Grand Souls from Humans?

[Colorjuice14]

I have black soul gems and the Black Star, but when I soul trap people (bandits etc), it says that there is a grand soul in it?!?!
I played the original skyrim on xbox and i dont ever remember having that happen (although I didnt enchant much too).

[gnewna]

Yes, humans have black grand souls, whereas creatures that have grand souls (mammoths, I think certain types of high level draugr/falmer) have white grand souls - essentially, the difference is simply in what type of gem can capture them - a black soul gem can capture a human's soul (or an elf, khajiit, etc - think this includes vampires, too), a normal grand soul gem can capture a creature's soul.

I think in previous games (maybe up to Oblivion) humanoid ('black') souls were actually stronger than 'white' grand souls, but in Skyrim they're functionally identical once you've filled your gem.

Tl;dr version: all is as it should be!

[Dave1029]

I wish they'd stick to lore. Black souls should provide the highest level of power. Balance be damned.

[gnewna]

They wouldn't have had to change it if they'd just, you know, kept black soul gems as rare/requiring actually creating them and stuff. But then they went all 'woo, corrupted Azura's Star, cool, right?' so :/

(I *think* before Oblivion you couldn't even capture human/playable-race souls? I don't remember ever managing it in Morrowind, anyway, don't think I ever saw a black soul gem, though it's possible they were craftable and I never stumbled on how...)

[Dave1029]

Originally posted by gnewna:

They wouldn't have had to change it if they'd just, you know, kept black soul gems as rare/requiring actually creating them and stuff. But then they went all 'woo, corrupted Azura's Star, cool, right?' so :/

(I *think* before Oblivion you couldn't even capture human/playable-race souls? I don't remember ever managing it in Morrowind, anyway, don't think I ever saw a black soul gem, though it's possible they were craftable and I never stumbled on how...)

The black star is cool, but black soul gem crafting necromancer style would have been much cooler. Like a conjuration spell that thralls people that you have to sacrifice in order to create the gems... you know fun mechanics which this game sorely lacks.

[alexander_dougherty]

Black souls have always been classified as the equivalent of a grand soul, nothing new there.
Making them more powerful than grand souls means players have to trap people or not have the best enchantments, it works out quite well as a moral balance at the minute, easy bandit or dangerous mammoth.

[gnewna]

Hmm, could have sworn in Oblivion they were a bit stronger, in keeping with the book, Souls, Black and White http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Souls,_Black_and_White ("White souls are far safer than black souls, although not as powerful." - I guess this is ignoring the existence of white grand souls, or viewing them as so rare as to be not worth mentioning etc)

But yeah, just looked it up and both black and white grand souls are 1600 points.

[Colorjuice14]

ok thanks

[NIKFS]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Black souls have always been classified as the equivalent of a grand soul, nothing new there.
Making them more powerful than grand souls means players have to trap people or not have the best enchantments, it works out quite well as a moral balance at the minute, easy bandit or dangerous mammoth.

see it as the dark side of the force, err necromancer, faster but morally wrong (not that that stops me when playing ^_* but you can hear it being demonized by the people in skyrim in random chatter if i remember correctly, also conjurers and necromancers get alot of flak anyway)

[gnewna]

Eh, tbh I think bandits have done more to deserve being trapped than mammoths have.

[NIKFS]

Originally posted by gnewna:

Eh, tbh I think bandits have done more to deserve being trapped than mammoths have.

arvac is an interesting subject, as far as i remember he is the only animal in the soul cairn, seems like animals dont usually go there anyway

[gnewna]

Sure, but IDK if the Soul Cairn is the only place trapped souls go? (Also there are, I believe, two cow souls in the Soul Cairn.)