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Post by The Mad God on Apr 23, 2014 20:41:14 GMT -6
So, I was playing the Underground the other day, and part of the questline involves fighting a dragon the villain summons to prove your worth. I used a set of Linked Soultrap spells (basically, if you use different spells with soultrap, you can extract multiple souls from the same creature's death) and ended up with a few dozen souls that are slightly stronger than Golden Saints. (450 to the Golden Saint's 400 points)
While trying to decide what to do with them, I remembered that idea that the Nerevarine might qualify as Dragonborn, so I decided to recreate my favorite Shouts from Skyrim in the form of a set of enchanted amulets.
I'm using another mod that uncaps some of the spellmaking (or at least raises the caps to levels that would usually be unreasonable to try to use anyway). Since I'm using GCD, and I heavily trained my enchant skill it doesn't matter how potent the effect I put in an object is, every activation costs only a single charge. So I enchanted my amulets to their limit, and ended up pretty happy with the results.
Whirlwind Sprint was the Shout I used most often while playing Skyrim. The amulet is a simple fortify speed to unreasonable levels for 2 seconds. Combined with my Icarian Flight spells, it's a nice boon to my character's mobility. The short duration makes it easier to use and direct than the alchemy variant of the same idea.
Ice Form was my favorite combat Shout, and I recreated it using a 15 second paralyze, and 15 second, 5 point frost damage effect on target. The continued frost sparkles do a nice job of giving the visual effect of a target frozen solid.
Unrelenting Force was a Shout I never used much in Skyrim, but I think I'll get a lot more use out of my Morrowind version. It's a high Drain Fatigue spell with basically no duration. I intended its effect to knock the enemy down and have to struggle to get up when the stamina came back, buying a little time in a fight, but instead what I got was an effect that knocked my target down, and he didn't get up until I went to walk away. I tested it on Dagoth Ur, and he fell to his knees just like the earlier Kagatu I did my initial tests on, and he stayed down until I was halfway up the path out of the Heart Chamber. I presume this is a side effect of some of my mods interacting with one another, but it's too ammusing not to keep.
I also whipped up some Fire Breath and Frost Breath shouts for completeness more than expecting to get actual use out of them (though I'm sure they'll come in real handy when I tackle Bloodmoon).
Just thought I'd share.
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Post by Lady MorningStar on Apr 23, 2014 20:45:43 GMT -6
You are now on the receiving end of Aeronwen's Angry Glare of Doom.  |
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Post by The Mad God on Apr 23, 2014 20:51:26 GMT -6
What was I supposed to do, test it on Vivec? What would that prove now that he's been stripped of his mantle of power? (Though now that I mention it, I should run that test too. I don't even need to reload the game afterward like I did with Dagoth Ur.)
Besides, if Dagoth Ur's going to be kept around and be allowed to rule New Resdayn, part of the price is occasionally helping out with my mad science experiments.
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Post by Lady MorningStar on Apr 23, 2014 20:53:51 GMT -6
Aeronwen: ".....Allowed?.....Allowed??!!!!"
Oh damn it, now you really made her mad.
Gilvoth: "Sorry, pal. You're on your own."
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Post by The Mad God on Apr 23, 2014 21:05:41 GMT -6
Well, just tested it on Vivec. Every one of the combat Shouts turned out to be rediculusly effective on him, far more so than they were on Dagoth Ur as I suspected. Ice Form took after two tries. Unrelenting Force was an instant knockout like it's been for everything else I've tried it on. Even Fire and Frost Breath tore up his health quicker than I expected.
And yes, allowed. I reserve the right to depose him at any time should he start acting like Almalexia did toward the end. It's the same reason I entrusted Hopesfire to a companion with instructions to use it to take me out if I go off the deep end. How much the Heart's power is inherently corrupting and how much it's just down to the nature of the former mortal is an open question, and it seems unwise to take chances until the matter can be studied in greater detail.
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Post by Lady MorningStar on Apr 23, 2014 21:13:35 GMT -6
Joking aside, some time ago I tried to explain that to a person who was surprised that I didn't have Aeronwen use the ring trick on Voryn and I replied that I felt that keeping him around helps keep her sane. If she was living with guilt and grief along with the power that she received from the Heart she would in fact become the monster that many believed Dagoth Ur to be. And she would possess all of Kagrenac's Tools so it would be very hard to stop her.
After all these years I know this character so well that I think she is closer to being an insane, dangerous being than she ever lets on.
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Post by Daedric Cat on Apr 23, 2014 21:19:36 GMT -6
Interesting!!
