This is different from a "General idea or Suggestion for TES 5", so I kept it out of the TES 5 Suggestion thread. Its for all future TES games and it is specific to NON-combat skills. I feel that TES games(ESPECIALLY Oblivion) are to heavily combat based, they need some skills that aren't combat based yet can get you money.
Alchemy, Armoror, Speechcraft, Mercantile, Acrobatics, are a most of the non-combat based skills and they are either bland or only used in combat.
Here are some of my ideas:

Non-Combat skills

Fishing- Simple and easy. Loads of great games have it (LOZ series, Dark Cloud 2). I don't really need to explain it, but it could be a good way to make money. Attach bait, through line, and then real it in on a visual cue of the fish bite.

Cooking- Little more complicated, kinda like alchemy only less customizable (You can't really cook random bits of plant together and hope it is good). Say you caught a fish, its no good to you raw except for alchemy. So you fry in a nearby pan. It now restores health and fatigue and is a more potent ingredient.

Crafting- Even more complex. This is more of an enhanced version of Armoror, you gather ore of a type(Deadric, Glass, Iron, Ebony). Kinda like the Madness Ore/Amber thing from SI only the player makes it. You go to a smithy and smelt the ore or a weapon of that type. Then you get usable iron to which you bring to the anvil and craft a weapon. You should be able to choose from a variety of blade and hilt styles in order to make weopons appear more unique. However if your skill is low then when crafting you may fail, this failure can be thrown back into the smelting pot so waste not.

Music- Simple button pressing minigame. Kinda like LOZ for the N64. Taken from the "Music as a skill" thread, I think that a bard should be able to do what a bard is able to do. If you are successful in playing a song others nearby will have a higher disposition to you, you could lul them to sleep or get tips.

I want to see you are ideas, you can either improve upon mine, improve upon ones already in TES, or come up with your own. If you don't like the idea of non-combat based skills don't post.

Those should be misc skills unrelated to standard "levelling" system. Player could pick one as his/her "major" one at the start, but they should function outside of the standard system, i.e. they wouldn't affect attributes and level gain.

You would be able to function as a simple commoner and still have the capability to train yourself in "standard" skills if you wished.

In that case one might as well get rid of Alchemy, Speechcraft, Mercantile, and those other skills from the level system.

Leveling does not need to be restricted to Combat Skills only.

Sorry but you can't compare Alchemy to Music or Fishing skills. The first one is potentially a very powerful tool, the other ones are just misc skills which can't be considered equal to Alchemy. Fishing is just fishing - how powerful can it be, what can it bring? Flavour and immersion, mostly, unlike Alchemy, Speechcraft or Mercantile. That's why it should be a misc skill, functioning outside of the boundaries of the standard system. Otherwise things will quickly become messed up and it will be very hard to balance the game properly. Basically, "level" would get meaningless and all of the leveled lists would have to be scrapped.

The idea itself is good, though, as it would give low-level characters something to do outside of combat. New ways of gaining money etc. Good for roleplaying purposes, too.

I would love to have things like crafting, mining, and fishing. But they shouldn't be in the same category as your major and minor skills.
It would be nice if there's a collection of all/largest fish you caught for fishing, like the Zelda games.

Your making no sense. Speechcraft, Lockpick(forgot to add this), and Mercantile are not powerful at all, nor do they add much for combat at all yet you consider them legit skills next to Alchemy. Fishing is not the only skill I suggested, nor does it level up your strength, in my mind it would fall under willpower. Crafting is, in fact, an improvment of Armoror and is a VERY powerful skill.
Music skill would be similar to speechcraft if not part of the same skill.
Cooking would be the only thing I'd consider misc. I put it there to promote discussion.
I just can't see how the leveled list would be scrapped.


Look here at Sneak, it isn't a combat skill, it effects combat but is more for avoiding combat than engaging or aiding in it. You can go through the whole theives guild quests and never attack anyone or anything. Them go through darkbrotherhood and attack very minimaly. You have leveled to level 10. Are the leveled lists scrapped? No.

I am glad you like the idea of being able to engage in these activities, but I see no reason for them not to be skills.

I have to agree with Yngh on this one. You can't expect to become a powerful hero because you can fish, can you?

Speechcraft and Mercantile are used primarily to trade with traders, and perhaps to taunt enemies to attack. It's tied in closely with combat.

Lockpicking allows a character to stealthily infiltrate any building. It is also tied in close to combat.

Stealth is a combat skill. It's possibly the most important skill of a stealthy character. Sneaking allows me to attack an enemy by surprise, and get a better hit.


