This thread is for ideas and suggestions for future Elder Scrolls games, and to keep all the discussion in one series of threads.

We also have an official thread specifically for http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1540764-tes-vi-location-and-setting-speculation-27/ suggestions for future games.

Now that Skyrim has been released the number of suggestions and ideas for the next ES game are starting to show up. We have a long way to go before we get another ES game and all topics like this will be closed and either transferred or referred to this one.

Please keep any discussion of Skyrim in the correct forums.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1540762-official-beyond-skyrim-tes-vi-66/

I'm more on the same page as Jackal, though i still don't see Rock, Water or Wind as being particularly distinct, nor characterful. Whereas the others are more spontaneous energy states, Water and Rock are physical things, and Wind just isn't that... well... Damage-y... I mean, look at Air Benders, that's more characteristic of Wind... Yeah, it CAN be pretty damaging under the right circumstances, but you're generally looking at extremely broad AOE effects, not the typical attacks of a Destruction Mage.

The basic 3, Fire, Frost and Lighting, are all easily manageable as spontaneous energy states in an environment. Heat, Cold and Static are far easier to achieve using magical energy than creating matter. And even then, that manipulation of matter is more the domain of Alteration than it is Destruction.

Entropy, on the other hand, is something that's been implied in a lot of the lore, but never really handled. It is the cancellation of energy, the annihilation of matter and the anti-creation. In many ways, it's anti-magic, the purest form of destruction, the endless obliteration that is Sithis. It's also clutter removal and should destroy everything but specially protected artefacts...

The characteristics i've tinkered with are basically...

Fire; Damages Health, causes burning. Burning targets take damage over time and damage those nearby, and can set off flammables in the environment.

Frost; Damages Health and Stamina, causes freezing. Freezing is a stacking de-buff that slows movement and action speed.

Lightning; Damages health and Majicka, has a chance to Arc. Arc does half damage to nearby targets

Entropy; Damages Health. Disintegrates everything.

I think things like Velocity, Impact Force and Cost are better handled by Qualities and Delivery, and things like location damage and how it interacts with defences is more a characteristic of armour type, quality and materials, or the specific defensive spell you are using.

I think if you looked at wind more like it is in Naruto you could see it being destructive. Temari is a perfect example where she uses her giant fan to send huge blast of air at enemies doing things like lifting and pushing them away all while cutting them to shreds. Imagine a spell an air bolt that hits the enemy then explodes into a windstorm and does multiple cutting attacks that stack bleeding damage or a rune/mine that when the step on it their engulfed in a tornado that does the same.

As far as rock/nature goes I guess I could see it in alteration but also thing it fits into destruction. I just really like the idea of manifesting giant boulders and launching them at enemies, creating a giant stone wall then exploding it into thousands of projectiles at your target. I also think it would be unique enough to stand on it's own.

Entropy is okay just not completely sold that it needs to be a thing.

Bringing up Airbenders brings up something I wanted to mention and that's how each element could have passive that's about the mage embracing the element. For example under the fire sub-skill tree in destruction it would have perks like;

Cauterize: As soon as your flesh is torn it's seared back together - Immune to bleeding damage and 10% health regeneration to physical damage

Phoenix Reborn: Once a day if a hit would kill you instead you explode into a storm of fire and ash dealing 50 points of fire damage to nearby enemies and healing 30% max health

It should also be said that I'm not for a small amount of destruction effects for each element. I'd like to see numerous different applications for the spells, for example (just because I feel like talking about earth stuff for now):

• A spell that causes a wall of sand to form in front of the caster which can block attacks and can be sent outward like a sand/wall wave
• A spell that causes the rock in the ground to soften and develop a quick-sand-like viscosity, which can svck enemies in if they're not careful
• A spell that causes an astroid-belt like effect of rocks to surround the user and spin around, shredding anyone who gets too close and blocking some unlucky projectiles
• A spell that causes a giant boulder to form in the sky and then crash down on enemies
• A rock shotgun-like blast
• A sand-like whip which can wrap around enemies and throw them in a direction
• A sand storm
• Quicksand runes
• Bullet-like sand attacks

Basically, things of that nature. I could see how one could argue some of these things would go into alteration. However, I've never seen destruction as just being about "energies" and I don't think much other than Skyrim's in-game description and the prior games' spell selections (which I see as mostly due to mechanical reasons) supports that. It's weird that Skyrim's spell description states that, considering there is at least one wind destruction spell that I'm aware of in the game. There's also a significant amount of lore on wind spells and earth spells (I've seen a lot of stuff mentioned in Hammerfell). I want to also say that there's been some mention of water magic, used by the psijic monks to defeat King Orgnum.

