Hi,

The only school of magic I've ever been interested in has been Conjuration, since Oblivion. In Oblivion, Conjuration was very expansive- you could summon (different types of) zombies (actual ones), all the Atronachs, the rest of the Daedra (Imps, Scamps, Spider Daedra, Xivilai, Dremora, Daedroth, Clannfear), (many different) Skeletons, Liches, Wraiths and Ghosts. You could summon Bound armours as well as bound weapons.

In Skyrim, you can summon the Atronachs, a transparent wolf-patronus and a Dremora. No more Bound armours, just bound weapons. Then there are some reanimation spells you could do with the Staff of Worms in TES4 anyway, and some spells which banish daedra which are essentially gradually more powerful variants of themselves. Soul Trap is a worthwhile new addition....but people just enchant that onto weapons anyway.

Do you guys agree that Conjuration has been severely stripped down since Oblivion? I personally would like to see a DLC addressing most of the problems with magic (Destruction just seems too small, as does Illusion).

Yeah, magic is far less interesting in Skyrim. I don't play mages in RPGs, but I love to play necromancers and that's pretty much impossible now. D=

IIRC, the familiar can take on other forms depending on what it kills.

Animation (in various ways) wasn't available as a PC option except through a daedric artifact in Oblivion; now you can pull it off without that one item.

Conjuration also includes options that weren't previously found in Oblivion: double-summons, permanent summons, utility effects, etc.

There aren't as many individual creatures to summon, but the utility of what's available has increased.


Also, I suspect that if those other creatures were actually in the game then they'd be summonable, but right now there aren't any clannfear or scamps, and it's unlikely that they'd be added solely for the purpose of conjuration if they play no other role in the game.

Not just conjuration.
The entire magic system has been reduced to a hollow shell of itself.
Its a crying shame.

I mean it's not that bad. Pretty much if done right with enchanting you can become an endless whirlwind of death with infinite Atronachs.

Yep...thought so.

Gets sadder every time I type it.

I miss being able to summon creatures from Oblivion... And don't give me that 'Oblivion was shut off after Martin sacrificed himself nonsense'. If so, then why can we still summon Dremora Lords? =P

I miss my Clannfear, Hunger and Shambles ._.

Imps are not Daedra, and you couldn't summon them in Oblivion, without mods

But I kind of agree with the OP. The limited number of summons is a bit disappointing. In Oblivion, I like the variety - in part because I could pick my summons based on the opponent's strengths or weaknesses.

It's called "Dumbing Down". Bethesda has turned that into an art form.

I see conjuration being the next school of magic to be stripped from the game completely. That is most likely the reason for stripping it down in Skyrim, so they have a reason to remove it completely in the next game.

Im in the minority i dont think it was nerfed at-all for what utility it has now as a whole its much more usefull in nearly -all- situations all theyve done is taken out some (ok alot) of spells.

i prefer Quality over Quantity and thats what i beleive Conjuration has in Skyrim.

I'm all for quality over quantity but if you don't give the school of magic enough spells to use than it will be made irrelevant and eventually removed from the game, just like Mysticism was.

There are already some mods which improve conjuration, mods which "fix" all magic schools, and at least one mod which adds like 100 new spells. Probably worth checking them out.

It's a mixed bag.

You don't have as many summons, which I was disappointed with, but the ones you do have seem fairly powerful. Just wish there were a few more. Does the perk that makes atronachs more powerful work on the Dremora?

You can actually play a necromancer in a way you couldn't in OB, without the artifact (I never had it or tried it in OB). Wish you could summon zombies, etc..., but raising the dead seems more necromantic-ish than summoning undead from thin air. And skeletons are weak as heck in Skyrim anyway.

You can have two summons/undead out at a time with Twin Souls perk (you couldn't in OB) and more, I think, with Ritual Stone.

Not sure what the other "Utility" spells/perks are in Conjuration as I only focused on raising dead so far with one of my characters.

So you lose some and gain some. It could be better though.

Edit: I was really disappointed that they do not have bound versions of every weapon in the game. Like bound battleaxe, waraxe, greatsword, etc.. Bound armor would have been nice, but I could live without it. Especially since you can't make your own spells to combine the 4 pieces into one spell.

they nerfed everything, so it's kinda logical that conjuration is nerfed as well

Your title is misleading since I think that Conjuration has actually got buffed when compared to one from Oblivion.
Still, I think that whole magic system is kinda... meh.
They covered just the very basics.

Compared to magic as a whole or the other magic schools, Conjuration got through almost unscathed. Yes there are less daedra to conjure, but it is basically as effective as in previous games.

cant argue with that haha, although i did personally view Mysticism as near-useless anyway so im not bothered by that, everything inside the school could of been distributed to other schools much like it has been but yes most of it has been removed which is a shame.

however Conjuration will never be removed and my original post still stands conjuration hasmore quality than Oblivion and definatly more than morrowind the other schools however are a discussion for another time



I dont think they've nerfed everything at all what they have got now has alot more structure and point to it the magic systems still needs alot of polish but i think its in a much better place than what is was in morrowind and oblivion, dont get me wrong alot of the removed stuff i want to see back but above all i'd prefer to see them perfect this magic system in a DLC maybe (free preferably) or in the next tittle.

p.s. combining spells for new effects through duel casting please! (spellmakings old system can kiss my buttox )

"nerfed" would mean that it got weaker, but conjuration is very strong. it's just smaller.

WHERE ARE THE SCAMPS, Skyrim Totally failed for me with no Scamps. They were kind of like the mudcrab being in every elder scroll game for me

yeh i miss scamps actually.

Humm... they gave us one (fairly smart and powerfull) that costs us 0 magica to summon plus fire/ice/storm and raise dead. Seems plenty enough.

Nerfed as far as selection. Buffed as far as powerful. Plus the addition of reanimate. Oblivion had it, but it was hard to get. Even then you were limited to it's use.

I'd like to say that there's one change in Skyrim I really like - the raise dead spells. I never liked that you "summoned" zombies. Figuring out how to use raise dead to turn *anything* into a zombie was one of the things I figured out in the first few minutes of my gameplay (well, after leaving the cave), and I love that aspect of Skyrim.

You don't just have one universal summoned zombie - you can have a human warrior zombie, or a necormancer zombie. . . or a wolf zombie, a sabre cat zombie, a draugr deathlord zombie. I haven't tried it (stopped playing my mage awhile ago), but I imagine you can even have a Giant zombie if you have a high enough level of the spell (well, it may be there's no version of the raise dead spell which can zombify a Giant, not sure).

I mean, how much cooler is that than the zombies from Morrowind or Oblivion?

I do miss my Golden Saints, though. . .

Too bad reanimation spells (except Dead Thrall) bug your game, unless they patched that.

What bug is that?

Sometimes the lack of quantity can negatively impact the quality of the experience.