I know there's already some Mysticism topics on the board, but I felt this was something that could warrant its own discussion.

So, the removal of Mysticism from the game has caused quite a few complaints, ones that I initially disagreed with but have come to understand, and I think the issue needs to be addressed. Obviously it's too late for Bethesda to add the skill back into the game, as they've moved into crunch and will begin final beta testing soon, and the gold master process after that. Content will effectively be locked soon enough that nothing major will change. To that end, I figured I'd propose a relatively simple mod that would nonetheless be beyond my ability to program. Hey, if somebody likes my idea and develops it after the game is released then so much the better.

The problem with Mysticism as it was before is just what gamesas has stated: it seemed to be a grab bag of loosely-related effects that were connected by a very vague theme and had no real focus. Their solution was to dissolve it and redistribute its associated spells amongst the other schools. What I think a better solution would have been would be to develop the school thematically and add new effects to it to help round it out.

Each school has a well-defined theme and practical purpose already. Destruction is the most straightforward, consisting of wholly offensive spells. Alteration offers defense as well as spells that hinder enemy movement and assist your own. Restoration will offer healing and boost your abilities. Conjuration summons aid. Illusion alters perception and enemy behavior. Mysticism would, again, be a mysterious school, but for gameplay purposes its utility would be better-defined. Namely, it would deal with effects involving divination, translocation, and anti-magic effects. I personally think that telekinesis is better-suited to Alteration, seeing as it deals with the physical rather than the metaphysical. “Throw stuff” never really stood out as an unfathomable and transcendental ability to me, so I think it never fit in the first place. Here's what I'd propose. Bear in mind I'm assuming that spell creation is out, which frankly I'm okay with, but let's not let that debate creep in here.

DIVINATION

Clairvoyance: Doesn't fit illusion since it is using magic to directly reveal information to the caster, rather than changing his perception.

Detect Life: Same thing.

Detect Danger: This would reveal the presence of traps in a certain radius around the caster, both environmental ones and ones installed in chests. Please, for the love of god, let there be trapped chests again.

Reveal Secrets: An expensive effect that reveals hidden doors and the like in a small radius around the caster.

Detect Magic: This would reveal the presence of magical effects, such as on enchanted items, or of inherently magical creatures such as atronachs, Dwemer animunculi, and undead.

TRANSLOCATION

Mark/Recall: This would work in much the same way as it did in Morrowind. Mark is a cheap effect that uses the “ground slam” animation we saw in the trailer to leave a glowing rune on the ground with a corresponding mark on your map so you won't forget where you've placed it. Recall would be a more expensive effect that requires two hands and several seconds of charging to cast. The modder would have to go through quests and prevent its use in situations where there is supposed to be no escape. A bit immersion-breaking for some, but for my tastes I prefer gameplay take the lead here.

Intervention: This would work in much the same way as Recall. Again, two hands, expensive, charged effect, blocked by certain quests or areas. Now for the interesting stuff:

Banish: This would immediately dispel summoned foes, but would have a different effect on natural ones, even perma-summoned Daedra. Temporarily and partially displacing your enemy into Oblivion, it would effectively freeze them in place and make them halfway-disappear. They'd become intangible, unable to be affected by anything in the game world for the duration of the spell. With application of perks you could banish weak foes completely, casting them into waters of Oblivion forever.

Displace: Works in a radius around the player. Teleports enemies away from the player at a distance determined by skill level and perk choice.

Ensnare: Cast on a single enemy, projectile-type drawn as a ray from the caster's hand. Enemies struck by the spell are teleported next to the caster. Good for retrieving fleeing foes or snatching up one of those pesky ranged enemies so that you can do nefarious things to them, like smash their face in with a mace as musclebound wizards are known to do. Alternatively you can rescue a companion who's bitten off more than he can chew, or if you're lazy but enjoy taking the scenic route you can get your horse over here right freaking now.

ANTI-MAGIC

Nullify: A replacement for the passive and IMO boring as hell “Resist Magic” effect. This would generate a field around the caster that nullifies any and all magic within it. It would have to be a bit pricey magicka-wise to offset its power, though of course with the right perks it would make you any mage's worst nightmare. Other perks might make it a persistent effect, suppressing the benefits of enchanted items for a short period of time.

Dispel: The old standby. Basically just a ranged version of Nullify. Again, probably in the game already.

Silence: I don't think this ever really fit in Illusion. Established lore dictates that no magic words are required to cast a spell. You just will it to be, and it is. Ergo, it's an anti-magic spell, since it prevents casters from tapping into their inner Magicka reserves to cast spells. Still works the way it always did.

Reflect Magic: Probably already in the game, exactly like this. An active ward you raise to literally reflect magic back at your attacker. Fireballs will fly back and hit them in the face. Runes will explode away from the caster instead of on him, basically turning the spell against the caster or even focusing fire with a rune you've cast yourself.

