The Skills:, 18 in total, these are the lot. Options

[Thomas Kaira]

COMBAT:
-Archery
-Block
-Heavy Armor
-One-Handed
-Two-Handed
-Smithing

MAGIC:
-Alteration
-Conjuration
-Destruction
-Illusion
-Restoration
-Enchanting

STEALTH:
-Alchemy
-Light Armor
-Lockpicking
-Pickpocketing
-Sneak
-Speechcraft

So what is of note here (along with my thoughts, of course)?

1. Alchemy has been moved to Stealth specialization, with Enchanting and Smithing in Magic and Combat, respectively. This gives each specialization its own "crafting" skill. Warriors make weapons, mages enchant weapons, and rogues make potions and poisons. Makes sense to me.

2. Archery has been moved to Combat. I'm not too sure of why this was done, as now Stealth is the only specialization without a native means of defense, but I've never done pure characters, myself, so I see no harm from this.

3. Mysticism is indeed gone. I never used it all that much anyways.

4. Pickpocketing has been separated from Sneak. Well, I'm always a fan of new skills, so I'm interested to see how this will work out.

5. Athletics is gone (wasn't really much of a skill anyways), as is Acrobatics (likely integrated into Light Armor, as rogues really do need that ability to dodge).

6. Mercantile is gone (good riddance), likely integrated into Speechcraft. Makes sense, after all, Mercantile is a form of Speechcraft, is it not? Anything to make that skill more useful, because in Oblivion, Speechcraft was a joke.

7. Blade and Blunt are now redefined as one-handed and two-handed. This is really the only change I see up there I disagree with, as fighting styles are very different between hilts and hafts and neither weapon type can be interchanged smoothly. You just don't fight the same way with a sword as you do with an axe, and being proficient in one does not automatically make you proficient in the other. Still, at least the player will be permitted to make that differentiation.

8. Hand-to-Hand is gone, as well. Likely merged into Two-Handed combat. Again, doesn't make much sense, as again martial arts is a very different combat medium from fighting with weapons, but the player can still make the choice, or choose not to if he wants.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Aug 8 2011, 05:35 PM

[SubRosa]

Getting rid of mysticism seems like a good idea to me. It seemed like the category they put the leftover spells in that did not fit anywhere else.

One-handed and two-handed is a surprise, but seems like a decent idea. I say that because if I am playing a melee fighter, it is either a sword and board (or axe and board) type, or a two-handed sword type. I have never had a character who started out with one, and went to the other. So it strikes me as something that will serve the gameplay well.

It is good to see enchanting back. I always hated how in Oblivion you could only enchant something with one of those silly altars. You should do it with your own innate magical power. Or hire someone else who has the mojo to do it for you. That was one thing I liked better about Morrowind. It is just too bad constant effect enchantments were so hard to come by there.

I can see why archery got thrown in combat, as it is about killing people. However, it seems like archer characters are always stealth-based. At least in Oblivion. But they said that bows will do more damage in Skyrim, so perhaps a Skyrim archer will not have to rely upon that extra damage from making sneak shots? Then they could just be a tank in heavy armor carrying a big bow.

The absence of hand-to-hand seems odd. Maybe they figure that very few people play hand-to-hand characters? It seems like a surprise since those characters worked so well in FO3 though. I would have expected Bethesda would have learned from that, and tried to make it more viable, rather than just completely discarding it. Plus The Monk is pretty standard in RPGs.

I see they still kept Speechcraft. I wonder why? Oblivion showed how useless that is as a skill. Perhaps they are going to completely change how it works, and do something more like FO3 or the KOTOR games, where you simply have a percentage chance of succeeding based on your skill? That would make it viable.

I could live without separating armor into light and heavy. I choose armor for appearance. It is always a pain in the rear to have to mod every piece of armor in the game or in mods that I like to make it match the skill of my character at that time. Armored and Unarmored would be more interesting, I think. Especially given how much this game leans toward unarmored spellcasters.

Alchemy seems out of place as a stealth skill to me. Depending on your viewpoint, it is either like herbology/chemisty, and is just a matter of a person with the training mixing the right elements together. Or it is an intensely magical discipline, where the practitioner draws forth both the dormant magicka and the effect residing within the ingredients, and shapes them into a working form. Neither of those are things I associate with someone who picks locks or lifts wallets. But I can see that they had a definite plan going on with the crafting skills, and wanted to have one per each of the 3 categories.

Like TK, I do think the removal of attributes is a loss. There really is an industry-wide trend toward over-simplifying games these days. I thought Mass Effect was dumbed down, until I saw Mass Effect 2! By making a game so simple that even a 3-year old can play it, they also lose out on a lot of what makes characters, and gameplay, unique.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 16 2011, 12:50 AM