Electricity always wants to be grounded, so if you are walking in full steel armour, then lightning of any kind would just flow from your armour to the ground, even with some tiny holes, the electricity would just take the fastest route down through your armour which is a better conductor than your skin by far.

Science wins!

You are right about the fire though. Loads of European knights died during the crusades from heatstroke. Armour doesn't breathe and you have to wear a lot of clothing underneath to prevent chafing, further upping your internal temperature along with the heat your body produces from walking in a hundred pounds of armor.

There's a perk for that.

Look at the E3 demo - as he explores the block perk tree.

Also, your post doesn't make sense. One demonstration of an RPG I saw on discovery once showed that the RPG works by burning a hole in tank armor using molten copper. Armor resistance as a given against Fire damage - GONE
Cold is cold regardless of what you are wearing. Frost damage would be colder than the surrounding areas, so you would be not dressed properly for it. Armor Resistance as a given against Frost Damage - GONE

And the source you provided is of a Tesla Coil, designed to interact with people. That isn't lightning. A tesla coil has low current. That particular example would be designed to have a low frequency and a voltage under 120V as well - that is the voltage where electricity becomes hazardous to human health. It is also the supply that the USA provides in their mains, so that particular example couldn't be over 120V

On the other hand a typical lightning bolt has about 30,000 A of current (that is high current, by the way) and contains about 500,000,000 Joules of electrical energy.


When have you seen workers wearing conducting materials to work with electricity? If you wear a conducting material, the electricity will flow through it. The electricity will also flow through you, because you are in contact with the conducting material. If you get more than 120V, it is hazardous to your health. The amount of voltage that flows through the circuit does not depend on which pathway it takes. (In other words, voltage is the same across all branches of a parallel circuit)t The human body can conduct electricity, so the human body will conduct the same amount of voltage at the same frequency as the steel plate armor. The human body will be as damaged as it would if it was not wearing any steal armor at all.

Electricity always wants to flow towards ZERO voltage. If you are wearing electrically insulating materials such as rubber, the lightning would not flow through you.

Your science loses. It isn't even based on science.

Edit: Double post.

There appears to a lot of misinformation in this thread. First of all some one mentioned that a low voltage was used in the video, however this is not possible as air does not naturally conduct electricity and so requires a huge amount of energy to travel a distance as far as depicted in the video (think in the region of 100,000 volts). The reason why he wasn't fried was because he was encased in what's known as a Faraday cage, to be honest i don't know much about them but i'm 99% positive a simple suit of armour would not suffice as a Faraday cage.
Someone else mentioned that a high voltage + low current = low power however as power = voltage x current it would still have a moderately high current and would certainly still be dangerous.

As to fire damage, metal is generally a very heat conductive material which is why it is used in pots and pans and therefore i imagine getting hit by a fireball would be like wearing an oven. However i imagine a shield would be more effective for blocking it.

EDIT: "Electricity always wants to flow towards ZERO voltage. If you are wearing electrically insulating materials such as rubber, the lightning would not flow through you." This only works for low voltage stuff, as for things like lightning... well if it can make it to you then it can bypass the rubber and make it the inch or so to the ground.

An RPG is a rocket that goes faster then the speed of sound and when it explodes it creates molten metal that is over 5000 degrees farenhit. How does that compare to a ball of flame that poofs when it hits you? It doesn't. Your example also doesn't make sense because most tanks are impervious to flame. We're talking about flame not two pounds of burning metal.

Cold is cold regardless of what your're wearing? Then what are coats for? Decorations?

Also the power of the shock in TES doesn't seem that much more powerful then that Tesla coil, and they certainly aren't as powerful as real lighting bolt.

The human body is way less conductive then metal. Therefore if you are compelety covered in metal it will always flow through the metal regardless of how powerful it is.

Ah. Faraday cage. Yes that would explain it, because 100,000 Volts would fry you. I forgot that a Tesla coil was designed to up the voltage.

