First off; If this has been discussed before... well... I guess that's unfortunate.

Well then...


I was one of those who could hardly believe it when I heard the Medium Armor Skill was out in Oblivion.
After re-playing Oblivion a while back, however, and even Morrowind, I realized how daft these skills really are.
How much sense does it make to have a character with a Heavy Armor skill of 100, swap his armor
for a medium or light set, and utterly svck? Logically, he would wear such armor as if they were made of air!
It might work the other way around, but all in all, it's flawed from the start.

In my opinion, I think it would be best to either throw the armor skills out entirely, or narrow it down
to simply Armor.

Now, I know armor did slow you down in at least Oblivion... but they should emphasize this more.
Being armored like a tank should come with a hefty penalty to movement and/or Stamina.

If there is no Armor skill, it could instead be affected by Athletics. But since they say that skill is out, I hardly think that
will happen.

Now I realise people will probably say "Uhh! I want Light Armor skill for my rogue/thief/assassin/whatever!"
Well, even if it is narrowed down to one or no armor skill, wearing light or no armor would still be preferrable
for such characters for obvious reasons.
Heavy armor should slow one down, drain more stamina or what have you, and generally prevent you
from moving silently, softly, nimbly and stealthily. Plus, reflective metal is hardly ideal if you wish to sneak around.

Just look at Mount & Blade. It has no armor skill at all. Anyone can equip any armor (might be STR requirements).
You just have to be aware that heavier, better armor will slow you down considerably.


In conclusion:

I claim that one or even no armor skill is better than three, as long as the penalties for wearing armor make perfect sense!


Thoughts?

I agree.

I agree, one or no Armor skill is a good idea.


Edit: I'd propose attribute requirements, but they're gone. HP, MP, and Stamina shouldn't define the armor you can equip. Maybe Stamina could be modified for the armor you use, so the heavier it is, the less you can sprint, or perform certain actions that deplete St. On the other hand, Dwemeri armor, with all the pieces together, shouldn't deplete stamina at all.

I refer to Arena and Daggerfall as lacking armor skills and I agree, armor skills are stupid and pointless. I'd rather just wear armor and have better armor be better without any armor skills... like in most RPGs.

I couldn't care lees whether if they had an armor skill or multiple, there should be perks for certain armors, in my opinion.

But who wears armor anyway, robes are where it's at.

The only problem I would see with one armor is skill is: What if you mostly use lighter armour and have low strength, should you get a giant penalty for using heavy armour?

Maybe armor skills should be handled through perks rather than skill levels. Similar to the Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) fighter and how they choose a light, medium, or heavy armor and get some small bonuses such as damage reduction and easier movement when wearing it.

There weren't any armor skills in FO3, so we can hope!

Seeing as Strength is no longer in the game (at least not in the same way), this isn't a problem.

I think there should be one armor skill, but to differ the other armor types, there should be perks for those.

In oblivion they're totally redundant anyway. After a while the only difference is in aesthetics and the sound you make while running.
There is no way someone wearing 100lbs of steel can be as agile as someone wearing maybe 20lbs of leather. Yet this seems to be the case.

The Medium armour in Morrowind was completely redundant, If you want to use armour then pick one that's going to have a benefit one way or the other, not something that is on the fence, you might as well have nothing.

I think just a single "Armoured" skill is probably the smartest way to go about it. If using the "Armoured" skill effected your ability to use magika it would also make more sense, lore wise anyway.

Well check this out.


In Skyrim, There are General weapon perks. and there are Perks for specific weapons under that.


so One handed weapons --> Perks and then under thatn Mace -> perks Axe -> perks , etc etc

I don't see why the same could not be said for Armor now?

what I gathered from that Skill tree was your One handed ability in weapons could be 40, your Mace 30 your axe 0 and your Swords some other number
hopefully Im near correct and the same is applied for Armor.

Thats a very logical conclusion really.
I really do hope this is how they've approached it, it would make a great deal of sense.

Ok by this logic no weapons skills cause it doesn't make sense to be the god of sword and svck with an axe no magic skills,etc
Are you serious ? To me it makes perfect sense that one man with 100 heavy armor would svck with light armor on him it's logical.
Because i can drive a car doesn't mean I can drive a truck ,even different cars drive in different ways.
I'm sorry to see even one guy agreeing with the above post.

Yeah, but someone who's maxed his skill at driving the Fusion-Jet-Powered-Crane-Drill-Tank-With-300-Different-Levers is hardly gonna
have much trouble driving a Golf, is he?

I'm not sure if I should say Touche.....

I agree like others have already stated,

Not really.
I can get out of a car and drive a truck, maybe not perfectly but I can. Ditto for tractors.

I don't get out of my car, into a truck and have it immediately flip on its side. Which is what the skill sets from the older TES games would suggest.

Your argument astounds me.

I agree. What? There's nothing more to say.

Replace armour skills with a simple Manouvere skill. Perks include reducing the penalties to movement, effective weight carried etc of a category of armour. Also provides somewhere to put those perks that would've gone under Athletics and Acrobatics. Base effect of the skill if you have no perks is an increase in movement speed.

I don't buy the realism argument. The different skills are supposed to work as simple mechanics to add layers that matter in building a character. All those armors have their ups and downs (granted though, that there was little reason to pick anything other than heavy in Oblivion, but that's fixable) which update through skill increase, and picking one as your skill has its benefits and disadvantages over the others -- or at least that's how it should work.

@Rncewindthethird

Right, if I'm to be serious here for a bit...

It doesn't make sense one bit, the old system!
To be horrible with light armors because you've only ever worn heavy armor?
As if there would be some grand secret on how to use a certain type of armor properly.

Please...

As someone who knows some about this stuff (I hate to pull this card, but oh well), I say again;

It makes no sense!

Wearing heavy armor is simply encumbering yourself, and it's only a matter of being fit, and get used
to the weight. As such, if you're to take that heavy plate armor off and put on light leather armor, there's
nothing special to it. You merely exchange much extra weight to a lot less extra weight.
There's no special "skill" you need.

As for your argument using weapons skills...

I love how they narrowed it down to simply One-Handed and Two-Handed, with specialization options within.
Using a one-handed sword and one-handed axe is a lot more similar than, in my opinion, a one-handed sword
and a two-handed sword.

But back to the topic... "using" armor is essentially simply getting used to carrying extra weight around.
(Plus some movement restriction based on the armor type and design, and how well it fits etc...)

Hope that cleared things up.

I think there will be only one Armor skill in Skyrim and the specialization will be handled by the perks.

Yet he has a point, and most long-time TES fans out there agree. As do I.