One of the things I saw argued a bit when Skyrim was announced was that many(I seem to recall me being among them) wanted to see a return of skill requirements for factions, since that was how it was done in Morrowind. Looking back, however, I'm not sure having skill requirements as standard for a faction is good design.

Now, don't get me wrong, some factions would surely have skill requirements as a sensible part of it. Magic focused guilds and the Bard's College strikes me as good examples of that, since those are factions dedicated to learning and study. The whole point is, at least in principle, to get better at X skills.

However, let's look at guilds like the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guilds and the Fighters Guild. Those are primarily meritocracies. You're paid and advanced on your ability to complete contracts efficiently or make money. Does it actually matter if you're a mage in the Fighter's Guild? Or in the Thieves Guild? We know it doesn't in the DB, given that they are represented in both Oblivion and Skyrim. I'd say that it doesn't matter, even if it goes against the "norm" of the faction, again because these factions are meritocracies. Your formal skill with a sword or an axe shouldn't matter compared to your ability to complete contracts in this sort of faction, be it with the use of stealth, magic or straight forward combat.

In my opinion, it should vary by faction. Some, like the Mages Guild, are primarily focused on research and knowledge, so being proficient with a sword and fulfilling contracts may gain you some standing, but you're still not involved in the primary focus of the faction. Others, like the Thieves Guild, should be focused on the result, not the methodology, so it shouldn't matter whether you use stealth, magic, or enough sheer speed to simply rush in and then outdistance pursuit to accomplish the objective, you've still done the job, which is the point behind the guild. Most would likely be somewhere in the middle, with "favored" skills and abilities, but not as an absolute requirement for advancement. It makes no sense for a barbarian to be head of the Mages Guild, and would be rather odd and unlikely to have a frail spellcaster as head of the Fighters Guild, but almost any type of individual might reasonably and believably become head of the Thieves Guild, etc,, it would just be a little more difficult to do so by using alternative approaches to everything.

I had this same thought in the "Beyond Skyrim" thread, but another poster (Lachdonin) pointed out that, besides maybe the mages guild, the factions are not schools and would really only care about whether or not you can get the jobs they give you done. That said, I do believe that in order to rise in the Mages Guild, you should have to have more capability with magic the higher you rise. You shouldn't be Arch Mage if you can only cast novice-apprentice level spells. Just my opinion.

I agree here, mage guild would be pretty skill oriented, you would not rise high being an noob. Fighter guild somewhat in the middle, you should have some knowledge to get high ranks. Thief guild is only about results, if you use magic or speak your way inn.

On the other hand the mage guild would not care much how you did quests. the fighter guild has some points for style, the thief guild set a lot in style, getting inn and replacing the gems for glass without anybody notice anything gives an bonus.

Another idea who might be controversial is to bring back reputation from Morrowind, the controversial part is that you would have to grind minor or radiant quests to advance in rank. Face it many of the guild quests in Morrowind could just as well been radiant ones.

This would fill out the guild quest line doing work, finding spells or research material, killing enemies or stealing stuff. Radiant quests would be mixed with standard minor ones and milestone quests in the progress queue.

Rather than having specific skill levels required for advancement, I'd prefer to see quests designed around needing the skills of the particular faction, so advancement was barred if you could not complete the quests and completing the quests was barred without sufficient skill in the discipline valued by the faction.

Oblivion had a quest like this where you had to cast a series of spells in a sequential order to unlock a door. Unfortunately, Beth gutted their own design by putting scrolls in a nearby barrel, but if the scrolls in the barrel were deleted, that would one example of how the game could make advancement in the guild tied more closely to the disciplines valued by the guild. They could also have your mages facing off against enemies who were immune to physical damage or sneak attacks (it is easy to imagine ghosts and other magical beings who would have such immunity).

The fighters guild could have you facing off against enemies that were immune or very highly resistant to magic and sneak attacks.

The thieves guild could send you on quests where you had to sneak by stuff and pick locks to advance, where killing was not an option.

I'd rather see that type of system, where you had to actually demonstrate your skill to advance, than an arbitrary stat preventing you from advancing.

Thieves Guild I can see wanting someone to be good in stealth but yea, fighter guild-type factions and the Dark Brotherhood wouldn't really care. Dark Brotherhood only cares about if the target gets killed and merc groups wouldn't turn down a mage or a stealth-based member as both those skills could aid a mercenary group.

Honestly, I agree we should get faction skill requirements back but only IF they manage to fit well with the faction.

Also we need a return of joinable political, army and religious factions like the Imperial Legion, the Great Houses and the Imperial Cult and Tribunal Temple. Of course not exactly those but stuff like them.

For instance being able to become an employed member of a royal court until you get to an advisor position or being able to join a small cult (Ebonarm, Sai, Daerdric princes, etc etc) where you can increase it's presence and membership when you get to a high-ranking position and for army well, the army of a royal court or a private army where you can get to a high position (Honestly wouldn't mind becoming the general of a royal army like the royal army of a Redguard lord or a Breton king)

And those could have branching paths depending on your skill. For the cult you could use your skill to become a inquisitor, a warrior-priest or a priest. For the political one you could become the spymaster, the head of the guard or the court mage. For the army you could be the head of a special ops branch, the head of the battle-mages/healers or the head of the infantry and cavalry.

