Racial abilities and Perks (SammuTheGreat)

Thanks to SammuTheGreat (Username, obviously) we have this list of perks and racial abilities. It's been out for a least a week now, so sorry I didn't post it - I simply forgot. Another site took the liberty to write it up in a neat way, saving me the trouble, so I just copied the list.
Here:

Racial Abilities

- ORCS: Beserker
- REDGUARDS: Adrenaline Rush
- WOOD ELF: Resist poison, resisit disease, command animals
- NORD: Battlecry
- KHAJIIT: Night-eye, claw attacks
- IMPERIAL: Voice of the Emperor, find more coins when looting
- HIGH ELF: Regenerate Magicka more quickly
- DARK ELF: Ancestor’s Wrath (surround self in fire), resist fire
- BRETON: Dragonskin (absorb spells), resist shock
- ARGONIANS: Histskin (regenerate health quickly), resist disease, breathe underwater

Note on racial stats: Each race starts off with different stats.

-Argonians start with 25 in Lockpicking, 20 in Pickpocketing, Sneak, etc…
-Orcs start with 25 in Heavy Armour, 20 in Enchanting, Smithing etc…

Perk Trees

Speech
- Buying and selling price 10% better (5 ranks)
- 10% price buying from opposite sex
- Invest in shops and increase available gold permanently in invested stores
- Master Trader – every merchant in world gains 1000 gold for bartering
- Buy and sell from any merchant regardless of what they normally buy and sell
- Intimidation attempts twice as successful
- Persuasion attempts more likely successful

Alchemy
- Potions 20% stronger (5 ranks)
- Potions for restore health, magicka or stamina are 25% more powerful (maybe ranked)
- Poisons 25% more effective (maybe ranked)
- Poisons last for twice as many hits
- Two ingredients are gathered from plants
- 50% resistance to all poisons
- All negative effects removed from potions and all positive removed from poisons
- 2 effects of an ingredient are revealed when testing it for the first time (instead of just one)

Illusion
- Dual casting overcharges effect for more powerful spell
- Cast Novice spells for 50% less magicka
- Cast Apprentice spells for 50% less magicka
- Cast Adept, Expert, Master etc spells for 50% less magicka (more levels this time around)
- Spells work on higher level animals
- Spells work on higher level people
- All spellcasting (from ANY school) is done silently
- Spells work on undead, daedra and automatons
- Fear spells work on higher level enemies

Conjuration
- Novice for 50% magicka etc (up to Master)
- Dual casting overcharges –> greater spell effect
- Bound weapons do more damage
- Bound weapons cast Soul Trap on target
- Bound weapons banish certain creatures
- Reanimate undead with 100 more health
- Summon 2 Atronachs or reanimated zombies
- Summon Atronachs at twice the distance
- Summoned Atronachs twice as strong

Destruction
- More damage for each school (fire, frost and shock) – ranked
- Novice for 50% magicka etc.
- Shock damage chance to disintegrate targets if their health is under 10%
- Frost damage chance to paralyse targets if health low
- Fire damage chance to make low health enemies flee
- Place runes 5x farther away

Restoration
- Healing spells also restore stamina
- Novice for 50% less magicka etc
- Healing spells do 50% more healing
- Recharging healing spells
- More is recharged with each hit with healing spells (unclear)
- Spells more effective against undead
- Once a day chance to autocast 250HP restoration when health drops low
- Magicka regenerates 25% faster

Alteration
- Novice for 50% less etc
- Alteration spells have greater duration (ranked)
- Absorb 30% magicka that hits you

Enchanting
- Enchants are 20% stronger (ranked)
- Enchanted armour 25% stronger
- “Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging” – again, dodgy recording but that’s what I heard, even if it doesn’t make much sense
- Death blows to creatures but not people trap souls for weapon recharge
- Health, magicka and stamina enchants stronger
- Extra effect on already-enchanted weapon can be applied
- Shock, Frost and Fire enchants 25% stronger (individual perks for each element)

Heavy Armour
- Increase armour rating 20% (5 ranks)
- Unarmed attacks with heavy armour gauntlets – damage increased by gauntlets’ armour rating
- Half fall damage if all in heavy armour
- Heavy armour weighs nothing and doesn’t slow you at all
- Additional 25% armour if in matching set
- 25% armour bonus if all in heavy armour (not necessarily matching)
- 50% less stagger if all in heavy armour
- 10% damage reflected back to enemy if all in heavy armour

