But alteration makes security completely useless. Why invest in a skill that only opens locks when alteration can open locks and do tons of other things.

This would be disastrous if the mini-game isn't seriously overhauled. Otherwise it's high-level loot behind high-level locks for everyone. One of the incentives to play a thief is that you will be able to get to loot other characters find more difficult.



Because using spells requires magicka. You could use enchanting/scrolls, but they also have disadvantages relative to using lockpicks.

Look, I agree with the point that Security to a certain extent wasn't the most useful skill in previous games, because its uses were extremely specific. Furthermore, there were other ways of doing what Security did - although, as I've said, they came with a distinctive set of pros and cons. I guess I hope that Security gets beefed up, rather than lumped in with Sneak. So, for instance, perhaps Security could be expanded into a general "Thieves Tools" type skill, where you not only have the ability to pick locks, but also to disarm traps, to cut glass to enter houses/castles through windows, etc.

It sounds like combat and magic received a lot of love from the developers. I hope stealth did too.

Marksman, Light Armor, Sneak, Security, One-Handed, Speechcraft, Alchemy, Illusion.

That is the set on which you can base your sneaky character. Well, we don't know if Light Armor will be in, but if not then it's simply the Armor skill with perks for light versions, or whatever. Point is... this is still plenty. And who knows, maybe there's even an Acrobatics/Athletics skill too!

Also: In earlier games, Athletics wasn't a stealth skill, and it wasn't more useful for thieves than for other characters - if anything, thieves usually have to worry less about fatigue, since they don't wear heavy armor and weapons. The maximum number of removed skills is two - Mercantile and possibly Acrobatics.

Summary: More than one third of the game's skills will be useful for sneaky characters. Thieves didn't get a specifically worse treatment than other character types. So your complaint boils down to the fact that there are less skills in general. And well, about that one we had a couple of threads already.

Game Balancing; since security does nothing but open locks, you'd become profficient at opening locks quicker than the more general Alteration.

Yeah in Oblivion it was a bit too easy to cast Alteration Spells, but in Daggerfall you didn't have enough Magicka to cast Open spells until later in the game, or unless you were a specilised Mage.