Are you tired of a boring metagame where all you do is grind your crafting skills to create weapons that give your character god-like abilities despite whatever other skills you've invested in? If so, then this mod had YOU in mind. Make Skyrim Great Again is a fairly large perk overhaul mod, so I've broken down the description into the following sections:
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<br />1. Goals
<br />2. Mutual exclusivity
<br />3. Perks
<br />4. Spells
<br />5. Crafting
<br />6. Requirements/Compatabliity
<br />7. Usage (for other modders)
<br />8. Credits/Recommended mods
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<br />1. Goals
<br />The goal of this mod is to expand your options for building a character based on how you want to play the game. I've felt that you don't have a lot of options in how you want to play the vanilla game, basically you have to pick a weapon you want to use, then mostly ignore the weapon's skills and just level up your smithing and enchanting to give your character God-like abilities and then the game is super easy. In an attempt to open your options in building your character, I've rebalanced the skills to provide more benefits to your combat skills and spells, and with crafting the focus is less on simply massing your firepower into enchantments that triple your weapon damage and more on giving you some different flavors for your gear. For weapons, I've tried to change the flavors of combat skills so one-handed and two-handed have slightly different play styles, rather than being carbon copies of each other. I've similarly differentiated Heavy Armor and Light Armor, so that Light Armor no longer is just Heavy Armor *light*, but now focuses on improving your attacks at the cost of a much more reduced armor level. Heavy Armor has been given more perks that boost your character's resilience apart from the basic armor protection. I've also added a new line of armor, Unarmored, which sacrifices pretty much all protection in favor of boosting your Magic and/or stealth abilites, as well as doing a couple of other things just for funzies. Since you can't create a new skill line out of thin air, I've repurposed Lockpicking to create the Unarmored skill line, which means to train in Unarmored you have to go through any Lockpicking trainer (don't worry, I've moved the Lockpicking perks over to the Pickpocket line and renamed that line Thieving). I've boosted the abilites of basically all magic skills (which, let's be honest, in vanilla Skyrim are rather lackluster), and I've also tweaked the other skill lines to try to add a little more flavor to the game. 
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<br />2. Mutual exclusivity
<br />To help enhance the flavors of some of the skill lines while still keeping the game balanced and forcing the player to make a decision on how they want to play, some of the perks are mutually exclusive. The most notable of these are the 3 main combat skill lines, One Handed, Two Handed and Archery. Once you get the base perk in any of these skill lines, you cannot get any perks in any of the other skill lines. There are also various other mutually exclusive perks, some within skill lines some between skill lines, so read each perk description all the way through to see if it will block any other skill you want to get.
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<br />3. Perks
<br />OK, here's the meat and potatoes of the matter, the description of all the perks:
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<br />a) Combat Skills
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<br />i. Smithing
<br />Novice Smithing: Allows Steel Smithing
<br />Apprentice Smithing: Allows Dwarven/Elven Smithing
<br />Adept Smithing: Allows Orcish/Advanced Smithing
<br />Expert Smithing: Allows Ebony/Glass Smithing
<br />Master Smithing: Allows Dragon/Daedric Smithing
<br />Hot Temper: Increases temper quality of weapons. Also allows the breakdown of weapons and armor into crafting materials at a forge (granting a small amount of XP)
<br />Steeled Defences: Increases temper quality of armor. Also allows the breakdown of various miscellaneous items into crafting materials at a forge (granting a small amount of XP)
<br />Fletcher: Allows for the crafting of improved arrows
<br />The following pers require a smithing skill of >100 (and an appropriate mod to get you there):
