In past games the imperial race was a thief/warrior or 'Rogue' style build, with bonuses to some fighting skills and the speechcraft style skills.

What happened to them in Skyrim? Suddenly they lose all their speech skills and instead gain.....restoration?


Now i can understand they picked Restoration (representing the Imperial Cult), but the biggest defining factor of imperials, that they are skilled dipolmats, has been completely removed......even the game guide says they are skilled traders and dipolmats...but other then their racial power, this isnt represented.

This has also meant that there are no human theif races anymore (only beasts and wood elves).


What happened? Im guessing it was for the sake of balancing out the races....but seriously? Its like giving Bretons a bonus to Two-handed.

Everyone is a well rounded character in Skyrim. Any bonus skill points you get based upon your class will be quickly changes if you play a different way to how those skills suggest.

You can make an Orc thief just as easily as a Khajiit thief. There are no consequences of picking any of the races, very little dialogue change, all quests are still avaliable to you, skills don't matter as your race isn't an important impact upon them.

Imo this is wrong, Bethesda say they wanted to make all the races different from each other then all they give you is a reletively weak racial power and different aesthetics rather than any real change to gameplay

This is Skyrim. Where have you seen a decent imperial diplomat in Skyrim?

What an earth are you talking about? There are no character classes anymore, so forget about "thief race". I never play the beast races and very rarely elves, but in Skyrim you can play any type of character with any race! The advantages/disadvantages in skills are so minor that they have little effect on the long run.

Maybe it's some sort of gameplay-story integration? The Empire has fallen out of favour since the ending of the Septim bloodline, the sessation of many provinces, the loss of the Great War, and the White-Gold Concordant so the "Voice of the Emperor" doesn't carry nearly as much respect as it did in the 3rd Era.

Thats no the point I'm making though.

I know you can play any race any way you want.....but its just that balance has overtaken lore in this case......Bretons have better starting speechcraft then Imperials.....reason? There is none.

I played a Nord thief and she was boss, thank you.

Yeah I get you, but I don't think those "starting bonuses" are so important (even lore-wise). I think the world should have reacted more strongly to the race you chose! For example, argonians and khajiits! The races are all too similar in that sense.

EDIT: I'm talking about something more concrete than a few lines of dialogue

Diplomacy? in Skyrim? No way man: THIS. IS. SPART... ahem, SKYRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM *waves 2-handed axe on people's face*

I have played an Orc priest once, never touching any weapon or the destruction spells.

This is a result of the perk tree, with the removal of classes and attributes you can only become what you play so to speak. In a way every race starts off pretty much the same now.

I have played Skyrim for 122 hours now and i still can't decide if i like or dislike the perk tree over attributes.

This still counts. For quite a bit. Speechcraft isn't as big a part in this game by far as it was in previous games. Of course they're going to give Imperials a minor bonus to something else. With 2-3 levels, this shouldn't matter anyway. Without attributes, things are actually a lot more equal now.

The starting bonuses on the skills in Skyrim don't matter, it's easy enough to level the skills anyways.
Actually the Imperial race is the best thief race in Skyrim, because their racial ability, Voice of the Emperor, is very useful if you [censored] up and get caught.
Also, being able to find more gold is nice and fits well for the thief role.

The Khajits, Argorians and Bosmer, which get better starting bonuses for their thief role, have racial abilities which are either useless for the thiefs or svck in comparison to the Imperials racial abilities.

I made an Orc monk/priest in Oblivion, with bare fists, bare torso and mysticism, alteration etc.

Oh and it must be because of Skyrim skill tree and only 3 stats, yeah. The race bonus of previous games would totally stick you to a predefined role, obviously. LAWL.

Even if the starting bonuses don't matter, they still contradict the lore. Just try to imagine what might happen in the next game with how Bethesda decided to do things in Skyrim: gameplay > lore.

Sure, open worlds are what make TES games special, but so is the lore. And now Bethesda is slowly shifting away from that just so they can achieve a miniscule sense of balance between the races (which is utterly absurd).

Nords get the Speech bonus I guess because of being on their hometurf. Imperials are currently out of favor in skyrim because of the White-Gold Concordat. I would like to see some kind of minigame ala Oblivion for Speechcraft. Now it's just bribe them, intimidate them, or persuade them.

I was disappointed at the changes to Imperials too, at first. I couldn't figure out why on earth they got a big boost in Restoration and a boost in Destruction.

Then I had a look at the guide book - and it made sense. Instead of representing traders/diplomats with minor combat ability, in Skyrim Imperials are thought of as battlemages. I still wish they had a Speech boost, but I can at least see where they were going with it. Imperial battlemages are kind of well-known, so it is somewhat lore-friendly.

Anyway, I don't mind these changes as long as there is some reasoning behind it. I just think of it like we're exploring a different aspect of the Imperials. They're not all debonair merchants.

All that said, I can understand the surprise. I think Imperials got the biggest overhaul in terms of skills out of all the races, with Dunmer a close second (no one-handed? no archery?).

or maybe they have fallen out of favor with the divines

I'm bugged by the change in Imperials as well... The +10 really should have gone to Speechcraft, with the +5 Restoration going to their sub-skills, perhaps replacing Enchanting or Destruction.

Instead, they've been shoehorned into the "Crusader" class from previous games. Nords have become "Barbarians". Orcs have become "Fighters". Redguards have become "Spellswords" (WTF?), Dunmer have become Nightblades, etc...

I think the races really were poorly thought-out this time around :/

I really dislike how people label race as "thief races" or "warrior races". The truth is that all races can excell at any trade in any o the ES games, no matter what their beginner stats were.

On topic: I think it is strange that they have removed Speech from the Imperials skill bonuses and a bit out of place. However I think it is more annoying that they no longer have a natural ability linked to persuading people, like the Voice of the Emperor was before. Something simple like a 10% effectiveness bonus to persuasion insread of the Imperial Luck thing would be appropriate.

I'm okay with most of the changes, but Nords starting with more speech than Imperials seems a bit odd. Sure, some Nords are known for their voices, but Thuuming and haggling aren't quite the same thing.

This is actually a part of their lore. Though it is a very very small part and only a select few were able to create a sword with the power of their own mind. Basically bound sword. No other magic.

But those beginner stats do weight them toward the three archetypes. Disliking the races being called "Thief Races" or "Warrior Races" is... kind of ridiculous. Like Waitrons.
So why don't they have Conjuration as one of their schools? Most redguard mages were famous for Bound Swords and Necromancy (See - the resurrection of Prince A'tor. But, they re-animated his sword instead.), not flinging fireballs.

I was not refering to the fact that certain races have more beneficial beginner stats to a certain archetype, but that people gives them to much value. I have been a member of this forum for about a year noe and I can't really tell how many times I have seen people talk about how race x can't be archetype y.

Actually, all races are all-rounders now. All skills can be raised to 100, no stats, no limitations.