I would have to agree. There were maybe 4 good birthsigns and even those could be easily made up with spells, potions or skills.

thats silly. basically just for RP purposes? just imagine it in your head

Pretty much what I was going to do.

Be cool to have your chosen constellation birthsign outlined in the astrology menu for perk trees.

The problem with that argument is that it could apply to almost anything in an RPG.

The only one I ever used was the Thief to boost my attributes.

And since we now only have 3 (awesome), I'm not concerned with boosting 1, 2, or all 3 of my stats when I can just give them gains through proper leveling. I'm sure the reason they removed them is because they couldn't find a proper use for them with the removal of excess attributes. It would be unbalanced to have one sign give you amazing starter stats and another do almost nothing for you. So unless they change their minds and add some as a "discovering your past/origins", I don't think they'll be back. It would be nice if they did that though, perhaps through some kind of ritual, test, or questions about your skills and life history. Perhaps with a quest that did that, you could "discover" your birthsign and be granted something special for it(i.e. stat boosts, powers, spells, greater power, etc.).

I would be very pleased with the addition of some kind of "birthsign quest" with a mage to guide you or something like that. But if they just exclude the birthsign stuff completely, I won't miss it. :shrug:

When I read the article i got the impresion that you actually have a birthsign but that you don't choose it. If forms from your actions and you can see the sky change appearance depending on how you play. This made me think that you might get a birth sign feature/ability later in teh game based on your play style. (Pure conjecture on my part)

Why are you still here?

Anyway, picking your birthsign was pretty nice at the beginning of Oblivion, but I found them all pretty pointless. And as it was stated earlier, your character evolves by what you do in the game and not by what you choose at the beginning, which makes a lot more sense. Plus all the bonuses revolving around the different attributes and etc have been merged into the perks system. It's a huge improvement over Oblivion already!

My characters will all be orphans so i wouldnt know what birthsign they were born under.

I really couldt care less for birthsigns.. Do you guys obses over them irl also ?

Does a RPG need to contain birthsigns for you to enjoy it? Let's not pass judgement before you actually experience it first-hand, shall we? It could very well be a much-needed improvement. After all, many of the birthsigns would be completely redundant:

- The Apprentice and The Mage are a perk, most likely (+X Magicka per point). Which makes those birthsigns redundant.
- The Lord, The Lover, The Ritual, The Serpent, The Shadow and The Tower are better represented through spells and combat perks, making them redundant as well.
- The Warrior, The Thief, The Steed and The Lady only got you 100 points in all attributes earlier, but then became useless. Not exactly gamebreaking to remove.

Which leaves The Atronach, the only truly defined, unique birthsign. But the problem was that The Atronach was easily exploited to make you into a Uberhero later on. So I really don't see the problem with removing the borthsigns, as long as you can get similar powers through other means. In Skyrim, The Atronach could even be a disease similar to Vampirism or something (that you can choose to get, e.g. "Atronachism"). Or it can simply exist as part of a new spell perk system that you choose not to get. E.g. that all players are essentially Atronachs to begin with, but that you choose a spell perk to drastically increase your Magicka regeneration.

( BETHESDA: Please take this thought into consideration - that way, we can play a near-Atronach if we want. )

More than "great" I'd say "redundant"...

I don't mind birthsigns in the game, made it fun to read through something at character creation. But be honest - did it really make that much of a difference to you? I can understand the frustration people feel over changes in things like attributes and skills, since there was/is an old school RPG aspect to those in character building. But I would be hard pressed to think of a time when I actually used a birthsign ability, but maybe once or twice in an early level. What I did use in the game was the heaven stones -which, you know... were the birthsigns. That way I could change around a useful once a day ability if I had located various stones.

Hmmm.. I might be wrong but individuals being blessed by birthsigns are rare, aren't they?
Wouldn't a dovahkiin be blessed at birth twice if you also had a birthsign?

Forged with a soul of a dragon AND blessed with a birth sign.. greedy

I really hope that birth signs return. It's a tradition!

It was only in Morrowind and Oblivion, if I remember correctly.
Morrowind it was certainly part of the story

First trial:
"This refers to your birthsign -- to your birth on a certain day to uncertain parents, just like in the Stranger prophecy."

In Oblivion it seemed to be tacked on, Uriel Septim "implies" that he saw that you were blessed by stars guiding your course, but its less relevant to the story than Morrowind.

In Skyrim you have been blessed at birth with the soul of a dragon by the sounds of it, that is your story related blessing.

I'm glad to see that birthsigns are out.

I agree, I miss making a big fuss over who is watching over me.

Attributes didn't really seem that important, But the FUN of choosing a birth sign (Lore,and having to choose ONE of many bonuses was very engaging for me).

I hope to see an implementation of this (Well executed) in some sort of mod after release.

How is it a tradition if half of the main games didn't have them?

'They need to keep the radio feature in FO4, it's a tradition!'

Yeah I liked having a birthsign that is probably the only thing cut that I will actually miss.

...I can't find anything confirming this. Could someone provide a quote and source? I watched the video and read the interview and didn't see anything saying "birthsigns are out"

Thats really strange exclusion, why need to do thats?
Does all birthsigns shining to Dragon Born at one time?

I think if we can edit perks and create new ones (if we can do thats and devs not make them hardcoded) we can create chargen quest what will add certain perks as starting chose of class specialization and birthsigns as similar thing was done for Oblivion with mods for advantages/disadvantages and background.


They are not, did you play TES games before?

Maybe chosen in a similar way as the traits in Fallout 3?

I think the exclusion of birth signs is the first thing I've heard that I was really bummed about. It was always nice to be able to give my character a little stat bump in the beginning. Then again, we don't have attributes to worry about now, so it probably won't matter unless you used the power-giving birthsigns