This post is actually a little more narrow in focus than the title might lead you to believe.

I've heard people complaining about the removal of attributes and defined classes since it was announced, saying that we were losing all options for character variation. I've even seen people saying things as far-fetched as "Now everyone has to be a warrior, mage, thief or spellsword." (Because those terms aren't broad enough to define every class in every prior Elder Scrolls game ever, right?)

So my question, to those of you who hold this view, is this: What can't you do, in terms of character/class-type that you couldn't do in Oblivion or Morrowind? And I mean this in terms of meaningful differences. For example, "I can't cast Mark/Recall," or "I can't wield spears," are not what I'm looking for. I want someone to explain why they can't play a specific class (like a Nightblade, a Cleric, a Pilgrim, etc.) that was available to them in previous games.

Go.

Umm . . . how are you supposed to play a monk when there is no skill tree for hand to hand combat?

Since prior skill trees simply made hand-to-hand do more damage, I imagine that a Monk would make use of the Heavy Armor perk (doesn't require so much investment in the tree that it doesn't make sense) or just enchant a set of gloves.

Edit: At least, that's what I've done on my monk. He's pretty good at beating people up.

In the first place, what self respecting monk wants to wear heavy armor gauntlets? That is contrary to the whole notion of open handed combat.

In the second place, the maximum damage bonus you can get from Fists of Steel is 18 with Daedric Gauntlets (smithing does not affect the damage with the perk), so that is a total of 22 points that a non-beast race can do with hand fignting. Granted, you can add another 28 to that through enchanting, for a grand total of 50 points of damage, which is incredibly weak compared to what you can do with a weapon.

In the third place, who wants to play a monk that never gets any better at beating things up with his hands, while all the opponents in the game are constantly getting stronger in relation to the monk?

I can't wear pants..

My buttox is chilly....



FYI, since CCNA is on here... yes.. I totally stole that from your earlier post

For all purposes
*This comment has been trademarked to CCNA*


P.S. Toootaaalllyy Mis-read the end of your post otherwise I would have made it about a class Mulligan..

You can not play an Unarmored Character, which takes out some of the Thief/Assasin/Spy characters.

You can not play as an Unarmed Character, which takes out Monks and Healers

Khajiit can not use their natural abilities to any great extent.

Staves can not be used as Weapons, only as Enchanted Items, so those forms of combat are not available.

You can't knock anyone out, but that was patched out of Morrowind a long time ago.

You have to be an Enchanter to make Enchantments (as in you can't hire someone to make these things or re-charge them)

I agree with you on the Khajiit/Staves (although I'd argue that staff-combat wasn't exactly a sticking point of the series, since it wasn't around after Morrowind).

However, I don't think that the lack of a formal skill tree eliminates the ability to use a skill. I have characters who are unarmored and characters who are unarmed. They play very similarly to my characters who were unarmored/unarmed in Morrowind and Oblivion with one key difference: they're a lot more realistic. I no longer get a better armor rating on my skin because I've been cut a lot. Nor do my fists suddenly become lethal weapons against a dragon (although 22 points of unenchanted/unbuffed damage is actually a very good amount, considering that most unaltered daggers do less).

But the main point I'm trying to make is that the loss of things like an "Unarmored" skill tree didn't eliminate the playstyle. It just eliminated the ability to supposedly get better at wearing nothing.

• I can't jump from rooftop to rooftop, stalking my prey before I lunge down for a kill because I can no longer jump high enough to get onto a roof.
  
• I can't move in and attack an opponent and flee without using all my stamina because everyone in the entire world runs at the same speed.
  
• I no longer have to make the hard choice of having a large pool of magic and slow regeneration, having a small pool of magic and a quick regeneration, or having a medium sized magic pool and average regeneration because I no longer have to distribute my hard earned points between Willpower and Intelligence.

The last part is what I think is where the main "picking your class" came from. Attributes allowed us to really make a character our own. Although you can still customize yourself with perks and the general attributes, we lost the ability to make a Berserker warrior who used Heavy Armor and a Battleaxe, but could still outrun anyone and anything in Tamriel (without relying on a recharging sprint function).

I love Skyrim, but I still lament the loss of attributes. If they brought those back, but kept the silly major and minor skills out of the next TES game I'd be very happy. And fixing it is simple. Right now we have 3 attributes and one choice per level. If we dropped 2 of the Oblivion Attributes (say, Luck and Agility), we could just have two points to invest.

Hey, if you enjoy playing a monk that just gets beat up more and more as the game goes on, then more power to ya! I guess you are right that it is technically possible to play that way, just not that much fun for most folks. But nothing wrong with a few diehards doing it.

As far as unarmored goes, I think that is a lot more viable of a playstyle than unarmed without a skill tree, at least for an archer or mage because you can focus on keeping your distance, dodging and not being hit and healing when you are hit.

But back to your monk, since the archtype of a monk is unarmed AND unarmored, and since there is a skill tree for neither in Skyrim, and since you need to be really close to an opponent to beat anything up with your hands, I'd really like to see a video of your monk going up against a giant or a dragon or something. That'd be a hoot.

