Even though I strongly believe the 21 rule should be increased, Here is a way to add weapons while retaining 21 skills.

add: 2

Poleaxe: Governs axes, polearms, halbreds
Short blades: dagger, short-swords, etc.

remove/combine: 2

Charm/Personality: combine barter and speech. maybe someone outside of niche rp'ers will take this.
Sneak: add security to this.

I've never understood defending armor skills (heh, they're armor skills, they can defend themselves!). They're purely passive skills. I would much rather have some form of active dodging or additional weapon skills.

Morrowind was indeed the odd one out, its just that Oblivion began to continue the armor trend, yet had less armor skills (if you count unarmored, it has half as many as Morrowind).

I don't think I would feel the loss of armor skills, so long as what I got in return was more engaging.

"If we lose Heavy & Light Armor skills but get Dagger and Polearm skills in return, would that be a good trade?"

Not just no, but [censored] no!

A good trade is trading more skills, making a more robust game, for the loss of all the players who want to play using http://solid-orange.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/easy_button.jpg.

I say we take the skill set back to Morrowind. It wasn't ideal, but I liked it better than Oblivion's skills. Axes and maces are different. Claymores and daggers are different. Also, spears. We can't have a skill for every weapon, but Morrowind was closer to making sense than Oblivion.


Also, I'm not against removing/replacing skills as much as I am against a 30 strength Bosmer being as effective in plate armor as a battle-hardened Orc. The protection can be the same, but that Wood Elf would need to suffer some serious penalties. If that happens, then armor can go the way of the Dwemer.

It's not a trade uness you're giving something up. A good trade is when you give up something that is worth less than what you gain.

I'd rather keep armor skills, and like them to add, short swords, spears, axes(More important in Skyrim than ever) and polearms.

Yes, but an axe skill is like saying a Nord who is good with an axe would be terrible with a mace if he hadn't tried it. I think the weapon weight and handling is similar enough between warhammers, axes, and maces to include them together. Just the way that a French bastard sword and a Japanese katana are similar enough they would fit into the same skill.

As for keeping the armor skills, tell us what you like about them. What do they add to the experience for you?

I've posted after voted and i haven't read yor post. You should rename your poll.

Axes are not the same as blunt weapons, and they are used quite differently. Axes are, as far as weaponry goes, more just a compromise between the brute power of a blunt weapon and the cutting power of a sword. As such, you aren't going to use an axe the same way as a mace. Battle axes and warhammers are the exception, but that is only because their really isn't many different ways to handle weapons of that weight, shape, and power.



With the sort of logic being implied in this, we may as well just do away with all the skills. :S

A person who just had some plate armor strapped to him isn't going to know what he's doing with it compared to the person thats been using it for years. Same with any sort of armor that isn't just thicker clothing. (and that only makes up the lowest tiers of light armor, ie, fur, leather, and anything else like those) It's realistic to have a skill for each type of armor, as a level 1 Bosmer mage shouldn't be able to use Daedric armor as effectively as a level 90 Orc Warrior, even if that Bosmer can strap the armor to himself. The weight alone is enough to set a person back if they don't know how to use it, and especially if they can barely bear the weight anyway. And it is the same comparable situation with the other armor types. Light armor, where most people could strap it to themselves and be able to work with the relatively low weight, how the armor restricts movement becomes a problem.

When this thread dies I'll make a new one, but in that one I'll ask whether people which two skills they think are more important.

Why do people want to see Daggers and shortswords be a seperate skill? When they were a seperate skill in Morrowind, they were quite useless. Everybody just used long blade instead. I support the idea of replacing armor skills though.

The same reason some people want axe and blunt separated: it makes more sense. And Morrowind was a long blade loving game (until you needed to hit a certain magical heart).



And what about armor penalties for weak characters? Is that part of the unskilled armor usage too?

Edit:

This is my line of thinking, but if that Bosmer were to be a slow, easy target because he or she is so weak (and the DR only slows certain death), what then? Would that work for you?

I want Daggers as a seperate skill because then they can have perks that make them the best weapon for an assassin. For example they could get a bigger critical hit multiplier.

With the number of skills limited to 21, I think adding 2 more weapon skills might make the skill-list a bit "weapon-heavy".

How about some combinations within the existing skill-set? The weapon skill isn't the only thing that affects how well you perform with your weapon, so how about combinations along these lines:

Dagger - mainly still goverened by the blade skill, same as long blade. HOWEVER, when attacking while undetected, performance (damage) is based on stealth skill, not the blade skill. By this I don't mean the bonus modifier - I mean disregard the blade skill entirely, and only use stealth skill to calculate damage. Then add modifier on top of that. The stealth skill should give a HUGE bonus modifier damagewise(to the point of one-hit kills).

When fighting enemies that are aware of you, blade-skill governs performance, but the attribute used to modify damage isn't strength, but agility/speed. (combination, maybe) So no need to work on the strength-attribute. And the blade-skill is only relevant when fighting enemies aware of you - not a situation you would like to be in anyway.

