OK SERIOUSLY this has been discussed over and over..there is one skill of armor..there are a lot of perks under armor.. approximently 16 and counting (Todd said there was 280 perks and there will be more..280 divided by the 18 skills is around 16). with that being said it makes it more versatile then having separate skills.. having perks makes the game infinitely more customizable than ever before.. there will be light and heavy...maybe even medium and unarmored..because of those perks.
YES THERE IS ONE ARMOR SKILL with many perks attached to it that is all you need.

AND ENOUGH WITH THIS FIGHTING over xbox made games more mainstream because developers would make more money off of the majority of gamers which are console gamers. I hate playing pc games but its true.. every call of duty is the exact same now its rediculous PC games dont do that.. Just because some console gamers are not gamers and only into shooting stuff dosent mean we all are. PROBLEM SOLVED

the original topic was perfect.. the only thing that we are in disagreement on is the speechcraft and mercantile thing as well as hand to hand because Todd said there were three attacking skills (one hand two hand archer)so where is hand to hand..armor has been dealt with and everyone agrees except for the people that dont read previous posts and jump to conclusions.
To anyone who is jumping to here with out reading other topics read the above that will save you time

And just to reiterate because some people seem to be missing this point, 18 skill groups, with a choice of specialisations, is not, no how, no way, whatsoever, a simpler or dumbed down version of 35 skills that cannot be altered, but just improve everything in a blanket fashion.

You are correct sir; with 18 skills and perks to go with it, TES is more complex then ever. Really, who actually picked dragonish or impish as their skills in DF?

I'm of the opinion Armor should plain be out and not be a skill anymore.

- Leveling Armor skill is purely a passive thing not under the control of the player.
- Since Armor leads to no active action at all, ALL the Armor perks will be purely boring passive stuff with stat bonuses.


IMHO, Armor as a skill is out and all the specialty perks that will make you favor one armor type over another will be found under other skills. For example, under stealth you get "reduced light armor stealth penalty".

Both the statement that there is one and only one armour skill (or that there is any) and that there will be more perks added is speculation. It's possible we will only get 16 perks per skill.

Ok, you bring up a great example of armor not being a skill as a perk in the stealth category but can't come up with anymore examples to incorporate other armor types, such as heavy, light, and unarmored. So I am lead to believe the OP that armor will be 1 of the 18 skills.

The reason why I cannot? Because there's no good perks to give to some Armor skill in the first place. What makes you think there will be up to 16 different perks possible under Armor without them being all bland and uninteresting?

Find us even 10 perks for a combined Armor skill and we'll talk. And no " Armor proficiency level I : +5% Armor rating"

There's no need to. You don't have to train in light armour to get better at wearing it when you've experienced heavy armour, and sure as hell don't need skill to wear no armour.

You have the Oblivion perks for a start, increasing durability, and less encumbrance. For light and heavy, that is four multi level perks, without bringing anything new to the table.

Those are also all passive perks and don't really make much sense.

Agree on the durability, but less encumbrance for familiarity with heavy armour kinda makes sense, though maybe requiring a perk or two to sprint at all in full plate would be better.

Good point, but who will spend all 16 perks on Armor (if 16 is correct). There is a softcap at 50 (I know we can go further but it will be hard according to Todd), so that is 50 perks or 51 counting a beginning perk choice, so I don't plan on spending all my perks as I level on armor. Do you?

The biggest hint as to what the last skills have to be is in perks...

They made soul stones able replenish mages magicka for a reason.. otherwise they likely would have had to make alchemy a magic skill because of the limited perk budget... after all if mages HAD to train alchemy and get say 5-6 alchemy perks... that leaves only 44 for magic. Not gona fly that now is it?

Same issue pops up with armor.. if there is an armor skill in combat.. every rogue would have to dedicate 5-6 perks to it now wouldnt they? Where would they get those perks?

So alchemy isnt a need for mages .. a want.. yes a need no.

And whatever is in combat isnt a need for rogues.

So what would warriors need but rogues and mages would not?

As a guess, I think it could be skill that governs the sprinting and helps warrior types better manage their stamina. Power attacks and all that eat stamina and all that is active actions for leveling a skill purpose. Maybe unlocks some special charge skills too like you unlock special power attacks in Oblivion.

The list of 18 skills that will be in Skyrim are not necessarily the 18 skills that every player would want in Skyrim. :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead:

Todd Howard gave us some hints in podcast. Please, listen to him again, maybe more carefully this time, i humbly suggest.

Mercantile is not one of my favorites skills too, but WILL BE THERE ("comunications SkillS", "more dynamic economy", "you can even ruin the economy city", etc...)

