Oblivion:Gripes/Spells and Spell-Making

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

This article provides Spells and Spell-Making gripes, as part of the Game Balance section of the Gripes article.

There are many other spells in the game for which it would be practically impossible to find a valid use. Most notably, Burden spells are totally pointless unless you happen to have an extremely high-magnitude version of one. You'll never find an NPC carrying so much gear that they're almost over-encumbered. [Wait! this spell is fun. Cast it! Stop 'em! Pelt em with spells and arrows! Works like a charm, best on solo highway bandits] Similarly, effects such as Absorb/Drain Speechcraft are pointless and just clutter up the player's spell list. In order to make (some of) those spells useful, it would be nice if you could cast an absorb ability spell on someone whilst hidden and have them not react to it. Then you could at least drain a merchant's Mercantile before doing business with them.

The Burden Spell is more useful for rapidly draining fatigue in an enemy that is using heavy armor and weapons (especially war hammers). Increasing the fatigue rate makes enemies more prone to being knocked down/back than normal. Note however that a damage or drain fatigue spell accomplishes the same thing.

If the player wants custom spells, he/she must join the Mages Guild and gain entry to the Arcane University. (also an immersion murderer, with the Wizards Tower plugin you don't even need to join the mages guild. Apparently you inherit [without moving a muscle] a wizard's tower which is more complicated than the entire Arcane University)

There are addons which remove the necessity of joining the guild, and if you do not like the idea of inheriting a tower you may simply choose not to use it. The best part of such a non-linear RPG is that you can choose how easy or challenging you want the game to be.

I know almost nothing about modding, but it was the simplest thing to create my own FreeMage mod, and drop down two altar objects (enchanting & spellmaking) in the entrance hall in each Mages Guild. There are more important issues that need fixing, such as the scaling. The mod for that took an enormous amount of time to make as far as I'm aware.

Having to purchase spells in order to make your own spell with the same effect dramatically throws off balance for certain schools of magic. Since I start the game with a fireball spell, and a restoration spell, I can make any size destruction spell (from a 1 second 3 damage fireball to a copy of the "Enemies Explode" spell) for any skill level without having to purchase another spell (same goes for a healing spell). However, if I want to conjure up an entire Daedric armor set, I'd have to find someone who sells the helmet spell, the cuirass spell, the boots spell, etc. The conjure dagger spell I'm given at the beginning of the game will only allow me to change the time interval of the conjuration, not what's be conjured (it's also the same problem with conjuring creatures).

But spells you create are very limited by your skill level in said school of magic; how is this a problem since it has a built in control?

This actually makes complete sense... you can't create your own custom spells unless someone has already taught you how to do so. Otherwise, why buy spells when you could just go create them? You think it would be more fun or more fair and balanced to learn a conjure dagger spell and be able to conjure an entire set of armor and weapons?

While some schools of magic have little limitation on the power of the spell, others have huge limitations. The most powerful "feather" spell that you can make for yourself is 100 points for 2 minutes - it can be cast by someone with a skill level of 25 in alteration. Yet, I would basically have to be a master of Destruction for me to max out any one of the 3 sliders used to create a destruction spell. The decision to limit time spans to 2 minutes, and magnitude to 100 points in nearly all spells feels far more arbitrary than necessary.

Raised Spellmaking/Enchanting Limits helps with this issue.

That has more to do with the usefulness of the effect. A 100 point feather spell that lasts 10 seconds is not useful; you'll have to cast it innumerable times to get a little extra loot from that backwoods cave to Skingrad. Now, a 100 point fire spell that lasts 10 seconds... you'll be eating fried troll in no time. I just makes sense that buffs last longer while costing less than raw damage.

Game is inconsistent with itself; If the maximum fire damage is 100 points using a spell-making altar, how could there be a 110 points fire spell? Is there more advanced equipment, which I as the Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild do not have access to? Yeah right.

Your character is simply using the alter to perform quick-and-dirty spellcraft- As is stated in the game many times, spells are normally developed over time through research, by people working together at the complex task- The spell you were taught took some high-end scholarly NPC a large amount of his life to design, and he is a spell-creation specialist. Whereas you, are not.

You must pay to use a spellmaking altar. This makes sense in the arcane university where you would be paying for the service, but not in Frostcrag Spire where you own the altar and the money just vanishes to nowhere. Perhaps in Frostcrag Spire you could have to buy new candles once in a while or something.

