Spellmaking is in the same class as rideable horses, they are not sure if they will include it, problem is that it will get problems with the new magic system.
My guess is that we get a sort of nerfed spellmaker, think enchanting from Morrowind to Oblivion.

Sounds like a Monty Python Sketch.

The way I see it, a healing spell that would normally repair flesh to its original state, would also have the same effect on an animated corpse. The flesh may be restored, but the soul is absent, and therefore is still undead.

However, this is Tamriel we're talking about. It could have a completely diffrent outcome.

LAME.. sorry I mean the mod, not your opinion, used the dispel aspect at least.
I liked that, dispel magic become a tactical choice, even for AOE.

At OP, lore says....

Nope not going there, AD&D had this, due to the fact that magical healing was a positive planar effect.
Good gods drew from this and channeled the positive healing energy into the target.
Undead were linked to the Negative plane, the polar opposite.
Hence they took negative damage effects as healing ones, and healing effects as negative damaging ones.

In TeS we don't have those planes, not a one, so healing energy is not an opposite to negative ones.
There are no balancing effects to having it in game, no reason to have the switch.
If they make turn undead have a chance to destroy / hurt an undead target that's fine, as it's a specific spell that has no effects outside of undead.

Bump, bump, bump.

This. If anything restoration would just heal the undead corpse and make it more powerful.

Indeed, if Undead have negative health then should damage health heal them? And what exactly would Absorb Health do? *Head Explodes*

You absorb their un-health and damaging yourself and draining them of life, thereby healing them.

At least, that's the way it's worked in other games.

But yeah... "holy" restore health spells? :meh:

While skeletons, zombies, ghosts, liches and draugr all get the name "Undead", I don't think they're all the same form of being. I mean, the book Corpse Preparation describes in detail how to create the first two, while ghosts seem to be restless spirits that have no master and liches actually created themselves.
There is a huge difference because in the aforementioned book, skeletons and zombies are described as basically nothing but a couple of bones and flesh kept together by magic (the book even recommends using leather straps at the joints, so that they're more stable). They're completely devoid of life or "unlife", they're nothing but objects held together by magic. So what *should* hurt them is Dispel magic, because it removes the one thing that keeps them going.
Ghosts however, are positively dead, they're just souls in the wrong place or something like that. There are plenty of quests to free them and all that. I don't know what happens when you "kill" the aggressive ones; I guess you simply destabilize their ectoplasmatic structure, allowing them to relocate elsewhere, hopefully in Aetherius. But that's just a guess.

But then there are liches. Liches chose their fate willingly, so they must know that they won't turn into a simple assembly of bones, they're something "more". Whatever that is. They retain their ability to think and to research, and they even keep their soul, even if they have to place it in a phylactery. So they're not your standard zombie with added magical powers, they're something else. And THIS difference might just be the point where you could argue that liches (and maybe draugr) could have a weakness to Restoration, while all the other types of Undead are just not the right kind of undead for that.
I mean, turning yourself into a lich is a science in the Elder Scrolls games. You can explain it with the craziest thing you come up with, and it will make sense in a way.

Conclusion: If anything, then only liches should suffer from a weakness to Restoration magic, because they're the only Undead that are truly unnatural. The whole idea that being undead has something to do with "negative life" really only makes sense for them, and the way they're portrayed kind of suggests something like that.


There's also nothing in Daggerfall that's hinting at you being actually dead when they put you in the ground. Might just as well be a disease there, too.

See, the problem is this: Nothing in the lore supports healing spells harming undead creatures. 6 games' worth says that the only magic that harms undead is magic specifically intended to- whether "common" elemental damage, or spells specifically designed to harm undead. Healing spells in TES just heal, sorry.

Well personally I think that THEARES N0S OF DAT IN DA LOREZERS!11!

Kidding. To be honest I dont mind either way. I like spells to be multipurpose, but on the other hand, this has been done a lot of times elsewhere.

I would think the people of Tamriel know full well whether someone is sleeping, comatose, or dead. And I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume porphyric hemophilia simply imitates death rather than actually killing you. Especially when its creation is believed to be to spite Arkay and his power over the cycle of life and death.

Most every bit of vampiric lore points to actual bodily death, really. Vampires of the Iliac Bay, Opusculus Lamae Bal ta Mezzamortie, Immortal Blood, even Vampires of Vvardenfell makes a clear distinction between vampires, and ash vampires. Drawing attention to the fact that ash vampires are not undead and associating vampires with necromancy.

Anyone find it funny that we can detect life in undead when using detect life?

I always thought that detect life works by detecting magicka

1: How much magicka does a rat have?

2: If it works that way, wouldn't it be called "Detect Magicka" rather than "Detect Life?"

im not sure about healing but i would like something like a "hallow" spell, something specific for undead

Hmm... was just throwing something out there. We don't really know why Magnus damages them. If, assuming its photosensitivity, then yes, light would do damage to them. Also thinking, if its a hole to Aetherius, and an infinite source of magic, then the light created from this magic would be the light that Magnus gives off. IF the light spell is, more or less, just magnified magicka, then its very possible that a light spell could do damage (only if its the light of the magick in Aetherius that hurts them)



Now that I really think about it, healing the undead just makes them less dead... which they already aren't. Healing would just... bring them closer to fully alive? Doesn't mean they wont still hate you... Dispelling a summoned enemy though makes sense.. sever the magic binding them to this world.

Yes , I've noticed that.

This Topic is missing some considerations: what is happening when you use restoration? Are you manipulating a person's life or are you manipulating their body?

If life, then you are adding to their soul, in which case you could make the case for harming undead. (This bring up the question of what undead are however.) But at the same time, how does affecting someone's soul heal that sword gash in their gut? Also, there should be a way to bring people back from the dead since you are adding life. (Life =/= Hp, btw, in this sense of the word)
If body, then you are simply repairing their body, in which case it would not matter if it is dead or alive. You can do surgery on a corpse and make it intact again (sort of, it won't "heal" tho) but it won't bring it back. It would not matter if undead are moving corpses, telekenetically controlled corpses, "negative life" living beings, or "negative life" dead beings, you could "fix" them. You could fix dead people, but you could not "revive" them. You could also mend chopped wood into a tree (prolly wouldn't grow tho)
I personally think restoration affects the body.

What are Undead? Are they "negative life" beings or are they manipulated corpses?
What is Holy? You will have a hard time coming up with even a thin definition of what it is from Lore. Is it "godliness"? Is it "natural"? Is it "good"?
I think undead are manipulated corpses. Liches are self manipulating corpses (ghosts powerful enough to control their bodies). I'd prefer to not think of gods in TES as divine beings, but as powerful people. and therefore not holy. Holy has a connotation of "moral perfection" that does not leave much room for politics. Assigning them holiness would preclude them from having much personality compared to each other. I would not be opposed to striking "holy" from the TES dictionary.

Are "unintended consequences" possible with magic? Does a wizard know what he is doing the way a doctor knows what he is doing with a scalpel? That by "solving the puzzle" of "this goes here" he can fix a torn body with a knife. Or does a wizard just say the spell and what ever "the forces that be" decide should happen as a consequence happens?
I think a wizard can no more heal with destruction or destroy with restoration, than a warrior can do surgery with a claymore.