Result: It is possible to be absolutely lethal with the dagger as long as you're undetected, but rendering the weapon useless against a sword-wielding opponent once he's aware of you.

Blade - Governed by blade. Recieves only minor (if any) bonus modifier as a result of stealth attacks. Strength is used on top of blade skill to determine damage, as before.


And keep the armor skills, but make them more interesting.

The concept of being better suited to wearing armor isn't that ridiculous - any soldier will tell you how you have to get used to wearing body armor if you haven't before. And that's todays smaller, more comfortable armor. Having worn body armor for some time myself, I can testify to this - it does make a difference whether you're used to this or not. The difference is your "skill" increases by simply wearing it during practice/action, not by being hit.

I think a better way to go here is to let armor give almost the same level of protection regardless of skill (some increase seems in order), but give armor-wielding player a massive penalty in speed/agility while wearing armor. Have these penalties reduced progressively as the armor-skill(s) increase. That would be the most realistic, IMO.

Oh, and it might be an idea to give up the heavy/light-separation and just combine them. Just let heavy armor give substansially more protection, but with a hefty penalty to the stealth skill. And make the speed/agility-penalty substansially less for light armor. These penalties should also be different within the different armor-classes, for instance, leather armor might give a very small penalty, while glass might mean a bigger penalty. This way, every choice of armor is a choice of how much speed/agility you're willing to give up to achieve armor protection (with some, expensive, rare armor sets being much better at both, obviously). It also means that a character might start out with light armor (simply because heavy is too heavy in the beginning), then progressing along different sets of light armor and up to heavy armor as his skill increases(quite realistic IMO). While a stealthy character would always go for the light armor, to avoid the massive stealth-penalty heavy armor would mean. I just can't vision a master of heavy armor being completely useless at wearing light armor. I think this is a better way to go, and at the same time it opens up for another skill. Polearm, maybe?

Not that I think this matters, I'm sure the devs already has this figured out...

I don't think that it would need to be a seperate skill. Just have daggers set to give a greater critical hit at certain short blade levels than shortswords.

The thing is that this is a REALLY minor effect to have an entire skill devoted to. It lets you do nothing and it only has minor penalties for lower levels. I just don't think it is anywhere near significant enough to deserve an entire skill or 2 skills.

The penalties needn't be minor. They could be made MASSIVE, to the point where heavy armor is completely useless for low-skill characters, because the speed/agility-hits are simply to high. By having 1 armor skill instead of 2, such characters can advance by wearing progressively heavier armor suits. And with high enough protection for heavier armor suits, this will pay off. As a skill, it will be much wider than a special dagger-skill, devoted to one specific weapon type.

No.

'nuff said.

Because they couldn't properly balance armor in Oblivion is no reason to trash the entire skill sets in Skyrim. Morrowind used 3 armor systems and there was a clear choice involved. My mage character can't even carry a full set of daedric armor without feather, but can skip around nicely in glass. The armor values probably aren't at a drastic enough difference to be properly balanced, but it's not as if the vanilla game failing in this area is proof that the entire system should be scrapped.

Well, firstly, I don't think you could realistically make it THAT massive, as even amateurs can have some level of coherent movement in armour. But if your armour skill went up by using progressively higher armours, how would that be useful at all for someone who wanted light or medium level armour (as in actual weight/restrictiveness, not skill). Therefore, as the armour goes down in weight, the skill becomes more and more pointless to possess.

What if there was a better system that didn't need an armor skill? This is a post from a different thread, but it would take care of the armor issue.

Well you seem pretty sure that there will be 21 skills but i kinda doubt it. Yeah their might have said they like that number and it divides by 3 and 7 creating an equal number of skills for both specializations and attributes but there are plenty of way for them to go around that. They can create skills that belong in 2 specializations like lets say short blades that's used for 1h short swords in combat and daggers in stealth and you can only choose 1 specialization anyway. Or they could simply not care about that "equal numbers in both" idea like they did before.

The oblivion skill system even with all its equal numbers was way to simplified and made it almost look stupid. First there was no way to actually became better at defending yourself when you had no armor, i mean yeah you have no protection but you can also dodge better when you don't have anything heavy on you. Also there were no spears which was weird considering that spears are one of the most used and effective weapons in history. And making axes a blunt weapon was in a stupidity league all by its self since by definition axes are not blunt weapons.

Yeah! By definition axes have a blade on them, so they fall under the blade skill!

nah there shouldn't be a dagger skill, I mean the difference between a sword and a dagger is all daggers are meant for stabbing while a lot of swords are meant for cutting, but it depends on the blade of the sword, general rule if a blade has a bloodwell or if it is curved it is meant for slashing anything else is meant for thrusting, so really swords can be the same as daggers

So using a huge claymore to fight is the same as using a stiletto?