I heard that instead of like 23-26 skills like in Morrowind and Oblivion there are going to only be 18 so I was thinking, "What could of been mashed into one category" and so far I have come up with 3 ideas:

-All armor classes put into one skill(Just armor or something)
-All weapon classes put into one skill
-Athletic/Acrobatics in one skill

Any ideas?

21 in Oblivion 18 in Skyrim
I think it is this
1.mysticism got removed
2.sneak and security got merged
3.acrobatics and athletics got merged

it is guaranteed that all weapons are not the same skill, in GI is said that if you used one handed weapons you would level up that skill

Since all skills contribute to leveling, I think some skills that are constantly used and/or are easily exploited (like athletics, acrobatics) are removed or merged into other skills. Dunno though.

Remember that enchanted is a confirmed 'new' skill (after Oblivion) and smithery is almost certain, so there's at least five skills from Oblivion that have been axed or merged.

Mysticism has been merged with the other schools. I predict that athletics and acrobatics are no more. Speechcraft and mercantile have probably been merged, or even cut.

smithing will probably replace armorer, so there is another skill that got axed

and I bet mercantile was merged with speech

mysticism didnt get removed, it just got most of its spells merged into conjuration

yeh but the skill got removed

*1) one-handed
*2) two-handed
*3) armor
*4) blocking
*5) hand-to-hand
6) enchanting
7) smithing
8) alchemy
+9) destuction
+10) conjuraiton
+11) restoration
+12) illusion
+13) alteration
-14) marksman
-15) sneak
-16) speechcraft
-17) mercentile
-18) atheltics/acrobat

thts what i think the skills will be. -stealth,+magic,*strength

There's a chance armor might not be a skill anymore.

I think they didnt take out Mysticism but they merged all the armors

I hope they axed all the armor skills in favor of a better armor system, so we can have some great skill in its place.

if I am not wrong (and I have just heard this from other people) GI specifically said it took out mysticism

I think they should take out Hand to hand because I dont want to grind hand to hand to reach the max level since there are no more major/minor skills

I agree. Armor never really made sense as a skill in the first place, and while having it weigh less as you leveled up was nice, that could be handled via perks without any need for a full-blown skill dedicated to it.

Personally I'd rather they didn't merge the armors... in fact I wish they hadn't cut medium armor :/

I think riddik116 has it right, but I expect enchanting will be magic, alchemy will be stealth and smithing will be combat. Also I expect unarmored will be merged with hand to hand.

Combat-
Heavy Armor
Athletics
Block
Smithing
Hafted (Axe, mace, hammer)
Blade
Magic(already confirmed!)
Enchantment
Alchemy
Alteration
Destruction
Conjuration
Illusion
Stealth-
Speechcraft
Marksman
Hand to Hand
Stealth
Security
Light armor

And thus upon the removal of acrobatics (or possibly hand to hand instead) there will be much wailing, nashing of teeth, foot stomping, and possibly some actual effect.

1. 1H
2. 2H
3. Archery (TH mentioned it specifically in the GI podcast.)
4. Shield ( I don't think blocking w/o a shield will be a skill.)
5. H2H
6. DW (Dual-wielding has been confirmed-surely it is a skill?)
7. Smithing
8. Alchemy
9. Destruction
10. Conjuration
11. Restoration
12. Illussion
13. Alteration
14. Sneak/Security (Merged)
15. Speechcraft/Mercantile (Merged)
16. Acrobatics/Athletics (Merged)
17. Heavy Armor
18. Light Armor

I'm actually thinking we might see a return of medium armor. Perks are important to keep in mind. So while there might be only one Armor skill, it doesn't mean that there won't be specializations into 2 (or more) types of armor. In the same way they handled the weapon skills.

I think the perks have a lot of potential to really make up for what was lost in the skill quantity. And I think it might be as good as having 21+ skills.

So it might seem like there's less diversity and everything is being 'streamlined" (ugly word, I know) but we might actually see a much deeper system of character development and uniqueness.

Combat
1- One Hand
2- Two Hand
3- Block
4- Armor
5- Unarmed
6- Smithing

Magic
1- Destruction
2- Alteration
3- Illusion
4- Conjuration
5- Restoration
6- Enchanting

Stealth
1- Marksman
2- Stealth
3- Security
4- Speachcraft
5- Barter
6- Alchemy

The only time you're not dual wielding is when you're using a two handed weapon. In the one handed skill there will be some dual wielding perks, but it isn't going to get its own skill. They don't need two skills for the same action. When you're fighting with a sword and a shield you're technically dual wielding, they don't need a skill for block and one handed weapons and dual wield going up.

Magic's skills are all ready set. Alchemy was confermed to be a stealth skill now. The terms combat, stealth, and magic...well, combat and stealth anyway...are loose enough terms now that there can be some bleading over. Armor for isntance, armor is mainly used in combat, so light, heavy, and possibly no armor and medium could have their own skill tree's in armor, and the heavier the armor you have on, the larger the skeak penalty. The higher the stealth skill though, the smaller that penalty gets. Works just fine.

Athletics and Acrobatics will be removed and what they do will be moved to atributes. I'm yet to see any indicator or solid proof outside speculation that says anything about them being in or out, so I'll assume they are in. Mysticism has been removed, but the spells it held are being moved to more fitting schools.

That's pretty solid except we have confirmation that marksman is now called archery.

Meh, same difference. To lazy to edit it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but... didn't they say that there will be a "Critical Strike" skill?

I wouldn't bet on Speechcraft and Barter to be two separated skills, anyway...

I don't remember ever hearing anything about a critical strike skill. I'd assume that would go hand in hand with the skill you're using at the time. As for Speechcraft and barter, they were separate in Fallout 3 so I'm going to assume they'll stay separate.