So something like words of power?
Dragon Shouts are the oldest and most powerful form of magic in the Elder Scrolls universe. Seeing as all player characters have innate magical abilities, arguing that it isn't magic doesn't really make sense. So as previously stated, just making them spell like abilities would work just fine.
Anyway, FUS RO DAH!
In the pen and paper of Dark Legacies, there is a class ability where people use "the voice". It could be converted into something close to the abilities of the Thu'um I suppose.
But then again, when you open this box of worms, everyone is going to want these abilities, and you're gonna have to work out why only some have it, or would it be very common, and thus kill a lot of the mystique.
The obvious method would to be to have a prestige class, that anyone can access giving you tons of shouts quite quickly, and also a option to gain a shout over 3 feats. That way people who don't take the class would be restricted heavily by how many feats they are willing to give up, to represent how they require a lot of training.
Question is what sort of actions should it take, and how often could it be used? Perhaps a "cooldown" system like a dragon with his breath attack?
I think the earlier shouts should be relatively weak, but swift actions, with them scaling up over turns to require more actions but become significantly more effective, or be different based on the shout.
(whirlwind sprint could be a effective way to give a pounce like ability for fighters for instance.)
I had this exact same idea. Thinking, of course, how cool would it be to have this in my PF games. Then I backed off, and realized the mechanics of making this as cool and "epic" (meaning only available to the few elite) would take so much work that you'd have to create an entire splat book just on the mechanics.
Now... if some 3rd party publisher out there wants to create this splat book, I would more than likely purchase it. That way I'm not doing the up front work, but I still get the awesomeness of the Thu'um in my campaigns.
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I used to use shouts in my PF game, but then I took an arrow to the knee >>
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Breath weapons.
Set recharge to whatever you'd like, and have basic words recreate the Sp or Su effects you'd like.
Fire Breath is easy, as is Frost Breath
Unrelenting Force serves as a bull rush
Storm Call does call lightning storm or similar
Wind Rush is a dash-haste type effect, etc.
Boom, Dragonborn all up in your grill.
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I used to use shouts in my PF game, but then I took an arrow to the knee >>Have you seen those warriors from Qadira? They have curved swords. Curved. Swords.
I got to thinking, what if I'm the PC? And I just don't know it?
Anyway what you will want to do is changing those spell like abilities to only include the verbal component. Also the option to cast them with different effective caster levels and make the time until you can use them again increase when casting them at higher levels.
Well from my understanding everyone in skyrim can use the voice. It's just that 99.9% don't know how to, .09% have spent their entire lives trying to master the Voice, and the final .01% are dragonborn who can learn and master shouts in a blink of an eye.
Also, you can't use shouts until you absorb the soul of a dragon, which can only be gotten by slaying a dragon. In Skyrim, this can be accomplished in the first few levels, but we know that in Pathfinder, it's a little different...
Well from my understanding everyone in skyrim can use the voice. It's just that 99.9% don't know how to, .09% have spent their entire lives trying to master the Voice, and the final .01% are dragonborn who can learn and master shouts in a blink of an eye.Also, you can't use shouts until you absorb the soul of a dragon, which can only be gotten by slaying a dragon. In Skyrim, this can be accomplished in the first few levels, but we know that in Pathfinder, it's a little different...
Well, not quite. Non-dragonborn can't absorb dragon souls. I can't tell you the exact mechanics on this but I would say that if you learn them by training with a master you don't need a dragon soul. But when you get them off a word wall you need a soul.
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Well, not quite. Non-dragonborn can't absorb dragon souls. I can't tell you the exact mechanics on this but I would say that if you learn them by training with a master you don't need a dragon soul. But when you get them off a word wall you need a soul.Well from my understanding everyone in skyrim can use the voice. It's just that 99.9% don't know how to, .09% have spent their entire lives trying to master the Voice, and the final .01% are dragonborn who can learn and master shouts in a blink of an eye.Also, you can't use shouts until you absorb the soul of a dragon, which can only be gotten by slaying a dragon. In Skyrim, this can be accomplished in the first few levels, but we know that in Pathfinder, it's a little different...
Actually if you're dragonborn a other people can impart knowledge of the voice to you, without killing a dragon and taking its soul that is.
Iconic Skyrim Stan is a LV10 Arcane Duelist Bard.
Check out the spell "Discordant Blast"
Skyrim is boring. However bards are good at shouts like others have said.