<br />Master Weaponsmith: Creates more powerful versions of certain weapons
<br />Master Armorsmith: Creates more powerful versions of certain armors
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<br />ii. One-Handed
<br />Armsman: Now increases your one-handed damage based on your skill in one-handed (not capped at 100). Mutually exclusive with Barbarian, Overdraw and Destruction Focus (blocks all Two Handed/Archery perks and some of the more powerful Destruction perks)
<br />Fighting Stance: Vanilla power attack discount is increased if you have a shield equipped, and increases your max stamina (twice as effective with a shield equipped)
<br />Critical Charge: Same as Vanilla
<br />Savage Strike: Same as Vanilla
<br />Crippling Blow: Sideways one-handed power attacks will cripple (slow) targets. You also can use an activated ability (with a stamina cost) to give normal attacks this ability
<br />Paralyzing strike: All power attacks have a 25% chance to paralyze
<br />Legionnaire: Increases one-handed weapon damage while you have a shield equipped
<br />Dual Flurry/Savagery: Same as Vanilla
<br />Hack and Slash: Same as Vanilla
<br />Bone Breaker: In addition to Vanilla, increases non-mace armor penetration by 10/20/30%
<br />Bladesman: In addition to Vanilla, also increases critical chance for daggers and critical damage for daggers
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<br />iii. Two-Handed
<br />Barbarian: Increases damage with two-handed skill. Mutually exclusive with Armsman, Overdraw and Destruction Focus (blocks all One Handed/Archery perks and some of the more powerful Destruction perks)
<br />Champion's Stance: 2 ranks, in addition to discounting power attacks also increases max stamina
<br />Bully: Power attacks stagger opponents. Activated ability (stamina cost) to make all attacks stagger
<br />Great Critical Charge: Same as Vanilla
<br />Devastating Blow: Bonus damage/decapitation chance now apply to all power attacks
<br />Sweep: In addition to power attacks having AOE, gain activated ability to give all attacks AOE
<br />Crushing Blow: Activated ability that makes all power attacks knock down opponents
<br />Warmaster: Same as Vanilla
<br />Limbsplitter/Deep Wounds/Skull Crusher: Same as Vanilla
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<br />iv. Archery
<br />Overdraw: Mutually exclusive with Barbarian, Armsman and Destruction Focus (blocks all Two Handed/One Handed perks and some of the more powerful Destruction perks). 3 ranks, which do the following.
<br />1. Increases damage as skill levels
<br />2. Less stagger with bow drawn
<br />3. If you have Fletcher, able to craft special arrows that move twice as fast as normal arrows
<br />Eagle Eye: Same as Vanilla
<br />Steady Hand: Same as Vanilla, just condensed into one perk
<br />Sniper: Increases sneak attack damage with bows (based on Archery skill)
<br />Power Shot/Quick Shot/Bullseye: Same as Vanilla
<br />Critical Shot/Hunter's Discipline/Ranger: Same as Vanilla
<br />Requires >100 Archery:
<br />Penetrator: Ignores a percentage of armor.
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<br />v. Block
<br />Minor changes only, all perks are the same except for the first one, shield wall which has 5 ranks, which do the following:
<br />1. Blocking is more effective as skill levels
<br />2. Shields give you more armor
<br />3. Activated ability immune to arrow damage
<br />4. Activated ability increase armor and health
<br />5. Increased magic resistance with shield equipped
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<br />vi. Heavy Armor
<br />Juggernaut: 5 ranks, which do the following
<br />1. Increase armor rate with skill increase
<br />2. Increased health regeneration in combat while wearing only heavy armor (i.e. no light, clothing is OK)
<br />3. Increased max health while wearing only heavy armor
<br />4. Increased max stamina while wearing only heavy armor
<br />5. Increased max health and stamina while wearing only heavy armor
<br />Well Fitted: Same as Vanilla
<br />Tower of Strength: Reduces incoming stagger while wearing only heavy armor
<br />Glancing Blows: Immune to criticals, all incoming weapon damage reduced by 10 (in addition to armor reduction) while wearing only heavy armor
<br />Reflect Blows: Same as Vanilla
<br />Knight: Increased damage output/armor while mounted and wearing only heavy armor
<br />Charge!: Activated ability increasing movement speed (stamina cost) while wearing only heavy armor
