I love the fact they have birthsigns, it adds a lot to the game in character creation. But the problem is I always use the same few. When making a warrior, it's always either the warrior sign or the lady, as they both add 10 points to useful stats. Most of the magical signs are good, as it gives leverage. More risk, more reward. Atronachs are the most powerful magic-wise, but it's much tougher than taking the much smaller boost the mage gives you without stunted magicka.

But when I make a thief, I would like to use something like the shadow, but the fact that it pretty much gives you a spell you can rarely use, it makes me NEVER use it.

There are a lot of good ones, but the other half are interesting ones that could be awesome if they thought it over and made more use of them. I usually just go with whatever gives me the most boost that would be most useful early on, but that takes most the signs out of consideration.

I go for the ones that provide useful permanent benefits. In oblivion that pretty much means just apprentice, atronach and mage. tower was good too because it was the only way to get the reflect damage spell, but that ended with shivering isles. Lady would also have you end up with slightly more health since she gives endurance as well, though it was never worth the magicka boost of the first 3 i listed so i didn't bother with her. I wrote a post earlier with some change ideas:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1109526-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-174/page__view__findpost__p__16276732

Basically, I would recommend they:

a) do away with "once per day" or even repeatable powers that can be replicated with magic. If you must have active powers, make them unique and/or always useful.
B) do away with attribute boosts since you can get them all to 100 anyway at which point your sign becomes completely worthless

Having each sign provide either some small permanent and perpetually useful abilities or powerful permanent abilities with a disadvantage to balance them out would be much better.

All the Birthsigns should perhaps have some sort of Disadvantage? And buff somes advantages.

They can make those Birthsigns hellofalot better. And they will (I guess).

In the suggestions thread, someone made a pretty solid list. They should all have a pre-determined gameplay element that will follow you throughout your playthrough.

So he said how the warrior would deal more damage, the mage would have more magicka, the lord would have a small health restoration, the lady would take less damage, the serpent has a chance to intant kill with each strike, etc.

Rather than have it the way they do, when each birthsign is rendered useless by level 15, have it so whichever one you choose will matter the whole time.

Leveled Birthsigns?

I'd like it if you could raise attributes above 100 with birthsigns...
so a birthsign grants, says +15 agility, so your maxed agi will be 115.

I see the same problem.

In morrowind, I use 2(3) birthsigns:
-Atronach for every char who does not rely entirely on his weapon
-warrior for every hammer fighter, I create
-Lady for roleplaying purposes or chars who just need the lil bit extra health.

any other birthsign has up to no value, except maybe for some roleplaying aspect.
There may be a discussion about the viability of the thief birthsign but in my opinion, it's weak.
10 pt attack = 10% more chance to hit. this can be obtained only there and on a few rare items and artifacts.
on the other hand, we got 10% evade. while this might sound equal, it's not. you can pretty easy grab some piece of gear and enchant it with sanctuary or get some custom spells.
chars who don't need the attack bonus(e.g. planning on getting skullcrusher/sunder later on or pure mage) would be better off with atronach for defensive purposes or to boost mana. 50% absorb is 50% less stupid spells affecting your char. Surprisingly enough, atronach is also the best signs for archers or assassin type characters. it just means, your char made of paper will not fall to the first mage, he stumbles upon.

As for oblivion, it's pretty much the same, EXCEPT for there being a true alternative to the atronach/the atronach being considerably weaker, compared to the other mage signs as there is no teleportation and the mana usually regenerating during battles.
In morrowind, choosing atronach pretty much meant, not having to wait for like 3 days, when attempting to rest until healed, just till the mana is eventually full. As for recharge, mark-->almsivi-->visit altar-->recall and thus, the atronach was even way SUPERIOR in terms of recharging mana.

I always felt like there should be some changes:
-Ritual greater power heals 100% instead of 100 points
-permanent boni will be added on top of your max attr points
-shadow grants a long lasting 20% chamaeleon and a shorter invisibility, both as greater powers
-Some definite increase in scaling for the serpent or maybe even a complete overhaul
-the lord needs more pewpew, maybe it's enough to just rescale the numbers.

these would be the main concerns at first.

For some reason that actually seems like a pretty good idea. The more experience you have the more influence the gods place on you.

Eh, that would ruin immersion...Being born under a certain set of stars really doesn't make sense to get better later...

Unless they had a leveled effect, perhaps.

Its bad for enemies to be scaled according to your level but when you become more powerful maybe your birth sign's power becomes more powerful. It makes sense to me.