2-handed weapons
- 2h weapons do 20% more damage (5 ranks)
- Attacks with warhammers ignore 25% armour (ranked)
- Attacks with battleaxes do extra bleeding damage (ranked)
- Attacks with greatswords do extra critical damage (ranked)
- Power attacks cost 25% less stamina
- Standing power attacks do 25% bonus damage, chance to decapitate
- Sprinting power attacks do double (critical) damage
- Sideways power attacks hit all targets
- Backwards power attacks have 25% chance of paralysis

Archery
- Bows do 25% more damage
- Zoom in
- Zooming slows time
- 10% crit chance
- Move faster with drawn bow
- Recover twice as many arrows from dead bodies
- 50% chance of paralysing for few seconds
- Draw bow 30% faster

Sneak
- 20% harder to detect (ranked)
- Sneak attacks do 6x damage with 1h weapons
- Sneak attacks with bows do 3x damage
- Sneak attacks with daggers do 15x damage (end perk on skill tree)
- Noise from armour reduced 50%
- No longer activate pressure plates
- Sprinting while sneaking performs silent forward roll
- Running does not affect detection chance
- Crouching can make hostile enemies lose sight of you and search for a target

Daedricus Artefactus!

One of my favorite things in The Elder Scrolls games are gathering and owning artefacts! I simply adored Knights of the Nine, since that was primarily what it was all about! Plus, you could put them on display afterwards! I could scream louder than a young teenage girl at a Tokio Hotel concert - Neat stuff.

Therefore it is great that the achievements have revealed to us, the magical fact: There are at least 15 Daedric Artefacts to collect - Fucking glee! It was already revealed to us that the daedric princes would make a return, although not necessarily all of them - This just adds excitement. In a way, I both love and hate Bethesda for doing this - I am having trouble waiting.

Do you have a map?

You do now!
Here is the official map of Skyrim, which I have taken the liberty to post at them bottom of the site! Huzzah!

It's a matter of choice

Alright, I posted the Xbox Achievements and you might have looked trough them already and noticed a very interesting thing that I would like to emphasize to the point where you can see it beyond even Skyrim's impressive draw distance!

According to awesome me, the 4 most important things in RPG is this:

1. Story
2. Choices that shape the story
3. Charismatic characters
4. Immersion

The Elder Scrolls series certainly provide number 1 and 4, and sometimes a questionable 3. Never really 2 - Whatever remnants that were of that, were nullified by the release of "The Warp in the West."

Still, choices are awesome and no one has really grasped the potential by Bioware, trough the Mass Effect series - It wouldn't work in The Elder Scrolls though. Still, they try! The achievements reveal that you can choose sides in at least 3 cases:

The Stormcloaks or The Imperial Legion

Capture Fort Sunguard or Fort Greenwall

Capture Solitude or Windhelm (Both major cities!!)

It is quite possible that all of these are dependent on your choice between the Stormcloaks and the Imperial Legion, which is fine! Naturally we are, in this case, forced to play the game at least twice to be able to experience all variables, which is just gravy on top of the chest full of gold.

This may not be the great, big, epic choices we know from Mass Effect, but for The Elder Scrolls: This is great!

Achievement Whore

Achievements are brilliant! They add more to each game, providing additional challenges and tasks and you don't have to care about them if you don't want to. Whilst I consider achievements neat and fun, I don't think them a requirement at all! Still, people have been waiting to see them and here are the Xbox360 achievements that Pete Hines confirmed at correct: http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/elder-scrolls-v/achievements/
(If you're a confused turtle: Click the link)

Some fairly new pictures

Call me crazy, but these pictures might, just might, come from a German magazine. I'll try and translate the ones with text boxes for you.

A little sneak peak of the Alchemists Table

Text says they fallen into the cave their in

and

that one wrong step means certain death.

Well, this is from the demo

There are so many words I don't know :/

No new details - It's just some comments on the picture, like "Unfair battle?" And so on.

Text says that in Skyrim it is possible to use both

first and third person perspective.

Well, I can't see the entire box, but as you might've guessed,

it's about the inventory

Well, duh

The (half)naked man

At no point during my time as writer on this site have I ever concealed the fact that I completely adore Bethesda and everything they do and I might be able to tell you why, by mentioning a little encounter one of the people lucky enough to have played the alpha build had.

He was travelling along a road and suddenly a half-naked man shows up. Surprised and happy as we are to see a half-naked man running towards us, one must ask: Why? Anyway, he asked the player to hold something for him, and then he runs along, but this encounter is almost immediately followed by one with a hunter, asking the player whether he's seen a thief or not. The hunter spots our half-naked friend and shoots him with his arrows.

