FUS RO DAH, or: You Can Tell I Have Been Playing Too Much Skyrim

[Morph Bark]

Dovahkiin Dovahkiin
Naal ok zin los vahriin
wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal
ahrk fin norok paal graan
fod nust hon zindro zaan!

Dovahkiin fah hin kogaan mu draal
ahrk fin kel lost prodah
do ved viing ko fin krah
tol fod zeymah win kein meyz fundein
Alduin feyn do jun
kruziik vokun staadnau
voth aan bahlok wah diivon fin lein!

FIRE BREATH
Yol
Prerequisite: Truespeak 6 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 18. If you succeed, you breathe a 30 ft line of fire that deals 2d6 fire damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).
Toor
Prerequisite: Truespeak 10 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 30. If you succeed, you breathe a 30 ft line of fire that deals 6d6 fire damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).
Shul
Prerequisite: Truespeak 20 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 45. If you succeed, you breathe a 60 ft line of fire that deals 12d6 fire damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).

FROST BREATH
Foh
Prerequisite: Truespeak 6 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 18. If you succeed, you breathe a 15 ft cone of cold that deals 2d6 cold damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).
Kra
Prerequisite: Truespeak 10 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 30. If you succeed, you breathe a 15 ft cone of cold that deals 6d6 cold damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).
Diin
Prerequisite: Truespeak 20 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 45. If you succeed, you breathe a 30 ft cone of cold that deals 12d6 cold damage (Reflex half, DC equal to your Truespeak result).

UNRELENTING FORCE
Fus
Prerequisite: Truespeak 4 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 16 + the target's CR. If you succeed, the target becomes staggered for 1 round.
Ro
Prerequisite: Truespeak 8 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 20 + the target's CR. If you succeed, the target becomes staggered for 2 rounds.
Dah
Prerequisite: Truespeak 12 ranks.
Effect: You make a Truespeak check as a standard action, DC 24 + the target's CR. If you succeed, the target creature must make a Strength check as if it were being Bull Rushed. If you beat the creature's Strength check, you push it back 5 feet. For every 5 your Truespeak check beats the creature's Strength check, the creature is pushed back an additional 5 feet. A creature cannot be pushed away from you more than 5 + (your Truespeak result divided by 5) feet.


WHY AM I DOING THIS?
As I recently put in my sig, I am devising a new campaign setting. This will use a bunch of alternate rules and some things that are a little unconventional in standard DnD. One of my ideas was to make Truespeak useable by everyone, for instance, and have Truespeech abilities be granted based on how many ranks you had in the skill. I have no idea yet how to precisely balance this, but I will figure out a way.

Then I started playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and things got worse (better) from there.

BUT REALLY, WHY AM I DOING THIS?
Because awesome, that's why.

[Lord Ruby34]

Well, the first thing I can note is that Ro is inferior to Fus, as they do the exact same thing, only Ro has harder prerequisites and it's harder to make the check.

[Wyntonian]

...Can you pretty, pretty please do more? maybe make them something work taking, like having enemies be knocked prone on a failed save for Ro, and having a bit of a cooldown.


Please do more.

Please.

[Kane0]

Please do more.

Please.

This. Draconic Truespeaking just sounds awesome. Plus these can actually be said during the game and don't sound like gibberish!

[TravelLog]

This. Draconic Truespeaking just sounds awesome. Plus these can actually be said during the game and don't sound like gibberish!

It could be a truenamer that actually works. And has combat potential!

[Wyntonian]

This is the start of something beautiful. Should they be feats in the FUS RO DAH style, or a whole base class?

[Kane0]

How about a truenaming class with a Draconic Fluff? Grants these as class abilities

[Domriso]

I likewise fully support this. I join the demand for moar. I'll even help, if asked.

[Morph Bark]

Added two more for now, though this is going off YouTube vids and wiki description. I have been fiddling around too much with other aspects of the game before going to the Greybeards, so I don't have many shouts yet (a small number of Dragon Souls though, yum).

