What if it made you almost effectively invisible while immobile, but you'd still be visible - albeit less so - when moving. Intelligently utilized conjunction with stealth(staying still as enemies pass or start to notice you and so on) it'd be great - but wouldn't make stealth obsolete at all. This would be more in line with what chameleon-like camouflage actually does.

Isn't this pretty much what it does now (to varying degrees) at less than 100%? :blink:

I don't think so, unless I completely missed it in Oblivion.I thought it made you increasingly difficult to detect up to essentially invisible at all times.

It would be interesting if chameleon had two variables determining its usefulness.

Magnitude: How well it conceals you. Essentially how well you blend into the surroundings.
Speed: How fast it conceals you. It takes a moment for the spell to adapt to you position.

High magnitude would allow you to be almost unnoticeable when it is in full effect but it takes a while for it to get to full effect, the time being determined by the speed of the spell, with low speed forcing you to stand still for several seconds before the concealment is at full power while high speed would let you have almost full concealment even when moving.

id rather not have chameleon at all, it was overpowered.

I have an idea!!!!!!! What if the chameleon spell... TURNED YOU INTO A CHAMELEON!!!!!!!!! eh? eh?

I have an idea.

How about chameleon never made stealth obsolete.
How about not gimping the mage playstyle but realising it is one of many optional playstyles that can enhance the others or play well on its own.
A rogue is not a mage.
A rogue sneaks.
A mage is weak against melee attacks and relies on subterfuge, manipulation and basically killing them before they can close the distance.

Sheesh, I wish people stopped seeing the game as having only one playstyle in wich everything must be 'balanced' so nothing is 'overpowered' and realised its all optional.
Inivisibility or chameleon are not overpowered and make nothing obsolete. They are options.

You never had to use it? Even if you did want to use it you never had to use extreme levels of it..

I can't see the point on this "speed", since most of the time you cast chameleon you are standing still and out of combat.

I think the OP to have a good idea speaking on it to be 100% effective while immobile (that does NOT mean that you are 100% invisible), and have way less effectiveness while you move; we could even have some "soft" crit strike chance while using it

I need to clarify. The spell would "refresh" the concealment effect every time the environment you're blending into changed, whether its because you moved or the lighting conditions changed. The "speed" would be how fast it refreshed back to full effect. The game would recalculate your level of concealment regularly while the spell is in effect, adjusting for such things as moving or lights, the "speed" would be how fast the spell compensates for these changes.

My rogue had Illusion as a major skill and he used chameleon often.. but combined with his sneak skill..

Then youre a hybrid wich is a valid playstyle as well. The game doesnt force a playstyle on you.
But when people say things like chameleon made sneak useless so it is overpowered, that means they want to force a playstyle on people.

I don't see a reason why chameleon wouldn't work pretty much like sneak does. The higher the percent of chameleon would be about equivalent to that level of sneak skill. 100 chameleon would work like 100 sneak. Although you wouldn't be crouched and would move at your normal movement rate, but you would have a greater penalty (compared to sneak) for moving, especially at the faster movement rate. Stand still and you would be at that percent/skill level of remaining undetected. In essence it is a mages version of sneak. And if you are sneaking and using chameleon you get a bonus to your sneak skill.

It just depends on how they handle sneak and chameleon in Skyrim.

I think something like this could work really well.

What is chameleon was restricted to enchantment only? I think that would play more into the camoflague/chameleon aspect as stealth characters would be looking for stealth equipment, rather than just wearing any light armour (they could of course still wear any light armour, but most stealth players would preffer going for equipment specifically designed to make stealth better).

You could also factor in more ways to reduce the effect, such as the speed you move (sneak, run, walk), the noise you're making (armour type, altough also affected by movement speed) and maybe even the colour of the backdrop compared to your clothing (for example, buying green and brown clothing would help in forrests).

Although that last one may be a little over-kill, if implemented may make clothing more viable on steath characters than armour (again nothing would stop you wearing armour if you prefer, of course), but with the expection of role-playing, there's really no reason to wear clothing, this could help to rectify that.

Just my thoughs, although none of it would be implemented, I wouldn't shun them if they did.

I think the op's idea is generally a good one. It would basically work like cloaking in Bioshock, and force you to put some thought into chameleon, although an ability being "overpowered" is perfectly fine in TES.

