birthsigns are still there, but now they are the skills/perk trees

I'd imagine the main reason for Birthsigns removal(more like re-purpose) is twofold. First of all, the actual "Birthsign" itself, is now just what your character is, instead of more these zodiac-like boons and curses. Every character will have a Birthsign, and there's technically more than a million potential ones, at least in spirit and theory, I guess they figured at that point, it didn't make sense to keep the "Zodiac" birthsigns.

Secondly, but probably least influential in the decision, was, most birthsigns resulted in arbitrary attribute bonuses, and few were particularly balanced well.


Now, I'm not definding the removal of the birthsigns, personally, I liked the amount of cultural flare they added to the world. It was like a common thread that everyone had in Tamriel, but I am not going to get up-in-arms over the loss. I personally think the loss of the titled Birthsigns is a bigger hit to Roleplaying than the removal of attributes ever will be.

Yeah, in a way. The "depth" of their meaning is still there, but in a different form. I think the whole constellation thing is really cool

Not every hero has born under a certain sign. Being dragonborn is an extra already.

And your character gets developed during game not at the beginning.

I think it's better this way, personally. And as far as roleplaying goes, you shouldn't need hardcoded systems in the game for that. Roleplay is all imagination. Needing systems and such in the game for it is kind of the exact opposite of roleplay.

i did like the mermaids in pirates of the caribbean: on stranger tides, but mermaids in skyrim? no

Which has what to do with Birthsigns being gone? :blink:

First thing to mod back in.

ROFL wrong topic much?

Except it doesn't make a bit of difference. The games have become progressively easier, so even with a horribly optimized character you'd be able to win without breaking a sweat. I mean, you could pick an orc warrior and decide later on that you prefer magic and still be able to win. Once that's possible, why do we need to simplify the system any further?

I wonder how they will handle Argonians in the Dark Brotherhood now. Was the whole "Shadowscale" thing then just a hoax for lazy argonian parents to get rid of their children or something like that ?

Second thing. Nudity always takes priority.


Though, one problem I have with Modding birthsigns back in, with no attributes most of the signs will have to be completely redesigned. And each mod will probably heavily favor the authors favorite, to the exclusion of all others.


I can just see it now. Birthsign "The Shadow" Effects: "Shadowborne" Chameleon 125% Constant effect.

Because it offends a certain someone's sensibilities by still being "too spreadsheety" and thus needing to be heavily "streamlined." And he won't stop until it's been streamlined enough. :thumbsup:

Because Todd is a new-age humanist hippie, and he thinks that even the most brutish and battle-hardened Orc warrior can decide one day out of the blue to start becoming a mage. Then after some epic Rocky-esque training montages, while the world and Alduin's invasion conveniently sit around and wait for him, he'll be just as powerful as that Dunmer battlemage over there because there aren't any inherent attribute differences between races anymore.

It'd be so visceral duuuude!

Redundancy is the real issue, not "Spreadsheety" because it's still "Spreadshety" to pick your race. That was only for Magic, which from a design perspective, was the right call. The whole "List" thing is antithesis to the whole "Magic" concept of being magic...

But it's kind of pointless to essentially have your birthsign be your character development (As it is in Skyrim) and also select a birthsign. So if you're going to be condescending, at least try harder to hit the right point, otherwise you just look like a crybaby.



Compared to what? You could do that in Oblivion and Morrowind. Again, people think condescending tones automatically make them right? If you thought about it for one second, you'd realize that the Orc who invested perks into Greataxe and used all his perk points, would never be able to match the Battlemage's command of Fire and Thunder, ever.

Well in morrowind and Oblivion the shadow sign for argonians didn't mean a thing gameplay and story wise so i suspect the lore will just go on as it did before.
Also i think the shadowscale lore is strictly a black marsh event

I'm kinda disappointed but I'll get over it in oh 5 minutes.

Good riddance I say.

They removed "birthsigns" in FO3 when every Fallout game before that had them.... so it is not surprising that they would be eliminating them from TES.

Well the funny thing is if they did remove them, birthsigns were basically perks with a different name :rolleyes:

Case dismissed

I know the argument is that the perks system could theoretically make characters in the long run far more specialized than the old attributes system could, but until we get any information about the actual breadth and ken of most of the game's perks, I'm personally going to remain skeptical. Being able to ignore a certain armor percentage with a mace doesn't sound unique at all, it just sounds like a gimmick - unless it has a very nice and gradual progression. Which is why I kind of wish Bethesda wasn't so open with the Skyrim PR, because we get only a few examples and sources to go by and then nobody knows just how good or bad these mechanics as a gestalt whole will be.

Plus, characters with this new system still seem like they're going to be relatively similar upon creation. With birthsigns (but to a greater degree, Daggerfall's advantages and disadvantages) this wasn't the case, but now the only real distinctions Todd gives are each race having "special abilities". Sid Meier's Civilization series comes to mind - are you a fan, by any chance? The leaders for each civilization had a nice two-trait system in Civ3 and Civ4, but then in Civilization V the developers decided to tone down these differences - and now we have some leaders who can reach the middle ages lightyears before other civs, whilst other leaders have silly perks like gaining gold whenever they use naval units. It's even more disjointed than the old system ever was. :mellow:

That's like comparing tomatoes and potatoes. That doesn't make sense to me. Of course FO doesn't have TES birthsigns or am I missing your point here?

The traits in Fallout 1/2 had disadvantages to them, so if anything they were more comparable to Daggerfall's character creation than MW/OB's.

If anything, and the credit goes to someone whose name I unfortunately don't remember for this idea, the attribute/skill advantages each race had in previous TES games should have been a permanent bonus - so that, even with each character at maximum statistics, a Bosmer could have 110 in marksman whilst an Imperial would forever be constrained to 100 points.

I think the point was (and correct me if I am wrong) that Bethesda got rid of the birthsigns in FO when they took over the IP, and thus decided to eliminate them from TES