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 making significant change to the leveling system?

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, say 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?


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.

Not to get them anymore.
For the number of dragons that exist to match up perfectly to the number of souls needed to fill out the shouts.

Very well said

There is already a mod for PC (requires ScriptDragon) that does exactly this. By default it asks for 10 dragon souls (so you really have to work for that extra perk)

But I'd like to see this given to us in a future patch. Not DLC, because people seem to have forgotten the horror that was Horse Armor: a completely near-useless piece of data marketed as "DownLoadable Content"

If Bethesda is going to give us a DownLoadable Content, it has to be at least Knights of The Nine level

Yeah, I've heard of this mod after coming up with this idea. Make me glad that folks are thinking on the same page.

There should be an end to the dragons at some point. surely

Well, that's following the logic of "there can't be an infinite number of mudcrabs," or "this onslaught of cliff racers must end at some point."

not at all. mudcrabs havent been dead for hundreds of years, and havent turned up only now because someone physically went around and put the flesh back on the bones.

Resurrection, reproduction. Tomato, potato. Design-wise, same difference. Bethesda deemed it was a better idea to keep some dragons in the game beyond necessity for entertainment; they put more value in this idea rather than a set limit.

This is a logic nearly all game companies have used for all creatures. That was what I was referring to.

ok, i see what you mean. but it would be nice to have an end to the dragons at some point!

Perhaps after the number of souls required to obtain all Shouts have been reached?

that would be logical, at least!

This would be nice.

Maybe there could be very special soul gems that gould only be filled with the soul of a dragon. A Dragon Soul Gem. They are extremely limited and are more powerfull that a grand soul gem.

As for why dragons are still around after defeating Alduin. My thought are that we don't know exactly when he returned. He may have returned and only resuracted some female dragon to start a new generation and just as the first generation reached maturaty he senced the Dragonborn and went to destroy him. However he could not disern which was the dragon born and just tried to kill everyone. When the Dragonborn survived he realized he needed to resurect older more powerfull dragons to help kill the Dragonborn. Now there is just a breeding population likely some where outside of skyrim.

I don't care what the game wants, I want to specialize, and I have the self control to not do everything with one character, even if the game lets me.

So having said that, it doesn't matter to me if I can get every perk. If enough people want that, then great, but I would still not use it because I find the game less fun if my character can do everything.

obtaining perks from dragon souls would be extremely overpowered for the player and could easily be abused by fast travelling everywhere for dragons.
That said I am not sure and dont care if I have read correctly that the dragons are the same number as shouting perks.

What would be better feature if this is really required (which it is not) is that you can swap your perks at the cost of substantial amount of money at some enchanters bench or a very powerful wizard.

Just thought I'd point out, lorewise there has to be a finite number of dragons, as lorewise they don't reproduce but simply are. Can't recall at the moment which in-game book points this out.

But there is a mod for this already in place, but whether or not it becomes a feature is another thing entirely. Though it would need to be tested for a good number for transferring souls.

Well there goes my idea.
Here is the book you speak of.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:There_Be_Dragons

They should definitely so something about excess souls. Maybe fill a soul gem with em instead or something.

would be nice if we wouldn't be getting our character to have every single perk in the game

Instead of gaining a perk for dragon's souls (though I do think that could be a valuable idea for when you need that one last perk point to finish out a skill tree you've been aiming at), maybe it should be something a bit more related to their existing purpose? In the game proper, when we use shouts after unlocking them with a dragon's soul it takes a while to be able to use any shout again. However, we've seen the Greybeards on at least one occasion using Thu'ums one after another with seemingly no cooldown. I'm not sure that it's brought up in the lore, but I'm guessing that this is due to their years of constant study and meditation on the Way of the Voice. Also, the Dragon Soul system was described in-game as the Dragonborn gaining the dragon's experience with each word of power. My thinking is, what if we integrate those two points into the game system? The player would be able to use excess souls to gain more experience with the shouts they're used on, and thus reduce the cooldown time. Maybe each word could only get one extra soul, with each word modified giving a 25% reduction across the board for that shout, for a maximum of 75%. This would give the player a feeling of growing mastery over their Thu'um (rather than seeming like a legendary apprentice) without breaking the system outright. But hey, that's just my two gold.

Noone ever forced you to become leader of everything, or do everything on one character. Thats the beauty of an ES-game, the freedom. If youre not happy with it then it is your own fault for making the wrong choices not bethesdas.

I can't become the master of all three even if I want to, perk-wise, is that freedom?

And no, that's not sarcasm. That's a legitimate question

Because really, even if you're an 80-years old mad man, if you managed to become a master of something, then you have to right to be literally the master of that

Get over it. 80 perks is more then enough

Erroneous on all counts. If you watch more carefully they obviously go through a "cool down".

But not to the extent to which the player does; I am referring to the scene when they use a shout to conjure an enemy for you to practice Fus Roh on. Admittedly, I have not completed the main quest so I may be missing something, and the shout they used is not available to the player to my knowledge so a one to one comparison is not possible in this instance, but my point remains. I think that excess dragon souls should be used to give the Dragonborn more mastery over shouts rather than extra feats.

If you do that part again you might notice that each "ghost" is done by a different graybeard.