To be honest I haven't seen anything that suggest you can't play a class other then a Monk which is what I feel the OP is asking. He doesn't want to know what you can't do (as far as welding spears or jumping onto roofs) he wants to know why you can't play a class such as a paladin, or the example that has been given, a monk.

So far every class type available in past TES games, aside from a mnonk, can be recreated in Skyrim. Sure you don't have a title of "spellsword" or "Witch hunter" but that doesn't mean you CANT play as one.

IMO I feel a lot of classes are gimped, as in they are playable but not as enjoyable as they were. A paladin is my example. I can play as one (which I have done since paladin is my most favorite class of any game) but I miss being able to heal and cast wards while in the midst of combat. The fact I have to stop, switch my weapon/shield for a spell and then cast it while leaving myself open for attack kinda breaks the class a bit. Still I had a lot of fun playing as a Paladin in Skyrim.

100 strength 1 endurance, that is all.

The thing about a monk is if they made an Unarmed tree... at 1 perk per level, who would invest into it BUT a monk? You wouldn't put points into it just for the occasional brawl. Same with Unarmoured, who would use that BUT a monk? It wouldn't cater to the majority of player.

I cant levitate
I cant make spells
I cant really talk to NPCs
I cant throw knives
I cant turn off my compass with turning off my health bar
I cant look to my journal for directions
I cant ride my horse in first person
I cant enchant arrows
I cant barter
I cant kill all the NPCs
I cant take ownership of any house
I cant safely put my stuff in any container
I cant Admire taunt or intimidate NPCs
I cant ... I will just stop here there are many things I cant do that I would like to do don't take this as me hating skyrim I like skyrim I would like it a lot more if I could do these things.

Actually, if they had an unarmed tree, my Khajiit archer would put points into it, since he uses claws as a back-up weapon when he is surrounded and in too close quarters to use a bow. Granted he tries to avoid such situations, but it is not just monks who might want to put a perk or two into an unarmed tree, depending on what the perks did.

Also, you don't need to put perk points into a skill to make good use of it. There are plenty of skill trees that are useful without perks and some that have pretty useless perks (speech and lockpicking jump to mind).

Unarmored would be useful to a much broader audience. Archers and mages for instance could make good use of an unarmored skill tree.

I could use this list to make complaints about every RPG I've played so far. Thanx.

I think the main problem people have is that while you can do almost anything you could in the old games, all of it is shallower compared to the previous games.

Acrobatics, spell creation, armor repair and by extension damaging others armors and weapons, overall run speed variables, H2H as a skill, The things attributes covered that Skyrim doesn't, like luck and how personality could get you out of fights. And that's just from Ob to now, forget what could be done in Morrowind or even Daggerfall.

The thing is....

You can play a Monk, there is even an enchant and a perk to do this.

You can play unarmored, there are spells for armor even if you walk around in your underwear.

So, you are really talking about the efficiency of those builds and not if they are actually in Skyrim.

Things you can't do would boil down to a couple of things :

Levitate
Spell-crafting
Missing while making contact, though improper aiming is essentially a miss
Spell failure, though improper aiming is sort of a fail

And just about everything else I can think of can be done one way or the other.

Feel free to add to the couple of things you can't do, I will illustrate how it is possible and immediately eat crow if it isn't.

Everything I just stated above. You couldn't levitate in Oblivion either, since I believe we're talking from Ob to now. Otherwise there would be a huge list of things that can no longer be done in ES. And there's a whole ton of unique builds and play styles that are no longer viable as well. Better get that crow ready.

cant make a true ranger class anymore

Define 'true' ranger class?

Archery, no sneak, plus conjuration's familiar or the shout that command's animal... essentially a Ranger.

Again, this is an effiiciency problem... not an availability issue.

rangers are not archers

Well, playing a Monk in Morrowind was just stupid as unarmed didn't damage the health, it only damaged fatigue.

In Skyrim you can play a unarmed character and have it be viable. Khajits racial is incredibly powerful and you can grab the gloves of pugilist to get some more hand to hand damage.
I have a Khajit who's level 15 that can take on Dragons if he needs to.

For me Skyrim may have less options but the options actually mean something now. Older games have depth in numbers while Skyrim has depth in mechanics. A lot of the skills in previous games were incredibly shallow and did one thing and one thing only. You had no real flexibility to define your skills the way you wanted and each character ended up playing exactly the same.

I'm not saying Skyrim is perfect at making each character class different, but it adds a lot of subtle features that can be used to great advantage.

I dunno I just find it ironic that people called older games "deep" because they had more options when almost all the options were shallow.

Not really. There were more mechanics in previous games, and thus more play types. Especially since most of the Skyrim perks don't really add anything new to ES. Most are just numerical damage modifiers, magicka cost reduction prerequisites, or some other mechanic that had already been in ES.

Define Ranger then...

I'm not sure if you know what a Ranger is, or if I do for that matter.

Traps? Destruction Runes

Earth Meld? Restoraton

Dual Wield? Dual wield...

What else is there?