It doesn't seem lore friendly.

If spells can be made by anyone why are there so very few spells (compared to infinite varieties possible) for sale?

Why was that chick in Chorrol so desparate to get Finger of the Mountain if she can just make a better spell any time she wants?

Why don't the enemies ever hit you with a 100% weakness to Magic 1 second, 100% weakness to fire 1 second, and 100 fire damage 1 second spell?

Not...Lore...Friendly?


did you play COW'S Questline? the APPRENTICES are making customized spells and testing them on YOU THE ARCH MAGE WHO CAN'T MAKE SPELLS....

you know what, your entire question can be answered with


Game Mechanics.

I don't know what COW is

EDIT Oh the College of Winterhold. Thought it was like a Daggerfall reference


Anyway, I don't mean spell making in general, someone has to make all those spells, I just mean as it's depicted in the games.

Spellmaking did make spell sellers redundant, and did create a problem with balance. But more importantly than either of these factors, it was FUN.

Sadly these days FUN takes the back seat.

At a certain point games need to provide enjoyment.

Is there a more subtle way to make lore, game mechanics, and game play work together? Sure, but it might not be worth the effort.

If the game were 100% realistic most of our characters would die of whooping cough or the flu before we reached level five.

No, it didn't make them redundant. You still had to buy all the spell effects first, similar to Enchanting in Skyrim.

perhaps its should have been a perk at higher levels....this way people who do want to make spells have the option........what happened to options in games.......skyrim needs a mootator mod

EDIT: im always thinking of ratchet an clank lol (mootator)

How about this, you can make spells but every spell you make is added randomly to NPC mage spell lists

Not because they copied your spell, but because if you can think of a powerful and potentially exploitive spell, certainly another high level enemy can as well

So let me get this straight.... Its ok to get rid of Spellmaking for balance reasons, but then replace it with smithing, alchemy, enchantment enhancements for melee characters?

So we exchange one unbalanced playstyle for another.... Totally unacceptable Bethesda.

Spellmaking was one of the best things with Elderscrolls games, in fact things like spellmaking are the exact reason why I love elderscrolls games.

i.e. open game world that gives you the freedom to do anything.... of course now not so much.

Shalidor's Mirror, Ulm's Juicedaw's Feather, Vivec's Kiss, Tinur's Hoptoad, Ondusi's Open Door, Erelvam's Wild Sty, Alad's Caliginy, Golanar's Eye Maze, Berevusa's Averted Eyes, Tevral's Hawkshaw, Almalexia's Grace, Sotha's Mirror, Vivec's Feast, Tranasa's Spelltrap, Vivec's Tears, Vivec's Touch, Rilm's Cure, Selyn's Gift, Balyna's Antidote, Vivec's Mercy, Rest of St. Merris, Balyna's Soothing Balm, Balyna's Efficacious Balm, Veloth's Grace, Veloth's Benison, Balyna's Perfect Balm, Baronoff's Bloody Icicle, Enemies Explode (created by the mage in the Bravil guild hall), Essence Drain (created by Mannimarco), Notorgo's Curse, Feet of Notorgo, Lord Mhas' Vengeance, Fader's Leaden Flesh, Dedres' Masterful Eye, Tevil's Peace, Didala's Knack, Daydene's Panacea, Salen's Vivication, Daerir's Blessing, Daerir's Miracle, Drathis' Soulrot, Feldram's Trepidation, Tendil's Trembling, Reynos' Beast Finder, Radrene's Spellbreaker, Alvusia's Warping, Taldam's Scorcher, Selis' Fiery Ward, Icarian Flight (created by Tarhiel), Gonar's Goad, Monden's Instigator, Illnea's Breath, Drathis' Winter Guest, Radia's Icy Mask, Uth's Hand of Heaven, Prince Ov's Brightbal, Lliros' Glowing Eye, Galm's Seal, Ekash's Lock Splitter, Sertists' Porphyry, Tousu's Abiding Beast, Tevlin's Courage, Inas' Chastening, Tranasa's Spelltwist, Fphyiggi's Gem Feeder, Tranasa's Spellmire, Reynos' Fins, Inasi's Mystic Finger, Daynar's Airy Bubble and Selyn's Mist Slippers are all either named spells or explicitly created by mages.

So much for "not lore friendly".

Okay, in that case you can make a sword that does hundreds of damage and absorbs health and magicka...and an exact copy is added randomly to enemy weapons.

