As a primarily mage-type person, alot of my builds are very gear dependant. I'm hoping that the transformation into a death-dealing vampire lord will be gear friendly, and not like the werewolf transformation where you are pretty much naked. I'm saying this assuming that the transformation will allow us to retain all our normal spells and use them in that form. What do you guys think?

As far as I'm aware, they haven't revealed that info. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe werewolves in Beast Form do not retain armor stats or enchantments, so that may not bode well for Vampire Lords... But then again, I feel like that's a huge reason NOT to side with the vampires... And if I were bethesda, I'd be trying to make incentives/rewards rather than consequences/punishments, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm sure at the very least that if they do ignore armor in Vampire Lord form, they'll compensate with a bunch of cool buffs and spells so your character doesn't lose power.

I'm gunna say no - Vampire lords don't look like the type to wear clothing. Hopefully they will be rediculously powerful to counterbalance this.

This is what I am thinking werewolves loss all armor bonuses and such so I would expect the vampire lords to lose the same because from what we have seen they do not wear armor from the looks of it anyways. So yeah I would expect to loose all armor bonuses in favor to the transformation into the vampire bat creature.

Well, aside from losing all my armor enchantments, I am really shooting for Bethesda to allow us to keep our normal spells. I'd love it if I could cast a Blizzard, use shouts, and reanimate dead thralls in that form. In the trailer I saw the vampire lord flying in the Soul Cairn and it had two different spells in its hands, so that leads me to believe that it at least enables various amounts of spell casting. Not sure on the rest though.

That is one thing I an hoping they can do use the magic you have already learned, my one vampire is a great illusionist and I want to make him one of these lords and I would like him to be able to keep his spells.

I can see Spells being available. But it would look ridiculous to be carrying a sword and shield in that form.
Shouts also look to be available. At least I think that was a shout I saw in the trailer.

I'm not sure about using spells in vamp lord mode, they could give you a set of unique spells that you can only use in that form Or make all spells available. I personally think that the armor stats you have before going vampire lord should be canceled ... I mean like how the f* are you supposed to keep i on and intact when your wings grow out and stuff

Highly unlikely. Sounds like they're treating it like a werewolf transformation than regular vampirism, and such transformations are somewhat independent of your character.

One of the biggest problems with Skyrim is there are no consequences for ANYTHING and I for one hope there are trade offs for such power as well as rewards. It should be up to the player to decide if the rewards are worth it, not make it so the player can never make a mistake.

Maybe one of the big decisions for the player could be that the vampire lord form can NEVER be cured unlike the regular vampire form? Is it worth it?

There should be a mixture of both incentives/rewards and consequences/punishments otherwise what you do has no meaning

It looked like the detect life dragon shout, then again it could equally be a newer vampire spell for those that haven't gone down the MQ path

i actualyl wonder if the vampire lords have differen tmodels based on race and six. cause it would look silly if i had like an argonian and i would end up looking the same as a human. Not to mention playing a female Character and looking excactly the same. For a Werewolf its not much of an issue. For Vampires tho it is.

I'd like to not be limited to 3rd person as well. It would be pretty sweet to see that vampire life drain thingy from the trailer in 1st person as I svck the life from my victim

Well because you are changing into a different race it may not matter if you are Argonian or Nord because the apperance of the thing you are changing into is unrelated to the thing you were before, just a stab in thre dark though.

I hope there are different models for six and race though

Maybe everything but amulets and rings?

so far we have only seen their nord dragonborn transform. I believe more will be revealed at E3

werewolves lose all armor rating and enchantments when in beast form so to be fair im sure the same applies to vamp lord beast form

Might be a good bug to look out for. Wonder if shapeshifting alters anything in my active effects