To be fair we do need more info on levelling and the other Guardian Stones (I'm not satisfied that 'just don't use them' is an adequate answer, rather smacks of throwing ones baby out with the bathwater). Does the 'Raise the Dead' Guardian Stone add a lesser power that supplements the original three or replaces it entirely, for instance?

The info we have on levelling so far suggests it's more like Fallout 3 than Oblivion. However, this still means you're going to have to work harder either specifically levelling up the combat skills or have a tougher time fighting dragons...hopefully though it won't be that drastic, as you suggested.

Solution? Walk past the Mutant Overlord Behemoth instead of face it in combat.

Stealth = Dagger skills.

If your tactics as a sneak aren't exclusively Backstab, Poison, Spell Scrolls, or Dropping Rocks From Great Heights, you're a Combat Rogue, not exclusively stealth character.

If a stealth character can stand against any enemy in a toe-to-toe fight, what's the point of playing a Warrior, then?

A stealth-based character who never kills anyone can level up just as fast as a Warrior who kills absolutely everyone in the game, if not faster.

Well now that there aren't any classes, major or minor skills, I would think it would be fine to train a non-stealth combat skill for a stealth character.

^ This.

Since there are no classes, you can be a stealth character and have blade or two handed weapons, and still level up just as quickly. You aren't confined to having Blade/Blunt as a "minor" skill and thus having it level much more slowly. If you use a skill, it will level as fast as any other skill that you are using. There are no more major/minor skill sets.

So saying that "Stealth" characters have no offensive capability isn't exactly true. Just equip a blade, start using it for sneak-attacks, and it will level up. This is what I gathered by watching all of the dev commentaries on the game.

Ah yes, Dovahkiin, the prophesied hero born with the soul of a dragon, bravely runs away from the dragons he is tasked to combat! Wait...


No, no, no. Guardian Stones. There wouldn't be any point officially grouping the skills otherwise.

Gad.... it's amazing how many people respond without actually reading anything.

The point, as has been made repeatedly throughout this thread, is that with the Guardian Stones, there ARE effectively "major" and "minor" skills. The explicit function of the three archetypal Guardian Stones - The Warrior, The Thief and The Mage - is to increase, by 30%, the gain rate for the skills that are under that archetype. So warriors who pick The Warrior stone will increase their warrior skills 30% faster, mages who pick The Mage stone will increase their mage skills 30% faster and thieves who pick The Thief stone will increase their thief skills 30% faster. That's pretty much exactly the effect that major and minors had (as far as gain rates go) in past games.

HOWEVER, the problem then is that there are no combat skills in The Thief constellation. So that means that a thiefly character who picks The Thief as a Guardian Stone will get a 30% gain rate bonus ONLY for NON-COMBAT skills. S/he will get a set of NON-COMBAT skills that will increase 30% faster than everythiing else, which could very easily lead to a common problem with past systems that included majors and minors - a set of non-combat majors generally means that a character will level up faster than his combat skills will increase, and he'll end up comparatively weak at higher levels.

Again, for those who don't seem to be getting it - this isn't about skills and leveling in general, but SPECIFICALLY about the bonuses to gain rates that are provided by the Guardian Stones, and the fact that those bonuses, for a thief character, will ALL be for NON-COMBAT skills.

Get it now?

Stealth is the art of avoidance, Combat is the art of [censored] [censored] up, and Magic is the art of changing your surroundings. Stealth isn't supposed to be combative because a great thief will never have to kill anyone.

but of course, it's hard to sneak around a dragon in a valley.

Yeah you are worried over nothing. All you have to do is specialize in stealth and use whatever weapon you want and it'll level up... They already mentioned this.

I never fought through a single dungeon in oblivion. Just used a combo of sneak, detect life, and perhaps the occasional invisibility spell.

There's a perk to poison people, but that's not really a skill, so you can't start doing that from square one.

I read it, I'm not [censored]. But for an Assassin character (which I play 90% of the time), they also fall under the "Stealth" category. I really don't think that they are going to make the "Thief" stone so bereft of combat ability. Much of the time, the most lethal opponents are the ones that go amongst their enemies unseen and unheard.

I understand what you are saying about their bonuses to gain rates being currently for all non-combat skills, but I really can't see it staying that way. I imagine that they are finishing up final play-testing as we type, and I would hope that the lack of combat offensive ability will be one issue that is being addressed ( I feel it's an issue anyways).

If nothing else, some Perks that affect the efficacy of a Rogues' Sneak Attacks would be very welcome in my book. But I also think that if you are a "sneaky" character who stealth attacks a lot of people, then the 30% deficit for your Blade skill (in comparison to your Thief skill sets) will be negated over the course of gameplay.

