Leading on from my renewed interest in Elder scrolls lore and the games themselves I've decided to dust off my old copy of Skyrim and download the DLCs. It's for PS3 so no mods unfortunately but I'll still enjoy vanilla.

What I want to hear about is your past experiences and characters in TES. Do you have a specific playstyle or favourite race? Do you play casually or RP it?


I'm planning my new character to be a Breton male. With a healthy Celtic warrior aspect. It works thematically for a Breton and I've very rarely played sword and shield in TES, usually relying on flash frying everything.

My plan is to escape Helgen and instead of going to Riverwood, head off into the wilds straight away making my way south through Falkreath and then north along the reach towards Solitude until I find the Steed Stone.

Planning on rolling with heavy armour and looting absolutely everything in the game so the extra carry points are worth it.

Eventually I hope to have a solid trade route and develop him into a Merchant warrior with the goal of buying and fully equipping all the houses in game as well as the three Hearthfire houses.

Along the way I might kill Alduin. Y'know... If I have time.

Tempted to develop a full back story and code of ethics to play with this character.

Any thoughts?

So yeah, feel free to tell us all about any planned future character builds as well as the past characters that were so over leveled it was damn near game breaking!

 

It's worth sinking a bit of time into. Smithing is great fun even if it is a bit OP and as of Dragonborn you can smith the most horrifying set of armour ever conceived, boiled mudcrab chitin armour.

It's a very immersive game, more so than Oblivion was IMO and while the combat can still be clunky I've never not enjoyed it.

Also, +1 for Celtic Breton.

 

In each game, I play as the relevant race to the region. Dunmer in Morrowind, Imperial in Oblivion, Nord in Skyrim. It's been long enough since I've played them that I've forgotten my builds in Arena and Daggerfall though.

As for playstyle, I don't RP very much. I accrue all the titles I can, as fast as I can. In terms of combat and such, that's changed a little over the years. I used to always play Spellblades and Battle Mages, primarily swords and summoning. As of Skyrim's superior archery, I've found myself being an undetectable archer with blades and magic as a backup. By the end of my last run through the game, if something was close enough to render on the screen then I could hit it. Usually in the head. With the ludicrous sneaking bonuses added on to maxed out archery, there never seemed to be any point in actually fighting unless I'd screwed up.

 

I think everyone has a tendency to play the regional character. Skyrim especially just feels right with a Nord.

Breton works for me because of their proximity to Skyrim and the fact that the Forsworn and majority of Reachmen are Breton.

I'm trying to come up with a plan for a perfect build that suits my taste for this play through.

What I want for this Breton is to be able to rely on heavy armour and one handed like the late era Celts but with a knowledge of magic that heralds back to a time when magic was a huge part of his culture. It's lessened over the years as elvish blood wanes but he's still comfortable casting spells.

The problem is, I want it all. I want him to be able to smith and enchant and to a lesser extent use sneak and archery but above everything else, I want speech.

Anyone with more experience able to see a way I can balance this?

 

Once you start expanding your skillset to include sneaking and archery, you will forsake everything else. It Is Known.

Seriously, if you pick up archery you're going to be seriously tempted to use it to open every battle, then to gain an advantage while your enemies close, to the point where you're finishing them off at range. If you want to play a one handed heavy armoured guy, you can dabble in sneak and maybe some illusion magic, but I strongly advise against picking up any archery, destruction or conjuration. They tend to very easily dominate playstyles. Keep in mind that sneak will be handicapped by heavy armour.

One thing I find useful is figuring out what kind of battles I want my character to be involved in, then eliminating skills that provide alternative options. It cuts down on the skill bloat that almost inevitably led me to either sneak archery or destruction when I was starting out.

Smithing and enchanting can be easily incorporated, especially if you're planning on being a merchant. Just include a focus on crafting wares to sell, maybe consider only investing perks into either crafting skill at certain checkpoints, such as X level, or Y gold amassed, in order to encourage a broader focus and not end up making 1k iron daggers for the smithing xp.

 

I always end up as a Stealth Archer. One-shotting dragons is too tempting.

