What do we know about the effects of Skyrim attributes: Health, Magicka, and Stamina, on game play? There is the obvious: more health = harder to kill, more magicka = greater casting capability, more stamina = longer sprint times. What else do we know about how these attributes impact the game?

From what I gather Stamina also affects encumbrance.

This makes no sense but I'll run with it.

I think Stamina is also involved in power attacks. (Restoration Paladin could have a lot of power attacks I guess)

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

That's it, lulz.

Well, we know that fighting capability is also dependent on Stamina, so that would be another thing.

Did you not know that Stamina effects encumbrance?

That's pretty much it.

-Mr. Maric

Yes it does...but they must do other things as well.

Maybe Magicka will increase Magic Resistance or some thing as well?

I've been wondering about this. Seems a little oversimplified to me. What affects character's ability to resist being staggered? Why would encumbrance be tied to stamina, which is supposed to be the "thief/assassin" attribute? This type of character doesn't need to be able to carry more weight.

So the only difference between being a ranger and being a barbarian is the ability to sprint longer? This doesn't seem like it would positively affect agility in combat unless you were fleeing. I guess I don't see any melee combat-related incentive for this type of character, unless there are light armor perks that affect agility, or something.

What I love is whenever Todd or Pete justify the decision to remove attributes they claim that players really just want to increase health, stamina or magicka, so they put points in int and endurance.

Meanwhile, there's no way to increase luck, agility, speed, personality, willpower or strength, and they shoehorned carry weight into stamina as if that's reasonable.

Pretty much, I for one was not a fan of the attribute system they had, but I think it was a tad extreme to rip it out altogether rather than building on it and improving it.

Still, it has not jarred my desire for Skyrim in the slightest.

"My friend can hike up mountains all day with a heavy pack -- he has a lot of stamina." What's so strange about that sentence?

What people are getting at is how long you can carry something is stamina, how much you can lift/carry is strength. They are close enough in my mind it isn't a big issue, though the lack of other attributes is a big deal IMO in other ways and this just adds a bit to those problems.

Plus, it's a real-world application that has no relevance to a character-based, fantasy RPG. It's the equivalent of me saying "there are no dragons on earth, so why are they in the game?"

Who needs variable carry weight anyways? How redundant.
Let's cut it.

They have bundled strength into the concept of stamina... it is like "fitness" or "athleticism".

@Longknife - what is it redundant with?

exactly

my leveling advice for mage you get 10 points per level ?
hp = health points
mp = magic points
sp = stamina points !! are required to increase carry weight !


mage
odd numbered level 10 to mp
even numbered level 5 to hp 5 to mp toggle 5 sp and 5 mp for next circle of leveling up

example of circle :
level 03 = 100 hp ,110 mp ,100 sp
level 04 = 105 hp ,115 mp ,100 sp toggle
level 05 = 105 hp ,125 mp ,100 sp
level 06 = 105 hp ,130 mp ,105 sp toggle
level 07 = 105 hp ,140 mp ,105 sp
level 07 = 110 hp ,145 mp ,105 sp toggle ...

warrior
odd numbered level 10 to hp
even numbered level 5 to sp 5 to hp

stealth
odd numbered level 10 to sp
even numbered level 5 to hp 5 to sp

this combo to stat build should work for any noob

Sure, but we don't really know how it is handled. We know it is bundled to some degree, but how much we don't know. And while I have no huge issues with bundling of stats having played in Pen and Paper RPGs games that use 3 stats and some that used closer to 20 and they all work they just give a different feel to the game. High levels of customization are helped by having large numbers of stats. It is what is kind of curious to me about there choice in Skyrim. They went for more customization in the perk system, but then they removed quite a bit of customization in the attribute system, and in some of the skills they removed.

Now this really has been done to death, but in my opinion it was an elegant hack to solve a big problem without losing much actual in-game impact.

Bah mage goes all magicka.
I think the warrior types might be the hardest to stat, being more in the fight taking hit types they need hit points, but they also need stamina to pull off their attacks. Rogues and mages can rely upon not getting hit and therefore can stack virtually everything into either stamina or magicka. They probably want to put a bit into health to avoid getting killed in a single blow, but they can avoid it for the most part. Still I like high risk lifestyles so my mage will go all in to magicka.