I think they are a great backup source. A fighter may never pick up lockpicking or magic, and since there is no lock "bashing" that might fit, some scrolls may allow him to progress further. It's the backup tool for when the devs forgets to implement a suitable substitute. Besides, they can be hard to find, and you'll never find the one you're looking for unless you (not your character) have exceptionally good memory and they aren't random. Also, since you know they may be scarce, you tend to hold on to them rather than use them So I think they have a valid place, and doesn't ruin anything.

What scrolls were you picking up that made you "instant master wizard"?

Scrolls were fairly basic and had little power compared to what a mage could actually do. Scrolls provided some very basic magic but was absolutely nowhere in the league of an actual mage and the spells they could create.

Only when they are cheap as chips. If you don't have the imagination to role play in a world where spells can be cast from scrolls it has little to do with the worlds roleplay-ability.

I look at it like DnD, a wizard would be stupid to adventure without a stack of scrolls to suplement memorised spells. Non casters could use scrolls too if they passed a check with a penalty. I suppose you think PnP DnD murdered the role playing too?

I'm really trying to figure out the leap you made to imagination related issues. Do you really think my only problem with them is that any peasant can read daedric words off a parchment that evaporates after reading?

I have no knowledge of how the DnD system works, only the Elder Scrolls. Have you considered the effect of spell scrolls on the mages guild? Or the meaning of having a guild of mages? What about writing the words of the parchment onto a rock, or your leg. Would the rock or your leg disappear after reading them? If not, does it make you a mage to read daedric words off the back of your hand? You can't have locked doors in a world where people can read off their tattoo a hundred point open lock spell. What is magical skill then if your spellbook could teach you the highest forms of spells with no training? Could we even have mages if everyone got a silence spell written on the back of their shield?

If we do have scrolls, they need to be actually worth something, not some cheap spell you can spam over and over like snowball.

Make them medium to powerful and actually good for something. But if they do go this way make them rare to find and high priced at mage guilds or wherever you buy magical supplies. And only Magical Stores/Guilds! -even then they may not sell you a scroll if your not in their 'in crowd.'

I don't want General Store A1 selling a Scroll of Massive Disintigration!

Role-playing:
A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.

I am suggesting that your belief that scrolls "murder the role playing" is due to your inability to imagine a world where magic can be woven into words, that others may later repeat from magically imbued parchment.



DnD is more than just a system, it was one of the grandfathers of roleplaying games.
The effect of scrolls on the mages guild is clearly that it is a source of income, like any other enchantment. Common persons are not endowed with the knowledge or skill to imbue a parchment with magical words, but given the means they might purchase an item of magicka (perhaps a scroll) that would assist them in exterminating the vermin in their basemant.
If you properly prepared the rock or leg in your hypothesis, then yes I would reasonably assume one with the skill in enchanting could imbue said rock or leg with a one use magical effect. Its not hard to imagine that the words used to create that magical effect would vanish from your rock or leg once it was consumed. It would take a particularly nasty mage to imbue a persons leg with a spell that would cause the entire leg to vanish, though I suppose evil wizards do exist

A scroll does not imbue a person with the knowledge and skill of a wizened wizard, and one would be a foolish "peasant" to assume that acquiring a scroll would make one a powerful mage, however adventurers on the whole are not common pesants, part of the 'role' that you are asked to 'play' in such games is that of an extrodinary person, with extrordinary skills.

In The Elder Scrolls world of Nirn more specificaly, the setting is that of a "High-Magic" world, where magic is fairly commonplace. In that regard It actually surprises me that anyone would have the view that scrolls somehow require a roleplayer suspend belief in the setting. If Nirn was set in a world where enchanted swords were an exception and most people used plain iron or steel, and whole guilds of magicians did not exist due to the rarity of persons skilled in magicka, then I might understand your perspective on scrolls. But as the world of Nirn has been set out, it seems to me that it only makes for enhanced roleplay-ability that magical effects may be temporarily bound by words,

That would make for a nice plot device into a side quest. Like someone has a powerful necromanic spell imbued into a young boy's body or something. You were hired to destroy all the necromancers in the old tower and their works, now you have to decide what to do with the boy.

