You get a fixed amount of perks, 70 odd if you power level, about 50 for a normal end game character. Want decapitation, but consider the other perks necessary to get it as useless? Fine, think of it as decapitation costs four perks, whereas a damage boost costs one. That would be fair, extra cost for a better perk, whether or not you want the perks below, it's an ability that is worth more.

As for the +20% perks, apart from the first one you have a choice. More damage or interesting effect. Lot of posts here saying there should be more effects, but that takes the choice away from those who want extra damage. Someone wants a half braindead Orc who smashes skulls instead of worrying about fancy moves, then extra damage is part of what defines that character, but it seems from some of this thread that such a character shouldn't be possible, because some people wouldn't find it interesting.

Also there are two types of choice. Spellmaking, taking perks by 'jumping around the trees', wielding a sword, a shield, and a spell, these were all choices, but didn't require decisions. Now, with the limited amount of spells, the equipping to hands, and the limits on perks, real choices have to be made. Someone mentioned a healing flame. Well, making that spell was one of millions of choices, choices with no real consequence, now you have to decide whether the flame or the healing will best serve you, or whether you can afford to forego a weapon to use both. You can burn enemies and heal yourself at the same time, but there are consequences, specifically not being able to use a sword or shield at the same time.

Which sounds more interesting? Choices without worrying about limitation or consequence, from a vast amount of options, not real decisions of import at all, or being constantly required to make choices, every encounter demanding tactical decisions, and getting the perks you want requiring forethought and the sacrifice of other potential abilities?

I expected perks to make certain skill sets more significant and to greatly enhance the players ability, but ever more often I keep seeing snippets and hints that the actual leveling of skills may no longer have any value at all, other than, perhaps, allowing you to cast certain spells. If ALL of the advancements that used to come with leveling a skill now have to be chosen from the perk trees, then players will end up cheated out of many of the things that we have hitherto taken for granted.

We don't know how the tree is structured, but I can guarantee you that the 50% consumption thing is either going to be a tiered perk (and thus you only have to get the first one to unlock the rest of the things along its branch) or is going to have a branch to itself. We already know that the root perk of every magic tree is the one that allows you to double-up your spells to make them more powerful. Now that fire makes enemies flee thing? It's an advanced feature. You have to at least get the perk that lets you make your spells more powerful by doubling them (a mark of a competent caster in the school), then make your fire spells more powerful, and only then can you imbue them with such flash and sparkle that it makes enemies poop their pants in terror. It's not a single straight line where you have to get every damn perk in the tree before you get that one you want. We've seen that they have multiple branches and seem to be laid out in a logical and natural way. You need to get good at smashing people in the face with a shield before you can hit them hard enough and with enough precision to cause them serious damage, to knock them over completely with a bash you put your entire body into, to be fast enough to smash their hands so they drop their weapon, and to have such a strong shield arm that you can brace your shield and hold it steady while you sprint and just completely steamroll everyone. That is linear progression that makes sense and rewards specialization. It would be dumb if you could just skip straight to the things that a legendary master of defense can do at a whim.

People need to drop this whole "the skills should X" mentality. Automatically giving you perks or letting you pick and choose perks without any rules (or too few rules) governing it goes against the point of the system.

Don't you kind of see my point though you had to use the knowledge you learned in your hs bio201 course to except the bio101 course and I'm sure you had to take another class before you could take bio201. Its the same thing with perks before you go around decapitating people you have to learn how to paralyze them and before you can learn to paralyze you have to learn how to disarm and so on and so on. You work your way up from the bottom and usually that bottom is a +1 to this or a 5 points to this and for skyrim its a 20% bonus to damage no matter how high your skill is.

I don't mean this in a condescending way but try playing some different rpgs other then Fallout and you'll see it isn't the norm.

Right, I do need to get good at all those things before I can do them ... which is what getting a skill to level 100 represents.

Not anymore. We've been over this.

That's what's good about it. You can only get 1/3 max perks. This will force your character to be more specialized.

You can have 100 skill in destruction, but not be all that great at it. I like the system since it channels characters away from being perfect at everything. Some people don't like that though.

Actually, unless they allow you a maximum of at least 95 perks, you will certainly NOT get anything near 1/3rd of 280 perks. At most you may be able to manage 1/4 exactly.

Secondly, and this is the thing so many seem not to appreciate. . . FORCE and FREEDOM are generally not synonymous. If you are forced to do something in a certain way, or forbidden from doing something in a certain way, then all that talk about freedom and being able to play how you want is just false propaganda. A lie.