 

I haven't picked up a TES game in a while now, but I always make my characters into the native race of the game. Morrowind was a male Dunmer spellsword, Oblivion a female Imperial rogue, Skyrim a male Nord warrior (though with Shouts obviously). I haven't played Arena or Daggerfall.

I actually don't like doing all the side-quests with one character. It seems stupid to me for one guy to be a master thief, master wizard, master fighter, etc. Makes me wish you could have a persistent world with multiple PCs in it somehow.

 

I remember starting out as a plain old Dunmer archer because I generally despise melee playstyles and draugr scared the shit out of me when they just rolled out of their beds.

Then I started baiting mammoths and giants and sniped them from the Whiterun Watchtower, but I often made mistakes and got fucked up. Afterwards, I leveled up my sneak to the point where bows did a lot of damage, but I also realized daggers did a shitton more.

With all my investment in sneak, I went along with double daggers one-shotting giants and everything. Fun times.

As far as roleplay goes, I keep it super casual but consistent with the character. Sympathy for the ghetto elves in Winterhold but stealing the fuck out of everything that's not tied down.

 

I generally roleplay every game as a mage, blasting everything out of my way. Sadly, most of the time that's extremly inefficient and I play "seriously" in a second save file.

 

I tend to make new characters as I get new ideas for an interesting way to RP them, but for some reason I always stop leveling/playing them at around lvl 50-something. (In Skyrim, that is. I'm a pleb who's only ever played Skyrim.) So here's what I've got so far:

- A male Nord, melee 1H+Shield, whom I roleplay as every Nord stereotype jacked up to eleven: staunch Stormcloak, can smith, can hunt, more brawn than brains but with a strong moral code (and who steers clear of the Daedra), law-abiding citizen (tho' couldn't help but level his Lockpicking, damn thing comes in handy), Shouts like a mofo, married a fellow Nord, member of the Companions, and his dirty little secret is the whole werewolf thing the Companions have going. Virtually impossible to kill even at this level, it almost gets boring.

- A female Imperial, Conjuration/Destruction/Restoration mage, strong Speech, Sneak, Alchemy, Enchanting, and as of recently Pickpocketing. I play her as the kind of cowardly character who never likes to do anything herself as long as she can get her followers/minions/atronachs to fight her battles, and who prefers to smooth-talk or pay her way out of every situation. TBH the Destruction skill is more of a backup plan. It's a surprisingly interesting sort of gameplay, though she's weak as a daisy and dies super easily.

- A male Dunmer, battlemage and complete depraved scoundrel. For every evil thing that can be done in Tamriel, he's like "gotta catch 'em all". Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, every Daedric quest ever, vampirism, poisoning, and random killing of innocents. Problem is, I don't have Dawnstar (edit: I meant Dawnguard, lol. Damn, it's been a long time) and his vampirism is very difficult to keep under control, so he's probably still a baby lvl 20. With that EP and at higher levels, I expect him to be very fun to play in the future, though.

- Female Dunmer, mage/thief, somewhat less scoundrely. Doesn't want anything to do with the main quest, dragons, or Shouting. Second build ever, now abandoned.

- Male Altmer, monomaniacally focused on the College of Winterhold. Had him turn back to Helgen after escaping through the cave and walk on foot to the College. Alteration/Illusion/Restoration/Destruction. Can't do much of anything else.

- Female Bosmer stealth archer, 'nuff said

- Retarded male Breton that runs around putting baskets on people's heads, gathering tons of useless items, wearing his prisoner's rags everywhere and generally shooting himself in the foot. Every game needs one

I once wanted to write a fanfic with all these characters and a couple more meeting and interacting, that's why I made/leveled so many.

 

Nord 2h warrior.

My favorite in Skyrim I think was a 2h warrior in heavy armor with shock magic just to kill flying dragons pre-Dragonrend. I vastly preferred the instant travel nature of lightning magic to arrows.

Pure mage was okay, but got bland ~50 hours in. I've made multiple spellswords, they're never as satisfying as pure mages or warriors, which is a shame. Bow characters and stealth... I've probably created the most of these, as I get a spark of interest but never seem to be able to follow through. I think the closest I've gotten has been ~35 hours. Moving in stealth is just so slow, and always aiming with your bow gets cumbersome.

