House Dres Favored Skills

[greendogo]

My comments addressing Why's suggestion to change the Dres favored skills were deleted (along with Why's comments), I assume because they were in a bug thread. Sorry about that, I was just replying to him and forgot the protocol.

Anyway, I'd like to pick up that conversation here, because I think I had some good points about it.

He suggested changing the Dres Favored Skills to the following, which he wanted to be a trader-hunter class:

-Agility
-Encumberance
Mercantile
Marksman
Light Armor
Athletics
Spear
Medium Armor

I see that these have since been adopted in the most recent TR_Data.esm.

Anyway, I think that this is very close to what I'd choose myself for them, except that I would make the following three changes(*):
-Willpower*
-Encumberance
Mercantile
Destruction*
Alteration*
Athletics
Spear
Medium Armor

My reasoning for the change was that the Dres are not only slavers (which I thought suggested the Willpower attribute), but they are some of the most traditional of the Elves, which I think suggests that they would practice some magic.

The Destruction and Alteration skills would make better ranged skills than Marksman. In addition, Alteration gives access to things like a ranged Burden spell, which would be a great way to put down a slave riot. Destruction, I believe, would be great for guarding the southern boarder with Black Marsh.

As it stands, the current load-out is really good, with the Merchantile, Spear and Athletics suggesting the essence of the trader-hunter that Why was going for. However, with Merchantile, Marksman and Light Armor, as well as the Agility attribute all being shared with the Hlaalu faction, I think my changes help differentiate the Dres house from the other Great Houses quite nicely.

[karpik777]

Alteration gives access to things like a ranged Burden spell, which would be a great way to put down a slave riot.

Wouldn't Illusion be better? Paralysis, blind and calm would be great in such a scenario, and during hunting trips to Argonia invisibility, chameleon and night eye would also help nicely.

[Why]

Replacing Marksman with Destruction could make sense. I don't know, it's all very far in the future and hardly important right now.

The image of the Dres pretty much revolves around the idea that they represent the unshakable resolve of the Velothi pilgrims who traveled the entire continent to get to the shittiest place in the world and force it to submit to them. It's why the Deshaan won't be a fertile plains but a brown wasteland that only became the most fertile region in the land after Dres started cultivating it. It's easy to associate willpower with this, but I want to emphasize that the real strength of Dres lies in action through force and physical determination rather than strength of will. They're a force of nature, they are erosion, they shaped the salt plains until the land submitted to them.

I don't have a particular attachment to Agility, and we *could* go with Willpower for Dres, but in the end Willpower doesn't mean as much to them. I also don't want to give Willpower to both Indoril and Dres.

Alteration and Illusion are out though. Illusion is too subtle and Alteration would imply the Dres used magic when shaping the land, and that's not something I want to suggest. Willpower as attribute implies the player needs to focus on spellcasting and that isn't the direction I want a Dres player to follow.

[gro-Dhal]

I don't really see a connection with Destruction for the Dres. I suppose to my mind (and this is me talking in the broadest of terms) the Telvanni (and I guess House Dagoth) represent the Mage archetype, the Indoril and Redoran represent different aspects of the Fighter archetype and the Hlaalu and Dres are different aspects of the Thief/Rogue. Illusion, Marksman, Mercantile and Spear are key skills.

I'm also wondering about Conjuration, as that incorporates both Dunmer necromancy (summoning Ancestor Ghosts etc) and the binding of Daedra which kind of fits with the whole slavery thing. Not so sure about that though.

[Why]

My main reason for possibly associating Destruction with Dres would be to burn down some jungle, but we can do that with conventional flames too.

I kind of like your conjuration suggestion though.

[karpik777]

I suppose to my mind (and this is me talking in the broadest of terms) the Telvanni (and I guess House Dagoth) represent the Mage archetype, the Indoril and Redoran represent different aspects of the Fighter archetype and the Hlaalu and Dres are different aspects of the Thief/Rogue. Illusion, Marksman, Mercantile and Spear are key skills.

For what it's worth, I've always seen the 3 Houses we got in vanilla as representation of the 3 archetypes, while the other 3 Houses as combinations of those (Dagoth being thief/mage, Indoril mage/fighter (mysticism and restoriation for that paladin/priest feeling) and that left thief/fighter for the Dres - which works for them being akin to a force of nature, but not so much a discussion of them having any magic skills (although it works with the trader-hunter...)

[greendogo]

I thought about Conjuration too. It makes a lot of sense.

And of course, Illusion would make sense if you wanted to go for a skill useful for Thieves AND putting down slave riots.

I still think Destruction would be a good skill too (and I still feel the same about Alteration).

The answer lies in Dres history, and what you'd like to portray them as in their past and present, Why. The discussion of them shaping the land to suit them is a really interesting one. Speaking of history, they might be pretty close to the [url=http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ashlanders]Ashlanders: Link[/url].

I think this little discussion has at least shown that there is room for one or two magical skills in the Dres retinue.

Also, I don't know if you should imagine a Dres player specifically having their Attributes and Skills taylored the same way as the Dres. They really only have to approximate the Dres' favored loadout, and a level 40 player would be able to fulfill most any skill requirements.

[RelinQ]

Personally, I've always thought of Dres as being rather skilled in Marksman due to, the abundance of throwing weapons and how those would be used in terms of hunting.

For example using certain shaped weapons in the Jungle as opposed to graze lands or salt pans.

Additionally when one looks at the current selection of skills associated with the other Great Houses, the only other house to really utilize Marksman (so to speak) is Hlaalu, which to me doesn't exactly come to mind when I think of Hlaalu.

In some ways I can see how House Dres could be associated with Destruction, but I feel that's coming more from the generalised view of House Dres and not really a representation from the higher inner workings of the faction. (a little bit similar to how the whole House can be viewed generically as racist which is probably not the case.)

But that's just my opinion.

[roerich]

Personally I'm against the trivializing of magic that usually happens in fantasy. I mean justifying using Destruction in trivial tasks such as burning down jungles, or as I saw in one discussion; using mages to keep guars warm in Skyrim, in order to justify them being used there...

I'd rather see magic as something potentially feared and something that requires exceptional skill. Of course there will be skilled Dres mages, but I'd rather see the average House Dres member as skilled in Marksman, Sneak, Mercantile and so on and that their only magic skill is Conjuration as gro-Dhal suggested. Conjuration is a good representation that House Dres members are close to their ancestors and that they are more into the good Daedra than the Tribunal.