I'm making a mod and this is part of what I'm looking at for it, so I thought id throw it out there in case there is something I've overlooked.

So Skyrim has a skill based progression system with a variety of perks tied to every skill.
The skills are designed around 3 basic playstyles with 3 basic options for combat.

Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Melee, Ranged and spells. (another kind of ranged)

Melee is divided into Two-handed, One Handed and Dual wielding.
Ranged is Bows and staves.
Spells are Fire, Frost and Shock. (All destruction as that's the only tree that can do damage)

And then u have wildcards Conjuration and Illusion.

So putting all that together how many realistic "builds" do we have?

-Exo

this should be in the mod section if it's about a mod i like the idea tough

This has really nothing to do with any mod really, I just want to know what builds people are playing.

-Exo

You could just use the classes from the previous games.

Uh conjuration is much more than a wildcard imo, necromancer comes to mind and thats just one side of the conjuration tree.

That.

Also, I made the example in another thread that the three main classes, Warrior, Thief, and Mage, are like colors of paint: Red, Yellow, and Blue. How many colors, and different shades of colors, can you make from those three?

The beautiful thing about Skyrim, and to a lesser extent Oblivion and Morrowind, is that there aren't really "classes", just pre-selected skill sets that are given names. The variations that can be derived from the skill sets are quite enormous and sure, some would not be too much different from others, but the solid differences that could exist at polar ends are STILL quite numerous. Add to that that one player's definition of "Paladin" can be different than another's and classes become more blurred than ever before. If you go with basic classes of warrior, mage, and thief, and then just say subclasses of those are still warrior, mage, or thief, then you're making too broad of a generalization. A ranger is a warrior, or is he? Stealth is important there, and that's a thief skill, right? So, truly, there are no "classes" in Skyrim, each player is his/her own class based on a basic model, with morals, ethics, history, set forth by the player. Hence, real role-playing unfettered. This was a VERY old argument in D&D where mage's couldn't even touch swords or wear armor. And you know why? Because D&Ds rules made a sword wielding, leather wearing mage "too powerful". I've played it out, totally true. Skyrim, though, Skyrim works these "cross classes" and open classes more than admirably, something that a lot of detractors are REALLY missing.