Skills chat, Pros and cons Options

[Discobiscut]

Ok we are getting really close
And I still have absolutly no idea what skills I will be using.
These are my personal choices to select from (in descending order of preference);
Hand to hand, acrobatics, athletics, sneak, security, Block(if it works with H2H), Marksman, Speechcraft, Mercantile. And as you see 9 so have to kill 2

Have we got a definative answer (ie from dev)
whether Block ("Parry melee attacks with shields and weapons. Successful blocks reduce damage") and Hand to Hand ("Attack without weapons to damage and fatigue opponents).
will work together?

Has anyone ever actually had Speechcraft as a skill and is it worth while. With the new RAI being such an amazing thing I can image that there is the possiblity of lots of interactions on varying levels with charecters. Any word on possible perks for this skill.
I guess the same question could be asked for Mercantile, though I have heard one perk is the ability to own shops.

I consider Acrobatics and Athletics manditory for the way I play. I want to go faster and jump higher.
Both of these are speed governed.

Security and Sneak are two musts for my style of play and I know about some of the benifits of them.
I wonder if Hand to hand has a special sneak attack?

Is there a point to trying to have your main skills to include a range of governing attributes?

I admit every time I read about how the skill points are distributed to raise the attributes my head swims abit. Raise you primary skills 10points is 1point to attribute or something.

And in that vain if you don't have a offensive in your primary you don't get the "perks", but it still raises just the same but slower. So I am thinking that if say Short Blade isn't something you really care about the perks in but still use it is something that will go up quick as you will be using it all the time.
Now Marksman is a skill I think the perks are going to be way cool in so I guess if I had to have an offensive skill that would be it.

Thoughts please

[DoomedOne]

Well actually that was morrowind style, Oblivion is very different. I agree with you completely on everything but dropping speechcraft and mercentile, in oblivion those look like two incredibly important skills, granted I won't be using them, but for a beginner especially just as imperial is great for beginners, so will social skills.

I haven't heard that a perk for mercentile allows you to own shops, and I've read every single interview. However, one perk for mercentile does allow you to invest in shops. When you get to the upper levels in morrowind you often find all your items sell for something that by far exceeds the money merchants have at any given time. Investing in those shops gives you personally nothing, it's not a stock market, it increases the merchant's purse, basically, so at any given time that merchent's amount of money on hand will be high, which is an investment since you'll probably have a lot of very expensive items later on.

Most experienced players can just kill and steal and rape dungeons, though it will be hard as hell for them it would still be possible. Stealing or murdering a town citizen is WAY more difficult now. The guards are even tougher than morrowind, the people always run and get one if they catch you, suspicious NPCs will watch you to make sure you don't steal anything, it's just harder. Beginner players with mercentile as a major skill could get way more buck for the bang, since it will be harder for them to accumulate rare items and to steal they'll come by money much easier with a higher mercentile skill.

Speechcraft is another one, probably more useful. With a high speechcraft level you can get information for quests easier, and in general the game is easier to follow. if you're cutty you don't need it, but the more help from NPCs the better for uncutty people.