The money is simply used for research (even though that is another problem: why doesn't the time pass). I guess spellmaking would need some research to determine what is the correct formula or stuff like that.

Alternatively, you need to sacrifice gold as a magical prerequisite to creating a spell.

Without having to sacrifise anything you could make anything you wanted with no limitians. Thats extremly unbalanced.

While I don’t think these spells Turn Undead and disintegrate armor/weapon, are useless I do think their a bit weak. For example the Turn Undead spell besides making undead flee should also have damaged their health as well so if you hit a dread zombie with a turn undead level 25 for 30 seconds spell, why doesn’t it damage their health as well for thirty seconds? This would've made the spell a lot more beneficial then just having them flee while you hit them with fireballs, and would’ve provided an undead only damage spell so if you accidentally hit a follower with the spell they would not take any damage, this is something they should’ve changed in Oblivion. Also the Disintegrate Armor/Weapon spells are very weak in this game, if you cast a 100 point duration spell for 5 seconds with either effect it only does 100 points damage, this is frustrating since these effect could’ve made combat much more interesting for me since I like to play with my enemies before killing them.

Disintegrate weapon is easily one of the most useful spells in the entire game. Sure, you cant blow your foe's sword apart with one simple flick of your wrist, but it's not like you are limited to casting it once a day or something. If you could destroy any weapon instantly, there would be no thrill in facing a fully-armed bandit when you are a robed mage with a dagger.

The point about the gripe is that the Disintegrate spell effects don’t work over time so you can only make a 100pt damage spell instead of a 50pt damage spell that lasts 10 seconds and would’ve done 500pts. Damage so say if you want to get the Sword Umbra without killing the NPC Umbra you have to repeatedly cast this spell over and over again constantly instead of just making two or three duration spells that would’ve saved you time and been overall more enjoyable.

Their’s only one creature you can summon in Oblivion (the Black Bear) and that’s only if you have the Spell tomes DLC, you should’ve been able to summon a Mountain Lion, Wolf, Imp, Ogre, Goblin etc. The only things you can summon in the vanilla version of the game are Daedra and Undead; Bethesda should’ve made it so you could summon creatures as well.

Summoning in Oblivion is described as drawing on otherworldy energies etc to bring entities from the void. Deadra are spirits, inhabiting the planes of Oblivion, and are not tied to Tamriel, but they can be bound for a time by summoning them. Same goes for undead, they're floating about in some form of underworld or whatever, so can be unceremoniously yanked back to the world of the living for a bit. Living stuff, however is already bound to Tamriel, so you can't summon it from another realm right next to you. (Which is why the Black Bear summon ruined the coolness of summoning a bit for me..)

Spriggan is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that can summon a creature which is a bear. Maybe thats why its the only creature you can summon, or a Spriggan lost its Tome and you found it.

In Bloodmoon you could summon wolves and a bear; also in Morrowind you could summon Centurion Sphere. So yeah it might not be a hundred percent lore correct but neither was the previous game, they could’ve named a summon creature spell as summon spirit wolf, summon spirit mountain lion, etc. To keep lore some what intact and allowed the player more options.

While magic has greatly improved since Morrowind there are still some problems with it in Oblivion.

1-You have to cast weakness to shock spell first before casting a shock spell to get the extra damage added by the weakness effect, you should just be able to create a weakness to shock 100% for 5 seconds, shock damage 20pts. for 5 seconds and get twice the amount of damage out that spell then having to first hit the target with the weakness affect then with shock damage.

2-There is no fortify attack spell in this game, this spell could’ve been added to Oblivion and just increased the base damage of your sword, blunt or hand to hand attacks, this seriously would’ve made fighting Hand to Hand a lot better, and would’ve been a great thing for warriors because it would allow them to add damage to their blade and blunt weapons after they already have their strength skills, attribute and armorer skill maxed.

3-You cannot cast a weakness to normal weapons spell or resist normal weapons spell in Oblivion, why this is not allowed I don’t know, seeing as these affects are not very powerful but would’ve allowed a character just starting in the game to cast a weakness to normal weapons spell on a ghost then attack with steel or dwarven weapon without it having to be enchanted. Resistance to normal weapons would’ve been nice just starting out in the game when very few enemies have enchanted weapons, I don’t think these affects would’ve been to overpowered because they pretty much become useless later on but starting out in the game they would’ve been very useful.

4-Why is there no Acid damage spell? Yes they got rid of the poison spell and made poisoning weapons available in alchemy which I love, but they could’ve made an acid damage spell to make up for the poison spell instead of not having it in the game.