Mercantile = Skill to do business. Mercantile needs good speechcraft? Yes most of the times, but not always... [insert joke here]

Anyway, speculation about 18 skills is one thing, speculation about 200 or 240 or 260 perks is ... Well is, at best, a complete waste of time... :facepalm:

you can think of tons of these if you put your mind to heres obvious ones
1. less encumbrance..very important
2. more protection.. needed for combat styles
3. more mobility and faster movement... important for stealth
4. extra magic enchantment..( you can enchant each piece of armor for something like more protection or less encumbrance and with this you get 2 for a certain piece of armor.
5. Ten percent chance of an enemy recoiling after striking your armor ( not our shield but armor)
6. Armor Glow.. ( your armor slightly glows when you enemies are nearby)
7. Receive 20 percent less damage from blunt weapons ( or swords or arrows)
8. Recieve ten percent damage reduction from use of magic
9. go invisible when crouching if wearing armor ( obviously a very high ranking perk
10.Dragon Scales.( armor takes 50 percent less damage and magic resistance..also a high level perk
11. Nature fury (animals come to your aid when in combat if wearing all light armor..or all heavy armor or whatever)
12. Customize armor ( colors symbols ect.. i already know this cant happen but it would be sick
13. The Chosen..( recieve 50 points more magicika when wearing all light armor or all heavy armor)

notice these are just general perks not for certain armor types like heavy or light.. if i could make up these in 5 minutes i promise bethesda will have great perks they arent hard to think of..

Next question.. how does perk leveling work like you just choose one perk for every level up or one perk in each catagory of skill each time you level up

I may have misheard/misread, but wasn't there a Crafting Skill mentioned either in a magazine or podcast so you can craft items out of animal skins etc.

If so it could combine this into the Armorer skill for craft/repair I supose. Otherwise I would not know what to take out in its place.

1. If it nullifies the difference between heavy and light armor like in Oblivion, better not to but yeah it's one of the nicer perks. It could fit as well into Smithing easily though.
2. Dumb passive skill, not an interesting one but probably one we'll get anyway.
3. I'd rather people choose lighter armor for that than take a perk giving them good mobility in heavy armor but if it only applies to light armor itself why not. Anyway, if Acrobatics or Athletics are still in somewhere this perk could as well fit in them
4. This is an Enchantment perk, not Armor
5. I'm not sure I'd like perks to add some "magical coming out of nowhere" effects, especially for a Warrior category skill
6. Ugly and same remark as 5.
7. Same remark as 2.
8. Magical out of nowhere effect from a perk in the Warrior family of skills.
9. Stealth category perk
10. Do you mean your skin grows dragon scales or that they automatically grow on your armor? Weird, where does that come from? I'd say same as objection 8.
11. Remember remark 5? Although I guess after sticking in the same suit of armor for months, maybe the smell will attract some animals that will mistake you for one of their own?
12. Smithing perk.
13. Where does that one come from? How does it even make sense?



I'm not too impressed

They were names for the perks.. i dont know what game you have been playing but perks have names and then a description such as DRAGON SCALES its just a name calm down you can change it if you dont like it ( you dont grow dragon scales are you serious?) and the one that you say is only for enchanting can go both ways just open you mind instead of having a helmet have one slot for enchanting an armor perk gives you two.. Enchanting perks would be more around the are of hieghting the sophistication of the enchantment.. If you dont like any of those perks then you wont like the game because i promise you the ones you said were passive and boring will be in there because it makes sense.. those are the perks that you use to specialize your weaknesses and strenghts.. if you dont like the perk system dont buy the game

Seems likely. There's no need for more than 1 armor skill, so couple "Armor" with "Block" and just call it "Defense" or keep the "Armor" name. All armor types can easily be defined by innate benefits and penalties - e.g. heavy armor gives mobility penalties, lighter armor becomes increasingly more mobile at the cost of withstanding blunt, slashing and critical damage. Besides, with the new perk system it makes perfect sense that Armor and Block is now just 1 skill.

Also, remove Acrobatics from stealth and combine it with Ahtletics into the Combat skills and call it "Fitness" or something. Nobody is gonna tell me that Jackie Chan is particularly stealthy, at least not because of his jumping or swimming. And again, remember that the game has perks now. Weapon skills might also have shorter names, but the rest seems fairly solid.


Change "Lock Pick" to "Security" and "Ranged" to "Marksman", and add "Social" (Mercantile and Speechcraft) and you're good to go. I mentioned "Acrobatics" earlier, put into the combat group.


This has been more or less confirmed.

Overall, I think this is a decent estimate. Just have in mind that skills aren't class-based anymore, so with that in mind there might not even be Combat, Stealth and Magic in the Oblivion-sense.

Or perhaps instead of block... Bah i dunno...

The thing about Block in Oblivion is that all it did was to reduce the damage, afaik. In either case, specific Shield perks have likely moved into the Armor skill (like shield bash and similar) while the blocking technique itself is likely inside the "onehanded weapons" - except that it's "Light Weapons", "Martial Weapons" or something (which includes both single weapons and dualwielding). My line of thought is that blocking is a move that is done with either a shield or a weapon. Holding a shield is, after all, essentially the same as holding a Katar (punching dagger) or just using your fist in general. The only difference lies in the weight of the item you're holding.

Unless we're talking about a large Tower Shield, of course, with which the entire forearm is strapped onto the shield. But then again, you don't actively "block" with such shields - you just angle them in front of you (which requires exactly 3 seconds to master).

Smithing is the crafting skill. You use it to make weapons and repair them.

With the perk system I think they would be able to combine speech and mercantile. Yes mercantile will be more important in this game, but that doesn't mean it has to have it's own skill.

I think you hit the nail on the head with perk speculation. We have no idea exactly what they will be, or how many there will be for each skill. We can't speculate on individual perks. Just not enough info.

As he said mercantile has to be in because we have more then one communications skills in stealth skill set and there were only 2 to begin with speechcraft and mercantile..