Sometime I was thinking about changing each birthsign to be something like a guild. I thought that at the start of the game your birthsign gave you small benefits, but in the course of the game you would meet some people that had the same birthsign and started a guild to help other people with the same birthsign discover their inner powers.

You could join them and perform their quests which would unlock your birthsign's powers as you advanced in your guild's ranks, for instance:

In the birthsign-guild called "Serpent Kin" you would start as "Earth worm", then advance to "Pin Worm", "Adder" and "Asp" and so on...

The first five ranks were free for all, as long as you performed their quests you could advance in those ranks and gain a part of their granted powers, but not the whole powers, as those needed you to be of "The Serpent" birthsign.

From the sixth rank upward, you needed to be a true serpent kin, and would gain a small bit of "Sun damage" with more powers, and a spell that would shield you from the sun damage for a time, until the tenth rank which your birthsign power and rank developed into a "Dragon" which eliminated the sun damage and retained some of the previous powers and more.

This was a big but fun project, that was lost when "Oblivion" was released soon after I started to work on it, but now that I think about it, it was a good project.

But in my http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1107940-perks-they-can-make-each-play-through-a-unique-experience about perks, I thought that some perks can keep their individual characteristics even as you gained power and advanced in levels.

So birthsigns with individual perks would not be a bad idea, for instance like this:

The Serpent: All your poison damage spells would have 15 percent more damage that additional damage could not be resisted by target.

The Warrior: All your melee attacks would have 10 percent additional damage that could not be resisted... (I know too similar) :wink_smile:

The shadow: If you stood still in a dark or shadowy place, you would start to gradually blend into darkness, and would become increasingly harder to see, but any movement would rapidly dispose of the gained stealth.

The mage: None of your spells could be wholly reflected, and only half of their effect could be reflected, and the other half would impact as normal.

The Apprentice: You could learn spells and be able to cast them sooner than other spell casters, so your level at each magic school would seem 10 percent higher than others, while calculating the required level for learning and casting spells.

The Lover: The opposing six would have higher disposition toward you, especially if they have similar race.

And so on...

What if the effects of your birthsign had to do with time?

Say every NPC in the game has a birthsign, too. And each game week will feature a different birthsign. So one week will be week of the warrior, the next, the week of the mage, and so on.

Each birthsign will have compatible and incompatible birthsigns which will affect social situations.

Also, in the week of the warrior, for example, any character with the warrior will get a big boost to stats and a special ability, signs compatible with the warrior will get a smaller positive boost to stats, signs incompatible with the warrior will get a negative boost to stats.

Characters with signs that are neither compatible or incompatible with the warrior will not be affected at all.

The warrior could be compatible with all it's charges, incompatible with the mage and the thief, and neutral to the others.
The lady could be compatible with all the warrior constellations, incompatible with the apprentice and the lover maybe and neutral to all the others.

Each sign could work like that to make it even.

Then the serpent could be compatible with all signs and regardless of what week it is, every week a character with the serpent will get either a boost or a reduction to their stats, but there's a higher chance to it being a reduction, to make up for being compatible with everyone.

Some signs like the Shadow or the Tower become obsolete not long into the game.

The tower gives mages access to the reflect damage spell in vanilla, so it's not really obsolete. Though with SI there is another way of getting it making the sign pretty much useless.

Birthsigns:

These are what I suggest for birthsign that would keep their flavor forever, but the actual suggested numbers might need a bit of tweaking for balance.

These are based on active or passive birthsign perks that I have mentioned earlier.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

The Serpent: Poison Master

You are tha-poison-master.

• All the poison damage that you inflict on the opponents is increased by 15 percent and that additional damage could not be resisted.
  
• +10 speed
  
• +10 agility
  
• +1 sun damage
  
• Active birthsign perk: Shadow Shield --> prevents sun damage for 6 hours, and recharges after the next sarcophagus sleep of 2 hours at least.

Great for backstabbing poisoned dagger wielding assassins, or the ones who want to become a vampire eventually.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

The Warrior: Fighter

You are better attacker when you are close to the target.

• All melee attacks would inflict 10 percent additional physical damage that could not be resisted.
  
• +10 strength

Great for any tank type who likes to be up front dealing melee damage.

--- --- --- ---

The Lady: Defender

You are better at handling incoming blows.

• All the physical damage taken is reduced by 10 percent.
  
• +10 endurance

Great for any character who is in the middle of fights taking physical damage.

