If there is one thing I don’t like about Skyrim it's the way the perk system works. I always liked the idea that I could learn everything with a character in TES games and don’t have to choose a play style which I have to follow for the next 100+ hours of game play. So if I ran around with light armor and one handed weapons until lvl 40, investing my perk points into the appropriate trees and suddenly come up with the idea of wearing heavy armor and chopping up enemies with two handed weapons, I can't. Or at least I wouldn't be very effective with this because I don't have the perk points for it.

So I came up with a bunch of ideas for the perk system. I know there are already some mods, which will cover some of these, but most of them feel like cheating (You type something into the console and something good happens). So I also thought of ways how to implement them into the game world.

1. Resetting Perks
This was pretty much the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the perk trees and I thought "There is probably a way to reset the perks. By now every developer should have realized that a skill tree system without a reset option is the most annoying thing in the world". Apparently Bethesda did not.
A problem with resetting the perks is, that it can be easily exploited (e.g. getting all perks for crafting when you are in town and respecing to combat once you leave). So there has to be some restrictions to it. It could be a cooldown, an effect on the character that’s lasts a certain amount of time or just very high costs for it.

1.1 Full Reset:
To reset and refund all spend perk points is probably the easiest way for this. And I see some different ways it could be possible in the game.

1.1.1 Potion:
This would be a simple potion you could use whenever you want. It should be pretty rare, or be crafted with rare components. So you think twice before drinking it.

1.1.2 Shrine:
A usable Shrine or Statue placed somewhere in the world, similar to the Stones and Shrines that gives you buffs. It could be placed in some remote location, so you actually have to make a small pilgrimage.

1.1.3 NPC:
The Skill Trainer could have an additional option for this, which costs a large amount of gold.
Or it could be a NPC you encounter at Random on your travels. Just like this strange Bard I came across in several places.

1.2 Partial Reset:
This revolves around the idea of resetting a specific perk tree. As this is not as powerful as the full reset it could just be an option at skill trainer NPCs. So every Skill Trainer has the option to reset the perk tree that belongs to the skill they train.

2. Additional Perk Points
To unlock every Perk in the Game you would need aprox. 250 perk points. With a absolute level cap of 70 you are nowhere near it. So additional perk point are needed.

2.1 More Points per Level:
This will just have the effect that you gain more than one perk point per level.

2.2 Earning Points:
The idea is, that there are other ways of earning perk points. So you actually have to do work for it. There a lots of ways this could work, so I just list a few I came up with.
- Gain a Point as Quest Reward
- Rare Consumable Item that gives a Point
- Gain a Point together with a dragon soul (or convert them)
- Gain a Point together with a new Shout/Word
- Gain a Point for raising a Skill to a certain level (e.g. at 50 and 100)
- Gain a Point for Absorbing the Souls of one or more black soul gems
- ...

2.3 Automatic Perks:
With the other methods for additional perk Points you could end up having more points than you can spend. So there would be no meaning for perk points if you just get every perk as soon as you meet the requirements. That’s when I came up with the Idea of unlocking every perk automatically if the skill requirements are met. This would be quite similar to previous TES games, where you got better with raising skills. Also this could work together with skill enhancing effects. So if you drink a potion that raises skill X by Y points you also gain all the perks for the new skill level and lose the perks as soon as the effect ends. This would make skill level improving Potions and Enchantments a real alternative to all these +x% effects.

3. Separated Perk Points
This is a rather large change to the current perk system. The idea is that you gain perk points for every Skill separately. So if you raise your Light Armor Skill to a certain level you gain a perk point that can only be put into the Light Armor Perk Tree. Perks would be totally independent of the character level, because you gain them by raising a Skill. It could be made that you can max out a perk tree when the appropriate skill reaches level 100. But I am not really against the idea of having to choose between certain perks. But I guess it comes to personal preference whether or not a perk tree can be maxed or you have to choose a path.
This system should also support the partial reset described in 1.2


I don’t know which of these things are really possible once the CK is out or if I will be able to create a mod providing all these things. I only played around with the CK of Morrowind a bit. But maybe some skillful modder reads this and picks up some of the ideas.