Again, the only reason why I'm okay with Spellmaking being removed is because I feel it would conflict with the current casting gameplay mechanics.

If Bethesda can get it to work out well with the current gaming mechanics, then I am all about a Spellmaking DLC.

And considering 1.) how big Howard has stated he wants DLC to be and 2.) Bethesda's penchant for listening to the community, I have a hunch that Spellmaking will be around in a DLC somewhere. Worst case scenario, it will make a return in Elder Scrolls VI.

How about this, stupid lore nerds can choose not to use it.

Problem solved.

Mission Accomplished.

Yeah, I agree, the current magic mechanics don't jive with spellmaking - speaking mainly about the whole magicka cost reduction. If I can create a destruction spell that does 500 damage to a 50 foot radius and cost 0 magicka, then something is wrong.

I skimmed over that list and totally thought that said "Gonar's Gonad"

So you cut your leg off when you have a headache? If you see the Enchant system as broken, why would you eliminate a perfectly good system? Spell Making is not the issue, the Enchant system is. There are two camps on this issue, one that says you can choose to "abuse" the system if you want, or not - therefore it is fine. The other camp believes that the developer should put in parameters so exploitation cannot be done outside of the console commands or mods. I would have to tend to agree with the latter camp. You should not have to mod a game to NOT cheat by playing the game in a standard manner.

The Fingers of the Mountain book had a bunch of old Ayleid weather control rituals or something. The lightning spell she finds in it and teaches you was just a minor footnote she translated as a reward.

The magicka system is based around cost reduction. You don't even have to use enchants to see that. Look at the perk trees for magic schools - the novice to master perks do what now? Look at the random loot robes and mage gear - they don't increase spell effectiveness; they reduce magicka costs. It's pretty easy to see that the game creators intended for us to stack magicka reductions.

Spellmaking..

One way of wiping out everything in the room with 1 - 2 spells

Umm, spell creation didn't work like that. It was possible to abuse the system, but less so than the current crafting mechanics, so that's the worst argument, anyway.

Besides the fun, creativity, and the immersive feeling that you were playing an actual mage, there was one absolutely essential element of spell making: it provided an in-game mechanic for fixing bugs. Many of the spells BGS provided were useless, and spell making allowed you to create a useful version of a spell effect.

Skyrim is slightly improved in this regard. Now spells are usually useful at least for a few early levels, and then become only mostly useless. (exaggerated a bit to prove a point, but only a bit)

The whole magicka cost reduction was a bad idea, poorly implemented. 1st it's like they had no clue what perks to put in the magic schools so they threw in the cost reduction as filler and artificially raised the magicka cost to compensate. Then thought they might as well put it in as an enchantment so that even if your destruction magic didn't scale well late game you could just make it cost nothing and stun lock with impact until your enemy was dead. Went the wrong way with Fortify in this game. Magicka cost should have gone down as your skill went up (like in OB) and kept the costs reasonable.

If this wasn't in the game you could have spellmaking. Since enchanting is just a spreadsheet anyway you could do the same with spellmaking so that Flamethrower type spells and Runes are actually usefull later since it was too much trouble for Beth to make novice, apprentice, adept, expert, and master level spells of those types. Wouldn't have been hard, it's just plugging in higher damage/magicka costs and your done.

Well, spells can't be made by just anyone. I don't believe that everyone can use magic as I've fought many who never cast a single spell, even to save their life (guess they don't get a healing spell for free when they are born). And at least in OB you had to be a mage and get into the Arcane University to do so (not counting DLC). And I think in MW you paid a pretty good price for having a spell made and most people don't have that much gold even if you do. I mean, the average NPC villager might see a few hundred septims in a lifetime and can't afford to use it for spells. Not the tens of thousands that the player sees.

As for the weaknesses I think it was poorly implemented with stacking in OB.

And as for Finger of the Mountain, unless I'm not remembering correctly, if you tried to make that spell in OB the magicka cost would be higher. Kind of like that Weak Fireball spell you get in OB during the recommendation quests for the mages guild.

If they were to add spellmaking they would need to do something about the easily obtainable 100% spell cost reduction.

I agree completely.

Spell making allows mages to manipulate the the magic that flows from Aetherius. It is the deep philosophical and scientific study of the arcane. The unraveling of its mysteries, it has been practiced by mages for a very very long time how is that not lore friendly. Magic was created whenhttp://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Magnus_%28god%29 ripped when he left for Athererius.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Magic