First off let me just say that Skyrim is a fantastic game, and in many ways improvements to the magic system have been made. That being said the system itself still has many hiccups that need a good looking over.


1. Channeled flame/frost/shock spells are awesome, yet lose usefullness and disable mana regen* (an additional issue)
2. Mana regen completely stops during casting, leading mages to spend portions of fight not casting and running around like a fool
3. The bolt spells at apprentice are basically the same at expert level, just a better mana per damage cost
4. Adept level spells are the best overall having an additional aoe added and negate the need for expert level spells
5. The wall of fire/frost/shock spells lack power and coolness factor, area of effect and size should be increased along with damage
6. The perk trees for magic seem rather unispired and lame (archery is one of the most interesting and exciting trees)
7. lack of usefull spells outside of destruction, aside from conjuration summons (but why let something else fight for you? =) )


So here is what I suggest:

1. mana regen unchanged by combot/casting
2. Channeled spell, burst spell, wall spell, bolt spell available at level 1, grow in power and mana as you level skill
3. Alteration telekinesis gain combat utility as a force push spell
4. Illusion spells lose level cap limits, have a chance to break on combat
5. More exciting perk trees
6. reduce effectiveness of -mana cost enchantment stacking, add reduce mana cost of all spells enchant (maybe erase all the others to begin with)
7. Constant effect oak/stone/etc. flesh spell, drain mana on hit instead
8. Ward spells negate physical damage rather than increase armor, as they do vs spells
9. Allow conjuration pet to recieve equipable gear at highest perk (for those that like this playstyle)
10. Add new and exciting spells!


Other ideas etc. appreciated!

Regarding destruction, I think a mage should have a cheap constant average damage output with the channeled spells, walls and a few bolts. And when he feels the need, very high damaging spells and AoE (fireball, etc), at the cost of lots of magicka.

So, my suggestions are:
- Make spell damage scale as you level to the point of making Flames useful the entire game (with average dps). This way the stronger spells (such as fireball) would jump to high damage (yet they cost a lot).
- Remove completely the -%cost enchantments you can put on items, and instead make them all give +%damage. Again, increasing spell damage, but also increasing mana management.
- Make robes give -%cost to all spells by default (no need to enchant). This way making robes a great option for pure mages.

NOTE: I don't think all spells should be available at lvl 1. Just because it's lots of fun to reach a new milestone and feel your power increase by adding a new high damaging and costly spell to your arsenal, potentially even changing to way you approach encounters.

I agree with that last part. In watching the Scaled Spells mod get made, I realized that I did enjoy reaching a new spell tier and getting spells that have more utility. But I also don't like that the vendors seem to be "holding back" their wares until I'm high enough (skill) level. Perhaps having most spells available in the beginning but putting something along the lines of 2x magicka cost until you hit a certain skill level, making such spells either impossible or extremely inefficient to cast. That being said, I'd LOVE it if your lower level spells scaled better, like in the above mentioned mod.

Waterwalking! That's what we need.

This is what I envisioned Beth doing when they overhauled the spell system.....

Just going to use the basic flame spell as an example. Essentially, take all of the fire spells, eliminate the separate spells, and throw them into a single fire spell system where you learn new aspects not by buying spell books at the McSpellshop, but by gaining skill level and unlocking perks to learn new aspects of flame. I really don't know how this would work.... :-/ ...but I specifically bought the PC version so I could mess with CK and see if this could be done...

So, a mage learning how to control fire would, as they increase in skill level, unlock various perks through training and quests:
- unlock a perk that allows you to manipulate the strength of the spell (a simple slider bar? where mana/strength is linked to skill)
- unlock a perk that allows you to manipulate the distance the spell goes (where distance/mana usage is linked to skills)
- unlock a perk that allows for area effect (where mana/area impact is linked to skill)
- unblock a perk that allowed you to toggle between constant cast or cast/fire (linked to skill / constant cast high dps but mana burns up much faster as you increase strength/distance/area ratios / cast/fire is much lower dps but allows for much stronger spells that can cast further with larger area effect)
- unlock a perk that set runes
- unlock a perk to dual cast different fire spells at the same time (constant flame thrower in one hand while lobbing fire bombs in the other)

Essentially take the aspect of money out of learning magic unless you pay a trainer. How perks are unlocked...could be using the perk trees..can be linked to being assigned quests by trainers and utilizing the radiant AI.....