<br />Conditioning: Same as Vanilla, also increases stamina regen and carry weight while wearing only heavy armor
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<br />b) Magic Skills
<br />All magic skills have had their Novice/Apprentice/etc. skills redone to the following:
<br />Novice: Decreases ALL spell costs of skill line by a small percent and increases spell magnitude with level. Both benefits REQUIRE you to be not wearing any armor (unless you have the Spell Sword perk, in which case your magnitude will level but you won't get a discount while wearing light armor)
<br />Apprentice: Increases Unarmored spell discount, grants a boost to max Magicka while not wearing armor, and (in most cases) grants new spells
<br />Adept: Same as Apprentice, but no boost to max magicka
<br />Expert: Same as Adept
<br />Master: Increases spell duration while unarmored and (usually) grants new spells or abilities
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<br />i. Enchanting
<br />Enchanter: Increased enchantment strength based on skill level
<br />Soul Squeezer: In addition to Vanilla, allows you to melt regular gems into soul gems at a smelter
<br />Soul Siphon: In addition to Vanilla, allows you to combine lower level soul gems into higher level ones at a smelter and grants more charges for weapons
<br />Corpus/Spirit/Energetic Enchanter: Boosts Health/Magicka/Stamina enchantment stength and grants new enchantments (all new enchantments can be obtained by crafting either a necklace or dagger at the forge). MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with Insightful/Fire Enchanter
<br />Insightful Enchanter: Same as Vanilla. MUTUALLY Exculsive with Corpus/Fire Enchanter
<br />Studious Enchanter: Grants new enchantments that help train/boost skills
<br />Fire/Frost/Storm Enchanter: Same as Vanilla, but also grants new enchantments/allows you to craft staves. MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with Corpus/Insightful Enchanter
<br />Extra Effect: Same as Vanilla
<br />Ultimate Enchantments: New enchantments based on which perks you picked to get there
<br />Requires >100 Enchanting:
<br />Three is Better: Allows 3 enchantments per item
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<br />ii. Alteration
<br />Fortifier: 3 ranks
<br />1. Decreases spell cost of fortifying spells (which are the new spells added with novice/apprentice/etc)
<br />2. Increases fortifying magnitude
<br />3. Increases fortifying duration
<br />Mage Armor: In addition to Vanilla, increased duration on armor spells while not wearing armor
<br />Magic Resistance: Nerfed into a spell instead of static ability, lasts longer if not wearing armor
<br />Stability: Same as Vanilla
<br />Atronach: Same as Vanilla
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<br />iii. Conjuration
<br />Necromancy: In addition to Vanilla, unlocks necromancy spells (grants 2 and allows you to craft more at the forge, some of which require Adept/Expert/Master Conjuration to be able to craft). Crafting Black Soul Gems via Soul Squeezer no longer requires Daedra Hearts. MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with Necromage
<br />Hexes: Allows you to craft more necromancy spell tomes and makes Hex spells (subset of necromancy spells) more effective
<br />Blood Magic: Allows you to craft more necromancy spell tomes and makes Blood Magic spells (subset of necromancy spells) more effective
<br />Dark Souls: Same as Vanilla
<br />Twin Souls: Same as Vanilla, only now has more ranks. Ranks above 1 require >100 Conjuration
<br />Summoner/Atromancy/Elemental Potency: Same as Vanilla
<br />Dual Casting: Same as Vanilla (will likely update later to be included in another perk)
<br />You may have noticed Bound Weapon perks have disappeared. I've reclassed those to Illusion (renaming them Illusionary weapons), and have moved the perks there as well.
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<br />iv. Destruction
<br />Detruction Focus: Mutually exclusive with Barbarian, Armsman and Overdraw (blocks all Two Handed, One Handed and Archery perks). 5 ranks, which do the following:
<br />1. Discounts destruction spells and increases how quickly you level destruction while unarmored
<br />2. Increases destruction spell range and grants 3 abilities which let you temporarily deal increased fire/frost/shock damage with a small discount (ability costs magicka and health).