Spell Absorption: Again, probably in the game. Another active ward but with a “vortex” visual effect rather than a shield one

Soul Trap: Because it really doesn't fit conjuration quite as well. Keep the grab bag tradition alive and all that.

PERKS

Perks would be split off into three branches. Its constellation would resemble the Oblivion symbol for the school, eye below and weird circle/fire/leaves thing above. A point in the center would be a passive magic resistance perk with three ranks. One branch would go down to the eye and would be another boring multi-rank star that increases your detection radius and reduces the cost of Clairvoyance because what else could it do? Ho hum. Above it would be more interesting, with two branches. One would change up teleportation effects, reducing the expensive cost of Recall and Intervention, making Displaced or Ensnared enemies get knocked down when they're teleported, and of course make Banished ones have a chance of disappearing completely. Anti-magic would make Reflected spells actually increase their effectiveness on the caster, enhance the duration of Silence and make Nullified enchantments remain suppressed after the spell is ceased casting.

So that's that, my idea for reintroducing Mysticism to the game. I can't program and have no digital artistic ability so there's no way in hell I could make such a mod myself, but I do wonder if there's anybody out there who likes my ideas at all. What do you think?

I LOVE your mind right now!!!! I wish I knew how to mod, but if this comes to fruition, I'll download it in a heartbeat

It seems like a more tactical school if anything else.

I wanted to comment on http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1208159-mysticism/page__st__160__p__18074148#entry18074148 in the last Mysticism thread but it was locked. I feel that all the conjuring spells of Conjuration should have been moved over to Mysticism, instead of moving Soul Trap over to Conjuration. You are harnessing things from other dimensions of Aetherius, i.e. lesser daedra in the forms of weapons, armor or creatures. If anything, that should be a mystical form of magic. All the conjuring spells would fit under Mysticism and you would still have the same magic schools from the lore of the TES series, except Thaumaturgy, but that one only had levitation and I'm glad it was merged with Mysticism. We would then have Alteration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration and Enchantment. Although in my opinion, Levitation & Telekinesis should be under Alteration since you're physically moving yourself and/or other objects/people/animals.

Great ideas, Gregasaurus! And really, if Banish daedra is under Mysticism, why is summon/conjure daedra not under Mysticism also? They're one in the same thing, just in reverse. Todd Howard had it backwards in my opinion. Mysticism wasn't the redundant college of magic, it was Conjuration. That's the one that should have been axed.


Also, people complain that teleportation and mark and recall are cheating in some ways because you can just teleport out of danger, whether from a dragon or a sword fight. I just thought of a different spell for Mysticism. It would be one that allowed you to follow and teleport to the same place that your opponent teleported to. Likewise, if your opponent was a Mystic battlemage, he could do the same thing to and follow you to wherever you teleported to.

Probably not as many who don't.

You've obviously spent a lot of time on this idea but I don't see anybody being interested in creating a mod for this.

The reason I'd keep Conjuration the way it is is actually twofold: first off, Conjuration was backed up by written lore in both Morrowind and Oblivion. It's not simply snatching Daedra and lost souls out of the ether, it's a long-established ritualistic form of magic that is somewhat better-understood than Mysticism in general is. Two, as I pointed out above theme and utility are just as important from a gameplay perspective. If we start mashing together spells based on philosophical reasons then it mucks up what they're trying to do by re-ordering all the schools and moving stuff around. Turn Undead is under Restoration now, I think -- I read that somewhere, but can't remember where -- under the justification that Restoration manipulates life forces (hence putting Absorb effects under its umbrella) but with the gameplay reasoning that it's a protective spell.

Banish would be under Mysticism because it fulfills the purpose of countering summoning magic specifically but it also screws with an NPC's place in the world in the same way as the other offensive teleport spells I've proposed. Remember, the lore is intentionally murky on what goes where for a number of things, and I think I recall a bit of lore in Oblivion that argues that Destruction should technically be considered a subset of Alteration, but is philosophically made into its own school of magic because of its very specific purpose and military utility.



It's not like I'm desperately begging somebody to make this mod for me. It's just an idea I had that was being tossed around in my mind for the past day or two and I thought I'd share it.

Ethereal Shift - significantly weaknes the bond between the Soul and the body of the victim, the weaker the enemy the easier the seperation will be, allows for direct and near instantaneous capture by Soul Trap spells. leaves the body "alive & empty"

Possession - Shifts the users spirit from their body and gives them a corporeal form with the ability to possess living vessels, in this state they are highly vulnerable to soul trap but can take control of other NPC's and their spells/perks. Higher perk levels allow for the user to posses inaniamte and dead vessels for use.


My brain is dead


great thread Greg excellent thinking.

I'm very interested to see how one would go about adding a new skill and an entire new perk tree within the Creation Kit. I'm interested in exploring the possibility of modding in a new Necromancy skill.

Maybe this is something that won't be possible until an SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender) is created?

Is anyone familiar with mods for Oblivion or other Gamebryo games such as FO3, FNV, that added new skills?