Woud be interesting.

Spell scrolls are not cheap and trashy, they are essential.

Not just for the melee type character, but also for people who unlike us are new to elder scrolls.

When I started elder scrolls with Morrowind, scrolls helped me a great deal. I could see if a particular effect was worth buying, what type of damage hurt the most against certain foes, and most importantly what a particular effect actually did!

I did not need to invest in a spell and the level to use it, it was all right there.

On later playthroughs I was always a mage, and scrolls are largely ignored by me. On Morrowind I collect rare ones or sometimes use a scroll of windwalker, interventions and elemental damages when Im low level, on oblivion I never saw the point.

No, keep scrolls in the game, and let me make my own again. That was cool.

I never ever used them except in the 1 quest in oblivion in the mages guild where you had to cast a ranged magic fortify spell on the alied collumn...

If they DO have them, give us the ability to make them so it we dont have 5000000 fireballs for 5pts

There's absolutely no reason why they should take out spell scrolls just because a small group of people dont like them.

I imagine it just fine, and see the horror of boredom. How is it remotely good for role playing to let anyone have magic? I can imagine a world where magic can be woven into words, that others may later repeat from magically imbued parchment, and it's as boring as reading the phone book. The M section. You know what I'm talking about. Role playing is about having choices that matter and a diverse experience based on those choices. Letting everyone be everything with the same character is the death of that choice and the very gate to the doldrums. I believe your problem is a lack of imagination, for a world where real magic takes some skill and having a guild actually means something, where people accomplish great things with the skills they've developed and not purchasable easy ways out, escapes you for a scrap of paper.

Lovely. Oh well.

If a minor source of income is all you can see it being in the guild, then I think you have the guild system figured wrong. Are mages then filling out parchments in back rooms? Why hire the mage themselves if all things doable with magic can be bought with a scroll. Looking at the guild and their control of magic, I'd say they'd never allow people to make the scrolls if they could. Perhaps you've noticed how many people they send you to kill in the games for practicing magic outside the guild's rule structure. Guild dues or die for Manwe in Punabi. Join us or die for Llarer Bereloth in Sulipund. Stop training people in magical talents or die for Only-He-Stands-There. Baltham Greyman was a mage doing research outside the guild's notice, and they sent you to kill him. They take their control of magic very seriously in the guild, it's about the power, not about the versatility.

What do you think the mages are hired to do if people can buy the scrolls instead? Have you played the quests where they require you to cast specific spells? Banish Daedra, opening magical locks, casting sleep on the insomniacs? That is the interaction with the world the guild should have. It's interesting, it provides real world application of the skills, and it all requires the mage. Spell scrolls are clearly a leak of power the guild would never allow if they're willing to kill people at the drop of a hat for not following their rules. You're the one advocating taking mages off the streets and cheapening the world for no gain whatsoever. It's bad world design.

I'm not claiming it makes you a wizard, I'm claiming it replaces the wizard. I want wizards.

I really want this to be a high magic world where magic is commonplace. I want a world where mages matter, and magic isn't treated like an instruction manual easy button.

Scrolls are essential to the game. They let people test out certain spells without buying, and they let people blow all their money on killing one person. Scrolls are not cheap, and you don't find enough in a single dungeon to play using them even a tenth of the time. If you loot them from dungeons then you aren't going to find enough to blast everyone in the next dungeon to keep it up. I've only ever used scrolls for emergencies. Pure mage+Atronach+melee enemies=death, and sometimes I get in over my head as other characters.

The obvious answer being that the Mages Guild does not have a monopoly on magic. There is the Telvanni, the Temple, various cults and religious sects, witches, rogue wizards, and so on. The Mages Guild is certainly not powerful enough to purge the entire world of magic users, many of whom would be happy to sell one-time-use spell scrolls to make a living. It is then in the interest of the guild to provide a similar service, else other factions grow powerful enough to oppose them.

