Man, hit level 40 and there’s a definite difficulty spike. First I had to run and hide and pick my way through a mountain pass to avoid an Elder Dragon because it absolutely wiped the floor with me the three times I tried to fight it. Then I ran into a group of three bandits and actually died twice before I was able to defeat them. Yikes.
I play my character sort of in-character, so I’ll need multiple playthroughs to see some of the questlines. I’ve done the Companions quests and am working on the Dark Brotherhood. He’s a lightly-armored fighter that has no qualms about killing for money. Mages, Thieves, Bards–that’s all out of character. I don’t think that’s “meta-gamey.”
I meant me (the player) dividing the content of the game into portions and assigning them to separate playthroughs - that’s the meta-gamey part. Having a Nord warrior reject any suggestion that he dabble in magic - the province of those shifty finger-wigglers, and worse yet, elves - is indeed in-character.
And I just hit a big difficulty wall myself last night, trying to wrap up the Thieves’ Guild quest. No spoilers here, but suffice to say I guess I’ll come back it again later. Kind of a humbling wake-up moment, that; here I was thinking my character was a badass, only to run face-first into multiple nearly instant deaths.
z22
2743
I’ve noticed this too and follow the misguided directions to see why. It seems like the game has a network graph with location for nodes and it tries to keep you on the paths between the nodes. This sometimes mean it might bring you all the way around a mountain just to put you back on your path, possibly sending you in the opposite direction of your destination. I eventually got to my destination but it went all over and mostly kept me on a road.
I can personally attest from extensive experience that cutting through the wilderness in a straight line gets dicey. I’ve caught myself trying to climb over impassable mountains (both practically - in that you could get on top of them - and literally - in that you’d reach a point where the game just decided You Can’t Go That Way) on multiple occasions going directly toward a thing that I can clearly see on my compass. I suspect that Clairvoyance is trying to get back to a small set of what it knows are good paths to avoid 1) having to do original pathfinding to every location when you cast it; and 2) walls.
Volbard
2745
I just started my third character, an axe and shield wielding nord. Man are those ice trolls harder! I’m skipping alchemy and enchantment with this guy; I considered skipping lock picking as well but there were just too many locks. I also considered playing him as illiterate, but that doesn’t work with a lot of quests.
Is the bard quest line very good? I plan to do the companions and then finally the main quest, but I’d forgotten the bards even exist.
There doesn’t really seem to be that much to the Bard’s College.
Bard’s college stuff
“Hey, go do this task for me!”
…
“You did it? Great, you’re a bard now! Now go find these instruments.”
“Well, I already found a few of them along the way, here they are.”
“…So, have you found those instruments yet? Better get moving!”
“Uh…”
They’re kinda broken.
I believe that’s a known problem whether you’ve found them or not. The instruments will never leave your inventory. I don’t know whether they still count as weight or not. What was great was turning in a quest before I could even get it.
Volbard
2748
Ok, got it, skipping the bards. True nords don’t hang around Solitude anyway.
Melee really is a lot harder than magic and arrows, I’m actually dieing a lot now. It’s pretty satisfying to shield bash an opponent out of a power attack and place my axe inside his face though.
DeepT
2749
I didn’t have any problems surviving as melee. My most powerful character used a 2h weapon and heavy armor. He could pretty much ignore everything and 1 shot almost everything (Ancient dragons took 2 hits).
Now I will grant you, starting off it might be tough, but once you get your smiting and enchanting up, it will be a cake walk.
Volbard
2750
That’s why I’m not doing any enchanting, other than to recharge weapons. I think it will make drops more interesting too.
Ah role playing good idea.
I love enchanting but… the downtime/fiddle factor associated with enchanting is huge. Inventory management looking through your house for the right ingredients for alchemy and enchanting. Running around collecting soul gems, and then even worse filling the stupid things. I actually reloaded the Ice-troll battle just so I could collect a common soul. Finally there is the enchanting a bunch of iron daggers and then running to find the local blacksmith to sell the daggers only to discover that you spent so long enchanting he is gone for the day.
I am sure I could adventure three times as much if I didn’t craft obsessively. I think you are right my Mage doesn’t smith much so I got excited when I saw my first elven armor drop.
I wouldn’t skip them. It’s only one quest, but it’s a cool one (especially at the end, when you get to do a little… creative writing), and they throw you a big party after!
Just started over as a thief type. Although I’d like to, I’m finding that I’m having a hard time being as evil as I hoped I’d be. I just kind of feel bad about it. Dual wielding sword and dagger alternating with bows. Also, I’m limiting myself to one tradeskill - this time it’s smithing. Doing all the tradeskills (which I did last go round) is too overpowering and makes loot uninteresting. Also, it’s nice to be able to get from here to there without having to pick every flower and chase down every butterfly I see.
How does one skill up pickpocket without reloading on fail, which is kind of cheesy? I don’t want to kill villagers, and I don’t want to keep paying the fine or going to jail. How does one level up sneak for that matter?
Speaking of evil, I killed the Solitude Lighthouse keeper because he was whining that I was in his house without permission. Nobody else seems to care. After starting the thieve’s guild quests, I’ve become a lot freer in killing and stealing.
Pickpocket I think you can train somewhere at the Thieve’s Guild? Or else pay for training. Sneak you train by sneaking around hostile monsters and/or using skills/attacking while stealthed.
Is there a way to “launder” stolen goods (i.e. make them not stolen)? Or do you just have to sell them?
DeepT
2756
I am pretty sure you have to sell them. I supposed you could buy the item back from the fence to clean it. That would be expensive though.
I tried that. It still says stolen.
Are you a full member of the theives guild?
No. Just did a few of the quests. Is that the trick?
Edit. After watching that video I’m confused. I think I am actually a member of the thieves guild (got my armor). I didnt use Tonilia. It another fence.
I don’t understand the question. Why would you want to make them “not stolen”? If you aren’t going to use it, you sell it. What other option is there?
