I do not know if there was ever a dedicated topic to this particular skill (may favorite skill, hence the concern here) and looking at the front page I didn't see any. So, here it is.

Mysticism as a skill in the past was my favorite magic school, and to be honest, I think removing it and throwing its spells into other schools was a mistake. Most if not all of the spells (including ones from past games, not just Oblivion) could technically be put into other schools without much contradiction (Soul trap makes some sense in Conjuration or Enchant, telekinesis in Illusion/alteration, etc) but I think those effects worked best under a mysticism school, especially in the case of teleportation spells such as Mark/Recall and Intervention, which were removed in Oblivion due to near pure laziness. (it wasn't hard to designate areas and certain times when teleportation is disabled, as was the case in Morrowind, thus preventing the breaking of scripting, which was to my knowledge the only issue. Or at least the main one)

And this is because just going by real world definitions of Mysticism, the spells that used to fall under it fit best under that overall title. (yes, I know that schools really don't matter in the magic of TES, but this is beside the point) Mysticism, as it is defined, deals with spirituality and the essential fabric of reality and unreality, life and death,. (as I understand it and can paraphrase it anyway) Hence spells like Soul Trap (connection with the inner soul, taken to the extreme of being able to connect with other souls and entrap them; is perfectly reasonable in a world of magic), Intervention (deep intrinsic connection with reality and god(s). Taken again by magic to an extreme, thus enabling teleportation), reflect (a possible extreme of self-nullification), absorb (see reflect), and finally detect spells (connection with reality, taken to extreme and specifics) fit best under a Mysticism school because their inherent connection to what mysticism is, both in the Elder Scrolls and in real life. The dispel spell is the only spell that isn't necessarily connected to something related to real life mysticism, but generally it doesn't really fall under any other school except possibly restoration, but that is pushing it.

Now, as far as gameplay goes, I've seen very many people say mysticism was useless, despite the fact that virtually everyone made use of Soul Trap in Morrowind and Oblivion, and many would have probably used Reflect and absorb spells, despite the fact in Oblivion that absorb spells fell under Restoration. (a dumb move) And obviously everyone in Morrowind used mark/recall and the two intervention spells. Dispel was obviously very useful. Telekinesis was the only mysticism spell that was really and truly useless through out the games, and this is only because there was never any reason to use it. Never did we see some sort of impassable chasm at the other side of which resides an object that only telekinesis could allow you to reach or some other situation that called for telekinesis.

And this even has some lore effects as well, as the Psijics are among the main students of Mysticism, and having it removed kind of eliminates not only one of their unique qualities, but also makes them into just a glorified Mages Guild of sorts, seeing as they now practice spells from all other schools.

AS far as Skyrim goes, I can understand consolidating many of the skills that they did, especially speechcraft and mercantile (though depending on how dialogue works, they can be separated again) and acrobatics and athletics (this one goes without saying), but I do not think it was a good move getting rid of mysticism, as it only seems to have happened not because it was useless, because it most certainly wasn't (may be in Oblivion, where half of its spells were removed or still useless), but because if they didn't magic would have one more skill than the other two specializations. And quite frankly, I do not know why thats a problem. Sure it makes it so that mages will inherently be more powerful level wise than the other specializations assuming all skills related to it are trained, but as is the case with all elder scrolls games, and certainly Skyrim, in the end you're either powerful enough to hold your own against most anything regardless or exactly the same anyway. (having trained everything)

Having equal amounts of skills across the specializations is just plain boring in my opinion, and really only made sense as far as the attribute system goes, but seeing as we are going to see that being taken out (good riddance) I fail to see why it still matters except in a rather pointless try at maintaining balance in the skillset.

So what does everyone think?

I would not say that is was a useless skill, I liked life detection night vision and I believe soul trap. But those all could very easily merge with other schools. Overall Mysticism is unnecessary

Teleportation rocked.

Of course they could be easily merged, however, for the reasons I stated, they shouldn't. Life detection and soul trap especially. Night Eye was illusion.

I don't think they claimed it was useless. It is a cluster-bucket of spells though, and weakly held together.

They could all be moved to other schools without much complications, so I am impartial as long as the spells stay in a am fine with it...

I think it was useless.


Probably because I never used it. :down:

I don't want it removed from lore, though, even if it was a bucket.

It was just the dump skill for spells they think they couldn't match or categorize.

Mind you, many of the spells in myticism were useful.

I'm fine with it dispersing into other magical skills, only problem would be lore wise.

I don't consider Mysticism as useless but I do consider the Mysticism as "Spells that does not fit with the other School of Magic goes here" School of Magic.

i think that since mysticism has been regarded in the lore as a pretty important part of a pretty BIG part of the lore, and that it's being removed now after a really long time, its being removed as a formal school even though none of its spells are is very likely tied to the dissolution of the Mages' Guild and the rise of the Synod and the College of Whispers, and that until the game comes out and we get a chance to read the book or books wherein the culling of the school is justified, there is little use discussing it.

regarding the PSJJJ - think of it like levitation, okay. look at how the Telvanni had ENTIRE CITIES built around the idea of levitation. now remember that Traven, archmage of the Mages' Guild, banned levitation. do you think the Telvanni cared at all? hell no. they didn't tear down their cities and rebuild them as houses with staircases everywhere - they went on doing what they've always done, and [censored] if some upstart Imperial institute was going to tell them otherwise.

ed also guys remember it's been TWO-HUNDRED YEARS. how similar were science lessons in 1811 to science lessons today?

I'm ambivalent on mysticism. But do we want intervention spells back now? How can we be sure which one of the Nine is going to answer?

the spells wern't useless, but I think the group was, all of it affects are able to go into other groups, mysticism also isn't very narrow like alteration or illusion, it is just kind of an other category

To be honest, Dispel was the only spell in Mysticism that could ever be said to be a spell that could not fit anywhere else. Even in mysticism. And the reason the rest of the spells don't necessarily fit anywhere else is because, again, they belong in mysticism.

