Where are my Open Lock and Charm and Increase Attribute / Skill spells? I sure hope they haven't made all magic purely combat oriented...

Ahh, now I get you! Yeah, if you're aiming to have top tier perks by the soft cap then my idea is probably going to be a bit of a hindrance. Still not certain how I'm going to play it, but there are not many 75-100 skill required perks I'm aiming for with my ideal build so that will probably be less of an issue with me. I think I will aim for diversity over speciality, however, that could be as fatal as choosing the wrong skills/levelling too much too quickly in Oblivion.

I saw someone find a scroll of Circle of Protection, or something of similar name, and it repulsed undead while giving you allies within a 15 point her/second.

what does the ethernal one do?

It makes you immortal for 60 seconds. Though you can't attack in anyway while its on.

looks good so far

my question about spells is , will different levels of spells, that have the same affect (such as frenzy , fury and mayhem or oakskin , stoneskin and ironskin) Eat up the 85 or so confirmed spells? I can understand it with heal, insta heal and heal other , or mage light ( Ball of light that sticks to wall ) or candle light (Ball of light that follows you).

I hope not, and I doubt it. Since most spells have the 5 lvls of stronger versions, so that would be only around 17 unique spells.

People playing the game are reporting that it's 85+ spell effects, with something in the region of 300 spells in total.

just commenting on the "lesser ward" spell: after seeing some footage I can confirm that the effect is "increases armor rating by 40 points and negates up to 40 points of spell damage or effects"

So it works both against melee and magic.

yeah the Death mark skill works similar to the skill from WoW where the hunter marks a target, it recieves critical hits every hit whilst the spell is active on them, i read this on a spoiler page somwhere ill try and find it and post it for those of you that are interested in reading it

I pray to Talos that this is true.

That would make my Breton mage a happy mage.

!BUT!
If they say those things then why don't we have the effect's list from them? The game is out since monday.

Why would we want this? I'd rather have 85 spells that level with me than 300 full of lesser/greater copies poluting my spell book.

QF(A)T.

The spell system in Oblivion was a mess, in my opinion.

I'm with you on this! Why have multiple fire damage spray spells when you can have one that levels with you? Why have multiple detect life spells when you can have one that increases in range as your Alteration skill increases?

Now you could argue that using lower level spells in different situations is more magicka efficient, and I suppose there is some skill in knowing when to use a weaker spell and when to bring out the big guns. That aside, having hundreds of spells still creates a very messy spell book.

Hey, I said that my Breton Mage would be happy with that not me.
He is a......collector of.....things, different things : small things, big things, shiny things and stupid things ( among those were all available spells ).
His greatest achievement was collecting everything in Vivek, Balmora and Sadrith Mora. That bastard took every item that could be taken and then stashed it all on his small, lovely, private island. It is needless to say that Morrowind was not the same place after the accomplishement of his devilish( )plan.
What? You never rolplayed a pathological-maniac-wizard who did strange things in his virtual life instead of saving the world?

On topic:
50 spells for summoning including items( all creatures excluding bosses )
40 spells for destruction ( fire, ice, lightning, !runes! ) 10 spells for element(spray, bolts, balls, chains, storms, waves, rings) * 3 elements + 10 runes
40 spells for alteration( different protection spells : armors, shields, elemental shields, paralysis : pointed, chain, mass, water walking/breathing, opening(5 levels), transmutation(several variations for different materials), polymorph/petrify (single, mass)
40 spells for illusion( invisiblity(3 versions), light spells(pointed, following, small, huge), night vision, charming, frenzy/fear/control/calming( those must have several versions not only one like : singualar, mass, wave etc. )
30 spells for restoration ( wards(5), circles(5), different healing( self/other/slow/fast), anti-undead spells(both offensive and defensive), boosting spells(health/stamina/magicka), resistances(long but weak, short but strong).

That makes about 200 spells and most are useful. You can't say that different versions of same spell are useless. I agree that in previous games those were [censored] up but it doesn't mean that the concept is bad ( it is more about implementation ) and if you can remove spells from the spellbook then there is no problem with clutter. Obviously you can count some spells like one (all healing spells for instance) but I just count them separately and that increases the numbers. Maybe 300 was too much but 200 for a huge game like Skyrim doesn't seem inappropriate.

That's a whole lot of spells, even if there are a few repeats im definitely happy with it!

How many Runes and are they all fire/ice/lightening or do they have effects as well? Are they all auto-activate or are some "remote"?

I think there are just 3 (Fire/Frost/Shock), and they auto-activate. They're magical trip mines.

Sneak into a dungeon, see a monster...frost rune between us, conjure bow...aim, zoom, shoot for 3x crit. He starts running toward me, but the frost rune slaps him upside the face and his movement speed goes down. I change to dual lightning bolt. Fire off a couple massive shots (with impact). Switch to shield and sparks. Block his attack, deadly bash, and finish him with sparks and a lovely disentegration.

Sorry, runes make me happy.

Meteor Storm? Is that the one that the Dragon used in Helgen?

*P.S. - you have Meteor Storm listed twice.

Who says they have to be from Destruction just because their perk is in the destruction tree? I would want to make Frenzy runes, Paralyze runes, and Fear runes.

I am so excited for the magic. Looks so awesome. High hopes for the runes, make me feel I can play a more tactical game in combat .

Are you sure? I thought Imperials just had the Imperial Luck passive and Voice of the Emperor power.