it should have been easiest with a pure mage, since you could just use invisability spells and run to the sigil stone un opposed.

Yeah I am pretty sure It is possible to do that anyway. Do you mean a pur warrior would have no magic at all??

I've played many pure characters and many hybrid characters. There's always a way to work things out and no - I don't mean exploiting - I mean playing the game as if the character is a real person in a real world, who just happens to be a pure mage or thief or fighter or hybrid of any of them.

Pure mages, as a matter of fact, are tremendously easy to play. Probably the toughest part of playing a pure mage is the Leyawiin MG recommendation quest. Once you get into the AU, it's pretty much a cakewalk.

Pure thieves are not only easy to play, but I can't really see much point in playing one anything other than "pure," other than for roleplaying purposes. Most of my thieves are "pure" - light to no armor, short sword or dagger, bow (often not even a bow, since with sufficient sneak, they can get in enough sneak melee attacks they really don't need one).

The toughest one to play is probably a truly "pure" warrior, and that only because you have to work around healing. If you include only the ability to cast healing spells then I've played lots of those characters. Without the ability to cast healing spells, the only one I've played is Hale (from my sig). And yes - that is a hassle, but in spite of the rhetoric quoted here, I'm sure it would still be a hassle in Skyrim. I don't believe that when Todd sings the praises of specialists, he means a warrior completely lacking the ability to heal himself. I believe that, just as in previous games, every single character will start the game with the ability to cast the basic healing spell.

And speaking of the rhetoric quoted here, for me, this just reinforces my concerns about specialization vs. generalization. Yes - generalist characters arguably had at least a bit of an advantage in previous games. Not as much of one as many seem to believe, and bluntly I attribute that primarily to simply a lack of skill and/or imagination. That's something I see all the time on the Oblivion forums - players who want to try to play a mage, in particular, but they insist on putting him in armor and dragging along a sword, no matter how many people tell them that that's really not necessary and actually sort of counter-productive. They're convinced that it's not possible to play without armor or weapons, in spite of the fact that it absolutely is, and I think that misperception is a lot of what's driving the current specialization frenzy. There just weren't enough people who figured out that it was always possible.

But anyway - what I'm seeing in all the rhetoric surrounding this issue so far, including this interview, is the implication that instead of making sure the game is balanced such that neither specialists nor generalists have an advantage, the game is being designed, and deliberately so, to punish generalists and reward specialists. I think that's a bad move, since all it's going to do is make it imbalanced in the opposite direction. As I've noted before, it could simply be that the emphasis on specialization is to drive home the point that generalists won't have an innate advantage, but I remain wary that it's because the game really is being designed so that specialists WILL have an innate advantage.

And more broadly - I don't think there's anything that discourages me more about this game than listening to Todd talk about it.

Are you kidding? Since when have you NOT been able to play as a pure ANYTHING? All this means is doing everything is going to, hopefully, be even better than it was before.

Charge and swing sword? Or there's always a bow.....



Might depend on what style of warrior one played.... the sword-n-board blocking fighters I played always have a good bit of damage pound past the shield block - especially against people wielding two-handers or trolls/ogres. Needed a good bit of constant healing to keep going. Going a pure no-magic route, you'd have to buy a large amount of healing potions from the shops if you went that way.

Snip.

You are talking about reallife like chars, in reallife there are no pure characters, people, HUMANS adapt and thats why I think this pure classes are junk, you should always focus on things thats true but flexibility is important as well

Believe me, the last thing I think about is real life or reality in a game with magic and dragons.

What I'm talking about is to play the game with three very different styles, that it would be fun and give it an incredibly long playing time.

Later we have beautiful, delicious mods.

First off afaik the possibility to go for a pure mage/warrior/rogue build is nothing new, this was doable in oblivion as well or am I wrong?

--> But now the more important topic is, why the hell do you guys still stick to these old rusty stereotypical roles? I think modern RPGs should take the path of hybrid characters to maximize possibilities and further enhance the experience of truly unique character cusomization.

I sure hope we don't get a fireball or healing spell in our hands as we start the game though.

Being that you're such a hardcoe Warrior purist, does that mean you won't use the Dragonshouts at all, being that they're really just magic spells with a different name?

I'd like to see a "warrior/fighter" character go through oblivion without magic. Haha. Would be very, very difficult.

umm.. not really. I am a strict non magic user in daggerfall, morrowind and oblivion and rarely have trouble.

1 daggerfall dungeon is more difficult than anything in oblivion.

Ok I have a challenge for you then, find or create a lets play of getting through Daggerfall WITHOUT magic.

oh you again..

The shouts are not spells, which means everyone can use them without stepping outside their class.

The only difficulty for warriors in Daggerfall is the ancient vampires lightning touch of spamy death. You have to use potions of resist lightning for that or plain avoid them. Would using a bow count as pure warrior for you? I suppose you could also finish the game before you reach the level they start showing up.

Potions are NOT dependant on any magic skill to use, purchase or make.

Are you kidding? Since when have you NOT been able to play as a pure ANYTHING? All this means is doing everything is going to, hopefully, be even better than it was before.

Ok point taken. Though it does take time to gain access to potion makers from the temples. Plus potions actually have weight. Me I'd rather have a levitation/water breathing spells handy, and a bunch of potions of restore power then carry a ton of potions of both. But I suppose it is possible to play a pure warrior in Daggerfall. So I'll concede that point, though I don't know why anyone would want to.

And you can also get access to enchant making from temples. And if some temples have a couple warrior skills you can piggy back for raising your rank, I think you can also go to the knight order corresponding to that temple and when you raise ranks in the first, you unlock the services in the later.

Could probably chase them down once you have very, very high athletics/speed. But that won't be for a long time. Archery does not fall under "pure warrior" in my mind, and anyone else who understands the concepts of "pure" and "warrior" in RPG sense.