So a pretty rad idea just popped into my head.

What if I were to create a character focused on Mysticism?

Seemed difficult to make this my central school when the idea originally came into my head, but today when I was thinking about it again, I thought:

"Mystics are essentially similar to monks anyway, so why not pair it with Hand-to-Hand?"

So that's the idea. Right now I'm thinking Khajiit/Argonian/Altmer w/Mysticism and Hand-to-Hand as major skills. Some skills I'm thinking of pairing these with are Alteration, Restoration, Athletics, Block, Agility, Alchemy, Illusion, and Speechcraft.

This idea of really using the Mystic School offensively by reflecting attacks and using Hand-to-Hand to help do damage, crowd control and wear opponents down seems pretty exciting, as I've rarely used either skill before. Figured it'd be a really unique and interesting playthrough.

So what are your thoughts? Build recommendations? Curious to see what other people think.

Dude, this is a very cool idea. Mysticism's an underrated school of magic, and it would work perfectly alongside H2H for a monk character like you're suggesting. This looks like a super solid build too, I'm actually a little tempted to give this a try mysel. I've played pure mages, but even then I mostly ignored Mysticism. I'd train up enough for soul trap, and then ignore it.

Thanks for the encouragement, Bazz22.

This is what I'm thinking at the moment:

Race: Male Khajiit

Birthsign: The Tower

Class: Custom

Specialization: Magic

Favored Attributes: Strength and Intelligence

Major Skills: Hand to Hand, Mysticism, Alteration, Restoration, Acrobatics, Athletics, Block

I'm considering switching out Athletics for Alchemy to give me another skill to benefit my Intelligence. Not sure yet.

I like it!

The build I like just as it is. It is very Monk like. Alchemy would fit also but with Resto may be redundant and I definitely see a Monk using Resto. Alchemy could be a subset of the Monk build though and you could train it up. Then have him start making his own potions. RP wise (if you play that way) it would be neat to see him learn from S'drassa in Leyawiin Mages Guild.

However you decide have fun!

Yeah, that sounds very fun. I've had characters who focus on Destruction or Conjuration, or Restoration, but not Mysticism.

I can't think of any "build" ideas. Are you on PC or console?

Your idea has me thinking about mysticism in a whole new way.

My current character, 'Prisoner' uses a lot of 'detect life' (100 yards for 3 second) since he's basically a coward. At this point ( lvl 4 ) mysticism is his highest skill despite taking advantage of the 'unlimited training' mod.

That's a great idea actually. I built a test character the other day to test out my modded game's stability, and I chose Leyawiin to start with. It seems like a great starting place for this character.

I am on PC. Don't have any mods directly affecting Mysticism right now, although some of the magic overhauls might add spells to the school.

Oh no, I wasn't thinking you have to change anything with the magic system. I was thinking since you're aiming towards "monk", are there any mods which can enhance this aspect?

I was thinking of playing a druid awhile back. This idea hasn't come to fruition, but while I was planning this character (who wound up seeming very monkish) I put came up with a few ideas for mods for his game. I was looking for alternative weapons, I remember that much.

I'll have to dig back into those files again, maybe I'll find something cool for you.

I'd certainly be interested. If you do find anything, let me know!

The idea of a Mysticism-focused Monk seems cool and unique. If you're concerned at all that Hand-to-Hand might be rather underpowered, perhaps try http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45314/? + http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42658/?; the former buffs HtH damage, the latter can add the armor rating of gauntlets or the various Shield spells to your attack.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck with your character!

An interesting topic, a Mystic character. I've been playing a Mystic character for a long, long time. I created my first mystic custom class in Daggerfall way backing '97. With my first play of DaggerfallI I found none of the pre-set classes to my liking. Using the greatest char gen ever I discovered the joy of making a custom class and came up with my own which I named Mystwalker. With each following game I've had to make adjustments (Skyrim really hurts) but I still used it. The only commonality in each game is that the Mysticism skill is the primary magical skill. With Daggerfall, Mysticism is the only magic Primary skill. The Primary skill becomes first Major skill in Oblivion and Morrowind. All other skill slots were optional choices. That made for countless variations, a new variation for every replay.

An Oblivion character I recently created in anticipation of a new play-through follows;

Myghal 2016 (after reading thread comments I may change Destruction to Alteration and Alchemy to Conjuration)

• Mysticism


• Alchemy


• Blade


• Destruction


• Illusion


• Marksman


• Sneak

Others have been

Manveru Moonshadow 2013

• Mysticism


• Armorer


• Blade


• Destruction


• Restoration


• Illusion


• Sneak

From 2010

• Mysticism


• Athletics


• Blade


• Destruction


• Restoration


• Acrobatics


• Light Armor

Seeing that you have a lot of experience, I'm interested to know what you think of the school. What spells have you found to be the most useful and do you think might need a buff? Any particular tricks you came across? I'm just curious in general. It doesn't have to apply to Oblivion.

As I said above, even when playing mage characters I often didn't use the school much at all. As it was, it always seemed like the other schools offered spells that just turned out more useful in the end.

I tend to a view that fighting with mysticism requires a lot of commitment. Reflect, Reflect Spell, and Absorb require a ton of training and still cost a lot then. They are not useless at low magnitude but their strength is multiplicative as they approach 100%. But constant 100% Reflect would be the same cost as constant Restore Health 25/second. These effects are very strong but balanced out-of-reach to compensate.

Hand to hand compliments this, definitely. It requires nothing and advances linearly. If you intend to fight a lot as a mystic/monk sort of person, you will be more of a monk until you reach Master in mysticism. I like your idea for the tai-chi quality, turning the enemy's own strength against him. That's what mysticism does and why it can shine in the late game, if you're willing to commit.

It's strange how completely different it was In Daggerfall. Thanks to Open and Recall, Mysticism was hard to do without, and the question was whether your thief or fighter character should be a purist or dabble in mysticism to help make things happen. There were a lot of other vital effects, many shifted to other schools after TES2. Most everyone used those effects unless they wanted life to be much more difficult. It didn't need much training at all.

In Morrowind, you could fight with mysticism more easily since Absorb Health was in the school.

The trickiest trick is absorbing your own telekinesis, I think. It requires lots of spell absorption gear and/or Atronach birthsign; I'd say it's something in between an exploit and the real, aforementioned "commitment."

At Master the cost of casting telekinesis is such that you absorb 5.0 mana for every 1.0 man spent on telekensis, minus the cost of the effect (so 4.0 in practice).

As an example, http://imgur.com/S630VVG.jpg can be cast indefinitely and can be used in max difficulty to make everything else in the room very dead very quick. SRS BSNSS

The mechanics that 240-mana spell are as follows:

• Oblivion checks to see if caster has 240 mana when casting
• Once thrown, 300 magicka is instantly absorbed from the 60 magicka worth of telekinesis
• Cost of spell (240) is then deducted

If the caster has at least 240 magicka left, he can cast it again. And again.