The end.

Sean Bean is not to be seen

Ha! "Bean" and "seen" rhymes!

Look, I know that there has been a wide-spread rumor about Martin Septim making a cameo in Skyrim, due to the fact that Sean Bean has been listed as a confirmed voice actor on International Move Database (IMDb.)

I was actually hoping that it was true as well, but I'm afraid that I am going to have to burst the fantasy-pink-clouds-and-ponies bubble. Pete Hines have responded to a tweet, asking about this very topic, and stated: "Sean Bean is not in Skyrim. Martin Septim has been dead 200 years. IMDB is simply mistaken."


Sad, I know, but definitely survivable, wouldn't you say so?

Never Forget!

McBraas responds: Thoughts on the 20 minute demo video - Part II

...Walking further through Riverwood, we can see the wonderful new conversation system, filling my heart with warmth, since one of Oblivions major faults clearly was the "stop-time" conversation system. Curse it! Curse it, I say!! Also take note that the way our trusty Black Smith talks seems more unique, as opposed to Oblivion (again) were everybody talked the same way - This is clearly the outcome of hiring new voice actors! Huzzah!

Alvor the Smith says that he does the smithing and also that he fixes the Lumber Mill, causing me to wonder if the mill will be permanently ruined if I combine said vandalism with brutally murdering Alvor. In his sleep.

Todd directs the character onward to a quick view of the Lumber Mill and then to his trusty, fat steed that I have chosen to call Chubby Steve. He rides Chubby Steve up the mountain where he shows us a far-away view of the Throat of the World, the biggest mountain in Skyrim and by god, I have tears in my eyes, for this sight is the greater than Niagara Falls! FACT!

On to greater experiences! Todd makes a quick stop by a tower - remember that? There are 2 guards there and this I've been waiting eagerly to make comments on; More so than on the questionable, glowing lunch in the cafeteria at school! He shows us 2 old spells reborn: Detect Life and Frenzy. I must admit that I didn't really use them in Oblivion. I never figured out how to use Frenzy properly and Detect Life was just annoyingly blocking the view. Seriously -.-

Detect Life is now a spell that is active as long as you are casting it, constantly depleting your magicka pool, which is awesome. Frenzy now works effectively - He fires it at one of the guard, and as the name suggests, he goes on a frenzy, trying to kill his friend! That. Is. Bad. Ass!

Moving on, he eventually reaches Bleak Falls Barrow, where he is attacked by a dragon, which you might have noticed. The dragon action we get to see is short, but magical. Unfortunately, he is a wuss and runs away into the temple.

List of awesome:

• Dragon sitting like a badass statue and suddenly just jumping at him.
• Detect Life and Frenzy reborn!
• Sweet combat with guards.
• Better conversation system.
• Chubby Steve.

-

McBraas

The Encumbered Scrolls: Skyrim!

One of the most miraculous things in RPG's, more miraculous than even flat-screen TV's (Just kidding - nothing is better,) is that everyone seems to have an ability to carry around a lot of crap without any pockets. As fond as I am of having that ability, I am pretty sure that it'll be one day added to list over resolved issues. Whilst that sucks, then I must say not entirely; for with it comes the encumbrance system, which I, no, WE hate if it isn't done tastefully, which it, funnily enough, rarely are! Ha. Ha. Ha. Funny.

But as much as I like not dipping my private parts into molten lava, I decided to dig in (no pun intended,) and see how'd Bethesda has done it this time around - X-iting!

Much to my surprise, it was good news! Glorious!! Ever seen a rainbow? This is better! Not that the rainbow sets the bar very high. Todd, god deity of our community, has stated himself that we'll be able to carry A LOT more in Skyrim, than in any of the previous games, so we don't have to drop nearly as much stuff.

Of course this affects other parts of the game, mostly economy, but evidently they've worked out a pretty good system, which I adore more than the Cookie Monster adores cookies.

Then there was Crafting

40 Fricken days left and it hits me that I've neglected to write about crafting. Seems these days that all I can dig up is 80% old crap, that about 50% of everyone knows about, which by all means is totally fine and I do believe that there'll be some details in this articles that most of you ain't aware of, but let's begin shall we? Remember The Little Mermaid? She turned to stone for all of her "waiting-around" - The original story, not Disney's. I digress.