--- --- --- ---

The Steed: Carrier

You are better runner, rider, driver and carrier.

• Movement speed on earth is 15 percent faster than other people.
  
• You can carry 15 percent more weight than others.
  
• +10 speed

Great for any impatient character who do not like to waste his precious time.

--- --- --- ---

The Lord: Healthier

You are in better shape than others but cannot handle heat.

• +15 percent total health
  
• +15 percent total fatigue
  
• +2 percent restore health per second
  
• +100 percent weakness to fire

Great for any character who is usually in the middle of actions, taking damage and wielding weapons, especially for dunmers who can naturally resist fire.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

The Mage: Nuker

You are a fearsome spell caster and damage dealer.

• Any offensive spell effect is 10 percent more effective and that additional effect cannot be resisted.
  
• 50 percent of spell effect power cannot be reflected.
  
• Cannot absorb any spell effect.
  
• -20 percent total health
  
• +10 will power

Great for the nuke type characters who like to deal damage by casting offensive spells.

--- --- --- ---

The Apprentice: Learner

You are a great learner of magic and spells.

• +15 percent more magicka
  
• You learn how to cast spells 15 percent sooner than other casters.
  
• +10 intelligence

Great for magic casters who like to learn more powerful spells sooner than others.

--- --- --- ---

The Atronach: Capacitor

You can cast a lot of spells at one stand but need to recharge the power by unconventional means.

• +50 percent more magicka
  
• +50 percent absorb magic spell power, so you absorb half the power of any magic cast at you as magicka for yourself.
  
• Stunted magicka, so that you cannot gain magicka gradually in time.

Great for any kind of spell caster who likes lots of magicka and does not mind using potions to regain them, or any fighter type who likes the extra protection from magic spells.

--- --- --- ---

The Ritual: Purifier

You are the purifier of life.

• Any damage dealt to undead has a chance of causing them to flee, depending on the percentage of un-health taken from the target.
  
• +10 percent of the un-health taken from the undead is absorbed as health, fatigue or magicka in each attack, for self and companions, whichever is lower for each person.
  
• Active birthsign perk: Purify --> An area effect spell that confuses all the affected undead below your level for a while and damages vampires, and recharges at the next chapel altar. Confused undead might attack anything nearby, seat down covering their face or just wander blindly and fall down the pits. Vampires and Liches do not get confused more than a few seconds, and while confused they just stand with weapons or spells ready to cast.
  
• You can not summon any type of undead, and they hate your guts anyways.
  
• You can not become an undead yourself, like vampire or lich and so on...

Great for any type of vampire hunter and necromancy hater out there.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

The Thief: Cleaner

You can pick your targets one by one without being noticed.

• +50 percent more sneak attack damage.
  
• +10 Luck

Great for any assassin, stalker or cleaner type of character.

--- --- --- ---

The Lover: Charmer

You are great at manipulating people around your little fingers.

• +10 percent higher disposition from the opposite six
  
• +10 percent higher disposition from the same race
  
• +10 percent more disposition gain in the right situations
  
• +10 percent less disposition penalty in any bad situation
  
• +10 personality
  
• -20 percent total fatigue

Great for any character who likes to manipulate people to do her wish.

--- --- --- ---

The Shadow: Lurker

You are great at infiltrating hard to enter places.

• When standing still, you gradually blend into your surrounding landscape, and the less light on the spot the faster you do it, and this effect is added to your sneak effect.
  
• The first physical action after that will gradually but rapidly diminish the shadow effect.
  
• Active birthsign perk: Distract --> a unique and silent spell that makes noise at the target destination, distracting nearby characters and monsters. Recharges after about 10 seconds.
  
• +10 Agility

Great for any character who likes nocturnal missions.

--- --- --- ---

The Tower: Seer

You are great at sensing nearby danger or treasure.

• You see surrounding notable danger or treasure in the local map or HUD mini-map.
  
• The notable parameter depends on the level of the character and the amount of the danger or treasure.
  
• And the distance that they show depends on the target's concealment power or the treasure's importance.
  
• So the less important notable treasures will show themselves at larger distance than the more important ones.
  
• When near enough to the treasures or the danger, you might see visual or hear vocal signs about the nearby target.

Great for any character who likes treasure hunting in dangerous places.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

OK, those are just for showcase that we can have great and individually usable birthsigns that would not lose their flavor in the course of the game.

Cheers. :grad:

Edit: Corrections.