LE Customizable shouts/spells a la Magicka

[Helvinr]

So, I had an idea the other day for a mod. For those that have never played/heard of Magicka, it's a game where the entire premise was being a wizard that cast spells from various schools of magic to do a variety of effects.

 

It had a unique system for doing it, though. You had elements that you chose from. Protection, earth, ice, fire, water, steam, cold (Different kind of ice? Always confused me.), life, and arcane (or death as some call it). You experimented with different combinations to do various things from creating a barrier of fire in front of you, to shooting a lazer beam of ice to freeze your enemies solid, to hurling a large boulder to shatter said enemies, to healing yourself.

 

I love that notion. Experimenting with different effects and combinations to discover what could be done. Including sometimes blowing yourself up.

 

I'd love to see that sort of gameplay in the land of Skyrim. And it could be simpler, or even more in-depth. But I have no idea how this would all be implimented.

 

As for the shout portion, I have a mildly similar idea for that. Shouts are comprised of 3 differnt words. We can see what the words mean. But what happens if you mix them up a bit?

 

For this, I was thinking of creating a "dummy shout" so to speak. And another ability that allowed you to customize what that shout did.

 

Example: Wuld + Ro + Gron. Wuld is word 1 of Whirlwind Sprint. Ro is word 2 of Unrelenting Force. Gron is word 3 of Become Ethereal.

 

The combined effect would be a shout that performed a short dash, a minor stagger, and then made you ethereal for a short amount of time.

 

Or you could go with Fus + Ro + Viik (Words 1 and 2 of unrelenting force and word 3 of disarm) to do a more powerful stagger and disarm them for a short time. The combinations seem endless. And you could even add more dragon words for added fun.

 

I'm looking for thoughts and suggestions, and some advice on how/where to get started on making this. If anyone else is wanting to take up the project, that works as well. I'm a beginner when it comes to scripting, and my method of learning is to reverse-engineer similar mods and discover how they work and how to replicate the effect I'm looking for.