We all know spell absorption is glitchy and can eat your own summons, but it's odd in other ways too. It will work against literally any non-weapon attack, it seems. Giants have an AoE slam that does light damage with a knockback effect, but spell absorption can eat that. Wolves, bears, and other creatures have a small chance to disease you with each melee hit, but spell absorption can consume just that chance of disease, and very oddly will actually recover your magicka for doing this, even though I'm sure bears aren't spending magicka to disease you. Basically, any effect that exists can be consumed by spell absorption, and many of them will recover magicka even though the effect itself didn't cost anything. A breton with the atronach stone can become immune to many things for a minute a day.

This is, mechanically, quite odd. It seems everything that isn't a weapon is getting considered to be a spell.

ah so that explains the random glow effect I keep seeing upon wolf attacks and stuff

Yes that seems odd to me as well.

Keep in mind there is a cap on magic resistance which I believe also applies to absorb. You cannot reach 100%.

It is weird until you look at the guts of the game. If it is not physical damage from a weapon strike, then it is some kind of spell effect that does the damage. Poison and Disease are really Spell Effects at their core. Does not mean it is working quite right, but that is why it is what it is.

I suppose that would include shouts and dragon breath...

Magic resistance has a cap. Spell absorption does not. I most certainly can become totally immune to spells (and diseases, etc.) for 60 seconds once a day.




Yes, I'm very familiar with the game mechanics of the Oblivion and Fallout 3 engines this game was built on. I understand how a lot of this stuff is implemented. But like you've said, some of these things are very much not spells. Diseases and giants slamming the ground should not be getting absorbed, but they are. Disease, for example, is being treated like it's an enchantment. It shouldn't be getting treated that way.




No, the Thu'um is actually magic. It's correct for spell absorption to eat that, and it does. Noticeably, I don't seem to receive magicka for absorbing shouts/breath, which makes sense because they don't cost magicka. That's why I found it so odd that I'm getting magicka from things like disease. If I had to guess (and without the Creation Kit, I do), I'd think disease chance actually is an enchantment placed on the creature weapon. The enchantment is likely set to be free, but its base cost is what I'm absorbing still.

Hmm although magic wielding bears would be pretty scary...

Some weird things can be affected by spell absorption If you have too much, not only can it absorb your summons but will also cause the Shadow Warrior perk to fail from time to time.

Anyone have issues with restoration? Or is that one functioning correctly? That would really hurt the usefulness of absorption further. I'm surprised they didn't cap absorption, figured they would have included that as well as resist.

It is minor, I know, but it needs to be fixed. First fix the damn resistance against elemental attacks though, that's a major thing that makes magic casters become way too powerful against you.

Does spell absorb work against dragon breath?

It should be fixed what if I want spell absorption and I want to summon things as well. This is another oversight on the magic system.

Yes, that was a huge deal for 1.2 to break. It is fixed in the PC version's 1.3, and consoles should have 1.3 pretty soon.




Yup. You don't get any magicka, but it can negate the damage. As I mentioned above though, this is correct. The Thu'um is a form of magic.

I have absorbed dragons frost breath, but it's very constant so you will still take a lot of damage. You might absorb one "piece" of the big stream, but the rest will hit you and deal damage. A breton with 100% absorb spell might be able to survive intact though.

Atronach stone + dragonskin= yes i absorb all the dragon breath attacks