The spell system is fine. Spell regeneration should be slower. Actually, in my opinion, it should be very slow while you're awake or waiting. And it should regenerate much faster when sleeping. That's how I view magicka regeneration from a lore perspective or when I'm writing my fanfics.

Magic is supposed to be the strongest of the three, but also the most difficult and complex to handle. The problem with Melee classes is the Stamina attribute, which runs out far faster for a warrior than Magicka does for a mage. At least in the previous games.

You don't have to be mentally handicapped, you only have to be serious about how you role play. There is no mission in the game that cannot be completed by each archetype played pure. Certain things are made more managable with magic, or with great strength, or with great acrobatic abilities or stealth. Certain skills in one field can compensate for a lack of skills in another. That magic may give a few more extra advantages is not all that surprising. It is magic after all. If it didn't allow you to do a few things outside of the norm, it wouldn't be very magical.

But playing pure requires nothing more than will and a hint of imagination. If you decide to play as a pure warrior, who disdains, distrusts and on some level fear sorcery, then you wouldn't do any spell casting. As such, your intelligence and will would remain low for magical functions. You would not be able to cast most spells, because you would lack the requisite skill to do so. You could train, certainly . . . but if you are playing as described above, you would not be inclined to set foot in a mages guild, nor to hold much interaction with spellcasters. You might go into a shop of magical goods to buy something helpful like an invisibility ring. . . you would likely perform tasks for great mages, and for Daedra, to garner powerful artifacts to open locks and to give some protection against magical attacks. But you would not dedicate your time, energy or money to the enhancing of magical powers.

Unlessssss, you decided that you could not be hemmed in by confines and constraints. Unless you could not stand the idea of not having an affinity for magic. Unless you could not bear the idea of other characters having powers, abilities and skills which you do not have, and which enable them to do things innately that you have to find other means of achieving. . . in short, unless, in your heart, you have a hidden desire to be the best, the brightest, the strongest, the most powerful, despite all protestations to the contrary.

It matters if others didn't. Magic needs to be hard to cast. If not failures, have random chance "differences". Have my fireball occasionally backfire, have my recall occasionally teleport me to the wrong place, have my cure diease occasionally create a weakness to disease, etc.

Of course this wouldn't be every cast. Taking Oblivion, for example, if I'm a novice at a school, and I try to cast an apprentice spell, or even a high end novice spell, I could fail like this, roughly 5% of my casts. I wouldn't be failing frequently until I was trying to cast the master spells.

The hard limits really bugged me in Oblivion.

Then perhaps what the game needs is a level beyond master. Legendary, perhaps. And once you reach it, spell failure is no longer an option, and the spells you are capable of are astonishing, for you have earned the right to be "overpowered", which is really just a derogatory caconym for exceptionally powerful, which Master warlocks and legendary wizards are supposed to be.

i remember using a lore base mod for oblivion that had not only chance of failure when casting spells but you could actually lose stats and health and at a minimum you would lose stamina. the higher level the spells compared to your level the greater the risk. according to lore magic is supposed to be powerful AND DANGEROUS. well clearly it wasnt dangerous to use at all in oblivion since you could never fail. this needs to be put in skyrim. if you fail at casting a spell then there is a chance you will lose stats health and or stamina.

i should specify that the first release of the mod had permanent loss of attributes which, even i thought, was a bit harsh. and i love realistic punishing gameplay. later versions just made it a constant drain script that lasted a couple of days. the only way you were guaranteed to pretty much never backfire was to cast spells below your level. if you cast spells at or around you level you would occasionally backfire and if you cast spells higher then you misfired alot.

Levels such as novice, apprentice, etc are terrible. Strict hard rules make the game less fun. Failure at the lower levels instead, is far greater, imo.

For example, I can't play piano. But I can however, play piano badly. If I want to, I can attempt to play Fur Elise, but I highly doubt I would be able to do it successfully. There is a ridiculously small chance of me succeeding by pressing keys with estimated guesses, but more than likely, this wont happen. I don't see why magic should be much different.

The same can even be took to weapon failures. If I tried to fight an expert swordsman with my non existent skill, I would miss. A lot. And get blocked. A lot. I wouldn't be hitting people properly until I've learnt to handle a sword. This is also something I wish would be carried over from Morrowind. Of course, this means I'm bashing Oblivion (somehow :rolleyes:), so I'll leave it there.

I'm getting really sick of these "this and that is over-powered" topics. Sure magic my have some things that seem "over-powered" but those spells take a really long time to get, and an even longer time to get enough magicka to use. In OB most of the spells that used small amounts of magicka svcked, and all the spells that where really good used enormous amounts of magicka. For instance if you get "Finger on the Mountain" past level 20 the magicka requirement started becoming humanly impossible to obtain. The point is that the op spells take so much magicka you can only cast them once or twice at a time before you have to wait for your magic to recharge, and in the mean time your're screwed. A lot of people who are against op things also don't like the whole one spell in each hand thing, and the fact that you can combine both hands to make something like a flamethrower. These people are apparently not only against having fun, but also don't have much logic. If your making a fricking flamethrower with magic how long do you think your magicka is going to last? Probably less then five seconds, and after that if whatever your trying to flame isn't dead your epically screwed. When you look at it that way there isn't really any op spells (unless your using god mode).