<br />3. Grants new spells
<br />4. Spells last longer
<br />5. Grants new spell and increases spell damage by 25%
<br />Channel Flames/Frost/Lightning 1: Increases fire/frost/shock enchantment damage and grants spell which adds fire/frost/shock damage to weapon attacks
<br />Channel Flames 2: Increased spell damage at the cost of increased incoming damage. Grants new spell
<br />Channel Frost 2: Grants new frost shield spell which lasts for a very long time and all weapons have a chance to deal frost damage
<br />Channel Lightning 2: Grants new abilities
<br />Intense Flames: Same as Vanilla
<br />Deep Freeze: Frost damage reduces enemy attack speed
<br />Disintegreat!: Shock damage lowers enemy magic resistance
<br />Rune Master: 3 ranks now
<br />1. Vanilla
<br />2/3. Allows placing of additional runes
<br />Dual Casting: Same as Vanilla
<br />Impact: Now only has a 50% chance to stagger
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<br />v. Illusion
<br />Mystic Binding/Soul Stealer: Same as Vanilla (moved over from Conjuration)
<br />Master of the Shadows: Illusionary weapons banish summoned/turn undead. Have a chance to cast fear on targets
<br />Slight of Hand: Combined Dual and Silent Casting
<br />Shinobi: Grants powerful new invisibility spells
<br />Hypnotic Gaze/Aspect of Terror/Rage/Master of the Mind: Same as Vanilla
<br />Animage and Kindred Mage how now been included in Adept and Expert Illusion, respectively
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<br />vi. Restoration
<br />Dual Casting: Vanilla. Will probably update later to be included in another perk
<br />Regeneration/Respite: Same as Vanilla
<br />Necromage: In addition to Vanilla, allows you to craft spell tomes which damage undead. MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with Necromancy
<br />Dust to Dust: Increased weapon damage against undead
<br />Ward Absorb: Same as Vanilla
<br />Ward Master: Increased ward magnitude and allows you to craft special ward tomes
<br />Recovery/Avoid Death: Same as Vanilla
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<br />c) Thief Skills
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<br />i. Alchemy
<br />Alchemist: Increased potion/poison strength based on skill. Allows you to see all effects when sampling ingredients
<br />Green Thumb: Same as vanilla, only now allowed at skill level 30 to help you train Alchemy
<br />Poisoner (2 ranks): Poisons are more effective. MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with physician
<br />Concentrated Poison (3 ranks): Poisons last one hit longer per rank
<br />Physician (2 ranks): Potions are more effective. MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with poisoner
<br />Benefactor (2 ranks): Same as Vanilla
<br />Snakeblood: Same as Vanilla
<br />Purity: Same as Vanilla (now at rank 80)
<br />Experimenter: Craft 2 potions/poisons instead of 1 per iteration
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<br />ii. Thieving
<br />Basically has all of the Perks from Pickpocket and Lockpicking (minus one or two useless ones) combined into one skill. Of note, picking locks will not level up your thieving skill, only picking pockets will (since it's based off the Pickpocket skill). I will likely try to script in leveling through picking locks, but at the moment I am not schooled up enough on Papyrus to be able to do that. The only new perk for thieving is Lockpicking, which makes locks easier to pick based on your thieving skill (sorry, when you pick locks, it'll still show your lockpicking skill on the bottom and not thieving. I don't know if there's a way to change that)
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<br />iii. Sneak
<br />Not much has changed from Vanilla. The only new/changed perks are as follows:
<br />Stealth: Reduced detection based on skill level
<br />Assassin (new perk, 3 ranks): Poisons last for more weapon hits if applied while sneaking
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<br />iv. Speech
<br />Haggling: Better prices based on skill
<br />Allure: Same as Vanilla 
<br />Merchant: Same as Vanilla
<br />Investor: Same as Vanilla, but also allows you to sell stolen items to invested merchants and increases all merchants' gold by 1000
<br />LOUD NOISES!: Decreased shout recharge time
<br />Hear Me Roar! (2 ranks): Decreased shout recharge time and new shouts (requires >100 speech for second rank)
<br />Scholar: Extra skill point from books
<br />Teacher: Can craft skill books out of old ones (effectively doubling the amount of times you can read a skill book)
<br />Doctorate: All skills level up faster. WARNING: Use with caution. There is a bug in skyrim which, if your skill use multiplier gets too high, will affect your ability to gain levels from skill trainers. This bug usually manifests itself by allowing you to level up once from a skill trainer, then each time you purchase a session after the first the trainer will take your gold, consume your available session, but not increase your skill.