I personally think destruction would be most fitting as being based on elemental manipulation of natural energies, whereas alteration is more so manipulating natural physical states.

As for entropy, would any shadow magic tie into it at all?

As for qualities, I propose:

@Ckelley

I like the idea of perks that can be used if you have mastery with certain destruction types. Both of those sound cool to me and I think this kind of perk style would be much better than anything we saw in Skyrim. Especially for magic-related perks, they should feel like they give an arcane advantage. Sort of like it's an arcane talent you've developed that transcends just spells.

What about something like:

Magnetized: the player has a permanent negative charge - any enemies that are struck by a shock spell are temporarily branded with a negative charge as well, and are thus unable to get too close to the player without being magnetically repelled, which could result in a knock back or result in just passive damage building up the closer they get.

Tailwind: anytime the player sprints in the direction of the wind, they are coated in its elemental fury, allowing them to sprint magically faster, as well as creating a powerful tailwind which can knock into enemies and send them flying.

I suppose it couldn't hurt to bring up techniques just a bit:

In regards to the prior discussions of techniques and perks, there are two ways I would personally like to see it work:

• Perks are general attribute-centered abilities, similar to Fallout's style, but geared entirely towards TES. Techniques geared towards each specific skill that can be increased every few levels or upon a certain amount of "points." In this case, I imagine techniques would be sort of like what we're talking about here in this scenario.
• Perks that are not quite as general as the above but centered towards the different skills, with mediation from attributes. Techniques geared towards specific in-game actions and that are learned through in-game sources, such as trainers, quest-rewards, factions, or in-game "technique books" which I feel would serve as an interesting diversion for "researcher" type characters.

I'd personally be okay with either of these, but I lean more towards the second option, since I feel it would provide more rewards and more searching to be done to obtain certain rare/lost techniques.

I had to youtube Temari, as i gave up on Naruto before season 1 was even over... And yeah, i guess it cuts, but that's only really a weird characteristic of the universe in question.. It's cool visually, sure, and its a big thing in Anime, but it's not how Wind actually works. And the Wind in TES is basically the same as it is in the real world. Even Wulfhearth, as a raging windstorm, only really deflected, he never cut. Rule of Cool isn't enough grounds to include something (at least in my mind) it needs to be representative of how the setting works, and you can't really cut anything with Wind in TES.

I like the idea too, but the question is more 'Does it fit?' and less 'Is it cool?'. Conjuring physical matter isn't really the purview of Destruction magic, and it seems to be a very limited thing. Even Bound items aren't used that much, and where they come from has never really been made clear. It's cool, yes, but its rather out of place in TES's magic.

It's sort of an adaptation of the old 'Damage' spells, the entropic nature of Sithis, and a little bit of classic D&D's negative energy.

I've tinkered with similar perk ideas in the past, though not specifically about defensive versatility... One of the ones i came up with was for Lightning, allowing you to build up Charges pre-emptively, allowing you to fire off several lightning spells without having to charge them at the cost of some feedback damage. I think there's determinately some interesting potential in having an offensive option and a defensive one based of elemental schools...

@Jackal

Those are pretty interesting idea's. I think the lightning one might be better if instead of repelling if they got close to you, you would discharge electricity and damage them as well as increasing the chance of them being hit by arc damage and increasing the damage itself.

I also had the same thought of the tailwind about an air passive making you naturally faster and more agile/light. Not quite sure how the the tailwind part would work but not against it.

@Lach

I think it's more than just rule of cool and in a world with magic it's totally feasible and really doesn't seem that far of a stretch to add. As for stone I think it really could fit and be a thing but maybe not in destruction. The way I see it working is transforming arcane energy into physical matter and using to shape that matter. Whether it's Destruction or Alteration really depends on how you define the skills, Is Destruction solely for destructive forms of energy or any magical force with the purpose of destroying. Like I said I'd be okay with it being in Alteration if it meant it was added.