The thing is, it's magic. Most fire balls are going to be a bit stronger than hurling a torch at someone. I imagine wearing steel to a fire fight would end up in one resembling a piece burned toast. Metal heats up, you know. And blocking it with a shield would just heat the thing up. It'd burn the crap out of your hand.

I wouldn't mind if magic had to deal with armor resistance. Mind you, I wouldn't mind at some point that the better you get at magic, or if you buy a really good version of the spell, it should ignore some armor resistance. Maybe with a perk or just through skill. For example, in New Vegas, there is a perk called Piercing Strike which allows all your unarmed moves to ignore 15 of your enemies Damage Threshold. Maybe a perk like that?

hes only able to do that because hes on the platform and not grounded if he wasnt up there he would be.......well :shocking:

Metal has a low heat capacity which means it not only heats up fast it also cools down fast. If it's thick it would take a very long time for the heat to conduct through it. That means that the armor would only heat up to the point that it would fry if the heat source was continuous. A fire ball would not be a continuous source.

Sure, metal has a low heat capacity. But once it burns a person, the damage is there. I think your underestimating the fictional power of magic here. I know Oblivion made magic looks incredibly weak, but that was for lack of disk space, and perhaps imagination. A decent mage should be able to melt a guy's armour right off him, but that won't happen for the sake of having a balanced game.

Try putting on a suit of medieval armour and getting hit by a few flamethrowers.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCdiNaF13Ug. Go to around 2:27. Looks pretty continuous to me.

Additionally, it's not a purely chainmail suit that the guy is wearing. You can bet there's some insulating material under it as well.

To those going on about how the eletricity will take the path of least resistance? That's very much true. However you underestimate how conductive the human body is when your skin is wet. Dry skin is a poor conductor, sweat on the other hand is a pretty awesome conductor. You're not certain for the current to stick to the armour. In fact, due to the sectional nature of armour the path of least restitance likely would be your body, after all unless all your armour is physically touching it'd be easier to just go through your body as air is a poor conductor.

His clothing acts as a Faraday cage, conducting electricity by the exterior surface. Any gap long enough and toasted man. An armor wouldn't do the trick (maybe a gothic one, but I wouldn't try even for all the gold in the world). If someone has a metal armor and after seing this video thinks that could try something similar. DON'T DO IT.

A flamethrower would deposit a burning liquid on me that i wouldn't be able to get off, so it would keep on burning and burning. That would be an example of an continuous heat source. The fire spells in TES are balls of flame that would burst on contact and then go out. There actually not that dangerous. According to what is shown at least. I think you need to focus more on what the topic is about. I'll suggesting that there should be small modifiers on different kinds of armor that would give you a resistances or weaknesses to certain kinds of magics. That number would be less then 10%. That means that if you were hit by a very powerful flame spell it wouldn't matter anyway. It's only there to simulate that you are actually wearing something as opposed to just treating everything the same..

Yes. Do to the separate nature of the armor it would be to hard to simulate how it would help or not help. That's why metal armor should only stop flame (to a degree) and be weak to frost.

I agree. Although if the caster was trained well enough, they could cast a super hot fire ball at your shield and make it burn your hand. If you're also wearing gauntlets, it'd heat up the guantlets. Eventually, all of your armor would become very hot if the caster kept shooting fire at you. And with shock/lightning, well, if its metal, it would electrocute the hell out of you and cause your heart to stop, depending on how many volts went through you. (Remember in Juriassic Park when that kid touched that electrical line that had 10,000 volts?) Shooting frost at an opponent should make their armor freeze up and not be able to move, and also giving you frostbite or something very painful to experience. Ever sat down on a cold toilet seat? It's cold, huh? How about cold metal? Now imagine it being below freezing point.
Oh, I just thought of a cool idea. You could break armor very easily by alternating fire and frost spells at it. The extreme change in temperatures would cause all of the metal to become brittle and crack. Ever seen the roads and sidewalks in Warsaw, Poland? They have such a flux of temperatures through their seasons that their roads have to be repaired an awful lot. Apply that now to the Elder Scrolls.