I can understand getting a skill increase while performing these skills. For example, if I'm spear fishing, getting a level in spear would make perfect sense. Or if I'm fletching, I may earn some knowledge of the workings of marksmanship. But, I just don't think they're closely related to combat enough to contribute to levelling.

I completely agree with the idea of non-combat skills, though.

As much as I appreciate the stretching off from my thread, most of this was discussed on there. But fine.

Cooking is useless since all you do is make food that will most likely only restore fatigue, or other effects that only last a few seconds. I'd hate if Music turned into a minigame, since I'd like it to rely on character skill rather than player. Fishing would only be neat if you could go out in the ocean and find mystical sea creatures. Crafting might be effective.

These all sound like things modders should add, while Bethesda focuses on other things... but then again not everybody can use mods.

Exactly. They'd be neat for roleplay, but would be useless in terms of a effective skill-choice.

You can't expect to become powerful from lockpicking, Mercantile, or speechcraft. And aside from taunting enemies to attack you, these skills have NOTHING to do with combat.


Again FISHING WASN'T THE ONLY SKILL I SUGGESTED.


Lastly, this isn't a skill debate.

Pardon? Some of our greatest leaders were only powerful because they could manipulate and earn profit. Speechcraft and Mercantile are great for becoming powerful.

This is the elder scrolls we are talking about not real life.

Fallout 3 included speech challanges to always overcome tough situations. And I don't doubt that the same system will be used in TES: V. And anyone who is rich in gold can buy the best armor and weapons.

Since when was good Armor and weapons sold? Aside from that guy at ghost gate, nowhere.

Golly, you're persistant.

What's better, using the rusty iron dagger and fur helmet you found on some dead goblin, or a full set of master-crafted steel armor, a fine steel sword, and durable shield?

While these may be overpowered by daedric and better armors, it's perfect for starting off.

Bought with gold you got from FISHING.

Don't forget crafting. This is the one I really want to see. Fishing can go to hell if we could craft weapons and armor. Crud, i'm getting Hyped at the thought.

I think that there should be non-combat skills for the role players out there, however I'm not one to role play a non-combat character, so I really don't have that strong an opinion. I would love to play a traveling bard, playing in taverns for coin, but unfortunately I cant pull myself away from the wandering mercenary kind of character

Here's a few.

Speed: Theft

Endurance: Equestrian, Outdoorsman, Climbing

Personality: Dominate, Streetwise, Etiquette, Mercantile, Diplomacy

Intelligence: Necromancy, Alchemy, Medical

As I said in another topic... There should be an attributes tab, a skills tab, a job skills tab, etc. Job skills would be your "non-combat" skills. The skills in the game don't have to be combat skills, they don't have to help in combat skills, they are meant to help your character, but not necessarily get "stronger." Mercantile is a skill not because it is related to combat, but because bethesda found it to be a more useful mechanic in the game. THEY CANNOT include every single skill in the game. They could how ever have job-skills which help you level in other ways such as crafting, mining, (dare I say... he might get mad) fishing, hunting, and other things. They would make you more famous rather than make you stronger, earn you money rather than skill points, You could live as a villager through this system... but your non-combat skills, or job skills, or professions, or hobbies, or whatever-the-heck you want to call them do not have to be skills! They could be included in the game without being put in the skills tab. I don't see whats so hard about that idea.

Now instead of yelling about what I just said, why don't you give ideas for Professions or something like that, if the name of the topic has something to do with skills though, it will start a flame-war

Proffessions should be an underling of a skill such as: Fencing is under blades which is under strength or Strength>Blades>Fencing
Skills should govern professions in the way that attributes govern skills. Increasing your professions would help advance your skills... in factI think they should overhaul the whole system like so:

Atributes are no longer completely based on race, they are based on your skills. They all start at 30, except luck, which will be 40. When you pick a major skill it increases it's governing attribute by 5. In this way you could start with a strength of 65 if you chose, but your other attributes would all be low. You gain bonuses and minuses to your abilities in 5s, 10s, 15s, and 25s. You gain certain abilities based on a backstory your provide through a set of choices in character Generation. You gain points to your attributes every level, but you no longer choose which attributes increase, or by what, they increase based on what your skill increases were.

Skills level up as they did before, for the most part. When used, your skill increases. When you reach each ranking (25, 50, 75, 100) you must have a profession of a certain ranking to advance to the next skill ranking. Example. Blades at level 25 requires you to have a profession under this skill. 50 requires you to be skilled in at least one profession. 75 requires mastery of one profession or skilled in two professions. 100 requires mastery of all professions. Each level would give a bonus, as before, but the bonuses would seem much more well earned.

