I had not heard of there being no spell crafting and can neither confirm or deny that it has been left out of skyrim. However assuming that it has been taken out then allow me to list why that might be a good thing (I'm a mage so magic is important to me.)

1. Each spell will then be unique and have a useful purpose.
2. No more cluttered spell book (i'm sure y'all can't forget that).
3. Your enemies spells will no longer be much less effective than your own.
4. It'll probably make spells grow stronger as you grow stronger transforming lesser res to minor res to greater res...ect as you grow in that skill.

Wouldn't you agree that this would be a much better way of having magic in the game, also note that spell crafting is not necessary for enchanting.

Well it was needed in MW and OB due to the fact that spells did not increase in damage as you leveled or anything so while a greater fireball at level 5 was great against level 5 creatures, the same spell was useless at level 20 (not even factoring in nearly everything as spell immunity at that point). The spellcraft was needed to make more powerful spells. The tradeoff was they cost twice as much to cast.

Now if they fix this ^ so that spell power increases with your magica skill or whatever, then crafting new spells may not be needed at all and it would simplify things.

Todd talked about spell crafting before. During that long long interview (like an hour). Don't remember what he said exactly though, but he did talk about it...

I personally don't care about spell crafting. I've always just used it to make spells like "hlvr's restoration spell". No big combinations or whatnot. So, if spell crafting is gone, I wouldn't care.

I like making spells related to my character and being able to name them was a very nice bonus.
To me it feels like after every "gameplay improvement" they make the game becomes less and less of a roleplaying game.

As much as people praise spellcrafting in Oblivion and Morrowind... my experience with it is it's too counterintuitive and frustrating to use. Todd Howard's right when he said it was "Too Spreadsheet-like".

Is there any definitive information I can read where it says spell crafting is out? I've never seen something definitive about it, just wondering.

Personally I'm a balance freak. If they can't balance spell crafting properly (like the weakness spell stacking in Oblivion) then I rather prefer spell crafting to be out. Makes it much easier to balance each spell and makes it easier to avoid exploits. Plus since I'm on PC there will be no limits anyway due to mods and it will be much easier to balance the spell system to my liking if there is anything wrong with it.

No, spell crafting is wonderful, it should be in. In regards to the cluttered spell menu - Morrowind had a very handy option, I believe it was the delete spell option.

If spellmaking IS in, they need to make your MP cap higher if there even is one. Some of the more ridiculous combinations couldn't even be cast.

If spellcrafting would be in I would want to have more things to change, like more forms, more effects...

But it still wouldn't change the biggest problem with spellmaking, that they're always look and feel too artificial.

I don't understand this criticism. In TES lore, magic is treated as a science, meaning all spells are created deliberately to have very specific effects. Only mysticism is done "on the fly", and Beth has now removed it.

Whoah Drewmandan, you're coming out of the gate a bit harsh.

My understanding is that spellmaking is still being looked at, but technical difficulties related to the new casting system are complicating it. Being able to combine spells cast with each hand, having different spell modes for casting a spell as a delayed fuse or proximity trap rather than a direct targetted effect, etc. make spellmaker capability nontrivial.

We don't understand your criticism. Science doesn't mean artificial. That's like saying gravity is artificial, or math. Magic is as natural as those things, you do them like in full metal alchemist, by understanding the science and increasing your power based on your knowledge and intentions.

I don;t like that the yes option has a cabiot stipulating that its because I am used to it. I like spell crafting because I like to make spells that are actually useful unlike pretty much all but a handful that were in OB.

1. there is no need for spells to feel unique, what they should feel like is managable and fun to use rather than constrained. and if people can to an extent customize that spell they will likly like that spell more.

as far as having to many spells; you could deal with that if you were on the PC. but even so, that had nothing to do with spell crafting, even if OB did not have spell crafting spells would still be locked in your list regardless unless you used console commands.

