A common complaint people have is the lack of spells in skyrim (not to mention lack of spell creation, but thats another topic). The spell lists have become very streamlined, and I believe its because they wanted to make shouts special, and not be able to duplicate many of the effects by spells.

I came up with a few example of how if shouts were removed, they could be purposed into many different spells, giving spellcasters, much more variety:


Unrelenting Force: There could have being an "Air" line of spells added to the destruction school, basically low damage spells that have crowd control. Imagine a master level tempest spell that flung enemies about, or an air cloak that serves to repel your enemies, giving you protection while your companions dispatch them.

Another alternate would have been to flesh out a "Telekinesis" line in the Alteration school, making TK a novice level spell and have spells like a "psychic push" that damages and knocks back opponents, and "Psychic shout" that would be like an AOE psychic push. Not unlike the kids who got psychic powers in Chronicle.


Whirlwind Sprint, Elemental Fury & Slow Time: These could be repurposed into Alteration as a whole line of Haste spells to increase melee and movement speed, Slow spells to slow down your enemies, or a spell that makes you run/move at superspeed. Basically the Skyrim version of the Flash.


Animal Allegiance: Many people would like a whole line of animal summons, rather then the one lame novice Conjuration spell. People who want to play Shaman or Druid types (or even Rangers) would get a lot of use out it.


Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Ice Form & Storm Call: Everyone complains about the last of variety of destruction spells, and all of these could have been better to round out the destruction line. Also, why are there no "Poison" spells. Monsters have them, why not me?


Other spells (I'll just name them) that could have been included are: Web, Open Lock, Feather, Earthquake, Summon Mount, Vulnerability to [insert element], Enfeeblement (melee debuff), Animal Form, Turn to Stone, Wall or Aura of Fog (for Stealth), Wall of Wind, Undead Ally (undead ignore you), Poison Blast/Bolt/Touch, Water Walking, Heal over Time, and Blade Barrier


I know that there are mods that add tons of spells, but remember, there are literally millions of people playing Skyrim right now who are on Xbox 360 and PS3 who don't have any mods.

Yeah, but then what's special about the Dovahkiin? They are strong, but they all have a considerable cooldown. I don't believe it ruins magic at all. If you were able to spam it like Magic then yes it would, but with the CD it makes little difference.

He's saying shouts took away from spells you could have had.

No, they don't.

And what do you base that off? He just listed quite a few ways shouts took away from magic.

If we still had classes I guess my best description of how I play would be a Battle Mage.

I really only use Marked for Death and Unrelenting Force. So no they havent ruined it for me personally.

Left hand spell. Right hand Ebony Axe. If things get Hairy I will use one of the two Shouts

I do agree though that they removed far too many spells in favor of shouts.

And there are way too many combat specific spells.

Age old question...why should my Mage be forced to use lockpicks. I want open lock back!

To be honest I rarely use magic or shouts.

The time I did play a mage I never used shouts either. To be honest, like racial abilities, I often forget they are there.

Nope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This, kind of. I don't feel that the shouts get in the way of magic, mostly because I'm entirely fine with the magic as it is. Sure, it's not open as it was in Oblivion or Morrowind, but it's far less cluttered and more efficient... anyway, shouts. Nah, I think that it's fine. It might have had some effect on the magic system, but magic's fine as it is. It's far from ruined.

Although, should an ES: VI come, I have a feeling that they'll add some more spells to the magic system, mostly because everyone else seems to want them.

i think so?
yelling to get into the college of winterhold is silly

I do agree that Skyrim would be better for mage characters if there was capability for spell creation, but I found that on Oblivion, any spell I tried to make was terrible (that was just me, though)... that said, I would like another shot at it in Skyrim.

I see where you're coming from with the shouts replacing potential spells... but I is they brought in the shouts to allow warrior class characters access to what would otherwise be pretty powerful magic, whereas if they were spells, then the best ones would cost a fair amount of magicka, probably meaning that warrior class characters would have trouble with them. I think some of the shouts were chosen in favour of spells, but I think most of them are fine the way they are. I think there are almost enough spells... although I agree about the Open lock spell...


Yeah... Dovakiin's gotta be special somehow...


And its probably unlikely that the protaganist will be Dragonborn... again... maybe...

No. Shouts actually gives me a viable non melee/non archery option since Destruction is so underpowered. Unless your an Arch Pyromancer that is.

Nope. Magic is still more useful. If you think about it magic was already ruined due to not being able to create your own spells. Like in Morrowind.

Agree on the standard destruction spells being Underpowered. Some of the shouts are similar to current spells or flat out copy the effects so it didn't so much as take away from standard magic users it just made them a hell of a lot less unique from a gameplay standpoint.

i read in an artical before skyrim's release, that they cut the number of spells available and that the shouts made up for them.

Now that you all mention it, Open Lock spells. <3


My theory is a being with an unnatural connection to the Hist trees... fingers crossed for the Black Marsh.

I could have done without the whole dragonborn/main quest completely, or just removed the "dragonborn" or cut it down to just a handful of shouts. I mean, there's a shout that makes you friendly to animals for crying out loud.

I was really disappointed in the lack of spells in Skyrim. I guess the way I prefer it can be pretty cluttered but I like having a variety. It is part of the reason I'm moving onto the PC from the XBox -- mods!

I don't know whether or not Shouting is the culprit, however I can see where you are coming from.

Ah, brain fart, can't remember what I was going to say... I'll just say I'm more interested in being a mage than I am in being the Dragonborn. I'm weird.

Precisely. If spells could do everything that shouts do, nobody would use shouts. A lot of people (myself included) almost never use shouts, and there are some very useful ones.

I'm not necessarily anti-shout, but more pro-magic, and don't like that one got shafted in favor of building up the other.

I don't see why the shouts should be dropped for similar spells, not every game needs to have the full D&D spell list coppy pasted. Besides, exactly the lack of "haste" and "ethereal" spells make the shouts useful to every class somehow. I like the fact that my warriors finally don't have to be half-mages in order to set people on fire occasionally, my mage can get a little combat pause thanks to the ethereal shout.

The only problem I have is the lack of evil mustache options. Seriously, I can now finally play an evil necromancer and there's no mustache twirling after the battle?

This.

Thats coming in patch 1.7 I think.

Ah yes, together with the evil Batman villain laughter menu. That will be a glorious day!

I'm more upset about alchemy getting slow and diseases getting drain magicka and stamina regeneration and drain melee damage when there aren't corresponding spell tomes.

What on tamriel ever happened to silence spells?