SureAI

A 20 Alteration skill(10 pendent 10 discipline shift) drops a 90 burden to 76,not a whole lot but I can see it being effective if you get some more at higher level spells
Compared to a 28 fortify Magick I can see if you are using some types of spells as being effective
Especially if you need some skill boost for higher requiring spells(journeyman or apprentice at lower levels)
It can also be used with shifts in the case if you need say Illusion at apprentice for paralyze 3sec and still want to use destruction and have a 7Illusion pendant
So can't say skill enhancements are that bad for there role as support
But enhancements would be better with set bonuses fixed and weapon enhancements buffed or stacked to some degree

I am really interested in this because on of the things that I sort of disliked about Oblivion, though it made playing easier sometimes was that you really could wear or use anything you wanted, even in your stats started low...so my mage could wear heavy armor and cut people up with swords.

If you wanted to play a more traditional mage you could and stay in cloth or light armor because of the way the enchanting system was set or the use of a bit higher spells because of your enchant use.

I can see why they wouldnt want to use the enchant system, but so far in the game if you want to play a "traditional" mage who wears cloth, only uses daggers or other small one-handed weapons or magic weapons that increase your magical abilities...I am finding it very hard. All the magical things I have picked up..even generated toward mages seems to be toward "battle mages" ie Heavy Armor

So maybe a way for the player to have one thing at the detriment of another? (and let me say I am talking off my head as I have no clue how to script)
A higher set of skills or ability to enchant a weapon for use..but only if the player is wearing all cloth?

or make the class you choose limit what you can wear..you pick the mage type then its cloth/leather only and you get access to a different spell tree from trainers and only mage use? Or have class only sets available at certain levels?

I really don't know but I am just tossing some ideas back. *grin*

Generally staffs are intended for mages and you can wear heavy armor and be a turtle mage or a light armor and be a flexible mage(which you should if you have a staff)
Without Blade/Blunt however you're not going to kill very much with blades/blunt,and without Heavy Armor your not going to turtle much and your skill points investing in those areas are better spent on your spell schools
A battle mage I expect to invest in both combat and magick
My point is mages need no armor so don't focus so much on them

Not sure how far into the game you are, but at higher levels you will find some decent light armour and sets of light armour i.e Think its called Death Hood with fortify des 8/ mys 5 and magica 10 and it belongs to a set of armour. Their is also some light armour that gives permanent mana regen.
Although I would still like to see a balanced implementation of enchanting so I could decide what type of Mage to play. As at this point trying to build a "flexible" mage. Light armour and quick. Specializing in buff and disabling magic with of course destruction but a staff for main fire power.

I play like you Hawk except I use the staff only when I run out of mana and am waiting for my potions to fill me back up. I fire spells till depleted, quaff a restore magicka potion and then equip my staff and blast away till my bar is full again. Then I put away the staff and start blasting away with spells again. This way my destruction climbs ever so slowly. I'm level 22 and have only trained 3 points in destruction. The rest has been earned the old-fashioned way and it takes a VERY long time to increase. I've cast thousands of fireballs and freeze arrows and my destruction is about 57 w/o armor buffs.

Must admit I've laid the staff/s to one side now. Gone a bit mad, level 27 and still only half way through chapter 2. Destuction 95 (131 buffed). Must admit put 15 or so into destruction training. Just trying to explore every square inch as I go along, plus all quests.

I was (still will, I hope) teach myself modding, as I would really like to make an eastern sorcerer/sorceress race that only really wears the type of robes etc that they would have done. Maybe take the slots for shield/helmet/gloves for extra amulets or bracelets to help buff the armour stats. Although this type of character would need to be able to enchant items as they went through the game. No idea how hard it would be? Need to start teaching myself again soon (just lost everything on pc ,stupidly not watching what I downloaded. Virus and trojan infected every exe /htm file within a minute or two. Had my back-up disk plugged in as well. 3 hard drives wiped.)

Lisnpuppy made a point earlier about the types of armour a mage can wear. Which I have to agree with. I actually liked the way in Drakensang or was it NWN2 (maybe both) where if you donned certain armour, you lost the abilty to cast spells.
crpgnut made a point earlier as well . Totally agree. Yes some might say it costs less mana but if you carry round loads of restore magicka .....
Why not look at something simple. Maybe increase the speed you can cast spells the higher destruct level you are?

I'd like to see the Tiers changed from level-based to skill based.

Skill <20 Tier 1 only
Skill 21-40 add Tier 2
Skill 41-55 add Tier 3
Skill 56-70 add Tier 4
Skill 71-85 add Tier 5
Skill 86-110 add Tier 6
Skill 100+Items add Tier 7

This way the skill is what is important and a low-level focused mage would be much more powerful than a jack of all trades mage. Of course, the problem with this is balancing. Somebody with similar skills in blade should be much more powerful than someone of lower skill.

Sorry for some forum necromancy, but maybe adding a bit of daggerfall in enchant will help? In daggerfall, player was able to put some really powerfull enchant, but on bad quality items he\she had to balance positive effects with negative(i.e. taking damage in holy places, burden, drain health if not used, etc - each negative increased magic capacity of item). And magicka bonus during specific moon phase or season, gosh - that was really grand. I suspect same, but diminished mechanics are present in oblivion, but haven't bothered to check that yet.
This could be done through sigil mechanic, but i don't see how this thing can be done through enchanting window itself. Maybe with magic extender.

Regarding enchantments, when I played Oblivion, I came across some enchantment "recipes" that would make a weapon so powerful that you might as well be playing in god mode. I made a few of those and it got quite boring after the novelty wore off. I've played through Nehrim 3 times, and I've made a few enchanted items which were quite enough. A couple of dino flake rings added 60 health & magika. Find a decent bow, enchant it with one of the damage gems, use some decent arrows (i.e., silver or better), and you will be quite lethal at a long range. As far as not finding anything but iron and steel at level 14, I don't know where you've been looking, but there are many, many pieces of enchanted armor out there, something for everyone. Virtually every "boss" has 2 or 3 enchanted items, or more.

As for magic, your destruction master at level 70 and a swordsman with level 20 destruction might get the same damage from a level I fireball, but the difference is, because of your level, you might have a level 5 fireball and be able to fire off 7 or 8 of them in a row because of your intelligence & willpower levels, whereas he can only fire one level I FB and that's it because his magika is so low and slow to refill. So there is a benefit gained from the higher levels. Think of it this way: An 8-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man can both fire a .22 caliber rifle, and that bullet will do the same damage when it hits the target regardless of who fires it. However, the 30-year-old man can also fire a .50 caliber elephant gun which will do a great deal more damage than the .22, and the 8-year-old boy probably couldn't even lift the elephant gun, let alone aim it accurately, and if he did fire it, the recoil would likely injure him quite a bit, and his first shot would also be his last (especially if he was shooting at an adult pit rat!). Experientia docet!

as far as enchanting goes, oblivion was terrible. now i have a hard time thinking of a way that enchanting would not destroy the balance that nehrim has created. one idea that comes to mind is using smithing to create enchanted weapons or armor. you can create a steel longsword, however if you have say a fire damage stone, and a frost damage stone (crystal etc.), you can create a steel longsword that has fire & frost damage enchantments. or adding combinations of ore and gems to armor could create a cuirass, pauldrons, gauntlets etc. with varying buff effects. well assuming you have the smith skills to do so.