So, I often wonder - What benefit does robes give us magic-oriented types? Sure, we dont have that much strength, so we cant carry that much.

Back in Morrowind, we had the "Unarmored" skill, which allowed casters to have a purpose for wearing cloth. But with Oblivion, with the skill gone, one's best choice was to level a mage and attempt to increase one's Light Armor skill as well.

Now, I know that robes / clothes can be enchanted and all that, but so can armor. Is there really any benefits from wearing robes? It's like staves in Oblivion, even a mundane orc with no clue about magic was whatsoever could easily wield a staff. Eh?

As it looks now, the skill "Unarmored" is VERY unlikely to make a return - so what will happen to the robes / clothes we all love?

Wizards, unite!

Spell efficiency and style points.

All the reason I ever needed. I still had an 85 point shield spell for when [censored] hit the fan.

I would like to know this as well. Maybe this time around robes can be enchanted more heavily than armor and other items?

There will probably be perks for it this time around

:thumbsup:.....Wait, crap aren't perks tied to skills? :facepalm:

Even as a mage,I tended to wear my prisoner outfit, so I had more enchanting slots.

I am not a big fan, it has become too cliche. Still occasionally it seems to fit and I hope at least it either counts as a double enchantment slot, or only take up the same spot as shirt, instead of shirt and pants.

If armor is tied to spell efficiency, as we've seen in the past, that's the advantage.

At least put armor at more of a disadvantage in terms of spell effectiveness because the minor boost of being unarmored wasn't worth foregoing the added protection of armor.

But we don't know if spell efficiency will return in Skyrim (I hope it won't, or if it does, it seemed like a cheap way to try to enforce the tired old stereotype that wizards must be completely helpless in close combat to me, and it really didn't work. Not that I'm saying all mages must wear heavy armor. You want to wear robes, that's you're choice, but if I want my mage to wear armor, I should have that choice too, and the game shouldn't try to force me not to make it, even uneffectively.) And the latter reason is purely aethstic, and the question, I think, is will there be a practical reason for a mage to wear robes?

To that question, I can only say, we don't know. I highly doubt that unarmored will return, but perhaps Bethesda will implement perks that benefit mages whose effects can only be enjoyed without armor, but that's just an idea of how Bethesda might encourage mages to wear robes, it certainly doesn't mean it will be in the game. I do hope at least that robes cover a seperate clothing slot from shirts and pants, or only take up the pants slot, because in Oblivion, even for unarmored mages, wearing robes was a bad idea, because you'd get fewer enchantment slots than if you went with a shirt and pants.

I really disliked this system. The idea that armor somehow had a negative effect on magick. I understand the reasoning for balance, but it's a poor choice.

The reasons mages don't benefit from heavy armor is that 1) it's a skill that takes away from training in other areas 2) when it does level, it increases your Endurance, which has little to do with your ability to make spells. Obviously we don't really know how the whole Attribute system affects leveling anymore, so let's move on.

Robes have often been worn, in history, as a sign of priestly or knowledgeable people. So for one it's an aesthetic thing. You could give robes an enchant bonus that is equal to say, all the pieces of a suit of mundane armor combined, so that they do not miss out on those slots.

Futhermore, the idea that a mage would wear heavy armor for protection is somewhat ridiculous. His fatigue and health are generally lower than a fighter, and heavy armor would simply be a turtle shell. Mages benefit from being far away from their opponents, or preventing their opponents from harming them with magickal means, either paralysis or shield spells.

Of course, you do get hybrid classes of battle mages and so forth who do combine heavy armor with magic. They will just not have as much magic power as a pure mage in a robe that has the same number of enchant points as a suit of armor.

All they need to do is make so each piece of clothing can have a certain strength of enchant based on what slots it takes up. So that way a Robe will have an equal strength for enchanting as pants and a shirt because it uses the same slots. Then just make enchanting only do 50-75% of what it can do on clothing to armor and it starts to get fair.

Great points.

Robes should be the clothing of choice for Wizard characters.

Unfortunately they were horribly implemented in in Oblivion. Rather than providing a benefit to magic oriented characters they provided a disincentive to wear them because of them using up two enchantment slots while only allowing one enchantment.

Wizards and such should be encouraged to wear robes not discouraged. Yes there is spell effectiveness but in Oblivion you can get that with regular cloths. So Robes should have some benefit for mages, like allowing three enchantments vs one.

In Morrowind, they had their own slot entirely... You could even wear a robe over Armor!
Therefore, the pros of a robe were an extra enchantment slot, while the cons included looking like an idiot if you weren't a mage.

The other reason mages favor robes over armor is, as a whole, they aren't adventurers. (And when they were, they conjured their own armor!) Why waste money on expensive armor that only slows you down when it could be instead spent on spell research?

Adventurers would generally always favor armor, no matter where they were in the Stealth-Combat-Magic triangle.

It would be interesting if the enchant skill has a perk tree for robes and staves as well as enchanting more mundane things.

If there is no penalty for heavy armor being worn, you have effectively forced everyone to wear it. Want to sneak around, sneak in full plate. Want to be a mage, be a mage in full plate. Want to fight, fight in full plate. When you have penalties, you have effectively more choices due to having actual consequences.

I really don't think why wearing a robe (or a pointy hat) should be advantageous for mages. Do it if you want to follow the stereotype, but don't ask a reward for it. That being said, robes should have their own slot.

My character is just going to walk around with boots and pants... Magic is the only armor I need. Robes don't need much work besides thier own slot. Robe, hood, boots, pants, shirt, and gloves that's six enchanting slots, more than enough. The only thing robes need is to look more stylish.

Oh, and that's another related thing. There should be hats (Pointy, Colovian Fur, and otherwise) as well as gloves in Skyrim.

In Oblivion it's absurd that no one has a hat or gloves, without mods.

And given that the climate of Skyrim is Cold I'd hope there will be a way of covering your head, or keep your fingers from freezing without having to wear armor.

Specifically robes? No I don't see an advantage needed,(though I don't think they should be penalized by taking 2 slots) but being unarmored sure. I think there should be penalties to both mages and thieves in there activities while wearing armor. We can ask the question the other way. I don't see why wearing heavy armor should have all the advantages. Do it if you want to follow the stereotype of a tank, but don't ask for additional rewards past the protection.

Indeed, wearing heavy armor (and light to a lesser extent) should penallize all physichal activities, including combat ones. Not much, as obviously it should be a viable option.

Armour is for common mercenaries, robes for monks and dour, unimaginative petty enchanters. Any Altmer Sorceress worthy of the title wears only the most expensive and stylish clothes and shoes while butchering her enemies.

Unique robes models and textures not mostly retexture of the same mesh
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12943
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11357
And make robes fit better to bodies no like rag bag, make them more slender.

It kinda makes sense for me.

A mage uses ones mind more not the body usually. So it would make sense to work on you'r magical skills over you'r physical skills since you can make up for it with magic.

I'd say make robes have the same number of enchantments as a full suit of armour, excluding feet-wear and head-wear. Also increase the magnitude of the enchantments (maybe by 10-15% or something), so there actually is an advantage to using a robe over armour. But assuming that you will be able to wear both a robe and armour, only armour should be enchantable if you're wearing both. However, you forfeit the enchantment bonus by wearing both. Also decrease the spell effectiveness by a lot when using armour; though not as much when using light as when using heavy.

Also make robes cooler. The ones in Oblivion looked awful, IMO.

EDIT: Another thing I thought of was having the ability to remove enchantments from robes, as they're one big piece of apparel. Of course you wouldn't get a refund.