I’m not really worried about breaking stuff. The not enchanting things is just an ingrained behavior that I haven’t had to overcome yet (but might need to start if the elemental damage from the Elder Dragon and all the mages is any indication). Though I will admit that I haven’t gotten one of the enchantments off of the Thane weapons yet because a deep and hidden part of me secretly fears that they’ll stop recognizing me as the boss that I am if I smash my badge of office.
And advanced armors are apparently these. I do most of my smithing at the forge outside of the Whiterun blacksmith’s shop because there’s a vendor right there, so maybe some forges don’t let you do it? Or I hallucinated taking the perk? I guess that’s possible. I could swear I pushed the button and watched the star start twinkling and everything.
I wonder if I’ll be in your same place. I’ll probably done with my first character around 70 hours. I wanted to switch straight to a mage but maybe I should wait for interface mods.
Advanced armor - scaled leather and scaled plate - is 60 on the light armor tree; dwarven, orc and ebony are the on heavy tree. It would be unusual to do both.
As an aside, my SO and I are currently playing three different characters, and only one (the first) has enchanting. The other two do not. It’s harder for the ones who don’t have it but not impossible (does require using a lot of potions though.)
As far as skills up for conjuration, for my spell sword they are few and far between. I end up training both it and destruction, both of which now cost over 2K a point. Consequently I burn through money as fast as I can make it. :)
I’m grabbing all the Smithing perks (with the possible exception of the magic one, because, if I make all my own crap, I can just make it and then enchant it) so that I can turn all these ingots I’m stealing into crap and because most of them (not Advanced Armor, but Glass beyond it) have weapons associated with them and I want the biggest possible enhancement bonus for those. I briefly considered just doing Light for a while, but I went through a steady period where all the weapon drops were Dwarven, and it’s not that many perks altogether anyway, so I just figured screw it.
It requires steel i.e. the steel armor option. I think that’s what you’re missing. You can make it on any forge
@Calistas: Bethesda did fuck up with Destruction, your only viable option is to go the enchanting route and get to the point where you can cast destruction + another school without having to spend any mana and even then you wont compete with warriors/rogues. It’s silly but there is no such thing as “glass cannon” in Skyrim, mages are just “glass”, there is no real damage scaling so they are really have to rely on companions/summons.
A shame really.
Teiman
5768
A way to recycle a destro mage is to start using a summoned bow, then start stacking +bow damage equipment. One of tho levels using the bow, and you will start oneshoting bears. Summoned bows probably benefict from gear, summoning skill and bow skill. Raising yor summoning skill will let you summon pets to tank damage. The survavility is much higher wen the mobs have somthing else as target so you can focus on killing then fast. Is one of these synergia things where you get a profit interest from your profits.
I’ve just become the leader of the companions with my 2H Heavy Plate warrior -
And I’ve got the other quest lines to look at -
My question is this - what choices absolutely close off other choices.
Obviously, you can only be Empire or Stormcloak . . .
But I can still become a Thief and a Mage and run through those quest lines, too, correct?
TimJames
5770
Of course, though if you plan to replay the game I’d save them for more appropriate characters. It’s not necessary. It just gives them something roleplayish to do.
Yep. In fact, the main quest at one point actually leads you by the nose to start up one of the guild quest chains that you mentioned above. You don’t have to do it, though.
pg1
5772
That’s a problem with mages, especially destruction, no synergy. Everything eats mana and even defensive spells don’t last long and need to be recast while still being weak. It is annoying to recast armor spells constantly in dungeons. I wish you could make soul gem powered magic items/armor/etc. They power traps after all.
Pogo
5773
Any thoughts on the efficacy of a mage companion? This dude in Riften wants to join up, and I sent Lydia packing a while ago since she’s a complete liability for these Thieves Guild quests.
I thought that was required for the main quest.
None of the NPCs sneak very well.
No – you don’t have to talk to the shady person that you’ve been directed to talk to. You can actually talk to someone else who points you to an intermediary person on the quest…and the intermediary will with the proper coaxing lead you to the final destination/person of the quest.
That way you do not have to do shady person’s mission – which is wholly inappropriate for most PCs – to proceed with the main quest
Whatever happened to this plan?
They are also adopting this new EA Sports-style “live update” system that will let Bethesda tweak the data in their game almost immediately. If a quest isn’t triggering because players are doing some unforeseen combination of actions, that might be addressable by tweaking the data tables that dictate the flow of events in the game. If the game is proving to be unbalanced in an unexpected way, that can be fixed on the fly too. And these fixes — Howard prefers to call them “improvements” — will take effect fast. “We can change stats on a sword and it will be available to everyone in a few hours,” he said.
Why would you want a companion for stealth quests? I’m still sticking with Lydia but I frequently let her stay at home and only bring her along when I go dungeon crawling.
Yeah for the entirety of thief and dark brotherhood questlines I left Lydia home, I don’t want her to know what I have been doing…
ShivaX
5780
Everyone is too busy counting money.
Otherwise these “tweaks” would’ve happened in the first week for Smithing and Enchanting instead of… never.
