The same way being able to be constantly invisible is game breaking. You can't attack or interact with your environment at all in that position.

It's way too easy to just cast or summon then become invulnerable during combat. It's also a free "timeout" anytime you get close to dying. Just another reason this game is easily broken.

Vampires are undead, that's the part that makes the player undead.

I agree, I don't think it's game breaking, but for 1 perk I do consider it "overpowered". (Only the extra effects on Vampire of course)

For comparison the alteration perk called Stability also is lvl 70 (like Necromage) and provides a respectable 50% increased duration's for alteration spells. Whereas Necromage does it for all your self cast spells, with 25% increased power, and +25% enchants and shouts. There's not a single perk that even comes close to those kind of bonuses.

In Morrowind you could make constant effect invisibility rings. Very nice in Bloodmoon where the island was packed with enemies and you had to run from one end to the other all the time to do quests.
Yes you could use it together with the constant effect summon fire elemental.

and in Oblivion you could enchant an armor set with 20% chameleon each piece, which stacked at 100% total. more pieces needed, but same thing. i could go anywhere and wreak havoc with not a scratch to show for it

Another interesting thing realized here is that vampirism is not just benefited from mages/thieves anymore. Since the necromage perk applies to spells casted on ourselves, we can be vampire warriors or battlemages. Imagine a vampire warrior in enchanted heavy armor casting iron flesh on themselves and that spell boosted because they are undead, before charging into battle wielding an enchanted two handed sword .Then there is the boost on potions drank. We vamps still have to study some magic but just enough to boost our power. I can't wait to experiment. I'm getting visions of Underworld's death dealers.

Doesn't seem all too powerful to me, except for gaining relatively small boosts to some obscure skills. Some of these boosts can be attained by drinking fortify restoration potions. Some of these boosts are also better obtained through enchanting alone.
No one seems to have pointed out that this 'trick' also boosts the effect of negative 'spells' thrown at your character, making fire spells even more effective against yourself.
Also, certain quest spells will have a much increased duration (such as Brelyna's practice spell during the mages guild quest, the 'out of balance' effect also during the mages guild quest).

The positives seem very minor, so I won't go down this route. Plus it'll probably be patched soon now that everyone's talking about it.

i doubt this will be patched, how long has the restoration loop been known?

There have only been three patches so far, and with each patch some exploit has been fixed.


Maybe it won't get patched. 25% pushes 8 to 10. 20 to 25. Is the boost really that huge enough to warrant the time needed to raise restoration to 70, and the 3 perks lost? All this coming with a 25% weakness to all offensive spells, and increased weakness to fire. Along with stunted health, also boosted by the perk.

50% increase in duration for some spells does sound good, but most spell casters can gain a 100% increase in duration by simply... casting the spell again!

Bar necromancy, I see nothing substantially amazing

If you use the alchemy/smiting/enchanting route and don't care about the worn effects, you can utilize the benefits this offers and then cure your vampirsm. This allows you to go about your day with superior gear than you'd have with the loop, hitting the armor cap without using any perks or capping your resists on races that normally could not. The positives are far from minor, even if you don't want to be a vampire full-time.

Ehhh I do want to be a vampire full-time, and already am... but I don't have enough perks to throw into restoration.

If it gets patched I've essentially wasted my time grinding all the way up to 70 resto, and spending the 3 perks.

And I remember my previous vampire kept getting zapped to death in one hit by Thalmor Justiciars
This might just make me die faster.


The most powerful boost of all is turning the difficulty slider down to easy. With this knowledge, I started to realise that trying to maximise everything was pretty pointless. I don't even reload after a failed pickpocket.



Now if there were a way to make vampiric drain actually worth using... I'd take it.

I don't see why it would do that, since the perk only affects spells that the game considers the player to have cast, not other people.

Someone should test to confirm, unless it's already been tested. If this is true then blessings, etc., are considered by the game to be cast by the player.

Comparing an obvious looping exploit with being a vampire and simply spending one point in Necromage doesn't seem fair. With that logic of yours none of the perks are powerful since you can have a million HP and oneshot everyone even without any gear and perks with the dumb looping exploit.



No.

In order for a effect to be increased by a +25% magnitude and/or +50% duration it has to comply with BOTH of the following conditions:

• Be cast by you.
  
• Be cast on you. (Translation: it has to show up in the "active effects" list.)