This is just one aspect of magic....it would be neat to do something similar to all of the schools....

All spells should be available all the time....each school should then have a series of perks that allows certain aspects of a spell (or series of spells) to be unlocked as you progress.

For the water walking talked about above:

Maybe you learn the spell at level 1. But you can only cast using constant cast. Being low level it burns magicka super fast so it only works for a few seconds before all of your magicka is depleted. As you level up it burns less and less so that at some point you can (maybe above 75 alteration) you can essentially cast water walking constantly.... At some point you unlock a cast/fire perk for alteration so you then are able to cast water walking for a few seconds (up to minutes as skill progresses without having to constant cast).

An extra layer of fun that Beth (of course) completely ignored is introducing the aspect of negative repercussions to casting spells.

What happens if a level 3 mage tries to cast a spell at a magnitude that a level 50 mage can barely handle? In SR, nothing happens because the lame training wheel system Beth developed doesn't allow a level 3 mage to come even close to casting level 50 spells.

There should be a large overlap between spells and magnitudes of spells mages can cast and what mages can safely cast. As one is progressing in learning magic and testing their boundaries, having spells do random things or blow in your face should be expected. Again, not sure how something like this would work out.....but anyone who takes up the challenge of making an actual innovative and immersive spell system, will hopefully have this in the back of their mind....

I think that the total -%cost enchantments you can have stacked should only reach up to 50%. Other than that, magic is fine to me.

This would be awesome.

-proper spell scaling to make all the spell types still viable from 1 to 50
-proper damage scaling so you aren't spamming dual cast incinerates 20 times at one target
-proper regen, the current method svcks. Both increased combat regen rate, (from .35 of normal to .66?) as well as regen while casting.
-slightly reduced spell costs for expert.
-master spells completely redesigned. Especially destro.
-many more conjurable beings/weapons
-telekensis made usefull for combat.
-all buff/conjure spell lengths vastly increased.
-better perks all around

Well the fact that most spells become useless as you level is far from fine, as is 40+ Destro damage on Master difficulty. I agree with the 50% cap, however. Magicka management has to still be in the game.

integrate every single spell as a command input, and fully get rid of the [select two spells at most off from a list] interface
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1292353-feasibility-study/

A lot of the mods I would like to make involve new spells centered around a theme. Take a look there and tell me what you think.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1288875-thinking-about-some-high-fantasy-mods/page__pid__19439358#entry19439358

I would like to see more counter spells.
Eg - Fire Counter Spells, Ice Counter Spells, opposed to Steadfast Ward.


eg - While channeling Fire Ward - Absorb 100% of the spell into Magicka, it could also cost less magicka to sustain than the wards.


I would also like to see some spells that deal with transportation.
eg -Transportation between cities
Transportation to other realms?


I also have my heart set on a ritual based system, combining magic and alchemy together, with a little enchanting and smithing (in effect, such a system would unite all the trades)
We always read the lore books in the game, that talk about wonderful rituals etc, but we never get to do any of them, infact, the closest we get, is seeing some boi stabbing a corpse, or stabbing the woman from the assassins guild.

It would be great to be able to setup some sort of 'travelling' ritual bag/altar or something.

You just take it out, put it on the ground, drop a few things into it, and cast the relevent spell, and it does a similar thing like what the necromancers moon effect does.
eg- Soul Trap transmutes one gem into a black gem.


eg - Drop the altar, place a sword on it, place 5 Nightshade, 3 Nirnroots and a Filled Black Soul Gem on the altar also.
Cast a Spell on the altar, and *optionally, if we wanted to include a new skill 'Ritual', a roll can be made against that to see if it succeeds.
if the ritual works, the reagents are consumed, and the blade is enhanced with x
x being possibly a Permanent Nightshade poison effect, as well as moderate fire damage?
(It would in effect have bypassed the Alchemy station, because you used the Nirnroot and Nightshade's pre-processing)