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<br />v. Unarmored
<br />This skill line requires a little preamble, since it's new. The skill is called Unarmored, but since I repurposed Lockpicking to create it, you have to go to a lockpicking trainer to train in it (in the dialogue box it will say "I want to train in Lockpicking", but when you actually train I believe it will call it Unarmored). To level up your skill without training, cast spells while not wearing any armor. Unarmored will also slowly level over time while not wearing any armor. There are also 10 sillily titled skill training books hidden in the College of Winterhold. Lastly, due to some bug in the creation kit, none of the skills in the unarmored line show their skill level requirement, so that has been added to the description in-game. OK, now for the perks:
<br />Going Commando: ALL spells cost 10% less and are 10% more effective while not wearing armor
<br />Refreshing Breeze (2 ranks): Increases magicka regeneration while not wearing armor
<br />No Pain, No Gain (3 ranks): Increased spell damage/incoming weapon damage while not wearing armor
<br />The Power of Freedom (3 ranks): Increased max magicka while not wearing armor
<br />Invisible Shield (3 ranks): Increased magic resistance while not wearing armor
<br />Not Held Down: Increased movement speed while not wearing armor (WARNING: perks that increase movement speed have a higher chance of bugging out by either not increasing your speed at all or increasing it permanently when it's not supposed to. I'm working on minimizing these issues, so please let me know if it happens and what your character had equipped, what magic effects were active, etc)
<br />We're Going Streaking!: Increased health, magicka and stamina while completely naked
<br />Nyou Camf Catth Me!: Speed boost while completely naked (same warning as Not Held Down)
<br />Leonidas Pose: 2 ranks:
<br />1. Increased resistances while completely naked
<br />2. Double spell damage/weapon damage while completely naked 
<br />Stick to the Shadows: Muffled movmement and increased stealth while not wearing armor
<br />Cloak and Dagger: Double sneak attack bonus while not wearing armor
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<br />vi. Light Armor
<br />Nible: New name for agile defender. 4 ranks:
<br />1. Increased critical chance while wearing only light armor (i.e. no heavy. Clothing is OK)
<br />2. Increased critical damage while wearing only light armor 
<br />3. Increased magic resistance while wearing only light armor 
<br />4. Increased armor while wearing only light armor 
<br />Dexterity Bows: Draw a bow faster while wearing only light armor 
<br />Dexterity Melee: Power attacks cost less while wearing only light armor 
<br />Custom Fit: Harder to detect while wearing all light armor
<br />Fly Like a Butterfly: Increased stamina regen while moving and wearing only light armor 
<br />Sting Like a Bee: Forward power attacks have a chance to paralyze while wearing only light armor 
<br />Tailored for Precision: Chance for bonus weapon damage based on light armor skill (independent of critical hits)
<br />Spell Sword: Spells discount and novice spell perks apply spell strength bonus even if wearing light armor
<br />Unhindered/Windwalker/Deft Movement: Same as Vanilla
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<br />4. Spells/Abilities
<br />There are a bunch of these, and I plan on adding more as I update this mod. I will eventually get to adding them to this description, but for now they all have accurate descriptions in-game. Please let me know if they don't do what they say they do, and I'll take a look at it and see if I can fix it. If not, I will change or cut it. 