I like smithing, but I've never actually done alchemy or pickpocketing, even on my stealth characters.

 

Normally, I just wade through everything in either heavy armour or cloth, setting things on fire with the power of my mind. Sometimes I electrocute them instead. I was a bit annoyed at the lack of spell crafting in Skyrim at first, but then I discovered Ice Spike and started making tactile murals out of bandits. That was amusing for far longer than I thought it would have been. As was headshotting everything, with spikes of ice bigger than their torso.

And, of course, I did the obligatory "One Punch Khajit" build. It was fun, but even power-punching dragons to death got samey after a while.

I also did try a sneaky build, which was okay, but this was after several hundred hours with previous characters, so I wasn't too invested in spending more time in Tamriel for now.


The most challenging runthroughs I have done on Skyrim;

1 - Failed Pacifist.
I think I punched the bear in the cave in the tutorial, but other than that I don't think I ever attacked directly.
Instead I used a companion, a dog, a horse, and summons. Then I threw large amounts of paralyse/mass paralysis at things, or turn undead if I was in a crypt.
This was entertaining for a while, but it wasn't exactly a fun play through. I had to spend a lot of effort in keeping followers alive, as they took a lot more damage.

2 - the NPC
No speaking to anyone unless it's quest essential. No selling items - you get the gold off your kills. No potions. No more than one spell per school per encounter. No shouting at anything apart from dragons. No fast travel. One Enchanted item at a time.
This was tedious. I gave up less than ten hours in because it was dull. I was already familiar with the game, and not selling was just slowing everything down.

3 - Conspiracy theorist.
The Government was out to get this guy. He only used things made from raw materials he'd collected himself (apart from soulgems). Everything else was sold to pay for soulgems.
This was a character I worked with because enchanting/smithing was really overpowered, and it made sure it was a much slower build to killing everything. This one was fun, not too difficult to play, but difficult to actually progress - I always had worse armour and weapons until I got Dragonbone.

 

Mostly my roleplay in RPGS is limited to taking a consistent moral stance; if I'm playing a good character, I won't murder or steal (intentionally), and if I'm playing a less moral character then I'll join the assassins or thieves or whoever.

I've got three characters in Skyrim. My first was more of a test character than anything else: an older Nord, one handed and destruction, good smith skills etc. I played through the main plot of the game and for Dawnguard (and mostly Dragonborn, but the final boss got bugged, and after a certain point I couldn't hurt him).

For the other two characters, I tried to create versions of characters from the Malazan series. Apsalar was a female Dark Elf, good at stealth, knifing people in the back, and a budding member of the Brotherhood. Quick Ben was a Breton pure mage, with a sideline as a Bard to build up his persuasion (as his inspiration is quite a charismatic and manipulative guy). Didn't play very far with either of them, but this is making me want to pick the game up again.

 

I had a character called Fox O'Hara. Assassin and illusion mage. I'd just cast mayhem or whatever, cast invisibility and watch as my enemies killed each other. Eventually I'd fonish off the survivor with a dagger. Good times.

 

if you enjoy skulking about, for your next playthrough might I suggest you get an early ancient shrouded armor set?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKq3IIScX4M

Its hilarious getting 30x damage sneak dagger strikes. The stealth archer with amulet of talos + slow time + fortify alteration potion is actually pretty damned fun.

 

I found this picture that describes my type of play if I don't force my self to no use a bow.

 

Khajiit, Stealth Archer, Dark Brotherhood + Thieves Guild member

 

All hail the stealth archer!

I started out with my badass Celtic destroyer merchant, got into the first dungeon and had to drop the bow because I kept being tempted to drop into sneak and snipe bitches.

Currently ignoring the quest to Whiterun and instead picked up Feandal after selling out Sven and I'm looping around the map for the Steed Stone.

What adventure awaits? Will we be viciously destroyed by overlevelled Forsworn? Will Falkreath turn out to be the vibrant, bustling metropolis that an angry Sven promised us?

There's so much to find out!