This is the start of something beautiful. Should they be feats in the FUS RO DAH style, or a whole base class?

I am actually not sure yet how to implement these. With my original idea, these would be available to anyone simply investing skill points in Truespeak (though perhaps now I should change it to "Dragonspeak" instead), with a feat for becoming a Dragonborn (only takeable at level 1). I am still trying to think of a good way to implement these that they wouldn't be necessarily tied to a class and everyone can take them. Of course, making a class around them to make them useable in other campaign settings is a fine idea in itself.

I will add more as I gain access to more Dragon Shouts in the game and see their effects for myself. Thus, it may go a little slowly, unless I just look them up in vids on YouTube and their description on the wiki (though in YouTube vids they usually only show the full force of all three syllables together). Help, of course, is welcome (including in finding good YouTube demonstration vids, preferable that show the power of each different stage of a Shout).

Nice to see such support!

[The Succubus]

A note on Dragonborn:

A Dragonborn has the ability to learn Words of Power with remarkable speed, after nomming on a Dragon Soul. However, even people without draconic heritage can still learn Shouts with a sufficient investment of skill and time - Ulfric Stormcloak being such an example.

So the Dragonborn feat needs to behave in such a way as to confer an advantage but still allow mundanes to be able to Shout. Perhaps being Dragonborn increases the DC of Shouts, or perhaps lockout the third rank of Shouts to people that are not Dragonborn?

[GodGoblin]

A note on Dragonborn:

A Dragonborn has the ability to learn Words of Power with remarkable speed, after nomming on a Dragon Soul. However, even people without draconic heritage can still learn Shouts with a sufficient investment of skill and time - Ulfric Stormcloak being such an example.

So the Dragonborn feat needs to behave in such a way as to confer an advantage but still allow mundanes to be able to Shout. Perhaps being Dragonborn increases the DC of Shouts, or perhaps lockout the third rank of Shouts to people that are not Dragonborn?

Or maybe do it like the Binder, ToB and Incarnum classes? So the Dragon Born takes levels in the class and gets lods of these abilities, able to reach full potential but you can take feats instead to give you a word or 2.

So pretty much its like taking Shape Soulmeld: Strongheart vest or Martial Study when not being a totemist or Warblade.

[Eldan]

How about a Dragonborn template? Makes you counts a dragonblooded creature, makes truespeak a class skill for you in all classes, and every skill point put in Truespeak counts as, say, three ranks for fulfilling the prerequisites of shouts.

[Edge]

I have a Dovahkiin Prestige Class in the works at the moment. It's going to be a martial adept (because I literally cannot make anything else) that gains access to the Shouts. If you're interested, once it's finished I'll cross post it to here.

My only other comment is that the damage on the breath weapon shouts looks very low with the higher words.

[DeusMortuusEst]

I agree with Eldan, a template would fit a dragonborn much better than a class. I look forward to see the rest of this project...

[Hazzardevil]

I had my own idea on how to add shotus to a game.

Mine was there was a greybeards class. They would l earn shouts from scrolls, taking 8 hours to learn and would convert a spell into a shout.
To access higher level spells you must use learn low level ones. Rather crude system, so I think truenaming would work better.

How about a dragonborn requires 3 feats at various levels to learn the shouts. These shouts would be learned sooner by dragonborn, maybe they may be able to put 2 more ranks in truenaming than a normal person.

Heres a list of shouts I know of.

Marked for Death, in skyrim it slowly lowers health and lowers armour rating for about a minute, higher ranks make the effects larger.

Slow Time, you experiance time slower, in-game you move slowly too, so I think in dnd it would likely give a bonus on attack and damage rolls because you can aim better when attacking.

Whirlwind Fury or somesuch.
Attack faster, maybe gain an extra attack at your lowest attack bonus for the round, higher ranks give you an extra attack at your second and third lowest bonuses.

Animal Alligence:
Summon natures ally, it summons animals in skyrim.

Etheral Form:
You become invincible for about 10-20 seconds, become incorporeal in dnd for about 2 rounds.