My charcter is an assassin type so relys on stealth, therefore I use minimal magic, however I do use detect life and Chameleon/Invisibilty as these both help with infiltration. I haven't needed to create my own spells in Oblivion or Morrowind however there are many people that would like it and if it were fixed so that it were less spreedsheet styled and more organic it would be good to have it back. Also they should bring back the ability to delete spells so that you can better organise what you want/need and don't want

Well DAO did have your spell do more damage the higher your Magic attribute was. So a fireball was always a fireball, but much more powerful if your Magic attribute was 60 instead of 15.

DA2 had spells being added on a skill tree of sorts. You could call these Perks! So it may be that as you gain skill in a field of magic you have the ability to add more Perks from that skill, where Perk = new spell. Again stealing from DAO the Primal - Fire path has four spells (or if you want Perks) that increase in damage: Flame Blast, Flame Weapons, Fireball and Inferno. So in Skyrim Perks down a magic skill path could be the actual spells. The spells would become more powerful on their own as your Magic attribute increases.

I'm not saying I like this system and it is VERY simplied from MW and OB, but I have used it in DAO and it was easy to use.


PS - The only spell I ever made in MW as a fire spell on target that did one point of damage. I called it Lighter. It's so purpose was for me to cast over and over again to raise my Destruction skill. Talk about working a lame system.

what do you mean by artificial, they are the same spells that come in spell shops, you just tweak them a little or combine them with others. do you mean it seems weird that you are creating magic?



I would like to know where this "spread sheet" nonsense and the organic part comes from. when you created spells there was never a spread sheet that popped up and you checked a bunch of boxes down a row. besides, that suposed spread sheet feeling will never go away no matter what they do because the fact is that there is several spells that fit into catagories and no matter how you configure that it will form a list of spells that you can use.

and just because some people think it doesn't feel quite right doesn't justify throwing out something that a majority of players use for one reason or another much less like. you can always opt to not use it if it feels wrong for you, just saying.

but so far there has not been a confirmation about this and if I recall right this whole rumor was based on people's interpretation of what todd howard was talking about revamping spells, I think it was then that he said "spread sheet" but he could have easily meant that in the context of what kind of attacks you can do with the basic elements was to much based on numbers and not physical affects like cone or spreader type attacks.

i would actually prefer if the spells just leveled up with me. would make my spell book much easier to manage

Why are some posts deleted, they didn't seemed offensive or anything...


I used the terms "Magical LEGO" and "throwing Balls with different effects", but others completely missed the point, and it seems that the same is true here...

All the spells look, feel, and are used the exact same way. You target, you shoot, it hits enemy, stuff happens.
That's pretty lame.

Agreed, Skyrim is supposed to be much more varied, the effects much more powerful. Which is what I meant by unique compared to oblivion.

one post was rude/insult

looking and feeling the same way is an issue with spells with or with out spell crafting, spellcrafting just lets you combine some of the useful ones that you can't get other wise.

but I actually agree with you, I have been thinking since I started OB that spells needed different types of attack styles, like whats getting put into SK. which is actually the thing I am most excited for. and like I said above I think this is what todd meant by spreadsheet; that all the attack spells only have different colors and how much damage they do, so I think the revamp to spell crafting will not be its removal but allowing us to do cone affects, spell traps, charge spells up before attacking, and more cool dynamic stuff rather than you shoot and it hits them, they take damage.

Yes! The spell traps sound sweet, adding a whole new type of combat, where you can set traps and not just the game.

No, I don't want even LESS options. What's going on? Soon we'll be playing an action adventure game. :confused:

You could always try not making spells, perhaps? Personally, whenever I'm looking for a nice challenge, I'll use the predefined classes, no custom enchanting and buy existing spells only. I don't get what the issue is.

There's no reason to remove spell creation and every reason to keep it.

The spread sheet part comes from an interview with Todd Howard where he himself describes the spell making system as such

If spells end up being Perks down that skill path then there would be no way to create new ones.