it's essentially the same as oblivion's system just less restrictive in that you start off with basic skills as you start and then you pick the skills you want to focus on. In oblivion this is by choosing a class and the birth sign thing in skyrim it's simply using those skills. all this system is doing is making it easier to create a custom class. Instead of only having a certain number of main skills you can pick any or all skills to focus on. It is not going to make any difference to people that want to stick with one class. It's a win win

It's not a horrible idea. As long as the total points were identical when added up, why would it hurt to have a custom race where you could sort of define your role playing character's background? So instead of starting at 10 at everything, be able to nerf a few skills you want to svck at to jack up a few others to say 20 or 25? It would be fine.

Personally, after my first play through, I want to make it super hard and start out at 1 on every skill, so I svck at everything and really have to work to survive, and build my character up slowly and carefully. So I will mod that in.

But the game already does what the OP wants in a broad sense, each race has different start level skills at different skills. Like I think Nords start out at 40 or something at two handed, and bretons and altmer start at higher levels in magic already. Imperials have a higher start at speechcraft than orcs, etc.

So with a little mod to your favorite race and making a custom race clone, you could do what you want easily enough, without messing up the NPC's.

So we would get say 10 points to play around with before we start? I wouldn't mind really. In the end skill really doesn't effect much, and no matter where you start you'll be able to master whatever skill you wish anyway. It would add to the feeling that your character might have tried to specialize before they wound up in jail.

I'm neither here nor there on this subject. It wouldn't effect much, so it really wouldn't bug me either way.

ok this is my first post here but i sort of like the OP's idea.

most of those that don't seem to like it seem to be mostly just flaming the idea without even reading it.

its something you don't have to do. you can simply leave them standard and just play, or if you have made up your mind that your cherecter will say use no magic at all (i usualy do at least one this way) then you could decrese the number of pionts in your magic skills to show this. i think the OP's idea will even let you start without adding these pionts to another skill if you so chose. but i do agree that there would have to be limits such as the starting skill lvl cap. RPGs mostly have their roots in table top pen and paper games like D&D. in wich you chose stats 9based on randomly rolled atributes) this isn't what they wont in Skyrim but it doesn't mean you can't have a small boost at the cost of skills in another area.

tell me this (for tose who are no longer in school) when you got out of highschool were you even accross the board in you skills. yes the racial stats in the game are one thing but doesn't that force you into a few choices based on those. personaly i was already a goot shot with a gun and bow when i got out of school and jioned the army. this gave me a heads up on the other recruits who weren't. this ability to move around a few stats pionts would reflect on what your cherecter did in their childhood and how that made them who they are at the start of the adventure.

sounds like a good idea to me fore those who like to make a kind of backstory for their chosen cherecters. though i do see the other sides piont of view. it does make things a little easier for the casual gamers so the don't have to worry about such things.

feel free to call me a nerd for this but every RP cherecter i have ever made (both pen and paper as well as verious video games) have backstories if the game didn't already have one fore them.

If they want to simplify character creation, it does seem more straightforward to pick "fighter" or "mage" than knowing that picking a Nord gives you a fighter. I don't think we need classes back, but I don't think it'd be a bad thing to let you start with a small bonus to a few desired skills. Without that though, hopefully racial skill bonus will be small and not make that much of a difference.

In reality though, we don't start off more skilled in what our more veteran minds believe we should.



Ever played oblivion? OP's suggestion isn't anywhere near as far out as firearms. And as for multiplayer, I am 100% in agreement with you except the fact that it has been acknowledged by Bethesda. Firearms haveen't and hopefully never will but multiplayer in the form of coop isn't crazy, in fact it sounds excellent to me.



Reducio ad absurdum - Reducing an arguement to absurdity. It proves nothing other than a lack of willingness to contribute meaningfully.

Because I would be a semi-God since beginning... not fair.

What about that one guy who said there should be an ending. That one was worse.

Word. And no amount of mental gymnastics & excuses will change that.

Yes, I`m one of these dreaded "old-timers", bred on the likes of Ultima & GoldBox. Still, it didn`t stop me from defending Oblivion when it was accused of being dumbed down from Morrowind.
This is different though, and it`s not really about starting classes. The complete removal of attributes (I`m sorry but health/magicka really don`t count as such) is a step too far.

It is very sad. Nobody else does RPG open worlds like gamesas - Gothics, while great games are different & not really that open. The other sad thing is that it most certainly spells "streamlining" for FO4 as well.

Well, I appreciate the idea of developing one's character via gameplay.

However, many people are playing characters with involved background stories, and in my humble opinion, a couple points to distribute as players may desire, to represent their past experience, would not necessarily hurt the scheme the devs have in mind.

I guess I just have to wait and see how this plays.

This is a [censored] argument. Don't keep quiet about a change you don't like, even if you know it won't change. Bethesda needs fan feedback to make good games.

That said, I think the system is fine as-is.

