Races (Skyrim)

Skyrim's class system may be more appropriately called Skyrim's classless system, as Skyrim does not require players to select classes during character creation.

Starting Skills by Race
"The following table shows the starting Skill statistics for each Race. The higher the number (over the base level of 15) the better. Values of 20 indicate this is a Favored Skill of the race. Values of 25 indicate this is a Primary Skill of the Race." -Skyrim strategy guide.

Starting Spells by Race
The following table holds all of the basic spells for each race.

Stats Affected by Character Size
Your character's race will also have an impact on some hidden stats that are not immediately apparent as they are not shown in any of the menu screens. These are:


 * How quickly your character can run.

These stats are directly tied to the scale value of the character. In short, the taller your character the higher the output.
 * How high your character can jump.
 * Your base melee damage output.

To test this, PC players can use the command "player.setscale" to change the height of the character through the console. This command will not only increase the size of your character, but also increase their movement speed, jump distance and damage output.

The "getscale" command shows that races all have their own unique scale which is listed below: By using these figures it shows that a taller character can run faster, jump higher and inflict more melee damage than shorter ones.

This means some races have notable advantages from the start. Altmer (scale = 1.08) can run faster and hit harder than any other race. In contrast, a Female Khajiit (scale = 0.95) is one of the slowest and weakest characters you can make.

An example of the difference in melee damage:

A 50 point melee attack from an Imperial would look like this if applied to other races:

Changes from Previous Games
Character creation has been dramatically changed in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Previous games had the player choose from a list of classes that would determine the starting skills for the player's character and in some cases, how the player's character would level. The player also had the option of creating a custom class, selecting each skill individually. This system had a very large impact on player effectiveness in the beginning of the game, though Oblivion's system was able to lessen that impact. A player could spend hours working out the most effective way to build a character.

In Skyrim however, that system has been removed, meaning that though the player will still select a race, the player no longer has to select a class. Skill set specialization is still possible in Skyrim, but instead of permanently selecting this during character creation, this is now done using guardian stones. The birth sign system has been abolished completely.

Controversy
Arguably, Skyrim has not lost any complexity in its system due to its skill growth mechanic and its new perk system. Although this system still allows the player to focus on a certain play style, it has the potential to allow more of the player to shine through than ever before. Many fans are not excited about the new system however, the main complaint being that the game is being "dumbed down."

This does however mean that "cheating" the system is no longer as possible, whether to either keep your level low or increase it too much over your actual skill set as in previous games. The removal of primary stats also means that you won't end up with dud levels whereby you may be high level but still relatively weak due to getting bad stat selections.

Without attributes there are fewer ways to differentiate between characters. For example, will a Wizard who trains with a sword in his spare time and who has equal skill with the Warrior, be as strong as him? No, there is no strength stat so the warrior will have a higher weapon skill (which allows for more perks from those trees), health and stamina while the wizard would likely be focusing on magicka and magic skills. The Luck attribute has been removed and is therefore impossible to increase. Skills have been further simplified from a total of 21 to 18 (though not as much as Oblivion did from 27 to 21.) There are no acrobatics/athletics or speed attributes so it is not possible to increase your jump height or your character's running speed through stats. (However, Khajiit for example, have a naturally faster running speed than the other races.)