This is just a small thing I thought of recently that I think they should've done with the Specialization choices. I think that maybe instead of, or even in addition to what they already have there should be small bonuses related to each of the 3 trees, combat, magic, or stealth.

For combat, you could perhaps get more damage mitigation from any type of armor, as well as a small increase to damage done with melee weapons (an extra 5% perhaps?)

For magic, there should be an increase in effectiveness of spells, their duration, or a decrease to magicka cost to help with earlier levels

For stealth, there should be simply a greater chance to remain undetected, or rather, if you chose a different specialization the sneak skill wouldn't be AS effective (like if you don't choose this sneak is only half as effective as it would normally be.


This is just a way to make people stick with specializations, for instance, you couldn't be the perfect warrior AND mage AND thief/assassin


EDIT: I've revised what I've said and changed them a bit down here

Combat: 5% extra damage with melee weapons, increased damage mitigation from armor, -25% effectiveness of sneak, destructive spells do 10% less damage (in addition to magic reduction from wearing plate armor)

Magic: Increased duration to DoT spells, spells more effective against people wearing a type of armor, -25% effectiveness of sneak, speed decreased significantly when using heavy armor

Stealth: Sneak is more effective, assassinations do twice as much damage as they would normally do, poison on weapons last for 3 strikes, destructive spells do 10% less damage, damage with large 2h weapons reduced by 10%

Add kicks to hand to hand skill!

Before I read

This will be closed and you will be punted towards the overcrouded TESV threads.

After I brief

Anything that reduces 2H damage is rediculous. At the moment for example, an Iron Longsword does 5 damage. The Iron 2H Sword does 6 damage. It is twice as large, twice as heavy, twice as slow and stops you from equiping a shield. If anything the damage should be doubled. In my opinion.

Why do you want to force others to stick to a specialization? If you want to do so for your character in your game, feel free, but I don't care for imposing it on others. One of the beautiful things about Oblivion is the freedom to operate outside the D&D class box.

Any self-respecting battlemage could easily decide that either magic or combat better suits them depending upon what they want to emphasise. Spellswords and Nightblades could make similar cases. Hybrid characters are wonderful.

My char is a mystic archer and does not fit nicely at all into a specialization box, nor would I ever want her too. She is, in fact quite specialized, but not in any classic D&D/'pre-defined classes' archtype way.

90% of her kills are by bow. She won't touch a melee weapon and cares not for armor. She is stealthy and a master illusionist. She only uses destruction for drain speed and weakness to poison (to kill better with her bow). She doesn't hesitate to cast a summon in her place and run away if needed. She is a member of the Mages Guild and uses magic to make her a better archer. She does not identify with with any one of the specializations, yet she is a wonderful character - and one that few games permit me to build so precisely. If she had to claim a specialization, I suppose it would be magic, but she doesn't do fireballs nor kill with classic mage spells. . . .

^^^ This.

I don't see how someone can be the "perfect warrior AND mage AND thief" if they get only 2-3 skills from each of those classes. If that makes them anything more than a crappy mage AND crappy warrior AND crappy Thief it just means too many of the mage/warrior/thief skills are useless.

I have to agree with Acadian on this. I personally HATE to be limited. Drives me crazy. That causes me to have re-starters syndrome horribly. It's why I hate games or mods that force me to sleep, eat, etc at certain intervals. Since my character takes care of all that when she needs it, I don't like to be "told" when she needs to do anything. This may have come about because when I played DnD *coughs* many years ago, I had an excellent DM that allowed us to actually *play* with our characters.

However, I do think that specialization should be rewarded in some way. It does take discipline to make a pure thief, pure mage or pure warrior. In some form, that should be recognized.

There is a topic for http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1096483-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-168/ for the next game. Use it please.