Each of our characters will have received the basic education received by members of their race. We take it from there. By preventing us from stacking chosen with racial skills, they're (I hope!) keeping the game more balanced and also giving us a chance to experiment with different playstyles. Since most of us won't have experienced the "feel" of different abilities in advance this increases the chance of our creating characters we'll enjoy playing and decreases the odds of our creating a character lacking in basic skills, e.g. healing. With quicker leveling and perks playing a major role in skill advancement I see the long-term effect on character development as minimal.

I agree
Personally I'm happy they have got rid of classes but I'd have liked some way to differentiate starting characters, toshow the background of the PC before the game starts.
Could've been as simple as choosing 3 skills and getting a small bonus to them (and maybe a starting spell if you picked a magic skill) like in FO3.
Guess we will have to wait for mods

I'm astonished at how many people seem to have completely misinterpreted the OP's suggestion, which frankly was quite a good one. At no point did he suggest that we should be allowed 10 or 15 or 150 extra skill points, he's just saying it makes sense to be able to reshuffle the skill point pool we already start with to give us a bit of a headstart on the playstyle we want. Look at it this way:

All races in Skyrim start with 15 (NOT 10, just to clarify) as the baseline for all their stats. They have +5 in some stats, +10 in maybe one or two. Take an Argonian, for example. Argonians start with 25 in Lockpicking, 20 in Pickpocketing, Sneak, Light Amour, Restoration, Alteration. That means they have a total of 305 skill points at level 1 (1x15, 5x20, 12x15). ALL TEN RACES start with 305 at level 1, they just have different "bumped" stats but the same total.

What the OP is saying is that as the stats are auto-assigned at level 1, players who want to be a mage will only want to use Altmer or Bretons, because they are the only ones with a headstart in mage skills. This is how the OP is saying the Skyrim system limits choice. Of course it's not an insurmountable issue, because you can always make up the difference with a bit of training. But the set race starting stats do make it preferable to use certain playstyles for each race.

What would be so terrible about being able to change the stats that start at 20 and 25, as long as the total was still 305? That way if you wanted to be an Argonian warrior, then you could reassign your stats so you started with 20 in Heavy Armour, Block, Smithing, Archery and Speechcraft, and 25 in 1-handed weapons. That way you don't have an advantage over someone who didn't reassign their stats, because you haven't gained any extra points. You have the same number of starting skill points as any other player. You just don't have any points "wasted" in skills you'll never use, just because Argonians are "supposed" to be good at Lockpicking, even if your personal Argonian isn't.

You could even limit it so that you're only able to reassign 3 stats instead of all 6 that have a bonus. That way each race would retain its own distinct "flavour", whereby most of the stats a race is "meant" to be good at will still be bumped.

It doesn't make sense for every member of a race to have the same starting stats, however you look at it. It's not a game-breaking concern, but I think the OP's suggestion has a great deal of merit.

This is the whole CLASS argument and at this point I still really hate not having a class. I like to Role-Play my characters and I like to give them a background that backs up their starting class and skills. I hate thinking that my Nord PC who early in life joined street gangs and robbed houses has the exact same starting stats as my Nord PC that was raised by a village warrior chieftain and spent all his time fighting to impress his father. It is just dumb. Heck even in FO3 we start the game at birth but could still pick skills and attributes.

Which brings up the other issues I still have with the game, why does my Orc warrior have the same assumed Strength as my Breton witch? Seriously? Please give me something to distinguish the two.

Anyway, while I hate the generic start all PC’s will have I will just have to accept it for now (until the class mods come out) and just enjoy what I have.

No need to even pretend, since we actually start off as a prisoner at the very beginning. :tops:

Or level 70 with 100 in a skills?

Sometimes I feel sad for the OPs of some threads, because the people dont even bother to read his post, dont even TRY to know what he means, and make fun of him instead.

I don't know about modifying the racial bonuses but I wouldn't mind having tag skills like in fallout to give a +5 bonus a couple skills of your choice.

Its not the class argument
A class system limits you to developing in a certain direction throughout the whole game. This is just an argument for some sort of prior experience system which most classless RPGs have.

I'm frankly quite shocked by the attitude of some of the initial posters. The OP's idea and argument are well-written and thought out and isn't at all the usual "complain thread". I'd also like some minor tinkering to be possible at character creation, since like many people have stated, if you have a backstory for your character some skills should logically be slightly higher than others. Starting as a "blank slate", while a good idea gameplay-wise, isn't really realistic. I'm not saying we should have the ability to make our characters overpowered and breeze through the start of the game, Just being able to move around say 5 points to a limited amount of skills would be enough to feel my character actually knows something before the start of the game. It has also always bothered me in previous games how my Warrios who is supposed to have no knowledge in magic still starts able to cast spells and not having the skills at zero. The game is what it is however and I guess I'll just have to ignore those parts and imagine my character hasn't got those points in magic skills/weapon skills or whatever my character actually doesn't know, but the game says he does :>