Skyrim; Wielding Swords, and Banging Nords

[Werthead]

It was a chicken.

Or was it Evil Incarnate?

[Werthead]

More Skyrim mods. Some nice texture-fiddling things that make the game look better but there's also the essential menu-fixing one (that makes key remaps work in all menu screens). There's also a better inventory system, but that's a work in progress and may not be stable yet.

[Solmyr]

That set is fantastic! Great info on the Destruction and Smithing/Enchanting lines too, thank you! I had been ignoring the crafting lines, but I can certainly see the value, not to mention what I was missing out on. I had no idea something even close to free casting was possible! I had been trying to look for, and gathering, Magicka regen items thinking around 30-50% casting reduction and a boat load of Magicka regen might do nicely. Honestly it has, but I will have to check out the crafting now too. Thanks for the info!

I'm glad you find it useful, I thought most people have already figured it out through googling and skyrim wiki. But since I am apparently wrong, here are some tips for destruction mages, mages and general guidelines that may be helpful (all off the top of my head):

- If you are aiming for a free cast build, the Novice-Master perks in the tree are irrelevant to the equation - they reduce the cost of the spell by half, but are not added to any % bonuses from gear. Hence, when you get 100% reduced casting cost from gear, the perk will actually yield nothing and be wasted.

- The mana cost of any spell is determined by 3 factors: the cost reduction from gear, the corresponding perk in the tree and a hidden reduction based on the skill (1-100) you have in that tree. The latter varies between 0% and 15% (probably linear, haven't tested), but is not added to mana cost reduction from gear (you will always need 100% reduction from gear to achieve a free cast build).

- The best trait of Destruction is the dual-cast stunlock ability. Therefore playing hybrid builds with destruction in only one hand, although viable, do not capitalize on that amazing feature. With good control you may keep up to 3 enemies stunlocked (works on bosses, dragons and everything else I have encountered so far).

- Master destruction spells can only be cast with both hands, hence you cannot stun nor use any other weapon/spell while casting them.

- Despite the slightly higher damage at lower levels, fire is actually the worst destruction path if you take the Intense Flames perk. Enemies will ignore stunlock and run in unpredictable patterns making them hard to finish off. Furthermore, casters will use healing spells while fleeing (imo that shouldn't be possible and is a bug), potentially restarting the entire fight.

- Enchanting can produce gear which increases the potency of crafted potions and Alchemy can craft potions that increase the power of enchants. Contrary to popular belief, it is mathematically impossible to stack these buffs indefinitely to produce potions, enchants and crafted items with incredible stats - this is because at a certain point you get less than 0.5% increase to the effectiveness of the potion/enchant and the game rounds it down.

- With very little effort, it is possible to almost double the stats on the gear you're planning to craft:

Step 1. Buy the a few of the most powerful enchanting potions available at your level (lvl30+ - 20%; lvl40+ 25%; etc.), if necessary wait repeatedly near the potion vendor until he has some in stock. Alternatively craft some using Alchemy.

Step 2. While under the effect of an enchanting potion (while also having 100 Enchanting, 5/5 Enchanter and Insightful Enchanter perks) craft armor, gloves, ring and amulet which fortify smithing (you should get a total of 100-110% increase).

Step 3. Craft your gear through blacksmithing (best light armor is Dragonscale, best heavy is Daedric), equip your smithing gear, drink the best blacksmithing potion available and improve your set on the workbench.

Step 4. Drink another enchanting potion and enchant your gear (if you enchant after improving, you can skip the Arcane Blacksmith perk).

Some of the things below, although not considered exploits, may drastically alter your game experience, hence the spoiler tag (also this post is getting too long :P):

Almost every skill in the game has an easy way of leveling:

Always have the appropriate guardian stone when power leveling a skill (thief, mage, warrior), especially for Smithing(w), Enchanting(m) and Alchemy(t)

Alteration - find a place where enemies cannot reach you but remain in combat. Start casting alteration spells (advisable to stack a lot of mana regen first). The higher the spell the more skill increase you will get (applicable for all spell trees).

Conjuration - same as Alteration.

Destruction - dual cast any Wall spell on the shadowmere (from the Dark Brotherhood quest).

