Have you ever used the Construction Set before?

They make the game with these tools, as in they put everything together, make the world, quests, NPCs, scripts etc.

But the engine isn't made in the Creation Kit. Neither are the meshes, or the textures, or the shaders. These are all used in the Creation Kit, as in loaded in and used, but they're not made in it. In Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout, spell effects and skills were hard coded into the engine. You could not change them in the Construction Set/GECK, because they were simply added on an engine level by the programmers. If an employee needed a new spell effect, they'd have to ask the programmers to code it in for them, this has been said by an actual Oblivion developer. We obviously can't do that.

So for all intents and purposes, things like spell effects and skills are hard coded into the engine. We cannot change them or add new ones.

So for all intents and purposes, things like spell effects and skills are hard coded into the engine. We cannot change them or add new ones.

I only use light armor...

Ignorant question asked out of genuine curiosity:

I have seen at least one mod (Balanced Magic, I think) that replaces some perks with others entirely (e.g., Mage Armor becomes "Less is More"). Was this only possible because the mod was made WITHOUT the Creation Kit, or will other such changes be possible with the Creation Kit? If so, you could always redesign the Two-Handed or One-Handed tree somewhat so that some perks add to Hand to Hand damage, no?

H2H raises your One-handed skill, and some of the perks sound like they could actually affect your H2H damage.

Yeah I think that's a crucial detail that skyrim is missing.

H2H raises your One-handed skill, and some of the perks sound like they could actually affect your H2H damage.

H2H does not level up one-handed skill, and doesn't benefit from any one-handed perks.

Good to see I didn't miss it. Any suggestions on how best to advance a HtH character that would prefer to stick within the Light Armour category?

UESP has a rather lenghty treatise about unarmed in general. Even if you had all the relevant stuff(heavy armor perk, daedric gauntlets, three HtH enchantments, Khajiit) you'd still run out of steam sooner or later.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Combat

we are able to change skills and magic effect with the CK, but we cant add any new ones and often the changes to skill that can be made is very limited

Ignorant question asked out of genuine curiosity:

I have seen at least one mod (Balanced Magic, I think) that replaces some perks with others entirely (e.g., Mage Armor becomes "Less is More"). Was this only possible because the mod was made WITHOUT the Creation Kit, or will other such changes be possible with the Creation Kit? If so, you could always redesign the Two-Handed or One-Handed tree somewhat so that some perks add to Hand to Hand damage, no?

Wow. I'm only level 10 and feel I have already hamstrung my characters early development by relying too much on my claws. All those wasted skill points I could have been accumulating by using a sword/axe/mace. Just wanted to have my thief by less 'traditional'. Guess I'll have to focus on developing a weapon of choice more.

Those changes are of a very basic nature, and can be done by anyone with a hex editor and a knowledge of how to read the files. Creation of effects is very different, and cannot be done that way. In fact, they cannot be created with the CK either, as they have to be coded into the engine from scratch. We can change the various aspects of an effect, as well as the delivery method, but we can't really make new ones.