I thought about converting the Shouts to Pathfinder, but then Monte Cook fired an arrow at my knee with D&D 5th Edition etched on it.
This is sort of thread necro, but I had thought. Why not make the shouts much like the litanies? Swift action arcane spells, one or two available per level, then improved versions going up?
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Seems to me like it'd work fine. Make Dovahkiin a PrC. Prereq: must slay a dragon. With that as the only prereq, anybody of any class can become one as long as the GM is willing to throw a dragon at you. Then you get the shouts as SLAs or class abilities as you take levels in Dovahkiin. If, as has been stated, each shout is basically already represented in Pathfinder as a spell, then it should be easy to do as most of the rules foundation is already written.
I finally dug out my old Dark Legacies books for the stuff they have on the Voice. I would suggest finding the PDF of it, or getting it cheap off of Ebay or Noble Knight Games. It fits almost perfectly for what shouts are, with some tweaking depending on the flavor you want to bring to your game.
Those Greybeards could well be Qinggong Monks, thematically and mechanically they fit the profile to a large degree.
I like the PrC idea. But if I were to make the conversion the shouts wouldn't just be SLAs, they would be their own system to simlatethat the same shout can have different strenght depending on how many words you shout. The absorbing dragon souls for each word you want to unlock I would have to drop, PF dragons are much mre powerful than those Skyrim wimps.
They're not more powerfull than Alduin.
Tiamat beats Alduin with an arm and four heads tied behind her back.
Quick PrC:
The Dovahkiin
Requisites:
Participate in the killing of an adult dragon
BAB: medio
Saves: Good Will and Fort; Weak Ref
Level Words
1 Dragon tongue; Shout 4
2 7
3 10
4 Shout (2 words) 12
5 Dragon soul 14
6 16
7 18
8 Shout (3 words) 19
9 20
10 True Dragonborn 22
Dragon Tongue(Ex): The dragonborn learns Draconic as an extra language
Dragon Soul and True Dragonborn: Placeholder names until I can come up with some decent abilities.
Shout(Su): At first level the dragonborn learns to unlock his Thu'um, his Voice. He can shout a special word of power from the ancient draconic language. At first level he can shout only one word at a time and then he must recharge his Thu'um for ten full rounds before using any shout again. Shouting one word is a full round action. At 4th level you can shout a single word as a standard ation and you only need 7 rounds to recharge before shouting again. At 8th level you can shout a single word as move action and it takes five rounds to recharge your Thu'um after shouting a single word.
At 4th level you can shout two words of the same shout at the same time. Doing this produces a more powerful version of the shout but takes longer to use and recharge. Using two words of a shout takes a full round action and takes ten ronds to recharge after using. At 8th level you shout two words as a standard action and it takes seven rounds to recharge after it.
At 8th level you can use a full shout using all three words. This is very powerful but it takes a full round action and you need 10 rounds of recharge before shouting again.
All Shouts are supernatural unless a specific shout states otherwise.
Words(Su): You start know in the first words of four different shouts. You gain more words as you increase in levels according to the table. At first you can only learn the first word ofany shout. Starting at the 4th level you can learn the second word of any shout you already know the first word of. Starting at 8th level you can learn the third word of any shout you already know the first two words.
The starting recharge time was chosen so initially you will rarely use your shouts more than twice a battle, probably only once a battle but as they escalate you can start shouting the weaker versions much more reliably and the stronger versions retain the same structure you are already used to.
The number of words you per level was decided to give freedom and choosing wich shouts you want to experiment with, since you will have at 10 of them, but at the same time it caps your power at only four full power shouts. You also have the freedom of mixing it up, changing power for versatilty, you can have up to twenty two different shouts if you choose to only learn the first word of each shout. It's not the freedom of the game where you can ve all the words of all the shouts, but it is as much as can be given without breking the system.
I like to have midway and capstone abilities in the classes I make, so if anyone can give ideas for small but flavorful abilities for levels 5th and 10th I would appreciate. They don't have to match the placeholder names.
I'll try to work on the shouts properly on monday.
Tiamat is a Goddess, whereas Alduin is only a Demi-God (if that) and it still needs a unique ability and the aid of an entire warband of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen to destroy him.
Tiamat beats Alduin with an arm and four heads tied behind her back.
