I just started a new game in Oblivion and noticed that Mysticism wasn't in Skyrim (I know not the fastest pickle in the bunch), Does anyone know why it was cut as a magic school? From what I can see it was molded in with other schools, but was this done for the "dumbing down" of magic?

It kinda got merged, some stuff went into Alteration, most of the rest dissappeared. I never really liked that school of magick anyway so my knowledge of the spell tomes is hazy. Many have griped over being removed it elsewhere on these boards.

Magic schools are artifical in lore, but are in the games because it's a lot easier that way.

Or that's how I've understood it. Don't take the statement above too seriously.

It was replaced by enchanting, which wasn't a skill at all in the past.

As mentioned, the spells that still exist were moved to alteration and conjuration.

Many of them (nighteye, chamelon, command, charm, etc.) were just deleted. Enchanting and Mysticism were both skills in Morrowind (which had 28) skills. Bethesda has been trimming the number of skills with every game from 28 in Morrowind to 21 in Oblivion to 18 in Skyrim. By TES VII they will delete all skills just like they deleted attributes.

EDIT: Doh! I had a "senior moment" there. As the post below points out, those are Illusion spells that were cut from the game. The Mysicism spells that were cut include reflect spell, reflect damage, spell absorbtion and dispel.

I'm pretty sure those were illusion spells.

Ha! You are right! Need more coffee. My bad. The Mysticism spells that are missing are reflect damage, reflect spell, spell absorbtion, dispel, etc. Granted, reflect damage was a bit hard to get but once you got it, you could create your own spells with it.

M'aiq is very practical. He has no need for mysticism.

Just forget how many spells were actually deleted from the game. Kind of sad really.

actually they've been cutting skills since they started making TES, i know daggerfall had a ton of skills compared to morrowind

not to mention all the skills they cut are pretty useless and don't add much to the game.

Every time someone misses a skill, attribute or spell, immediately or as soon as physically possible someone suggests you never needed that, don't need it, they never liked it anyway....etc etc

When we're down to 3 spells they'll still say that....

It's uncanny. They actually don't mind the loss of choices, and many resent that you might miss them.

One thing about most choices- if you didn't like them, you didn't have to use them.

I think people are more making the point that the old magic system favored quantity over quality. Most spells had 5-6 different versions of the same exact effect, and there were probably 5 different spells that resulted in exactly the same outcome. Add in spellcrafting, and the whole system felt incredibly bloated.

Now, Skyrim's magic system isn't flawless, but they've cut out a lot of the unnecessary bloating and created a fundamentally solid system.

Also, Mysticism's effects from Oblivion (because it's pointless to complain about spells from Morrowind that were already removed from Oblivion) have been distributed pretty evenly among the other schools (and/or perks), with the exception of the Reflect Damage effects. I can understand why the developers didn't feel that an entire additional school of magic was necessary.

"Past games had much more skills."

Because we sure do miss the ability to talk to minotaurs on a scale from 1 to 100. More skills =/= better.

That does not surprise me. I play on console so I cannot play Daggerfall, but I have played the other three. Oblivion was my first TES game, liked it so much I had to track down a used copy of Morrowind.


Cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or serious with your comment here. Either way, opinions on this issue vary widely. Leaving the whole Atheletics/Acrobatics debate aside. personally I found many of the deleted skills to be very useful. Unarmed combat skill for a monk character, for instance. Unarmored was useful for a pure mage and some ranger thief types. Not to mention all the spells that were lost with the reduction and consolidation of the spell school skills.

It got streamlined out. What a joke.

Mysticism was one of the most fascinating schools. It was a school of metamagic. There's even an in-game book about it in the game.

Hell, Psijics were the masters of Mysticism ever since they were introduced. Of course when Skyrim arrived, it wasn't streamlined enough for the modern RPG consumer.

Todd thought the magical school of Mysticism was redundant. He couldn't be more wrong. Mysticism seemed to fall into one of two categories, given previous games.
1. The direct manipulation of soulstuff, magicka, and other primordial energies, as reflected in spells such as soul trap, dispel, spell absorption, etc.
2. Divination magic. eg. detect life.

Of course, in previous games, the developers mucked up what spells when where. Every D&D player knows Telekinesis belongs in Alteration, it took the devs 5 games to get it right?

Mysticism is the best possible school to make inquisitor or magekiller archetypes for this reason.

As for other spells, why did the devs get rid of some of the amusing spells, like Water Walking? J'derras wanted to be a 'Jesus-cat'

First, you are confusing "spells" with "spell effects." Sure prior games had several in game "spells" available at different strengths that used the same "spell effect"?

Second, how is Skyrim's system better when your spells become useless as you level? Oblivion's system is better because a higher level caster can use the same "spell effect" to create a stronger version so the spell remains useful. If Skyrim had some form of spell crafting or at least had "5 different spells" available from vendors with the same effect but different strenghts, then I could still make good use of those cool Rune spells at high level. The current systems reduces Runes to mere firecrackers at higher levels.

They also removed a great many "spell effects" like Mysticism's Dispel. Very useful if you are in a dungeon with your light spell up and hear some bandits up ahead and want to put it out quickly. Of course, Skyrim's dungeons are all lit up like the Vegas strip, so maybe Dispel is useless afterall. Guess there is no point in trying to take down your enemies' Ward spell or summon or flame cloak with a Dispel. That would be pretty useless too, I agree.


Not just reflect damage. Dispel is just gone, and I have not seen a perk that lets you reflect spell. (And it is not "pointless" to complain about spells from Morrowind. Enchant was a Morrowind skill that was removed Oblivion and reintroduced in Skyrim. Just because something was cut from Morrowind to Oblivion, does not mean they will never bring it back.)

Anyway, constant effect perks, like Atronach are no substitute for a durational spell for Spell Absorbtion that drains your magicka to cast. Plus most of those perks like Atronach are buggy as hell anyway. Don't try to cast any of your five summoning spells if you have taken the Atronach perk. Your success will be limited.

Just one of many things to get cut or "streamlined". Probably because the casual kiddies find too many attributes and skills to be a confusing "spreadsheet" of information.

Funny thing is, Waterwalking is in the game. Sadly, it is bugged when used on a player character - you start standing on the water, but you slowly sink as soon as you begin walking.