Mages, Monks, and girls who want to do a Gong Li and cut through swathes of enemies with nothing but a temple sword and a white robe, do you agree we need the return of unarmored as a skill, or at least a boost in unarmored defense from other skills perks. If you move faster you will get hit in the face with an axe less frequently, imho.

personally i would rather the all the armor skills go away... or atleast be redone

Yep - unarmored is a must have skill for me. I play mages almost exclusively, and not being able to go adventuring in a robe and a stupid hat, or some extravagant outfit, depending on the character is upsetting. In Oblivion I really couldn't enjoy playing without the unarmored mod.

Yes, absolutely agree!

It's a must for a whole array of heroic fantasy archetypes... but a specific Unarmoured skill isn't, necessarily. Lacking the skill, I'd be fairly content with an equivalent/related skill and/or some relevant perks.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. The odds of it returning are very unlikely. The unarmored skill:

A) Doesn't make sense, as the only way that it could improve your skill is by teaching you that getting stabbed without a steel cuirass on really hurts and you should avoid that more.
B) It is primarily used by mages and with Enchanting you could easily (although expensively) make clothes better than any armor.

Todd said he likes to focus on getting rid of things that are redundant and/or useless and this is like the definition of that.

Definitely would like to see this return - even if all the armor skills were merged into a single one, I feel that we simply have to have the added flexibility of unarmored specialization. Running around in a robe and whacking things with a staff was one of the highlights of previous Elder Scrolls games for me.

If nothing else, it should be done through the Agility attribute (if attributes are still in). It makes a fair bit of sense to increase as that goes up. I could see how it doesn't do enough to be a stand-alone skill, but integrating it into another could work fine. Mods of course are always an answer though.

Yeah I've said this before too. Unarmored skill = Dodging

Appreciate your comments but avoiding ( partially ) being stabbed is what it's all about, and as for the enchanting, I'm assuming there will be no shock shield 25% sigil stones in Skyrim.

I don't care if it comes back as a skill or something else, but I want it to be a viable option.

+ easier to dodge attacks
+ able to run faster / perform acrobatics easier
+ lose less fatigue
- almost no defense

No, acrobatics&athletics = dodging
Unarmored skill = redundant (not wearing armor isn't a skill)



Agreed

Possibly perks could help make an unarmored perk?

I'm pretty sure in Morrowind, Unarmored increased your dodge chance rather than damage resistance. It worked in Morrowind because the combat system was more RNG-based (IE: invisible dice rolls). Oblivion didn't have that, you had to time blocks, dodges, etc. yourself.

All they could make Unarmored do in Skyrim (assuming it uses an Oblivion-like combat system) would be to increase your damage resistance while wearing normal clothing, which might make it good for pure mages, but inferior to light armor for stealth characters and heavy armor for warriors.

I disagree that acrobatics and athletics are the equivalent of dodging. They may be close enough to render the unarmoured skill redundant for the purposes of a game, but in combat there's a big difference between fitness, endurance and acrobatic ability, and the ability to avoid or neutralise an opponent's attacks. "Unarmoured" didn't represent a simple lack of armour, but rather the level of defense against attacks without armour. It takes skill to prevent taking damage in armour, and it takes skill to prevent taking damage without armour. Unarmoured and the various armour skills were equally valid.

However you break it down, though, the ability for a heroic fantasy character to be extremely well protected with no armour and without magic is very much a valid ability - a necessary one, I'd say. Whether or not that potential ability takes the form of a skill or not seems less important.

Those are all passive effects of NOT wearing armor. So no skill needed.



You took my comment out of context. Allow me too elaborate slightly.
The better you get at unarmored skill the less damage weapons do but since any contact to your person with a weapon is going to have roughly the same effect every time no matter how good you are at not wearing armor then the skill is essentially dodging since that is the only way you could reduce the damage dealt by a weapon contacting your body.
Unarmored = Dodging = not a skill.
Just like you said, not wearing armor is not a skill.

Why don't they just call it the dodging skill?

Being unarmoured isn't really a skillset.

I can agree that dodging blows is a skill.

But acrobatics/ athletics help avoid situations that can get you maimed or killed, so they are dodging.

Running fast helps in escaping, Jumping/Rolling helps in getting to areas and avoiding damage.

In that case armor skills should be ditched to - wearing an armor is not a skill, you put it on and that's it. Your ability to successfully move in it depends on acrobatics&athletics.

There are not skills in TES that are actually needed - I can give you reason to get right of any skill in the set. You see, acrobatics&athletics are just a representation of how well you can move, so we don't need them either - primary attributes of agility and speed are all that needed, and making somersaults can be a perk for them.

It's not about whet we need it's all about what we want, if enough people want unarmored skill it should be included, it's that simple.

I don't really care about unarmored, but since this is about armor left out of oblivion... I NEED MEDIUM ARMOR

The trouble is we are discussing a game in which dodge means something specific. There is a big difference between performing a rolling dodge to avoid a fireball, and ducking, turning and twisting to avoid an attack in close melee, which would be easier without armour. Do see the point that avoiding an attack ( dodging with a small d, if you will ) makes more sense than damage mitigation in some sense, but not a world of difference between armour absorbing some of a blow, and leaning to the side at the right moment so the sword stoke that would have severed your arm becomes merely a deep cut.
[ Thank you to everyone who has posted here, spelling armor without a 'u' was not easy for me, I didn't waste my time. ]

This is just not correct. I have worn my share of "armor", everything from simple helmets/pads to actual medieval armor to full US Army Battle Rattle. I have had basically the same physical build my whole life and every piece of armor is different, you have to practice with specific types of armor to get used to it.

Maybe they could implement the old morrowind magic failure into all combat skills.

If an enemy is trained in 'dodging'/unarmoured there may be a chance your melee attack will miss. Like how a magic failure is.

Only problem with this is some people would be pissed there sword is doing nothing even though their hitting them.

And if you ask an experienced martial artist about unarmored skill you'll get a long lecture, believe me. It's not as simple as dodging. There are many factors that I don't want to start listing here, to summarize an ability to minimize the damage when being attacked, hit, falling, ability to correctly take the blow that can't be avoided is essential and takes years to master. And it has nothing to do with acrobatics and general fitness.

True enough in real life, but how would you convert that to videogame format?

honestly no because in morrowind the combat system was good for such a skill, but in skyrim where combat will be more realistic it won't matter because you can basically dodge stuff.

but if they add it I won't be sad :shrug:

That's a game mechanic question, and is up for debates of course. The effect of armor in games are not particularly realistic when you think about it either, so there are options. From the way ti was done in Morrowind - you simply had a default armor class on every part of your body that was activated when you had no armor on it, to something new and interesting, since I'm quite sure devs woun't be implementing it the way I think of it, I'm not especially bothered with building a "system" - the option should be in, it's Bethesda's job to think of how you do it so it'll be fun.
What I'm saying is that it's logical to have, has an audience that wants it and is important for role playing certain kind of characters.
Oh, and about "combat system" I'm not an action player, I don't want to be bashing the keyboard and pulling combos, that's why I'd rather have a passive skill than have to learn to masterfully dodge, fighting is not the top of my list when playing RPG. Right now it's easier to be armored to the teeth paladin player skill wise, than a mage, which is just not right. I assume people who select warrior classes like the fighting part of the game better and will be better at it, so it should be the other way around.