Crafting has been somewhat neglected throughout the previous installments in this astonishing series and most people probably remember Oblivion's crafting: Alchemy was a mix-ingredients-on-the-go-and-get-mostly-useless-crap skill and though it was entertaining and you easily could get that "must keep going until skill is maxed out" vibe, it seemed sort of incomplete. The smithing part was merely repairing your gear, or to be more accurate it was breaking a brutal amount of hammers in a feeble attempt to repair our less-than-durable crap. Other than that, we could smack together some spells - Hurray! (Sense sarcasm.)

Now, the reason that Oblivion's systems are neat to mention is three-fold: First of all it is great for comparison of what's to come, second of all there might be some who didn't play Oblivion (why not, though?) and finally it is a great filler, just as merely writing that it's a filler is a filler and writing that is a filler too. Might just be a broken man's attempt at a humoristic input to mention that, though - Not likely, but you'll never know. I digress again.

CRAFTING! Crafting in Skyrim!
Let us break it down: There are three crafting systems in Skyrim!

1. Smithing
2. Alchemy
3. Enchanting

As you might've guessed, smithing is a warrior skill, alchemy a stealth-related skill and enchanting is a magicians skill, which means that each playstyle (melee, magic, stealth) has it's own corresponding crafting skill - hardcore math!

Let us begin with covering smithing.

Unlike Oblivion, smithing has nothing to do with repairing weapons, as items no longer degrate, which is totally awesome! The rest is fairly simple: You go out and gather ore / raw materials and then you go to a smithy to use your smithing skills! There are several types of resources that you can prospect throughout Skyrim. Your smithy options are to create or upgrade weapons and armors. The better you get at smithing, the more different kinds of items you can make - Now, I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I actually have a list right here:

• Steel
• Dwarven
• Elven
• Arcane
• Daedric
• Orchish
• Advanced
• Glass
• Ebony
• Dragon

And just a few comments on this list are commencing. As far as I've gathered, Arcane smithing is solely for improving already magic items, not creating them, whilst each of the other ones, makes you capable of not only creating armors, but also improving the efficiency by the double amount of their original worth. Finally, the dragon armors: Awesome! You can grab some dragon bones after you tear one of those suckers down, but mind that they are very heavy. 'Tis some serious shit, G!

It might also be wise to mention that in spite of everyones' hopes and wishes, there will be no armor customization - Enchanting your stuff will make it glow, but that's it.

Moving on, we have alchemy, which as you might remember was stealth-orientated. Unlike Oblivion, you can't mix potions on the go, but have to find an alchemy table in order to brew your liquids of what-ever-you-want. In terms of ingredients, they range from flowers & thistles all the way to small bugs and bone dust. In order to get what you need to make an awesome potion, you'll have to travel to different locations in Skyrim, as there are 7 different major climates, that all harbor different plant-life and beyond that you will in some cases also have to find what you need during night-time only, as things such as fireflies (or something alike) only comes out when it is dark. Furthermore, you will have to eat an ingredient to determine it's properties, of which each ingredient has four and as far as I know, you are no longer limited to less properties just because you have a low skill level, but I am not totally sure on that note. 

Then we've got enchanting, which Morrowind had, but Oblivion skipped for some reason (if you exclude The Sigil Stones, which you do.) It is pretty damn simple: When you find an enchanted item, you can break it down and then permanently learn its effect, which you can then apply to everything else. Huzzah! Mind that when you "break down" something, it's permanently gone - Not unlike enchanting in World of Warcraft. Anyway, you do need an enchanting shrine for this process, so you may have to carry that luggage around if you want to disassemble it properly; And it is here that it comes in handy that we can have hundreds of objects in the pockets that we do not have - Gotta love RPG's!

So overall it looks like all crafting skills forces us to go to cities and find worktables in order to make use of them. Sneaky bitches. Trough looking at the various crafting skills, you can actually see how distinct each path is as opposed to prior games. You can stand on your own feet, no matter what you choose to specialize in - The Melee path have smithing, allowing great armor ratings, keeping our warrior from dying. The Stealth path favors not being seen, and use alchemy to make healing potions, keeping them alive - Finally, the enchanting adds to a wizards already extreme power, be that destruction or healing.

It seems clear to me that they've designed each crafting skill with the wish to support each individual path in mind. It also seems as if they haven't left any of the good stuff out, but merely upgraded and added to achieve awesome - nothing is missing; Or at least not anything I can think of.

...

...

... Oh, and spellcrafting is out. See ya!