Good ideas, Skyrim had an cast spell requirement to enter the collage, yes you could also pass with an shout. The Oblivion quest just required elemental spells who anybody could buy and cast , the Skyrim test might ask for an frost elemental.

For the fighter guild an arena fight with training weapons and no magic as an qualification to enter officer rank makes sense,

The fighters guild part makes little sense though, they wouldn't actually care. They're a mercenary group for hire, they shouldn't care if someone is skilled with weapons or magic.

Depend on group, the companions might, not the real fighter guild they are as you say mercenaries however with imperial backing and rules.


Note that this is to eter the upper leadership ranks, not just lower levers, and yes some pretty low skill requirements makes more sense, perhaps with an duel as an bypass.

Oh you mean kind of like challenging the Guildmaster to a duel in the local arena?

Buying spells was not necessary in Oblivion. As Turija points out, the game provided us with scrolls. So, to become Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild in Oblivion, we did not need to know any magic at all. As for the College of Winterhold, we were required to know spells on at least two occasions, the classroom and Saarthal, and, possibly the entrance. We could 1) talk our way inside if our Speech skill was high enough or 2) we could Shout. So a non-Dragonborn character with a low Speech skill would need to know and use magic on at least three occasions in order to become Arch-Mage.

Anyway, I like Turija's ideas about requiring skill use "in the field" rather than imposing strict, Morrowind-style, skill requirements. As much as I liked Morrowind's requirements in theory, tying faction advancement to numbers that only the player is aware of seemed a bit too meta-gamey for my taste.

I personally advocate for a mixed approach. Guilds should be open for anyone to join regardless. However, one's ability to progress in the guild should taper off depending on attribute, skill, job, and roleplay requirements, as well as story aspects completed.


I think that factions should have roleplay elements included in them, such as attending relevant lore lectures in a magic guild, practicing certain spells, going on tours of places like Saarthal, practicing thievery techniques in a thieves guild, practicing fighting techs in a warrior faction, etc.


I think most of a guild should work like jobs as they did in Morrowind, but with an underlying story that slowly unfolds with progress.


I ultimately think it depends on the faction, as many others have said, but just like with skills one picks when leveling up, it should be hard to rise high in all of them. It shouldn't be impossible but players can always just take the time to raise their attributes and skills accordingly if they want to be JOATs. It should take time and effort though.

A lot of that goes with the updated trainers conversation we had last week. Sparring with a trainer, hearing a magic lecture from a trainer, or taking a stealth lesson from a trainer should all net you experience gains in the respective skill.

Yeah, or even grant unique perks or technques (however one prefers to define either).

Depends. The Thieves Guild should actually care if you're getting seen, even if you manage to get away, because you're leaving witnesses that can directly identify you and give more to law enforcement to bring unwanted trouble to the guild. Similarly, killing witnesses is leaving evidence, and giving law enforcement a bigger reason to go after the guild as you've moved from simple robbery to murder. The Thieves Guild should very much care about the methodology, as being stealthy is what helps ensure they can remain functional.

Magic simply needs an overhaul, as it currently it just lets you play pretend-warrior or pretend-rogue. Do direct damage and soak up lots of damage, or evade detection and pick off enemies unseen... am I talking about a warrior and rogue, or a spell-wielding mage? Magic really needs to stand on its own as a playstyle, rather than copying warrior and rogue traits with magic spells.

I'd actually like for there to be long term consequences if a character working for the thieves guild gets caught or they wrack up a criminal reputation somehow.

Impossible to say. In most places (barring Skyrim, the Guild there is rather brutal), law enforcement types find the Guild preferable since they act as crime regulators. They'll still try to arrest you, but only if you get caught, which runs counter to what thieves should be doing. That, and if you're really really famous for being a thief, something went horribly wrong somewhere down the line.

What I think instead of being famous or having...whatever the consequence of being a prolific thief would bring, during certain quests, you get special dialogue modifiers allowing you to use your underworld connections to your advantage. You could easily apply the idea to the rest of the Guilds, potentially making guild association make parts of the MQ easier, depending on what it would entail.

What I would really like to see more in the Guilds though is variations in what your role is. In the Mages Guild, we know they make use of associates as armed protectors and "problem solvers" when needed, through contacts or orders like the Knights of the Lamp. One of my characters might not be studious or even that good at spellcasting, but I think having the option to actively work for them in a physical manner would be interesting. You could make it so that depending on who you accept quests from, and the nature of those quests (a lot like how the Companions worked in Skyrim), it could change your ranking in the Guild as opposed to a linear ranking.

For requirements though...I think it varies. Generally I think that it should only be on specific titles and ranks. As long as you obtain results for the most part, I don't think it would matter, but if you're supposed to be in charge of say, teaching new recruits things that actually require knowledge in a certain field, you should have some relevant Skill/Attribute requirements.

The way I see it, I would like for skill requirments to return as a part of advancing in guild but not in the way that Morrowind handle. No quest givers that magicly deduce that your skill in destruction magic is 55 and not 54. Instead what I would like to see is quest that force you to use magic, stealth, and combat skills in order to complete them. Either in form of some puzzles/challanges ( which by the way would be a great way to introduce more utility spells/ abilities in to the game) or through enemies whose strenghts and weakness force the player to use the proper skills ( mage guild questline would pit you against enemies that are weak to magic but strong against physical attacks, and the reverese for the fighters guild etc.)