Enchanting - it boils down to procuring enough filled soul gems. Go to the College of Winterhold and buy the petty (and lesser, if you're rich enough) filled gems from all the 5 vendors (usually close together). Wait 48 hours and repeat. You should be able to get to 100 spending no more than 10-15k gold (depending on speech skill).

Illusion - cast Courage or Muffle (works outside combat).

Restoration - find any kind of trap or other mechanic which drains your health (preferably at a steady pace to avoid death) and heal while exposing yourself to it. Quicksave often in case of death.

Archery - in Riverwood expose Sven to Faendral in the love triangle quest and have Faendral join as your companion. Train Archery with him, then ask to exchange items and take his gold. Repeat until 50 skill (he can't train you more). Work the same way with Aela the Huntress in the Companions quests (up to 75).

Block - eat any food which regenerates stamina faster (e.g. vegetable soup) and proceed to shield bashing an opponent continuously. Don't take the Deadly Bash perk to avoid enemies dying too quickly.

Light and Heavy armor - regardless of the difficulty you are playing on, set Novice temporarily, equip a shield and pull enemies (the number you can handle will depend on a various factors. If done early in the game as you should, you can handle ~5) and heal yourself while letting them beat the crap out of you. Compared to other skills, it takes significantly longer to get to 100, however power leveling of armor skills is usually done to reach certain perks (e.g. Conditioning). Advisable to listen to music or an audiobook to avoid death (in real life) due to boredom :).

Smithing - buy all the leather and leather strips off vendors (fast travel and wait to acquire more) and make Hide Bracers. You should be able to reach 100 by spending no more than 6-7k gold.

Lockpicking - gain access to the museum in Markarth (through completing Halls of the Dead quest). Once inside sneak and pick all the locks on the displays. Save before Expert and Master locks if you tend to waste many lockpicks on those.

Pickpocketing - although I haven't leveled this skill with any character yet, the easiest way seems to be by pickpocketing jewelry. Very low chance to be detected, high skill increase because of the value.

Speech - (copy pasted from skyrim wiki) Ungrien in the Black-Briar Meadery in Riften can be persuaded over and over again when asked about Maven Black-Briar, boosting your Speech skill. If you don't have the 25 Speech required for this check you can donate 1 gold to the beggar Edda for a temporary 10 speech boost. This can be used to get 100 speech, if you have the patience for it.

Sneak - (my personal favourite) Buy a horse. Sneak behind the horse and start stabbing it in the back. You only get skill when you perform an attack while the eye is closed. Don't take any damage perks until you've finish the leveling, lest you kill the poor beast of burden. Another way (slower but much more amusing) is to find an NPC which is alone in a room and the room contains a bucket. Manipulate the bucket and position it on top of the NPC's head. Believe it or not, the game accounts for the obscured vision and allows you to sneak around the NPC.

[Arthmail]

Cool advice. But i'm not going to follow any of it. I'm just going to explore and have fun.

Speaking of which, at level 21 i finally went to the Greybeards. Learned Whirlwind Sprint. First battle i got into i thought i had Unrelenting Force on and i threw myself off the side of a mountain. Fun times.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Solmyr, great stuff. One thing I would change though - instead of hide bracers make leather bracers. IIRC they use the same materials 1 leather, 2 leather strips) but they are more valuable, so you can recover some investment from the smith.

[Arthmail]

Anyone else start screaming out: "There can be only one." After you kill a dragon and the light show starts?

[So1ar]

is there a way to increase the amount of stuff you can carry? i think 300 lbs is the limit for me and i'm overloaded with dragon bones.

[Solmyr]

is there a way to increase the amount of stuff you can carry? i think 300 lbs is the limit for me and i'm overloaded with dragon bones.

Boots, gloves, ring and amulet with + carry weight bonus.

Leveling up stamina - 5 carry weight per 10 stamina (gear which gives + stamina doesn't increase carry weight - probably a bug).

Pickpocketing perk Extra Pockets.

[Verboten]

Buy houses to store the dragon stuff for when it is needed.

[Verboten]

I'm not sure if anyone has completed the Forsworn quest in Makarth but if you have, I've got questions.