Ice Form:
An enemy would be invincible for a while, if you hit them they stop being invincible, they can't do anything while they are frozen.

[Kane0]

Slow Time, you experiance time slower, in-game you move slowly too, so I think in dnd it would likely give a bonus on attack and damage rolls because you can aim better when attacking.

What about emulating some Diamond Mind stuff?

Also I think there was a dash one that you get off the Greybeards, maybe it would do an expedious retreat.

[havocfett]

Animal Alleigance works better as a Dominate or Charm effect that only effects animals and vermin. Will save.

Whirlwind is an Expeditious Retreat analogue

Slow Time might work best as a Haste analogue.

[Veklim]

The dash is called Whirlwind Stride or somesuch, the one which does faster attack is called Elemental Fury.

I wondered how long it would be before the boards came alive with cross-pollinating ES - DnD again. Seems like so long since Oblivion

[Wyntonian]

I personally vote for a first-level feat that allows access to the highest tier of shouts (the DAH in FUS RO DAH, etc.), and maybe the ability to add ones character level to save DC's. I'd also support a full-fledged Dovahkiin class, but this works for me.

Side note, the reason I'm against a template, especially one with LA, as much sense as it makes from the fluff angle, is that it makes the option of causally FUS RO DAH-ing a random halfling into the next county inaccessible to a PC who doesn't want to build his entire character around that. This way, there's a level of optimization possible (taking the first-level feat), but also some dip potential.

Also, HERE's a complete list of the shouts in Skyrim. Don't look at it if you don't want to see exactly what I told you it was. Derp.


To add my 2 cp to other points people have made:

Animal Alleigance works better as a Dominate or Charm effect that only effects animals and vermin. Will save.

..In that case, you've spent a feat to use a situationally, kinda, useful ability. Yes, in Skyrim it works as a dominate sort of effect, but SNA is more versatile and, in my opinion, more worth a feat.

[The-Mage-King]

How about a Dragonborn template? Makes you counts a dragonblooded creature, makes truespeak a class skill for you in all classes, and every skill point put in Truespeak counts as, say, three ranks for fulfilling the prerequisites of shouts.

I approve of this. Fully.

[Hazzardevil]

I approve of this. Fully.

Only instead of getting LA, you get a dragons RHD with the template, like the monster classes we had on the board a year ago.
Hmm, you would get with this HD.
6 skill points, full BAB and all good saves, but you would only get the dragonborn template with this.

[The-Mage-King]

Only instead of getting LA, you get a dragons RHD with the template, like the monster classes we had on the board a year ago.
Hmm, you would get with this HD.
6 skill points, full BAB and all good saves, but you would only get the dragonborn template with this.

....



:D


"Racial Paragon Class". Those three words work for this. About 3 levels long, good HD, saves, BAB... And make it easier to qualify for Thu'rums over each.


Maybe put a thing like the Hu-Par's "One skill is always a class skill" on the 1st level, and a "you may reduce the Truespeak requirements for any Thu'rum you wish to learn by 1 for each level of this Paragon class. Only actual levels in this class count for this, and any effective levels gained through other prestige classes are excluded.", or so, on there as well?

[Hazzardevil]

....
:D
Isn't Plagiarism wonderful?

"Racial Paragon Class". Those three words work for this. About 3 levels long, good HD, saves, BAB... And make it easier to qualify for Thu'rums over each.
Racial paragon, monster class, same thing at the end of the day, aside from the paragon idea would stop people taking other paragon classes, probably doesn't matter much.

Maybe put a thing like the Hu-Par's "One skill is always a class skill" on the 1st level, and a "you may reduce the Truespeak requirements for any Thu'rum you wish to learn by 1 for each level of this Paragon class. Only actual levels in this class count for this, and any effective levels gained through other prestige classes are excluded.", or so, on there as well?
I like that idea, we don't want to end up having uncanny trickster and bloodlines making things go crazy.

Maybe we should have a class for someone who isn't dragonborn, but can still use shouts.