5-No resistance to shock spell is available in the game, this would’ve been nice to have considering the fact that it’s not hard to get Daedric armor later on in the game and get that 85 armor rating. This would’ve been nice to have seeing how it would cost less then shock shield and would’ve been more useful since if you already hit the armor cap there is no need to cast a shock shield spell. Also to add to this the only way you can gain access to the resist fire spell is by playing a Dunmer why this is race specific I honestly don’t know, would it have been that hard to make it available to buy from spell merchants or having be attainable through a Doom stone like resist frost?

6-You cannot create your own custom Stunted Magicka spell in Oblivion, while spell tomes did add this effect it’s disabled at the spell making alter. The same thing goes for sun damage you get this affect in spell tomes but you can’t create a custom spell with this at the spell making alter.

Since the only time you take Sun damage is by being a Vampire or wearing certain gear I can understand how it might be one of those spells learned and passed down through the years to only a select few that are able to make things with the effect. So by learning it through a Tome you dont really know the workings of it to customize it.

You would think by learning it you would know how to customize it, seeing as how you can customize almost any other spell in the game simply by learning it.

Ahhh. But when you custom every other spell you were tought by a living thing not just a book. Also why would you want sun damage!!!!

Lastly, There is an acid spell. It's call disintegrate armor.

It should make no difference where you learned the spell, and massive amounts of Sun Damage could be used on an opponent to kill them.

To heck with being able to cast whatever spells you have enough magicka for, that just makes too much perfect sense, In oblivion, what spells you can cast are dependent upon your skill level in that school. Also, being unable to be a powerful mage without being a high elf or breton is very irritating, if you enjoy playing as a dark elf.

I think it makes perfect sense that you need to practice easier spells to build your skill in a particular magic school before you can cast the powerful spells. Magicka is a simply a measure of energy, not ability. I'd also argue that it's entirely possible to become a powerful mage with any race you like - it's just that some are more suited to it than others. That's in keeping with every fantasy or role-playing genre ever created!

They certainly made it easier to be a mage as any race in oblivion, but it can still be difficult to have enough Magicka for more powerful spells, but I definitely thought that their being a dramatic decrease in odds at lower levels was better than an either or system.

Why aren't there any Levitation spells? Levitating was totally awesome.

Well, for one, they made cities exist in their own worldspace, so if you were to levitate up and over a wall... "Wow, where did the world go?" It's also hinted at in lore that sometime between the events of Morrowind and Oblivion, a law was passed Tamriel-wide, banning the use levitation spells. My theory lies with a string of thefts or murders through levitation, but that's beside the point. The point is that if levitation was added, the game would have had to be designed differently, and I belive the devs stated that they tried the open cities route, and it caused lag, interfered with leveling, and caused A.I. issues... to put it simply... Levitating is now VERY illegal. Deal with it :P

Could they not put invisible walls to keep you from levitating out? like the ones they have at the borders? What's the difference really?

And what would one say at the open green field that is now displayed as Chorrol?

As to levitating being illegal: isn't summoning undead 'Necromancing' and therefor also illegal? in Oblivion you can do anything necromancers do; wander in caves, wearing the appropriate robes, summoning zombies, making black soul gems (and filling them?) Summoning the dead was also illegal in Morrowind, and guards attacked you and your summoned friends if you summoned them in cities but you had the possibillity anyway. So why would a simple law stop you from levitating? I still think it's a good idea not to include it because of the cities in their seperate cells though.

Summoning undead servitors is not necromancy, but conjuration, the necromantic method of their creation involves imbues corpses or bones with a life force, as can be exhibited by the ingame books "Corpse Preparation". Which is not to say necromancers aren't usually good conjurers.

Actually, necromancy isn't "illegal," it's simply banned in the Mages Guild. --GuildKnight^Talk2me 13:19, 14 February 2008 (EST)

Maybe you would break the law by levitating, but where would you get the spell from? Considering all the spell merchants in the game are law-abiding (except M'raaj Dar, and he wouldn't sell that kind of spell anyway).

a number of useful spells were not put in the game, such as blind, and slowfall. Mark and Recall also would have been nice, since there are some important locations, such as wayshrines, that you can't fast travel to. Also you can't fast travel when enemies are nearby.

Prev:  Game Balance - Armorer

Up: Game Balance

Next: Game Balance - Alchemy