It replaces an apprentice, for one cast. That hardly replaces a wizard, it actualy keeps the apprentices in class where they should be rather than peddling their amature skills to some peasants. Does an arrow replace the role of a proficient archer? Sure a peasant can shoot an arrow, they can even hit occasionaly, but if you want to pierce the heart of a moving target, in the dark, from 200 yards, you find an expert archer. Likewise, some rogue might use a scroll of chameleon to sneak past a particulary alert guard, this does not mean he has made obsolete expert illusionists that are able to summon up phantasms of the mind the likes of which send many a man with wet pants fleeing in horror.

The kinds of things most scrolls can do are effectively cantrips, one shot aprentice level tricks. Sure you might get lucky and find an especially powerfull scroll, enchanted by a master enchanter (posibly also a master in the school for which the effect is from), but once you use it it is expended. There is a reason why enchanting was a skill in the Magic-user sphere in previous Elderscrolls games.

I highly doubt a guild of mages is formed with the intent to run around town all day lending their skill to trivial tasks. From the perspective of someone who nearly always roleplays a magic user, I would much preffer to provide the person with a disposible one use item that provides a limited yet sufficient effect, charge them a sufficient sum of gold so that they don't disturb me over every triffling matter, and get back to my research.

Further more I think you are mistaken on what the mages guild actually is. In TES they most certainly do NOT murder people for performing cantrips. If that were the case there would ne no people in tamriel that were not be members of the mages guild. There may be occasions where guild masters have been underhanded in their business dealings, but they do not represent the entirety of the guild. If Tamriel were more like the world you suggest it was, (like dragon age where practicing magic outside the guild is forbidden) then their would not be multiple shops through-out the continent dealing in potions, spells and staves. There would not be churches that teach persons with sufficient skill spells of Restoration, and there would not be hundreds of conjurer and necromancer lairs surrounding the imperial capital.



Your making a fairly unsubstantiated assumption here that scrolls some how, in an un-explained fashion, make expert magic users obsolete. After all, it requires a skilled magic user to combine varied magicka effects together into one complex spell. You wont find a scroll that shoots lighting bolts at your target, weakens their resistance to lightning, heals you and makes you invisible in the one cast. Sure any odd joe might get lucky and find four scrolls they could use together to achieve the same thing, once, but they can't repeat the effect.

It actually sounds like your issue is more with oblivions skill based classless character building system rather than with scrolls per-se. Whilst i might agree with some of the suggestions here that a characters skills should impact the effect of scroll use, I consider it going a step too far to suggest that only persons with 50 blade skill be able to use an enchanted sword. Everyone in Nirn has some skill in the use of magicka, be it great or small, therefore everyone should be able to use a scroll, which in effect is really just an enchanted piece of paper.

Just saying scrolls ruin roleplaying is just a bad excuse , not everyone cares about roleplaying , I would like scrolls for those certain occasions but I don't want scrolls to be cheap I want them quite worth my penny for them.

The empire has only recently been allowed on the island of Vvardenfell, and I'm sure you noticed the Guild trying to convert or bully any Telvanni nearby. Do you remember Llarar Bereloth in Sulipund?

Temples, they have a henotheistic society. You'll also notice that religious faction are exempt from the charter by Imperial law, the way we give modern churches tax exemptions.

And you'll notice the examples of Manwe in Punabi, Only-He-Stands-There, or Baltham Greyman. Hunted down and killed if they don't do what the guild wants. It's not like I'm making up this stuff about the games, this is the lore and gameplay, things we've all encountered.

I'm not saying they are powerful enough to bring everyone under their control, but do you agree from the examples given that they are trying? With the weight of the empire behind them, they are actively trying to become Big Brother of Orwellian fame. The whole questline of Oblivion's mages guild was about this issue, bringing necromancers under the thumb of a despotic guild authority. Traven forced the war because he wouldn't allow differences of opinion.

