Riddle me this how can anyone make a spell-sword when you are completely unable to unequip spells in the off hand? I cannot drop a spell in the off hand as to use that hand to block with the one handed weapon. So unless you just don't mind running around like a moron getting stabbed and bludgeoned to because you are too stupid to use just one hand to block you might as well not even try to make a spell-sword. The limitations on blocking with just one hand is kinda dumb imo, but really that is secondary, I was willing to work within your mechanics. I understand I need an empty hand to block with one handed weapons, yet you give us no way to simply empty the hand???

I know I can go into the menus...pause the game swap some weapon in mmy left hand unpause, then pause unequip it again, then unpause...but really how much fun is this to do when you are trying to be fluid and play like a real spell sword. You removed casting with weapons, you made it impossible to block with only one hand holding a weapon, and unfortunately you made it nigh unfeasible to empty a hand as to meet your empty hand + one handed weapon requirement. I guess our only [prayer is a modder.

Blast instead of block as a Spellsword, duh.

Unequipping spells works just fine for me. I'm not sure what to tell you.

What about the favorites menu?

Wow! Please explain to me how to do this, because I have been on the Internets for hours trying to figure out how. But you seem so sure of yourself. So lets hear it. How do you unequip a spell to get an empty hand?

From your favorites menu, simply unequip the spell you have equipped.

You can either use the favorites menu that you use to equip the spell in the first place, which may take you slightly out of the action, and unequip it by selecting and hitting the off-hand button - It unselects it if it's already selected.

Or, you could assign your spell of choice to one of the two hotkeys, and press that every time you want to equip/unequip the spell.

The main thing that stops me playing a spellsword is that when you make a melee attack while casting a spell (or holding a charged spell), your character ceases all movement. Doesn't really make sense to me or gel with my playstyle, so I'm hoping someone can change it with a mod when the Creation Kit is released. As far as I can tell, though, I'm the only person who notices or dislikes that behaviour, so maybe I'll have to do it myself.

No it won't work. You can't specify where things go really. It always puts a weapon in your right hand and just alternates the left hand through spells. If you press the same hotkey twice, it will simply drop you sword and you will have two spells. There is no way to unequip a spell in your left hand other than pause and do the equip unequip trick with another weapon.

The second option doesn't work (at least not for me).

If I hit the hotkey, it equips the spell, if I hit the hotkey again, it equips it in the second hand.

Maybe if you hit the hotkey a 3rd time.

You could favourite the spell, and then assign it to a hotkey. That way, if you have the spell equiped, you can just hit it's hotkey to unequip it therefore emptying your hand. It's not as ideal as being able to block with a spell in one hand and a weapon in the other.. but it would do the job.

Edit: Ah, scratch that. It sounds as though this isn't possible.. Well that blows. I guess your only option is to unequip the spell through the favourites menu, which as you say kinda takes you out of the game.

Use the button for the hand you want to equip instead of the "select' button. On Xbox (My Platform), that's the left trigger.

I think you're talking about hotkeys, not the favorites menu.

Yes so pause the game and navigate the favorites menu, yes I know about this. But it hardly makes the game anything other than a chore if I have to pause the action over and over and over. I am not sure what you are referring to one of the two hotkeys, you can't unequip a spell via hotkeys. You can replace it with another spell or an identical weapon as in your right hand, but you can't drop a spell. Pressing the same spell hotkey does not toggle the spell off it merely puts it in the other hand too, which gives me two spells where as I wanted none.

I can specify whether things go in my right hand, left hand or both. I swap these out all the time.

That is the reason I dropped my spellsword after only a few levels. It was really annoying to just stop right when I'm moving in to kill something.

Hmm ok apparently PCs do not have this functionality.

I can specify too, but its meaning less. I have oakflesh assigned as hotkey 4 (lefthand) and iron sword as hotkey 1 (right hand). I have just my sword out (right hand) I press 4, oakflesh goes to my left hand. Ok pray tell how do I get rid of oakflesh with hotkeys? How can I just drop it? You cant. If you press 4 again it will simply move oakflesh to the right hand too. The left and right deliminators dont help at all.

I have to pause the came and manually fiddle with it every time.

This is the one problem I don't like with gaming consoles, it's lack of hot-keys. Maybe one day they'll make a Skyrim controller that has a few more extra buttons specifically designed for swapping favorites. I doubt that will ever happen but maybe in future TES games and with new consoles they might.

Could any controller with extra buttons do?

The tedium of equipping and unequipping spells does get on my [censored] sometimes. Proper 'weapon' selection could not have been that difficult to code ...

Well from what I am reading apparently Xbox can drop spells? It seems that the PC UI is seriously messed up. You ought to be able to unequip spells without having to fumble through menus and pausing the game. It is the whole concept behind hotkeys in the first place to not have to pause and select everything. I have been looking for a mod to fix this, so far I can't find anything. Just stuff that adds more hotkeys.

having to go through a menu to get to empty hands is pretty dumb. the only way to do it would be to have a one-handed weapon and shield or a two-hander hotkeyed just so you could unequip them. I don't know why TES games mechanics keep getting better but their interfaces keep getting worse. It seems like it would take a lot more effort to get the character to interact and use abilities properly than it would be to design a menu to give the player effective options to use those mechanics.

yes of course, that's what I ment

Ahh. I think they sell those.