Your knowledge of electricity is pathetic.

The human body conducts a current. Full stop. It is how our nervous system works. Full stop. If you are completely covered in metal and connected to that metal at two distinct points, a very small current will flow through you. A much larger current will flow through the metal. That is scientific FACT. You cannot dispute that.

If that very small current has a voltage of 100,000 volts, you will be very lucky if you avoid being fried.


hmmph. Good point.


Downstairs is a wood burning fire. That wood burning fire has a solid metal plate with a hole burned through it by flame. The flame was, at maximum, 1000 degrees Celsius. That is what flame can do. The hole is 15cm from center to edge.

In addition, a charcoal fire (maximum temperature 1200 degrees celsius) has been used for thousands of years to manipulate metal.

The lowest flame temperature possible is 120 degrees celsius. If you are wearing something like chainmail, that isn't going to give you any protection against heat, and if your body temperature increases by 0.5 degrees celsius, the following symptoms occur: nausea, vomiting, headaches, and low blood pressure. This can lead to fainting or dizziness, especially if the person stands suddenly. All of which would be enough to stop you fighting effectively.

Heat only needs to raise the temperature of a cell something like 1 degree to cause

Shock damage can damage you. The voltage of it would be above 120 V (DC). Meanwhile, Tesla Coil man was in a Faraday cage, so none of the voltage went through him. Armor isn't a Faraday cage. The Faraday suit works because it prevents current from travelling through the body - something that ordinary chainmail would not do. 120 volts of electricity is enough to be hazardous to a person. 100,000V (tesla coil) of electricity going through you would probably kill you.

As for cold is cold - may I remind you of all the Antarctic explorers who froze to death? They froze to death during the summer, when the temperature was higher than -10 degrees. You can safely assume that frost spells are lower than freezeing, and all that needs to be done to damage human skin is decrease it's temperature to below freezing. Besides, once again, they only need to decrease the core temperature of the target by 0.5 degrees celsius to cause damage.

I hate to say it but, "it's magic" I agree with you on the point of the fireball and such but other less physical spells cannot be stopped by mere metal or glass this is why it is a very smart and necessary precaution to enchant your Armour with magical resistances.

As was already agreed to, any truly weaponized projectile of elemental magic would not be stopped enough by realistic armor such that armor should make the wearer completely shrug off the effects... but then again, if the magic is supernatural or if it is using supernatural forces to create natural ones temporarily makes a big difference. If the magic is truly supernatural in total and targets the "opponent" you fired it at, and its appearance through physical space is just a byproduct, then armor would indeed do nothing to stop it. It seems like magic in Nirn is this type of magic, because otherwise how do you explain "drain health" or "burden"... those don't have any properties of physical matter yet affect the target just fine. I think the elemental property being similar to physical properties when it comes to fire/frost/shock are throwing that off a bit.

However, I'm not sure if it still works this way in Skyrim, but in other games, your effectiveness at casting a spell is reduced if you the caster are wearing armor, so it seems that the armor has some kind of "supernatural barrier" to magicka simply by virtue of the fact that it protects. So, magic, impacting the world based on what it is dealing with, interacts with armor as "a barrier". In light of this, I don't think focusing on the element involved or even if its metal or non-metal armor should be a factor. I think armor should have a moderate protective factor against magic general, like a maximum of 5% or 10% protection from magic attacks if you are wearing something in every slot. It would make logical sense to me at least, but the impact on gameplay might not be highly noticeable enough for it to be worth worrying about coding into the game.

That drain health stuff is the best way they can represent physiological effects in a video game with today's technology. I imagine all TES games would have been done far more differently with the magic system had they started building TESI Arena's engine this year with 2011 technology and then released TESI Arena in 2016 or 2017.