I'm leaving the Civil War quest for the end, but I'm planning on joining the Imperials. I solved the jailbreak by siding with whatisname, the king in rags and going through the Dwemer ruins to get into the city, where the Forsworn promptly killed that Silver-Blood and a few guards before escaping. Does this affect the Civil War? Is Makarth even in the Civil War questline or the Diplomatic thing?

And I'm finding that NPC's keep on dying before I even meet them. It's weird I went to the armourers in Whiterun and asked who made the armor and the guy behind the counter said it was some woman who died so he's been buying things off the Khajiit. Does this character give a quest or does this happen often with NPC's?

[Nakkie]

is there a way to increase the amount of stuff you can carry? i think 300 lbs is the limit for me and i'm overloaded with dragon bones.

As was said you can enchant gear to help you carry more. You can also go to the Steed Guardian Stone, it gives you +100 carry capacity, and makes you ignore movement penalties from armor.

[Sharpes]

You know, I was killed when I first walked into Riverwood for committing an egregious murder.

It was a chicken.

This mod should make it fun. :)

Tried the Sheogoroth quest in the Palagius(sp?) Wing in Solitude. Very weird quest but nice reference to Shivering Isles.

[Inigima]

If you don't mind cheating past this absurd artificial limitation, and you are playing on a PC, you can press ~ to bring down the console and type player.setav carryweight 9999 (or some similarly large number) so that you never have to worry about it again.

[arrowfan]

I'm glad you find it useful, I thought most people have already figured it out through googling and skyrim wiki. But since I am apparently wrong, here are some tips for destruction mages, mages and general guidelines that may be helpful (all off the top of my head):

......

Hey Solmyr thanks for that. Will try it next play through. :cheers:

[Nakkie]

If you don't mind cheating past this absurd artificial limitation, and you are playing on a PC, you can press ~ to bring down the console and type player.setav carryweight 9999 (or some similarly large number) so that you never have to worry about it again.

Ini, we get it. You suck at this game, and you don't like it. You don't have to bitch about it in every game thread, repeatedly though.

[Galactus]

As was said you can enchant gear to help you carry more. You can also go to the Steed Guardian Stone, it gives you +100 carry capacity, and makes you ignore movement penalties from armor.

There should also be a perk (Extra pockets?) in the Pickpocketing (!) tree that gives you another 100 carry wieght. And according to a loading tips increasing your stamina increases your carry weight as well. Though I dunno if that's actually true (never raised Stamina)

The game is... Pretty boring, I think. There's some well done stuff, but the sheer amount of Fedexing and genericness kind of means it's drowning. The game mechanics are ludicrously exploitable, too. FNV was equally exploitable of course, but at least it had a good story and equally good open-world stuff.

The sad thing is that it feels like they could easily have done so much more. (especially with the Civil War quests, achieving various positions, etc. etc.)

[Ebenstone]

I'm a complete noob and not much of a video gamer, can I pick up the game relatively quickly?

[Verboten]

I'm a complete noob and not much of a video gamer, can I pick up the game relatively quickly?

Yes. Set the difficulty down if you feel overwhelmed.

The game is... Pretty boring, I think. There's some well done stuff, but the sheer amount of Fedexing and genericness kind of means it's drowning. The game mechanics are ludicrously exploitable, too. FNV was equally exploitable of course, but at least it had a good story and equally good open-world stuff.

The sad thing is that it feels like they could easily have done so much more. (especially with the Civil War quests, achieving various positions, etc. etc.)

I feel this way too. It's a fun game but playing it is sort of an exercise in what might have been, and how the actual product turned out.

[The Winged Wolf Bran Stark]

Got attacked by two dragons at Winterhold today. Damn...

I joined the college, which I think you have to in order to progress through the main quest. Anyway, doing Elder Scroll hunting right now. I hope to finish up the main quest before Christmas, cause I plan to restart after Christmas. Holding off on doing other quests cause I've been leveling up, which causes the enemies to get stronger. Had to fight a Draugr that could Shout and disarmed me. That was fun...

Anyway, finish the main quest, then do all the other stuff. Though I've done the Companion's quest line already, plus a few Daedra quests. Plus a few other random side quests. And a bunch of random miscellaneous objectives.

[Inigima]

Ini, we get it. You suck at this game, and you don't like it. You don't have to bitch about it in every game thread, repeatedly though.

I was supplying a console command, asshole, deal with it.