I hope.

P.S. With my Assassin characters, I have never "fought" my way through any encounter in Oblivion unless it was a scripted "Boss" battle. I use a combination of Sneak Attacks (with various poisons and Magic), Sniping with Marksman, and various strength Invisibility potions. Even though I would never choose Blade or Marksman as a Major Skills, I found that they would level up fairly quickly, even though they were minor skills. I would easily have them at Master rank well before I ever took on the Main Quest or even the most major Guild or Side Quests.

Because of this, most of my enemies were always one-hit-kills, and even if I didn't kill them with my first strike, my sneak was so high that they lost me again very quickly and I could Sneak attack yet again. I never really had a stand-up confrontation after I discovered the joy that is Master of Sneak. lol

Read all of my posts in the thread. I never said anything about permanent choices.

So it's only 30 percent slower, but if we were to include marksman under the thief skill, it would suddenly completely unbalance thief combat prowess? Yeah, I'll have to call [censored] on that one. If the problem is sneak attack damage wildly overpowers thieves, then the solution is to fix combat values not arbitrarily decide thieves have no need for faster skill gains in dedicated combat skills. Because they absolutely do, this is an Elder Scrolls game. Every non-combat skill only serves to assist the actual combat skills.

And what of thieves who do not wish to rely on stealth? What if I wish to play a character skilled in Speech, lockpicking, light armor, and one handed weaponry? Stealth is not a required skill for thieves any more so than anything else listed under the category. The point of the system, I thought, was to encourage mixing between the three archetypes. But the very presence of skill gain bonuses that are tied to those three archetypes instead encourages playing within a specific role.

To quote an early preview on record "You just get very good at whatever you do." meaning all you need to do is gain some levels and you'll be leveling up pretty fast in whatever skill you opt for as your M.O.

So what stops you from using bows/swords again?

OP means you can't be a pure thief character; you'd have no way to fight.

Not just that, but if this 30% bonus is apparently so important it leaves your combat skills behind, what's to stop you regaining the advantage with a massive stock of poisons and healing from the boosted alchemy you have?

If that was the case, my fortune would be made as a Poison Merchant. lol

This is beside the point. The point is Elder Scrolls games are basically combat games. That's literally 99 percent of what you do. Why then, is one character type forced to sacrifice their combat prowess to raise other skills while other other character types have both combat and non-combat skills under the same category? Seriously, what possible reason is there to exclude something like marksman from the thief heading? In gameplay terms please, because talking about how thieves aren't really about violence really doesn't matter in the context of a TES game.

remember, there are a lot more birthsign stones to encounter then the 3 in the demo, me thinks at least 1 for every birthsign in oblivion

Since "pure" thieves are about ignoring combat not taking part of them.

Thieves don't fight, they steal. Assassins fight and kill. The thieves guild isn't the Dark Brotherhood of Morag Tong. As has been said there is no reason you can't make a competent archer who has minor skills with a dual-wielder. Look at Oblivion, in my recent build I opted for Combat but I picked Light armor and my character excelled in it along with having a Journeymen in Sneak and Restoration. In Skyrim you can make alternative choices to your class/attribute early on but still become effective with whatever you do, basically want the health and fatigue perks of a warrior but envy to be a mage? Pick the warrior as your star stone and go on over to be a hero of legend who wielded great strength in harnessing the natural power of the world all the while he was an excellent skirmesher with a spiked mace in hand. Same applies for those who opt for the Thief stone, Be a legendary thief who could not only pickpocket the worn armor off of someones person but could thwart any adversity with an excellent parry. Or be an assassin who used the magical powers of illusion to hide away from his foes only to come out of the shadows to quickly strike them down. Theres endless possibilities to the builds, your not limited to ANYTHING.

classes no longer exist so there is no problem

Thieves kill all the time. Both is the Elder Scrolls series and in real life. Where did this idea come from that if you're a "real" thief you're necessarily non-violent?

"Seriously, what possible reason is there to exclude something like marksman from the thief heading?"

Because they want six combat skills and marksman is more a province of the fighter than of the thief. You would have to swap all the skills around some other way and then people would complain about that.

The proposal I think is that some people want a guardian stone (or equivalent switch) for each skill so you pick whatever skills you want to improve faster. People have already given their opinions on why they think this is less interesting so...

What? No one is forced to do anything, if a thief wants to activate the warrior stone, work away. Why is archery in combat? because it involves dealing damage with a weapon, no deeper explanation required. Using a bow isn't a stealth activity, just look at any Welsh longbowman in history. Using a bow from stealth, as a hunter, or in ambush, is, but that doesn't alter what firing a projectile with intent to kill is. It is only in games that thieves use bows.