The body is still not as conductive as metal. If your compelely covered in metal you aren't going to get hurt, i've seen it down at least 10 ten times. In fact the metals not even going to heat up, because heat is caused when electricity meets to much resistance. Also I'd like to point out that we dropped the whole metal armor blocking shock thing a while ago. Sense it only works when your completely covered there would be no point in putting it in the game because your not always going to have a full suit of armor.

That stove example isn't very valid here because that stove burns for hours at a time. Were as a mage would have to hit you a lot before your armor starts warming up. Even if you started warming up it still wouldn't be that dangerous. It takes hours to die of heat exhaustion. The only thing that would cause damage is burns, which wouldn't be caused by one fire ball. If you got hit by something super powerful this all of course wouldn't matter, which would be reflected in the game by just having a small modifier.

Those antarctic explorers probably froze to death because they got wet or had no shelter. An instantaneous drop in temperature would not cause hypothermia, again it would take minutes to hours of continuous cold.

I agree that it being supernatural verses something physical does make a differences, but the main point of all this is to make different types of armor actually different besides how hard they are. And when it comes to things like damage health spells and such I think deadric armor would help with that. I mean it cast out of pure evilness. It should have some sort of mystical properties.

The body doesn't need to be as conductive as metal. The body just needs to be conductive.

Electricity doesn't JUST damage you because it burns you, and just because it didn't hurt, doesn't mean you didn't get damaged, where did you get those ideas? Electricity also damages you because it screws around with your nervous system. An electrical shock can stop your heart because it interferes with the nerve connecting your heart and your brain. Besides that, there are certain instances where you can be electrically shocked, have damage to your nervous system occur and feel no pain, because your nervous system doesn't even register that the current has traveled along your nervous system.



The stove (it's actually a woodburning fire) example is valid - I burned myself on it, touching it for a second or two, and was left with blisters for a week. I haven't ever tried "touching" the flame, for the same reason that I haven't ever tried "touching the flame" of a propane torch. If you are so sure that flame is harmless, I suggest you touch a bunsen burner flame with your hand as a control, and then touch a bunsen burner flame with the other hand in a metal glove. (NOTE: Not touching the bunsen itself, just putting your hand into it and leaving it there for a full second)

Metal armor isn't a particularly good insulator. It has already been acknowledged in this thread that medieval knights died of heat exhaustion.

Antartica. Humidity level is close to zero. They can't get wet. It isn't possible. Any liquid refreezes. They died of cold.

An instantaneous change of the core temperature by 0.5 degrees would cause hyper or hypothermia. That is what hypo/hyper thermia is. If you raise or lower that temperature by a little, it takes ages to get it back to normal.

For the last time we dropped the shock resist issue.

Once i was pouring an ounce of gasoline on a fire and some idoit light it while i was holding it. It caused a huge fire ball to be produced that covered the whole upper part of my body. Guess what happened? I didn't start on fire, I wasn't burned, and my face didn't even get hot. Why did that happen? Because the flame lasted for less then a second. There was no time for heat to transfer to my body or clothes. That is the point I'm trying to make. If you got hit with a fire ball it would poof away before it could effect you, and if your wearing armor it would effect you even less. You could get hit with fire ball after fire ball, it wouldn't matter, because each one won't transfer enough heat before it went out to heat you up to the point which you start burning. It's not like a stove, it's not like a flame thrower, it's not like a blow torch, it's just a fire ball.

So you can't get wet in Antarctica? WRONG. Those men would sweet, if snow touched their skin it would melt and get you wet. Also salt water doesn't freeze so there would be many places where you could fall into water and get soaked. There are a lot of ways to get wet, and when you get wet your dead.

You can't instantaneously change core body temperature, it takes time, and so does it's effects. It takes hours to die of both heat exhaustion and hypothermia, in a short battle those things like that aren't even worth bringing up.