Hello, I know I'm new here but I've been an avid Elder Scrolls fanatic since Morrowind. Good, we're introduced. Back on subject.


As all of you undoubtedly know, you can't acquire all the perks in this game. As an Elder Scrolls fan over Fallout anyday (no offense, still love it), I find this incredibly annoying.

So I got to thinking: how could this problem be easily alleviated without modding or a significant change to the leveling system? I came up with a solution that I hope all of you will strongly agree with and will advocate within this topic and outside of it as well.

What if, after acquiring all the shouts in the game, you were able to to exchange X amount of dragon souls for a perk?
For example, I have every shout. I can then purchase any perk of my desire (though still following the branching system for skill perks) at the cost of say...5 dragon souls.

What do you all think? Sound good and whatnot?


And to those who argue specialization over universal proficiency in skills, I say this:
If Bethesda really wanted to make a specialized character, I shouldn't be able to become the leader of every guild and faction, the hero for every Daedric Prince present, and Dragonborn! ...surely this makes sense.

In this context, and in the context of all previous Elder Scrolls games as well, a truly "specialized character" is impossible. The very nature of this series advocates being a jack-of-all-trades, whether or not one can acquire every single perk. While this mindset admittedly can work for Fallout, it fails in Skyrim. The limitation of perks only hinders the player from what the game itself wants you to be: a master thief, warrior, and wizard - all in one.

No... It destroys the whole concept of character identity. If you can buy every perk, then your character is obviously not specialized. The point of the perks system was to get away from the "jack-of-all-trade" characters that we saw in Oblivion.

Agreed.

Though there should be something that we can do with Dragon Souls

DLC?

Bethesda went in a direction with the leveling system that didn't allow for a god character. They actually gave the classes more depth than in either Oblivion or Morrowind. I would not like to see that changed. Though I would like to see something else done with dragon souls, I would not like to use them to 100 everything

I have to agree with this.

I vote that, in a future DLC, they have a quest where you have to assemble a set of dragon souls to create some sort of ultimate weapon (maybe in combination with a DLC to defeat the Aldmeri Dominion?), so like Skyforge but Dragon Soul Forge. That way we have something to dump all our excess Dragon Souls onto. You could choose the weapon design (swords for one-handed, a special spell for mages, etc.) and upgrade the weapon with extra dragon souls. Thoughts?

It makes absolutely no sense from a lore perspective. How are 5 dragon souls going to make any difference on your ability to make potions? Or wear light armor? Or pickpocket?

with enchanting you can get 0% spell cost in any school 1 skill for acess to 6? come on how more jack of all trades can you get with enchanting you can also get x amount of damage with a weapon or fortify heavy armor

Just because enchanting creates "jack-of-all-trades" characters, doesn't mean dragon souls have to as well.

I vote that they can be used as soul gems for enchanting, but only enchanting dragon armor (and weapons if we ever get them). I would like to have a Dragon Bone Greatsword imbued with the soul of the dragon that I killed for the bones to make it. It could have special enchantments as well. Maybe something to do with the words of power.

Nice idea. Maybe have it so that your dragon armor can give off a "bubble aura" similar to Unrelenting Force when you get low on health or stamina. Make the recharging require like 2 dragon souls, though, so it's not a free pass to having super-powerful enchanted dragon bone and scale armor.

I suppose I can understand that, but I could never get used to this design concept. I'm not going to argue the merits of specialization over jack-of-all-trades other than I don't think it belongs in an Elder Scrolls game.

I was suggesting practicality over conversting lore, but it's not something I didn't consider before making this topic. I was under the impression that when you absorb a dragon soul you acquire some of the dragon's knowledge, hence the ability to apply it later to words. Is there no leeway there to apply worldly knowledge to perks?
That being said, I'd still suggest this as long as it wouldn't completely [censored] canon. Feel free that to argue that, though.



And while I'm all for any use for dragon souls (if my suggestion isn't good, then by all means find a more suitable use!), but throw these suggestions into a more appropriate topic. Thank you.

Pointing that out, specialization makes the game feel more real. All heroes, throughout all mythologies and lores, have things they are good at and things they aren't so good at. If you are perfect at everything, then you'd be God, not a hero like the Dovakiin.

Honestly, I don't think so. How could a dragon possibly have any knowledge about alchemy, blacksmithing, using heavy/light armor, using melee weapons, picking pockets/locks, or anything else? Even skills like Destruction wouldn't work, because dragon shouts are different from magic.

It just wouldn't make any sense.

Specialized heroes aren't the leaders of every guild, heroes of all events in their period and region.

I could make a long list for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim if you wish.

So you're claiming that there are heroes who are looked up to who are perfect? Name one that isn't a god-being.

Superman doesn't count. He's not the smartest man on the Earth - ergo, he is not perfect.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm.. excuse me, but wouldn't getting ALL the shouts require some time and leveling? So much as to say once you've actually played long enough to find every word of all the shouts, plus kill enough random/MQ dragons to unlock them all - you'd have a good bit of hours into the game with a SINGLE character?

If you spend hundreds of hours on one character... wouldn't it not really matter - at all - if you could now start unlocking extra perks with dragon souls. Or at least have the option to? I mean, once you put 200+ or even 300+ hours into one single character and have everything maxed out... who cares if you can now unlock all the perks with additional time spent encountering/killing dragons?


tl;dr I like the idea.

Yes, I thought about that too. But could one not indirectly apply knowledge obtained concerning workings of the world towards misc. skills?

Except that the idea stomps on all the lore in Skyrim. Since when were dragons imbued with knowledge about lesser-beings constructs and skills?

Who in the world claimed they were perfect? Those who are jack-of-all-trades doesn't imply perfection or "god-like" status. I'm just saying that it seems ironic to claim specialization when you become the leader of every guild/faction in the game and the hero in every other storyline added through DLC. Elder Scrolls questing itself kinda rebukes the concept of "one-lane" heroes..

You do not gain knowledge from dragon souls. You just gain power to master shouts that will normally take years of training.

Lore-wise, you should not be able to gain perks (knowledge) via dragon souls.

Game-wise, it is doable, maybe at 10 souls per perk and 1 soul per perk reset.

I already presented my defense against this. Please feel free to disagree with it (I'm 99% likely to be wrong!), but at least confront rather than ignore the post.

You're probably completely right, but I really wish I had a save right before talking to Arngeir for the first time to confirm either one of our statements.

He does not explicitly say it, but the game mechanics of word finding and soul acquisition already proves this. Seeing as acquiring a soul does not automatically grant you a new word, one can only logically conclude memory itself is not transferred, just raw power.

No, there's no point to that whatsoever. Otherwise there is no point in making the system the way it is.The game makes you think and develop your major skills. The system makes perfect sense restricting your choice of perks.

Although, wasted dragon souls are silly. I personally think that dragon souls should allow you to recharge your dragon shout meter more quickly.