Perilisk pointed out to me the other day that it doesn't seem right that the Illusion skill is under the personality attribute instead of willpower. I agree with him, but moving it makes the personality attribute weaker in numbers, as for Oblivion or Morrowind it would only have two skills in that category. We need something new to make Personality an attribute worth investing in.

For one, I would like to scrap Speechcraft in favor of Streetwise and Etiquette's return. Along with Mercantile, this gives three.

What kinds of things related to personality would you add to the game that would be appropriate? Some other language skills for creatures? A Diplomacy skill?

From my own set, the full bunch of skills with Personality as a major are Illusion: Visual (because a large part of that would be being able to remember and reproduce faces, expressions gestures, etc), Mysticism: Convert, Manifestation: Cast, Deception: Disguise, Deception: Bluff, Manipulation: Praise, Manipulation: Threaten, Connections: Fence, Secrecy: Decode, Secrecy: Intercept, Mercantile: Haggling, Speechcraft: Language, Speechcraft: Culture, Guidance: Strategy, Guidance: Leadership, Thaumaturgy: Prayer, Nature: Bond, Creativity: Art, and Creativity: Music.

For those unfamiliar with my skill list and don't know what the heck is going on up there, my set has skills that are split into subskills (so Language and Culture go under Speechcraft). The subskills are the ones individually raised, while to not overwhelm creation, the main skills are what you pick as Major/Minor. So while making the character you'd choose Speechcraft as a major skill, and all three subskills get the bonus to speed of being a Major. Speechcraft is what you'd see in the character sheet, showing you the subskills and their scores when you highlight it.

Most are fairly self-explanatory. The old "Speechcraft" skills (Praise, Threaten, Bribe) were moved to Manipulation, considering you're basically trying to force the desired result out of a conversation. Speechcraft itself is now more literally your skill in conversation, including expressions and slang and cultural norms/taboos. Language relates to foreign languages, which I don't think needs to be separate skills for each language as it was in Daggerfall. My thought on it was for Language to be the skill, and individual languages to function like perks that are attached to it. You would, of course, have to learn them to add them, not just learn new ones at certain skill levels.

Secrecy skills are for characters like agents, professional guild thieves, assassins, etc. Understanding the way people think, and what patterns they would/wouldn't recognize, are why I put those under Personality. Guidance skills are for direct interaction with allies/followers, training them, giving them commands, and so on. Obvious reasoning there. Bond is effectively an animal-training skill, sort of a Speechcraft for things that don't speak. Animals could take roles of followers, be taught to respond to certain calls as a very basic form of taking commands, hard to intercept communications from messenger birds, etcetera.

Creativity skills would have several uses not quite fitting under other skills. Art has an obvious function as a way to make money, but can also make one more popular with the hard-to-please nobility, affect fame with tapestries and paintings of yours or other people's exploits, and from a direct-use angle be used to customize the effects of mask/clothing items, such as a frightening mask that hampers enemy morale or flashy clothes that make a bard more likely to be noticed or talked to. Music would have similar effects; affecting disposition and emotion, an access point into high society, spreading tales about events, and so forth.

Illusion can still make sense, depending on how you believe it works. If you are IMPOSING a view of reality on someone, that's Willpower. The alternative is that Illusion isn't about making someone see something that isn't there, but seducing them into seeing what you want. From that standpoint, it may well be a Personality skill.

Aside from that, Barding could work, as might many other performing arts. The biggest issue with Barding is lyrics. The skill presentation would benefit from vocals, but that tends to impose a voice on your character (bad).

Speechcraft is already the weakest skill in the game. Splitting it into two would make it even worse unless those two were hugely buffed.

It makes sense to me that Illusion is Personality-based. Illusion is about modifying peoples' minds. Personality is about modifying peoples' minds.

What is FAR more important is making buffs to the Personality attribute, the Speechcraft skill, and the Mercantile skill. I had to make 5 separate changes to my game to make Speechcraft worthwhile. Mercantile just really requires a (MUCH) more restricted gold supply. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091553-relz-retroactive-training-sessions/page__p__15925603__fromsearch__1&#entry15925603 works well to make Personality worthwhile.

It depends on whether they'll do a major overhaul of the entire social interaction system or whether they'll just stick with what was in Oblivion. If they don't change anything else about social interaction it's best to keep Speechcraft as a single skill, though I would welcome the return of Etiquette and Streetwise in the context of an overhauled social system.

I think Personality would be the the best match for Illusion if we stop regarding it as nothing but a synonym for Charisma and start treating it as psychologists would. Wikipedia's article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology uses the following definition (credited to Ryckman): "Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations." Cognitions, motivations, and behaviors are the kinds of things manipulated by Illusion. A person's identity and sense of self are tied to his perception of reality. Taking that sense of reality or illusion and making others sense it too might be an act of Willpower, but I think that the bulk of the work would be in preparing the perception that you want others to see.

Of course, if Elder Scrolls Personality is going to be Charisma, then I agree that Willpower might be a better fit for Illusion. In that case, letting characters produce non-magicial but Illusion-like effects through taunting, intimidation, lying, and bluffing would be nice.

they could do it like in bloodlines. there were different forms of personality. you could make a person that was very intimidating but not very seductive or charming.

illusion frankly should be in willpower or intelligence but its never hampered my game by being in personality.

It seems closest to hypnotism.
May as well be personality for me.

Because of this difference, I decided I would split Illusion on my spell list. Invisibility and Light and so on spells would be under Illusion (willpower), the Rally, Command, Demoralize and so on spells will be under the Dominate skill (personality).

If the dialogue skill is the weakest skill in the game, it already needs a gigantic overhaul. Might as well do it right. Parts of illusion could be personality based, but certain things are far too magical leaning. You aren't going to talk yourself into seeing in the dark with your splendid conversation though.

Splitting the speechcraft skill also widens the gap between the social classes, which I think they don't pay enough attention to.

Just come talk to M'aiq! He talks to everyone.

I think the problem with Speechcraft isn't that it needs to be split. It's coming up with a good way to increase your skill. Separating out Streetwise and Etiquette would mean that either they'd need to balance them (which would be restrictive in terms of story development) or risk having one more useful than the other. I'd rather view Speechcraft as including the ability to express yourself in a manner appropriate to your audience.

Streetwise and Etiquette would be more than the way you speak, they are about the way you fit into society. You won't get invited to a lord's table if you eat soup with a fork. The peasants won't think you're one of them if you don't know anything about raising chickens.