A lot of the spells were nice, but I think they could be put in other schools.

Perhaps they should have put all of the illusion spells into mysticism and got rid of illusion. I think mysticism is a better name as it is more of an umbrella term. It also feels more occult than illusion. :chaos:

Mysticism seemed kind of like a bridge between Illusion and Alteration. It is howver a cool name Roadrunner. :wink_smile:

Indeed. :foodndrink:

Mysticism, or the old way, is a fundamental part of magic.

It deals with patterns, ancestrals and flux.

It would be as silly to say mystisicm was obsolete as it would be to call destruction narrow and shallow, and suggest it might as well be absorbed by alteration. Something wich, of course, only an illusionist would do.

To my mind however, a path out of this quagmire is clear.

With the mages guild defunct and its functions taken over by the College of Whispers and the Synod, it would be logical to assume that old paradigms are reviewed in a new light.
I surmise that these new organisations did not so much 'scrap' mystisicm as they have dismantled it as a school on its own
only to integrate it in the other schools of magic as a fundamental, a strengthening and binding factor
In this manner, mysticism isnt scrapped or defunct, but rather the other schools are reinforced by the old way.

As I always play an Altmer, that outcome would please me. Proper veneration of that wich came before is observed, to build a fundament for the future.

edit: many people claim that mysticism is a hotch potch, a container marked 'various'.
For people that arent Altmer and not schooled in the proper observing this is understandable.
From inside one may look out a window and see a tree, its leaves moving. One might see a scrap of paper, being dragged across the grass. Sometimes one may even see great waves or terrible blizzards. Are these all seperate and distinct phenomena? Maybe, but the driving factor is the wind. Unseen and unfelt from your vantage point, but surely there.

Dispel - Easily moved to Restoration - it's a curing type spell
Soul Trap - Moved directly to Enchanting skill though could possibly be put with Conjuration as well.
Telekinesis - Is clearly Alteration which is the manipulation of the physical world
Detect Life - Easily an Illusion spell because just like night eye it is and altered perception
Spell Absorption - Another easily moved to Restoration because it's very similar to Absorb
Reflect - I'd say Alteration seeing as it's really just another type of shield and all of the shield spells are in this school.

Makes sense to me.

I think the problem with mysticism was it was full of spells that you would only use occasionally. Without grinding the spells (as in casting them over and over for no reason) it would take you forever to level the skill. If you want to start using mysticism as a novice, you have to find one of two spells to be able to use it. TWO! Minor Dispel and Minor Detect Life. That's all you get. If you want all those soulgems you've been collecting to stop gathering dust you're going to have to cast one of those two a couple thousand times.

The spell effects are great but without inventing another 6 or so effects (at minimum) the skill is just a pain to have to deal with. All seven of mysticism's effects can easily be integrated into the other magic skills.

^^ That is a good point Lemunde. Mysticism does need more useful spells, especially low level ones. (and we were almost there with Morrowind. However, many spell effects had little use, despite the fact that the potential was there.



You make a good point, but you would have to convince me how spells like telportation and life detection fit well under any of the other schools. Sure they could easily be absorbed if we changed or augmented the fundamental definitions of the other schools (telportation can obviously very easily be put into illusion. But it isn't an illusion unless we're talking short distance (like behind a dragon from in front of it) but even then. Life detection especially doesn't fit well under any other school of magic.

Now, I'm not going to cry over a permanent loss of mysticism, as virtually all schools of magic can easily be incorpated into one school and no one could really say that that would be a dumb idea, lore wise, as magic doesn't depend on schools, but purely on how the user puts it to use. However, gameplay wise, it is rather silly to remove mysticism, as putting most of its spells in other schools doesn't make sense.

Frankly, I'd be fine with one "magic" skill that was augmented by perks or some sort of skill tree. Like, within the "magic" skill, every spell would be in one of the schools, but each school would not have it's own skill. What I mean by a skill tree is if, let's say, you want to improve your destruction abilities, you can select a skill tree trait or something that might give you some sort of bonus or improvement to spells in that school. Then, you can get a higher tier of that path next level.

Voted No|Yes. Mysticism wasn't useless. I think of it as the very fabric of magic. Illusion is affecting others, mind games if you like. Alteration is affecting physical objects in the world (not you). Imho. So there are spells that I think fits better with mysticism than anywhere else. Bring back Intervention (one or both). Levitation fits here since it deals with altering another force around you, gravity (where slowfalling would be a lesser variant). Feather (if still around) may belong to alteration since it deals with your items. Reflect and absorb (spells) belong in mysticism since they manipulate incoming magical forces. Soul trap, recharging, and enchanting is part of mysticism. Even light goes here (since it doesn't belong with the mind control spells of Illusion).

In DF, the schools of Mysticism and Thaumaturgy appeared to be "competing about being the center school" (my own view). I consider Mysticism to be most elemental school of magic, where everything else is specializations. However, I don't think we can say anything goes into this or that being right or wrong. I can put Light into any school of magic and come up with an explanation why it belongs there, that isn't totally weird. Disintegration:
Destruction - where it is now.
Illusion - placebo effect, I make enemy believe his weapon doesn't work, so it doesn't.
Alteration - affecting physical things in the world, so yeah, that works too.
Mysticism - disrupting magical world surrounding his equipment.
Conjuration - ehm, ok. Stuck on this one

So, it's easy to put spell effects into other schools and still have it "work". If balance is the issue you want it removed, consider moving other things into it instead. It's a major part of the game. Removing a wheel is not how you reduce the weight of a sports car.