The other factor should be sound. How much noise you make should play a bigger role, with enemies able to hear your footsteps and use them to locate you if you're moving too rapidly. It sounds like they actually are addressing this in Skyrim, so I'm hopeful for stealth in general to be a lot more satisfying.

I like the idea myself, just from a technical standpoint. If we presume that the effect called "chameleon" is what it sounds like it should be - that is, altering one's appearance so as to blend into one's surroundings rather than making oneself transparent, then it should be, in almost all cases, an imperfect thing. I specifically like the way Didact is addressing it - that there's a skill-dependent "speed" at which the spell works - at lower skill level, the spell would have a harder time keeping up with changes in surroundings, while increased skill level would increase that "speed," making it more possible to move around without being detected. I don't even much care about it from a balance perspective (on that point, I tend to agree with Merari - anyone who wants to unbalance their game into pointlessness should be able to do so - so long as the game doesn't force that imbalance, it doesn't bother me). But I pay attention to internal consistency - whatever is in the game needs to make sense within the game's framework. To me, within the game's framework, it makes sense that chameleon works by altering one's appearance so as to blend into one's surroundings, and it makes sense that the shortcoming of that would be that it would be sort of tough to maintain that while moving - that sooner or later one would end up moving faster than the spell can adjust.

More broadly, there are lots of things that should be done regarding invisibility and chameleon, and most of them depend on NPC behavior rather than the effects of the spells. In this example, for instance, the real point isn't the effect the spell has (in terms of what the animation looks like) but how NPCs react. And actually, Oblivion already does this to some extent - it's just a bit too subtle. It's possible to be detected under chameleon already, since you can be detected by sound instead of by sight. It's just, in Oblivion, exceedingly unlikely. And once you get sneak up to the point that you have the weight of boots doesn't matter and can run any time perks, it's essentially impossible anyway. Adjust that a bit and throw in adjustments based on magic skill, light level, maybe even surroundings (it would be easier to maintain in a simple, enclosed environment like a cave and harder to maintain in a forest, where you'd have to constantly adjust for trees, grass, sky, etc.) and I think it would work fine.

And additionally, as should be mentioned every time invisibility and chameleon come up, NPCs should react to it - casting dispel or detect life or, if so inclined, just swinging away wildly in the hope of connecting.

100% chameleon absolutely made stealth obsolete other than the sneak attack multiplier - I can't see how you can seriously argue otherwise. I'm all for a variety of play styles and choices and I don't mind magic being used to enhance stealth as I'm no purist and think it makes sense for all builds to use some magic. But illusion really did make the sneak skill near obsolete due to invisibility and chameleon - and not in a very fun way either. When one skill does what another skill does in a superior way and is useful for other things I consider that an issue - no skill should be nearly worthless.

whats the point of being invisible if you are just going to stand still?

That's what invisibility is for.

That sounds good; not sure if it could be well implemented in game, but sounds good to me.



I dissagree completly; first, sneaking has no time, you can sneak as much as you want, while chameleon and inv only work for a time and rely on recast.

Second, invisibility only worked if you didn't perform any action.

Third, at least until Oblivion, you can choose the way you want to play, so you don't need to choose illusion if you don't want to take out any major skill.

Fourth, the problem came with Oblivion, where our magika recovered with time; in Morrowind you had a pool and, unless you waste a potion/rest, you used to savewise magika.

And last, playing wisely a thief-like character would hardly get a 100% chameleon spell, since it's lower versions doesn't have a chance agains sneaking, so you'd spend a lot more time sneaking than using chameleon.

It relys a whole lot in playstyle more than "effectiveness"; I don't play the best race with the best birthsign and the best skills and weapons/armor, I play the race I like, with the birthsign I like and the skills, armor and weapon I want to use for that character-type. I use to play as a breton, for sure not the best option for a stealthy-magic assassin; I could well use illusion instead of sneak or security, but I wonder why... My character wouldn't use them, so don't I.

As I said in the OP, doing things such as staying still as enemies pass or start to notice you. Assuming enemies will show signs of being aware of something near, and assuming they'll move around and patrol in some situations.

Hehe, when I read the thread, I instantly thought about Bioshock.

Yes, I like this idea a lot.