In oblivion, my main character was a battle Mage. I mainly used magic at a distance and swords for melee. I was wondering if I could switch that around though in skyrim. Maybe I could use magic as a melee weapon and a bow for distance. We have seen traps and the flame thrower for close-in fighting magic weapons and the trailer showed a character erupting a ring of flame around him. So, it seem like melee magic would be cool and utilizing the new bow mechanics to complement it would be fun too. Sound good? I guess one downside is the lack of finishing moves with this setup since I think those are only on melee weapons right? What fighting skills do you plan to use?

You can do Close-Range magic and bow if you want, Also theres no such thing as Melee Magic.

I don't know why you'd want to.

I've tried it. I usually end up with a witchhunter-esque character. Snipe from afar, and if they get close, kill it with a touch spell. So much cheaper-in-mana than lobbing fireballs over 30 feet. The stat spread isn't too bad. Agi/int in Oblivion.

edit: of course, concerning skyrim, the game has revamped the entire combat system. I would feel weird switching between 2h weapons and dual-spells at first. Slight annoyance. Learning curve thing.

You could use bound weapons for melee. Blades made of pure magic, so it technically is still melee.

They look a lot better now supposedly, glowing light blades instead of daedric clones.

What? When? Where? How? Penguins!