<br />Note: Some spells are received for free when gain a perk, others require you to craft skill books. None of them are available for sale from merchants. This was done on purpose, with the intended effect of requiring you to choose which perks you wanted in order to get new abilities. If you want to buy spells, there are a ton of great mods like Apocalypse that simply add spells to merchants' leveled lists. Those mods should also be compatible with this mod, as long as they don't alter your perk trees. 
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<br />5. Crafting
<br />So this mod also adds a ton of new crafting recipes. Most of these are made at the forge, which runs the risk of cluttering up the forge as you get more and more perks (especially the breakdown recipes). I would highly recommend SKYUI to help with this, it helps me keep my crafting tidy. 
<br />The perks added into this mod also attempt to help reduce the amount of time spent grinding away your crafting skills to get new gear, mostly by adding/moving perks that help you train to a low-level spot in the perk tree. The goal of that was to allow you to spend more time exploring dungeons and doing quests and less time traveling from city to city to find merchants that have the crafting materials you need.
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<br />6. Requirements/Compatability
<br />This mod does require Dragonborn and Dawnguard, but not Hearthfires. I don't think you'll need SKSE, since all my scripts are uber basic, but I also haven't tried it without SKSE since that's pretty much the only way I play the game. Let me know if you have any issues if you don't use SKSE, and I'll see if it has to do with any of my scripts. While not technically a requirement, there are some perks which require skill levels higher than 100 and as such will not be available without the Uncapper.
<br />As far as compatability goes, this mod will not be compatable with any mod that alters your perks. If you have a mod that changes your Actor Value settings, it may also effect how this mod works (e.g. I had to tune Lockpicking skill use mod down to 1 to keep you from leveling Unarmored by picking locks). This mod should be compatable with any other types of mods, but please let me know if you have any issues and I will investigate.
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<br />7. Usage (for other modders)
<br />Anyone is free to use all or part of this mod in any mod they want to make. I will add the disclaimer though that this was the mod that I first started learning on, so if you're digging through it some of the nomenclature or techniques may be a bit clunky. When I first started this mod, I was planning on just having it modify your magic skill line, so the original name was Make Magicka Great Again. All of the created perks, items, spells, etc started with MakeMagickaGreat, which was super long and annoying to type so when I decided I wanted to make this mod apply to more than just magic skills, I changed the name to Make Skyrim Great Again and started all the names with MSG. However, there were already a bunch of things with MakeMagickaGreat, and I was worried that if I changed all their names to MSG it would mess up some of the references. So bottom line if you're filtering items in the object window anything that was made early on in the mod starts with MakeMagickaGreat and anything made after that starts with MSG, which may make browsing through the object window a little challenging. Going into the Character/Actor Values menu and looking up the perk trees is probably your best place to start, and then you can go from there to the perks and the perks should help guide you toward what you're looking for. I know, super convoluted, if you have any questions on anything you're looking at in the editor feel free to shoot me a message and I'll try to help you out. Just be warned that I spend long periods of time away from my computer for work, so if you don't get a response for a few weeks, I'm not ignoring you I probably either didn't get the message or am away. Either way I won't be offended if you just send the same question again. Feel free to ask any questions about my scripts, although be warned that I am at like grasshopper level so I can tell you what I did and may be able to help if you want to do something similar, but I probably won't know a lot if you're trying to do something different. I've found that the folks on the Nexus forums are super helpful, as are ArronDominion's tutorials on youtube. 
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<br />8. Credits/recommended mods
<br />Thanks to the folks over on the Nexus, you've helped a noob scripter like me a bunch. Also thanks to Arron Dominion for putting together his scripting tutorial series. If you want to take a look at that the youtube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_AIVdeqc4&index=1&list=PLrN7sXqWQOBPyalkASaFwoVgNnAZOasEx
<br />Mods I'd recommend:
<br />SkyUI: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/?
<br />Community Uncapper: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1175/?
<br />Pocket Crafting: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/29418/?
<br />Alternate Start: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/?
<br />Bleakfalls Bypass: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63314/?Bypass the Seven Thousand Steps: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/64819/?
<br />Bypass Ustengrav: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/64736/?