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Post by The Mad God on Apr 23, 2014 21:30:14 GMT -6
I make a habit of entrusting one of the godkilling swords from Tribunal to a companion, usually Synda, since she's one of the few I keep around who's actually good with a longblade, and she'd have the easiest time noticing me slipping. (Also, for practical reasons, it's nice to have someone else appropriately armed when one of the Daedra Princes decides to invade.)
Likewise, I tend to return Sunder and Keening to their keepers after I'm done using them. With Sunder placed within Dagoth Vemyn's Daedric Arena, and Keening returned to Dagoth Odros' tower. I keep Wraithguard on me, and hide away the papers from Vivec that explain how to use the tools to destroy the enchantments, but all three tools continue to exist despite how easy it would be to destroy one and ensure no one could ever implement Vivec's plan.
While my characters may talk a good game about standing at the top, they're generally concerned about being so high no one could check that power. The alienation of being in a position of having no peers is worrisome. And it's not like choosing to see the Daedra Princes as peers is much better. If enough of the people my character chose to trust decided to act against him in concert, he'd fall. Just like Nerevar before him. The key difference is he goes into this openly aware of how that works and deliberately chooses to put the possibility of his destruction into their hands as an act of trust.
Once I hit Solstheim, I'll tell my version of Constance to hide away the Ebony Arrows of Slaying for a rainy day. Whether that day's my character going powermad or Molag Bal deciding to invade, I see no point clarifying with her.
Edit:
As to the Shout amulets, even back as far as Daggerfall, I loved creating spells and enchanted items.
When Morrowind was in development, I went onto the boards and shared the design specs for an item I'd devised in Daggerfall to let vampires seemingly change into a bat using a ring enchanted with invisibility, with a bat's soul bound into it, and cursed to deteriorate and degrade, releasing the soul within to recorporiate nearby when its final use was expended.
It's that love for seeing what I can create using the magic system that told me my first character would have to be Telvanni long before the game was actually in my hands, and why I hold such a deep, personal animosity toward Traven in Oblivion.
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Post by Lady MorningStar on Apr 24, 2014 7:34:12 GMT -6
Speaking as someone who hasn't played Skyrim, exactly what are these "Shouts from Skyrim"?
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Post by Daedric Cat on Apr 24, 2014 8:32:34 GMT -6
They are actual shouts your character learns from something called "word walls" which are ancient sites (usually found in a dungeon, or on mountaintops with dragons perched on them) with magical inscriptions in Dragon runes. The Dragonborn has the ability to absorb these and activates them with souls of dragons he or she slays. The Dragonborn is literally a walking talking soulgem that absorbs dragon souls whether he kills them himself or herself or not- and there is the usual lore behind all of this- the book Children of the Sky describes some of the power of the voice that is traditional to Skyrim magic.
The shouts are breath weapons with spell like effects from shouting out the runes. Basically your character can breath fire or ice, or any of many spell like effects like the dragons do depending on the dragon runes learned. It's said that when the dragons fight with their breath weapons they are actually engaging in a verbal debate and you can sometimes hear the words they are saying- the rune walls, the language is an entire dragon's tongue. |
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Post by The Mad God on Apr 24, 2014 21:49:40 GMT -6
Since Daedric Cat covered the lore aspects admirably, from a mechanical prospective Shouts are a secondary magic system useable by nonmages that doesn't rely on any particular trained skill, but rather is dependent on how many of the magic words your character has learned, each of which is unlocked and made useable by spending the previously consumed soul of a dragon. They're incredibly fast to use in combat even compared to Skyrim's already fast casting system.
They have a number of different effects. I've described the effects of my favorites, but there are also Shouts that slow down time, Shouts that make you temporarily invulnerable at the price of not being able to attack anyone else during that time, Shouts that summon storms that randomly strike other nearby characters with lightning, and numerous others.
The game includes a set of magic amulets associated with each of the Nine Divines, and the Amulet of Talos diminishes the cooldown time between your Shouts when you wear it.
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Post by Daedric Cat on Apr 25, 2014 7:18:07 GMT -6
Shouts can be used against you, too.
The Draugr (Skyrim tombs are crawling with these guys) have these powers in their higher leveled forms- Deathlords and a couple others. They favor Disarm and the all famous fus do rah, Unrelenting Force, where you get a nice cutscene of your character sent blown across the room like a rag doll should you get caught by one. Skyrim is filled with cutscenes if you get a good hit on your target.
Deathlords are pretty nasty until you get 50+ level. Dragonborn introduced the Deathlord Archer equipped with an ebony bow and arrows, and they can fill you with arrows while you are blown away. Nasty.
It's times like this when your followers are invaluable 
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