[Morph Bark]

Maybe we should have a class for someone who isn't dragonborn, but can still use shouts.

Obviously.

For now I think I will first try to see how to implement the shouts as to be useable. After all, I want them to be useable by any player in my next campaign/campaign setting. Those not taking a feat to make Truespeak/Dragonspeak a class skill would have to spend more skill points to increase it and would thereby already be limited of course. This does make me think I should perhaps make the requirements of a few basic shouts low, like at 2 ranks or so...

From a fluff standpoint an inherited template makes the most sense for a Dovahkiin, so I will likely do either that or make it a 1st-level-only feat. A racial paragon class is befitting the earlier ages of Skyrim though, when there were more Dragonborn to go around. I recommend giving it full initiator level progression, at least as an option.

[Hazzardevil]

Obviously.

For now I think I will first try to see how to implement the shouts as to be useable. After all, I want them to be useable by any player in my next campaign/campaign setting. Those not taking a feat to make Truespeak/Dragonspeak a class skill would have to spend more skill points to increase it and would thereby already be limited of course. This does make me think I should perhaps make the requirements of a few basic shouts low, like at 2 ranks or so...
Some of the basic things like animal allegiance and FUS.
From a fluff standpoint an inherited template makes the most sense for a Dovahkiin, so I will likely do either that or make it a 1st-level-only feat. A racial paragon class is befitting the earlier ages of Skyrim though, when there were more Dragonborn to go around. I recommend giving it full initiator level progression, at least as an option.

We could have the DM choose which one he wants between the paragon and the template depending on the campaign.

[The-Mage-King]

...Hold on...


Dovahkiin Racial Paragon Class

Spoiler

Show

A special Paragon class, Dovahkiin Paragon may be taken by any humanoid. This may be taken even if the character already has levels in another Racial Paragon class, and does not prevent a creature from taking levels in a different Paragon class after completion.


HD: d12
Class Skills:Any 7, plus Truespeak.
Skill Points at each level: 4+Int modifier



Dragonkin: The Dovahkiin Paragon gains the (Dragonblood) subtype.

Eased Thu'um: Due to the nature of their spirit, the Dovahkiin Paragon is more able to master the power of the Thu'um. For each time he gains this class ability, the Dovahkiin Paragon is treated as having an additional rank in Truespeak for the purposes of meeting Thu'rum prerequisites. For example, a 2nd level Dovahkiin Paragon with 5 ranks in truespeak is treated as having 7 ranks in Truespeak when he is trying to learn a new Shout. The maximum number of effective Truespeak ranks allowed from this ability is the number of Dovahkiin Paragon's level in this class.

Bonus Draconic Feat: At second level, a Dovahkiin Paragon gains a bonus [Draconic] feat. They must meet all prerequisites for this feat. It may not be changed.

Enhanced Thu'um: The Dovahkiin Paragon may add his Charisma modifier to the save DC of any Thu'um he uses.

Not exactly like was suggested, but should be fairly balanced.


Not too shabby for 5 minutes work, eh?

[Hazzardevil]

There is no R is Thu'um Otherwise, good job. But you forgot to mention about how the bonus on truenaming cannot be raised outside of levls in dragonborn.

[Pokonic]

Just saying, this is a wonderful idea. I wonder how long it will be for someone to make Jills using this?

[The-Mage-King]

There is no R is Thu'um Otherwise, good job. But you forgot to mention about how the bonus on truenaming cannot be raised outside of levls in dragonborn.

Dur. Fixed, and added.



Also, Dragonborn is already a template... I want to keep it from getting confused with the WotC one, so I'm using Dovahkiin instead.

[Hazzardevil]

Dur. Fixed, and added.



Also, Dragonborn is already a template... I want to keep it from getting confused with the WotC one, so I'm using Dovahkiin instead.

I'm using the 2 interchangably, but that just gave me an idea. How draconic can a character be?
A dragonwrought, dragonborn, draconic, Dovahkiin, Half-dragon Kobold polymorphed into a dragon anyone?