For those of us who like to play using stealth, the obvious choice for weapons skills are going to be One-Handed (for daggers and short swords) and Marksman (for bows and arrows.) It will be interesting to see how much scope there will be when using both of these together. In Oblivion, we could quite easily achieve mastery in every skill (with the help of exploits) but we know this will not be possible in Skyrim because of the maximum number of perks that we can choose in any one playthrough (49 to be exact) When you add together the other skill choices available for the stealthy player (most likely a combination of Sneak, Security, Light Armor, Alchemy, Speechcraft and possibly Illusion) then the number of perks we can put into each skill will take a noticable hit.

Do you think that we will genuinely be able to master both of these weapon skills without compromising the other stealth aspects, or do you think it will be a case of choosing a primary and secondary weapon skill?

You can become a master in every skill in skyrim, but you only get perks to level 50. 50 is a soft level cap, you can increase your skills and your level further than that, you just won't get perks after 50.
You won't have to jeopardize any skills in order to raise one higher. They could all potentially be maxed out in one playthrough if you wanted to grind for a long time.

As for perks, you shouldn't feel like you're watering down the stealth skills if you distribute then through JUST stealth skills... I can't imagine there are THAT many per skill. 49 should get you enough perks to thoroughly maximize all the stealth skills.

Edit cuz I read OP more thoroughly.

I know that we will still be able to achieve mastery in all of the skills in the classic sense (by raising all of them to 100) but I was thinking more in terms of customises your preferred skills via the perks, and at this stage I'm not sure that 49 will be enough to really go to town with all of the skills I listed above

In a interview (With GI I believe?) Todd Howard said there was something like 289 perks in the game (at that time) if you included each tier of the "tiered" perks (as in the mace when to ignore X% of armor). That would mean roughly 18 perks per skill. Now at first you may think "ah crap! I won't even be able to completely perk out all my 'stealth' skills." But if you take the combat skills as an example each skill's perks will be like paths. So, you will really only want 6 of those perks most likely. (No point in speccing maces if you already did swords)

I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Edit* Found it! It was the GI podcast.



A thing to note, you get 50 perks not 49.

Well the dagger sneak attack perks are under the stealth tree, so you might not have to dip into the one hand perks at all. You know, unless you want short sword powers, but you can't have it all. 6 stealth skills 10(18?) perks each that adds up to more then 50. You will have to make some choices.

And I'd say that's a good thing. I have a feeling in Skyrim it's going to be fun planning out your character and not all grindy-spread-sheety like past games. :thumbsup:

So is the perk system going to be like fallouts?
There is some pictures of bethesda whiteboards from a recent tour where the stealth system is being disscussed which is quite funny: http://preorderskyrim.wordpress.com/tod-howard-videro-anolysis/

280 perks in total would mean that each skill could have 15 perks each, or a bit less for some kcombinations of skills. Meaning that the 6 stealth skills that there are, cannot be fully mastered anyway. However, the perk tree system makes me think that choosing a path will close some future perk options, meaning that choosing a path would still open up 6 ot 7 perks more for that specific type of skill. That would mean that you can get your own customized types of skills on the stealth class. Most of this is purely brainstorming though.

Your question was answered a few posts above you.



Perks are in trees that go upward. Basically you'll have three "branches" so to speak, and you cannot just choose willy nilly like in Fallout. If you want that top tier perk in the "sword" tree in one-handed for instance you would have to get a certain amount perks within the sword branch to be able to "reach" it.

If you've ever played WoW, Dragon Age, or any other games that use Skill/Perk/Whatever "tree" systems you know what I'm talking about.

There will probably be perks that don't fit your character idea. Like you wouldn't pick up the axe perk when your a sword guy.

Not if you start at level 1. By the time you reach level 50 you will have levelled up 49 times, and therefore would have gained 49 perks.

You might pick a perk right off the bat, after all, Mr. Howard says you will get to pick 50 perks. He could be wrong/mispoke, but I think we'll get 50 perks. 49 is just such a "odd" number! Ha! See what I did there!

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