If TES magic is so game breaking, mod it out?
I hate it when a mod is always the answer, but if you so personally don't like it, personally get rid of it.

if bashing locks has a downside.........what exactly is supposed to be the downside of having alterations spells?

Lockpicking should be character skill dependent, not player dependent.
Open spell is fine for non-stealth magic types (just choose to use one or the other)
A lock bash option should be included, but be dependent on some skill or attribute, and have shortcomings like a percentage of attracting hostiles or chest owners, or a chance of breaking the contents.

i tried.......ended up causing crashes. i also tried moding out the beast races once but to the same effect. also it svcks when you have to change a major component of the game yourself that is obviously flawed. skyrim is moving away from the "master of all" craptacular gameplay to a more realistic specialized build which im supremely thankful for. it would be nice if stealth characters had some advantage. in oblivion they had no advantage. mages could become invisible or use chameleon, unlock everything. hell, mages made better thieves than thieves themselves.

i tried.......ended up causing crashes. i also tried moding out the beast races once but to the same effect. also it svcks when you have to change a major component of the game yourself that is obviously flawed. skyrim is moving away from the "master of all" craptacular gameplay to a more realistic specialized build which im supremely thankful for. it would be nice if stealth characters had some advantage. in oblivion they had no advantage. mages could become invisible or use chameleon, unlock everything. hell, mages made better thieves than thieves themselve

Here is an idea, mod the base cost of each spell effect, making each spell cost a stupid amount of magicka. Problem solved.
Why would you want to mod out the beast races? Just ignore them if you don't like them. I've never played as one, don't intend to, just not my thing. But I never felt the need to remove them.

people keep posting that it costs magicka........i dont get it. it takes literally 2 seconds in vanilla oblivion for you magicka to come back. i bet you spend more time getting the items out of the chest than it takes for your magicka to refill.

Just how "awesome mage" do you make your characters?

Yeah, my characters (as I mentioned) generally only use Resto for some healing...... but it takes a bunch of levels before I can even cast a useful Heal spell, and then doing so svcks up half my magicka, which then takes enough time to recover that I've taken at least as much damage as I healed.

How to fix lockpicking?

A skillcheck. No minigame. Fair for everyone.

I think the best way is to make both the player skill and security skill matter more. For example, you can only start opening hard locks at level 25 and you can only start opening very hard locks at level 50. Then at level 75 your character can muffle the sound of a lockpick breaking, and at 100 lockpicks don't break anymore. Everything else (how much leeway you have with your timing, the chance of keeping several pins up when you fail etc.) is improved for every single skill level.

Then, the lockpicking should be done in real time, so you have to hurry up sometimes to pick the lock in time before a guard shows up, and as indicated, a lockpick breaking would make a loud enough sound to wake a sleeping person up if you try to open the jewelry box on the nightstand at least.

The lockpicking minigame in oblivion really had the same fate as the speechcraft minigame. You can take all the time in the world, and it's not so bad if it goes wrong. This meant there was no challenge, and no reason to improve your security/speechcraft skill.

Well, first of all the "open" spells with alteration requires a lot of alteration skill. It takes journeyman level to open average locks after all. Of course if you powerleveled and had alteration as minor skill this isn't a problem, but that's not how most people play the game, and that issue won't be present in Skyrim. Secondly the alteration spells could be made loud. So it would be useful for opening loot in caves, or in basemants of people's houses, but not for house doors or anything in a room with an NPC present.

Well, first of all the "open" spells with alteration requires a lot of alteration skill. It takes journeyman level to open average locks after all.

what if you play a character that is bad at alteration? then you cant use open lock

This, basically. I had the same type of debate once, regarding Fortify Strength being grocely superior to Feather. The logic here is that we're talking about differing schools and skills. Some spells give you a substitute effect for something that you really should only be able to fully utilize with that other spell school.

Besides, once you get the Skeleton Key in Oblivion, you never need another lockpick, ever again. You can just spam the Auto-Lockpick until the lock opens.

Amen Skeleton key made lockpicking useless, Illusion made Speechcraft, and sneaking useless NO MORE OP MAGIC

You know, that reminds me.... I don't think I've ever used a Charm spell outside the one Mage Guild Recommendation quest where they hand you the scroll.

I suppose I should try a "pure mage" someday....


...which, now that I think about it, would never work. Because I've always been a fan of "jack of all trades/master of none" builds in games, and ES allows that to an amazing extent. My "pure mage" would quickly start gaining skill in things like armor, blade, etc, etc, etc.....

I expect the open spell wont eat all that much power at lower lock levels but may require one have invested say 10 or so levels into magicka to manage it on harder locks.

So... you think after 10 alteration levels, lockpicking should be completely useless?