Quick PrC:
The Dovahkiin
Requisites:
Participate in the killing of an adult dragonBAB: medio
Saves: Good Will and Fort; Weak RefLevel Words
1 Dragon tongue; Shout 4
2 7
3 10
4 Shout (2 words) 12
5 Dragon soul 14
6 16
7 18
8 Shout (3 words) 19
9 20
10 True Dragonborn 22Dragon Tongue(Ex): The dragonborn learns Draconic as an extra language
Dragon Soul and True Dragonborn: Placeholder names until I can come up with some decent abilities.
Shout(Su): At first level the dragonborn learns to unlock his Thu'um, his Voice. He can shout a special word of power from the ancient draconic language. At first level he can shout only one word at a time and then he must recharge his Thu'um for ten full rounds before using any shout again. Shouting one word is a full round action. At 4th level you can shout a single word as a standard ation and you only need 7 rounds to recharge before shouting again. At 8th level you can shout a single word as move action and it takes five rounds to recharge your Thu'um after shouting a single word.
At 4th level you can shout two words of the same shout at the same time. Doing this produces a more powerful version of the shout but takes longer to use and recharge. Using two words of a shout takes a full round action and takes ten ronds to recharge after using. At 8th level you shout two words as a standard action and it takes seven rounds to recharge after it.
At 8th level you can use a full shout using all three words. This is very powerful but it takes a full round action and you need 10 rounds of recharge before shouting again.
All Shouts are supernatural unless a specific shout states otherwise.
Words(Su): You start know in the first words of four different shouts. You gain more words as you increase in levels according to the table. At first you can only learn the first word ofany shout. Starting at the 4th level you can learn...
Like it. I think the number of words can be taken down a notch, maybe 2 or 3 and add two or three every level.
What about these:
Dragon Soul: You have empathy with dragons and can think like one. You gain a +2 bonus on attack, damage, and saves against dragons.
True Dragonborn: Your body realizes it's full potential of the blood running in its veins. You gain the half-dragon template.
Out of curiosity has anyone attempted to work Skyrim's th'um into pathfinder?
i try something the same using the Power Words from UM
in a kind of subsystem where just one PC can also use it (because i don´t want a Dhovakin shouting arround every corner i turn my head)but i open all the words for all the classes. i dont restringed them by class at all.
so, Dhovakin´s Pool: 3+con mod (because it is in his blood)
and all of those are his points to cry his shouts!
How to learn more Words:
I place a lodge at the Minspine Mountains called: The Gray Beards and they can show you where to look this hidden words and place some in dungeons and lost cities of Golarion (campaign setting)
so simple and easy to use it.
How about Mythic feats?
nah!!
mythic rules are still broken, the mythic idea is great but the system is awful at all
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Here are some thoughts regarding Shouts (and Words of Power):
1. Treat as supernatural spell-like abilities. Based on the Word of Power learned, it either adds a greater related spell-effect or an applicable maximized spell feat. (Not sure how to deal with recharge times yet.)
2. I'm thinking that this can be worked in both non-mythic and mythic gameplay. For non-mythic, think Greybeards. I.e., anyone can learn to some extent, but not the to extent of Dragonborn (mythic).
For non-mythic, limit to one Thu'um (or Shout). Allow a total number of Words of Power to be learned by Intelligence Score and require a related DC Check to learn the Word. However, cap the number of Words of Power that can be used by Int- or Cha- Ability Modifier (whichever is higher) and require a related DC Check to unleash the Word.
For mythic, limit the number of Thu'ums (or Shouts) by Intelligence or Wisdom score, whichever is higher. A mythic character automatically learns Words of Power. For each mythic tier gained, unleash 1d3 Words of Power, provided that the role made at each mythic tier can be set aside (and accumulated or banked) upon acquisition of each mythic tier acquires.
Thoughts?
They pretty much all already exist. They're called spells.http://
Unrelenting Force: telekinesis, but less utility.
Storm Call: call lightning or control weather.
Fire/Frost Breath: dragon's breath.Etc. Every shout I've seen can be replicated by a spell in Pathfinder. So, to replicate them, just give those spells as spell-like abilities for whatever criteria (prestige class, rage powers, whatever).
Actually, someone went beyond just using Pathfinder spells, that are common to the Thu'ums in Skyrim, and has formatted the Thu'ums to work in Pathfinder. It was implemented along with a new Dragonborn prestige class. They did the an excellent job with formatting Skyrim to fall right into place with Pathfinders system, and I can't wait to use the system in my campaign. Check out the link and give your thoughts if you like. http://tamriel.rpg-chat.com/index.php?title=Main_Page