerful there wouldn't be much of a point in trying to be other archetypes.
Oh and using only one spell doesn't cut effectiveness in half, using two just doubles it.

divine intervention has been confirmed which forms a ring of protection around the character

I apologies. I assumed you meant the longterm spell effectiveness via enchantments or durations while wearing/equipping armor.

I'm imagining that the Shield spell will be making a return

I hope they get away from the hamster ball defensive spells, any make them a little more practical based on the situation. For example, most defensive spells could work as telekinesis for a mage if they were fighting someone using normal weapons. You'd shove their sword higher so it would miss you, or swat their arrows away as they came in. For magic vs magic, I'd like to see the defensive spell dissipate the enemy's spell in some way. If they cast a fireball against you, the defensive spell svcks the oxygen out of it's path so it burns out before it hits you.

i have no issues with warriors or rouges using this spell, it wouldn't really suit them because it takes up a hand and doesn't really allow movement when the stronger versions are used. And also the shield breaks after a certain amounts of hits or dissipates if not being actively beat upon.

lol i liked the defensive spells in oblivion a lot, like the protect, absorb magic and absorb physical damage spells. but i think Bethesda will have some great ideas and won't leave the mages defenseless

What about using restoration to restore a wilted flower? Why can't we do that in the game series?

An interestin g idea is that certain spells wll use a stealth type method if in stealth mode....hmmmm

If crouched while using light it may become like a dim flashlight type of thing.

I think it will be interesting to see what Bethesda has in store for us all. Odds are they will totally surprise us with something we never thought of. I personally think mages need more offensive choices in combat. Now obviously when your a mage your gona use spells and yes in Oblivion they did have staffs. But it was all preset for you! Why not have wands or staves that you can equip with any spell or set of spells desired? Then the wand or staff would be like a spell book in a sense or what if they somehow made a wand where you can choose spells you want and equip those to a staff or wand. Mana would still be taken from you when casted but you could then stack spells. It would be like macroing on a console. I think it would be cool to see something like fireball, lightning bolt absorb health at the same time being cast. Then you could cast multiple buffs on yourself at once. Also no this isnt the same thing as custom crafted weapons because you cant exactly do what i described with a sword and soul stone.

That is completely redundant because we have dual wielding. Also, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I agree though, Skyrim will be an epic of epic epicness.

We do have dualwielding but that wont allow you to cast 4 or more spells at once.Im just buffing up the idea of multicasting to console macroing

Not being able to cast 4 spells at once is not a bad thing. It balances the game so mages can't pew~pew~pew everything with one hit. Also, 4 or more spells at once is just plain overkill unless you combined 4 or so lame spells into one decently mediocre spell of unremarkableness. Once again, redundancy.

In my opinion, 2 spells at a time is just right.

I honestly find it incredibly stupid when somebody says "balace doesnt matter in a single player game". Obviously you have a ver narrow conception of what balance means. We've been talking about balance since before MMOs were even possible, since the days of PnP games.

I would like to see a shield spell that absorbs all damage taken.