Um, no. the Mages guild story in Oblivion was all about Travens personal conflict with Mannimarco, and the only reason some guild masters have tried heavy handedly to influence non-guild magicka use is because it increases their profits if they control the price for enchanting, potions and SCROLLS. Where market manipulation does occur its almost entirely profit driven.
This attempt to gain a monopoly is obviously not practiced in every province, and it is not even applied universally to all magical items, hence why even in morrowind, where the mages guild are more underhanded in their atempt to capture market share, there are alchemical shops outside of both the guilds and telvani control.

It does not even ruin roleplaying, it just changes the world your character interacts with, and so changes the role that you play.

Didn't Manwe just run away to escape paying guild dues? That makes us a debt collector, not the arm of an oppressive faction. Since I crushed that example, I'll give you a perfect replacement as my way of saying sorry. Ranis gives two quests at once. One is to collect Manwe's dues and two is to convince a Telvanni mage to join, and if not then kill him.

Where's that imagination you were talking about? :biggrin:

People have to work for a living. There's no welfare in this society, it cannot enter the mindset of the developers that apprentices should be in class instead of working and applying their skills.

A guard might use a scroll of detect life to catch that thief, instead of hiring the wizard to guard the place. Which do you think makes the guild more money? Or should that mage be studying something?

And that bleeds control away from the guild. Perhaps I should ask, how do the words printed in your character's grimoire not fade after reading them? Are they so different?

Enchanting was a skill in one Elder Scrolls game, and it was badly handled. There's a lot of shoring up to do with making the skill both effective and lore correct.

As for using the scroll and it being expended, yeah? It still means the local union man isn't getting paid because cheap Argonian scrolls have flooded the market and the guild can't compete with the prices for services.

I doubt governments are formed to give subsidies to golf cart buyers, http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/im-from-the-government-and-im-here-to-give-you-a-golf-cart/

I explained that better in the last post addressing slyme.

You're thinking at such a small scale. Give every person in an army a scroll of Windwalker and you can take cities on the other side of the country by surprise. Then if they have a second scroll of the same effect, they can all go home that night. Several people with scrolls of Mark/Recall could mark the middle of town and recall sleeping minotaurs there during a coronation. People could be buying command humanoid scrolls to make people become suicide assassins. Men could be using the charm spells to commit unsanitary acts with normally unwilling women. Terrorist figures would buy a fireball scroll and burn down local hamlets if they weren't paid ransoms. A man uses a damage intelligence scroll on the local farmer to make him give up his land for free rides on his own packhorse.

Having no scrolls and a strict mages guild prevents these kinds of things. It gives people a way to live without doubting every decision.

An enchanted piece of paper with what on it? Daedric writing. Can most people in Tamriel read? No. Of the people that can read, can most of them read Daedric? Of course not. What does daedric writing have to do with the stars providing magical energy to people on Nirn? Probably little.

I am quite certain I know now that some people don't care about roleplaying in this roleplaying game.

It means any skill can gain similar to the effect of the scroll is unnecessary compared to someone with a pen. Magic should only be allowed for people who have put in the skill to use it. You shouldn't be able to become the head of the mages guild without being able to cast a spell, like you were able to in Oblivion because of the spell scrolls. Have you played Daggerfall much? It had no spell scrolls like these today, tell me what you thought of their system.

You are a debt collector for the guild in that quest, but most debt collectors would put you in prison, not outright kill you like mages guild wanted.

I thought Manwe was the Wind and leading Valar of Tolkien's Middle Earth? - Silmarillion
Man these guys borrow too many names for their own lore.

Beth Lore writers. tsk tsk tsk :nono:

i voted yes.

i would like scrolls so everyone would have some magic ability. i also would like it to be effected by your character's abilities so that if your strong in magic normally weak scrolls wouldn't be

I have never used scrolls for anything (exept glitching), i think they are useless and i dont care if there are or no in skyrim. But there sjould be spell tomes

Keep them in, just make them expensive, or limit how powerful they can be made.