Professions level up as you use them. They level at a somewhat slow pace, but much faster than skills do. (Skill may take 50 hrs real time to master, while profession may take 5 hours real time to master). Professions increase your notoriety(infamy), fame, and other things. When you are skilled in a profession, you can use your professional ability to do things that others cannot. Your luck ability levels up based on your mastery or skill in professions. Each skill will have 3 professions under it.

Sorry for going "off-topic" It was required to give my idea of a Non-combat skill system. For those skimming... Read... I prefer the word professions to non-combat skills, as it doesn't start flame wars... as much.

Blade>Fencing
>
>
...

I would love"profession" skills, though I agree that they shouldn't be allowed to effect player level. BUT, they should effect attributes. I propose each character has one profession skill slot, and each skill is linked to an attribute. Some skills I could name off the top of my head would be fishing, music, craftsman (there could be lots of variants of this). Things I wouldn't like to see are mining(this sounds really boring) and cooking(too similar to alchemy).

Read my post... though long, you might like my idea.

There is a misunderstanding here.

Firstly, I really like the idea and I would like Bethesda to include ALL of the mentioned misc skills and even many MORE.

Secondly, I think that most of those skills would not "fit" with standard ones. While Crafting is an unique one and it could be related to Armorer, most of misc skills would be very minor. You can't compare Fishing, Music, Dancing or whatever to Mercantile, Speechcraft, Sneak, Alchemy or Security. Sure, those skills might have been unbalanced in previous TES games, but it doesn't mean that they don't have good potential. Mercantile is potentially the greatest money-maker around there, which means that as long as there are ways of spending money and it is of any importance, this skill, when balanced, will be vital for many characters (especially thieves). There is nothing of this sort that you can make from fishing. Sure, you can earn some money from it, but you will need Mercantile anyway in order to sell your fish for a good price! Speechcraft could be so vital for quests and dialogue checks that I consider it to be the most unused skill in TES games. It definitely has great potential, though - even if they simply copy speechcraft checks from Fallout: New Vegas, it will be much better than its implementation in Oblivion. Sneak and Security require no explanation - they are the most important skills for any thief, so it's funny to say that they could be compared with Music or Cooking.

Thirdly, I think that Misc skills could get some love by creating a more advanced system which would utilise them to their full potential - something which wouldn't make them useless and cause stupid imbalances.

Lastly, I have my own ideas for misc skills, too:

- Riding - in Oblivion everyone can ride a horse, which is plainly stupid; good for many characters
- Climbing - good thing for thieves and burglars alike; it was in Daggerfall, too; of course, it will be useless unless they will include possibilities of using that skill
- Tracking - think of those messages from Oblivifall mod, but more related to this skill; would be great for hunters
- Swimming - I'm sure that there are good athletes around there who can't swim; it should be a misc skill unrelated to Athletics in such a plain way as in MW or OB
- Mining - it's ridiculous that a character with 30 Strength and absolutely no mining skills can mine ore...
- Crafting should be divided, because it doesn't fit with other misc skills and it's too broad. Smithing should be combined with Armorer, as for the rest, I would go for:
1) Tailoring - clothing etc.
2) Fletching - arrows etc.
3) Weaving - tapestries for houses etc.
4) Brewing - alcohols etc.

Yet, my friend, you can. Lockpicking requires nimble fingers, and the light weight of a dagger will turn into picking the other person. Corny.

Mercantile, not everything requires combat.

And with a silver tounge you can escape anything.

From 'Music as a skill':

I would like to see Bethesda put a little more focus on non-combat skills in future games, I mean, I like combat, killing enemies is fun in a video game, especially since it's not something I would usually do in real life, and in fact most games I've played involve some element of combat, but this is supposed to be an RPG, and one that makes freedom a big selling point. It's supposed to let you create different types of characters, and actually PLAY those characters as they might behave, so if you decide to play a character whose main focus is not on combat, it makes little sense for fighting to be the only way to progress in the game.

I don't think just adding more non-combat skills would make much difference, though. Bethesda would need to give players oportunities to actually use non-violent means to accomplish something, things like adding diplomatic solutions for quests or creating more situations where a stealthy character can sneak past enemies to get to a goal rather than just killing them, because adding more non-combat skills won't do much if you have no reason to invest in those skills. Thus, before worrying about adding skills that wouldn't really be of much use to an adventurer, I'd actually like Bethesda to first think about how to make non-combat skills more useful.

Though, one thing I do hope to see in future games is for Bethesda to expand the crafting options in the game, it doesn't need to be limited to just weapons and armor either, why shouldn't I be able to craft clothing? Or jewlery? Or more? Crafting would be a good place to start for expanding non-combat skills as it would be easy to make useful, since you could use the items you make yourself, or sell them, making it something that has the potential to be both practical and profitable.