While the latter point is not the primary point of this thread, it is still a matter that needs clarification. Restricting possible builds to a 1/4th maximum does not offer more unique builds, nor does it allow for a greater number of builds nor a greater variety of builds. It SEVERELY decreases the number of possible builds. It does not only take away the possibility of the singular, master of all skills uber build. It also negates the dozens of possible combinations of mastering more than 4 to 6 of any set of skills greater It kills the possibility of a mighty warrior-wizard who has mastered five schools of magic and three schools of Melee combat (note, 5 plus 3 is 8 NOT 18). It cancels the possibility of the person Alchemaeical Arch Sorcerer, skilled in all the schools of magic and the arts of Alchemy and Enchanting. It kills the possibiltiy of ever having any one of the vast number of VERY different character combinations that would use full mastery of say 7 out of 18 skills, 8 out of 18 skills, 9 out of 18 skills etc.

The assumption is that the restrictions will lead to a greater prevelance of unique builds because players can no longer max every skill. But how many players ever made a habit of maxing every skill anyway?? Of the 20 plus skills in Oblivion I would wager the MOST players never bothered to master more than 9 or 10 of the available skills (if that many) on anyone character. I certainly did not. For those who wished to do so, well and good for them, their perogative.

Hopefully the branches and restrictions will be relevant. For example I would hope attack related Sneak perks are on their own branch from the more passive perks in the tree. As my mage/stealth hybrid for example, I have no need for dagger/bow perks. If the branches are logical I doubt it will be annoying, as some people are suggesting.

Actually, unless they allow you a maximum of at least 95 perks, you will certainly NOT get anything near 1/3rd of 280 perks. At most you may be able to manage 1/4 exactly.

Secondly, and this is the thing so many seem not to appreciate. . . FORCE and FREEDOM are generally not synonymous. If you are forced to do something in a certain way, or forbidden from doing something in a certain way, then all that talk about freedom and being able to play how you want is just false propaganda. A lie.

While the latter point is not the primary point of this thread, it is still a matter that needs clarification. Restricting possible builds to a 1/4th maximum does not offer more unique builds, nor does it allow for a greater number of builds nor a greater variety of builds. It SEVERELY decreases the number of possible builds. It does not only take away the possibility of the singular, master of all skills uber build. It also negates the dozens of possible combinations of mastering more than 4 to 6 of any set of skills greater It kills the possibility of a mighty warrior-wizard who has mastered five schools of magic and three schools of Melee combat (note, 5 plus 3 is 8 NOT 18). It cancels the possibility of the person Alchemaeical Arch Sorcerer, skilled in all the schools of magic and the arts of Alchemy and Enchanting. It kills the possibiltiy of ever having any one of the vast number of VERY different character combinations that would use full mastery of say 7 out of 18 skills, 8 out of 18 skills, 9 out of 18 skills etc.

The assumption is that the restrictions will lead to a greater prevelance of unique builds because players can no longer max every skill. But how many players ever made a habit of maxing every skill anyway?? Of the 20 plus skills in Oblivion I would wager the MOST players never bothered to master more than 9 or 10 of the available skills (if that many) on anyone character. I certainly did not. For those who wished to do so, well and good for them, their perogative.

Actually, unless they allow you a maximum of at least 95 perks, you will certainly NOT get anything near 1/3rd of 280 perks. At most you may be able to manage 1/4 exactly.

Secondly, and this is the thing so many seem not to appreciate. . . FORCE and FREEDOM are generally not synonymous. If you are forced to do something in a certain way, or forbidden from doing something in a certain way, then all that talk about freedom and being able to play how you want is just false propaganda. A lie.

While the latter point is not the primary point of this thread, it is still a matter that needs clarification. Restricting possible builds to a 1/4th maximum does not offer more unique builds, nor does it allow for a greater number of builds nor a greater variety of builds. It SEVERELY decreases the number of possible builds. It does not only take away the possibility of the singular, master of all skills uber build. It also negates the dozens of possible combinations of mastering more than 4 to 6 of any set of skills greater It kills the possibility of a mighty warrior-wizard who has mastered five schools of magic and three schools of Melee combat (note, 5 plus 3 is 8 NOT 18). It cancels the possibility of the person Alchemaeical Arch Sorcerer, skilled in all the schools of magic and the arts of Alchemy and Enchanting. It kills the possibiltiy of ever having any one of the vast number of VERY different character combinations that would use full mastery of say 7 out of 18 skills, 8 out of 18 skills, 9 out of 18 skills etc.

The assumption is that the restrictions will lead to a greater prevelance of unique builds because players can no longer max every skill. But how many players ever made a habit of maxing every skill anyway?? Of the 20 plus skills in Oblivion I would wager the MOST players never bothered to master more than 9 or 10 of the available skills (if that many) on anyone character. I certainly did not. For those who wished to do so, well and good for them, their perogative.

That sounds like a GOOD system to you? Really? Not trying to be a dike, but that sounds less than kosher to me. Way less.

People just don't believe in personal responsibility anymore. Max out everything every time you play, its the games fault not your own. The little detail that lots of people never played that way and had a unique build every time doesn't matter, because they can't help themselves so they need the game to do it for them.