Magelight vs Candelight is a good example. Candlelight is the ball of light that hovers above you and it shown in the active effects list, thus gains a +50% increased duration. Magelight is the ball of light you cast at a specific location. It is not shown in the active list and only lasts for the original duration.

Enemy spells obviously aren't cast by you, thus are not being increased. The +25 stamina blessing on Whiterun does get increased by 25% to a total value of 31. Since you're the one actively touching the blessing it counts as you casting it apparently.
So far the only exception to this rule I've seen is the +25% to the vampire dis-benefits to stamina/health/magicka. For some reason it must count as you casting it as well, but the +100% frost resist (and -100% fire) are not, and thus not increased. It would make more sense if they fall into the same category. The only reason I can think of why the game developers decided otherwise is because the stat reduction is daytime/nighttime specific unlike the +/- resists so it is less permanent is needs to change more often. They probably threat it like a blessing.


You're obviously biased because you either can't or don't want to use this new discovery. The fact remains that it's the strongest effect a single perk can give you. They are not minor at all, and using "Bethesda will fix this soon" as an argument won't do you any good I'm afraid.

Someone needs to tell me why this thread isn't stickied yet?

On topic, I am a werewolve and will probably stay that way for the rest of the game, but on my next playthrough I may go a vampire after this discovery. But a few things still worry me though. mostly the fact that if you go a few days without feeding everyone hates you lmao. Is there some way to counter this, apart from drinking blood of course, but I have a mate who is a vampire, and he copes very well as it, but I used his save once and I failed, big time. Maybe it just needs more skill?

You just have to prepare differetly when playing as a Vampire. There are certain things (such as feeding) that you need to take into consideration before heading out into the wilderness (or heading back into town if you've been "in the field" for a bit). It really isn't a question of skill so much as keeping pretty constant tabs on your characters current status.

I have a blast playing as a Vampire. I don't think that the "downsides" are that bad at all and are easily outweighed by the benefits.

The easiest way is to have a follower. You find so many beds & bed rolls in the wild and they come with you every time you go home, that there is no excuse for becoming stage four if you do not want to. Just tell them to lie down and they'll let you feed without any complaints about it.

This.

And with fast traveling to the farms outside of Whiterun (or any city for that matter), there should be zero reason to have to stay at Stage 4 if you don't want to. Just hit the farms a little after 1 am and you should be golden.

It's probably safer to fast travel to stables or farms outside major holds as a rule and sneak into town from there. Less risk of finding yourself surrounded by half the guard.

Yep, embrace of shadows always saves my vamp butt too, when I forget to watch my stages. Turn invisible and sneak into a house late at night and feed.

Naw. You don't sneak into a town. Use the farms. They're well out of most guards' range, and the inhabitants are usually well asleep by the 1 am mark. After feeding it's typically a very short, safe run to a town. Then you can wait til 8am when the shops open and conduct your business. The farms are a much safer bet for feeding in times of emergency than sneaking into a town is.

vampire necromage increases everything by 25%. so the main question is. . . if you took the atronach stone (50% spell absorb), and then you took the alteration perk (30%) you would normally have 80%. but of course, as a necromage that would actually come up to EXACTLY 100%. spell absorb tends to absorb everything, like poisons, weapon enchants and. . . maybe sunlight damage? so that sunlight instead of harming your health, actually gives you mana instead (also fighting the stunted mana regen)? of course, at 100% absorb, the spell equilibrium would also recharge your mana insanely fast anyway.

It doesn't effect the armor or magic resistance boost for the lord stone so I presume the same would apply to the atronach stone. I doubt it affect the perk either.

interesting point about the lord stone. however, i just tried it in game. getav said my absorbchance while completely naked was in fact 100. after fighting 2 dragons on master and absorbing every breath for 5 minutes i decided that this was correct. the two dragons were vilimuuth and random - villimuth had an ice breath and the normal dragon had a fire breath. found them just outside bronze water cave.

interesting note, perk alone, getav absorbchance said 37.5. stone alone (after removeperk) said 62.5. this is exactly consistent with the numbers so far. after removing both, my character's absorb chance went to 0, as expected. this was control - in case some weird mod or glitch made it 100 without either.

i am currently using skyrim 1.3.

the next step was obviously to see if dragonhide would go up to 100% physical damage resistance. it does not, sadly. this was tested by casting dragonhide as a spell and also wearing dragonhide as an enchantment on armor. both produced 80% reduction, not 100%.