Just making sure you are firing at the little glass lenses at the top.

Yup.

Reviving this.

Haven't done it yet, at least not in a "LETS GO EVERYWHERE" splurge.



How/where?



Of course



I know. But it's hard to be like "I'm gonna be heavy armor!" at the start of the game where it doesn't give you any.



Was going to look into Thief, at least.



Duly noted.



Yeah, I know. But it's slow as fuck. >..<

Edit, oh yeah, stats etc.



And I was wrong, I don't have Healing Hands, I have Healing. My mistake.

Lydia. She's given to you by the Jarl of Whiterun. You know, after the first dragon kill, when you're sent back to report that kill to him? and he makes you Thane of Whiterun?


There's a complete set available in Riverwood (the very first not-burning-and-rubbled town you arrive at). Granted, you have to trespass into others' homes for it, but it's there.

And before that, in Helgen (the town that you almost get beheaded in) you can pick up multiple Iron or Banded Iron shields, as well as at least one Iron Helm, during your escape.


Then you should be sneaking everywhere outside of towns and villages. And I do mean, everywhere.


Which would you prefer? Slow, or dead ...? Besides, once you've snuck around long enough, you can start to learn the overall patterns of Skyrim - and know when to run, and when to drop into a crouch and sneak.

Also: if you're going to be a stealthy sneaker type, LIGHT ARMOR, not heavy. Heavy armor penalises your Sneaking, and slows you down more when you DO sneak.


EDIT TO ADD: And just as an FYI on the side? My newest playthrough is an Argonian Mage. He's not wearing armor, he's wearing robes (hey, modestly better magicka regen and slightly better destruction spells? Sign me up!). He's all of level 5, and I just finished (barely - almost died to whatsisface Gauldur at the end, had to chug a gallon or two of potions!) the Saarthal excavations, first major quest in the Mage Guild chain. Cleared Bleak Falls no problem, got that family-sword quest in Whiterun done, did the dragon/tower thing. Probably going to take a break and do some bounty-hunting for a while, build up some cash and levels, buy Breezehome and decorate it, the usual early-game "get established" routine.

If you've killed the dragon for Whiterun, you should already have Lydia. Look for her in the Whiterun throne room. Don't store anything too valuable on her in case she dies/glitches.


You must have missed it. They give you the option for both, but IIRC the light armor is much more apparent. Either way, which one are you going for?


Riften's your town, if you want to get started. For the radiant quests, I'd suggest Bedlam.


I've found having a drawn bow actually speeds up your sneaking. Not by that much mind you, but every bit helps.

True, however there are options here. One of the later heavy armor perks negates the weight of worn armor, thus preventing it from effecting sneaking. Also, there is the Steed Stone effect which increases your carry weight and also negates worn armor weight. Lastly theres Boethiahs armor, Ebony Mail, which while great heavy sneaking armor sadly is only available at level 30+ after a quest.

When you get some more levels on you, you can get the Stealth spell which helps with the sneaking. Pick every lock you get the chance to, and if you have the time, every pocket. I'll admit, I was a cheap bastard and for a while would save the game every time I went to pick a pocket if it was worth the time (And it usually was). Just reloaded if I got caught. My Pick pockets got very high very quickly, and I picked up the Deep Pockets skill (if I'm remembering the name correctly), which lets you carry more gear.

You can also practice a lot of those skills at once, and break into the potions stores in the night. Steal their supplies, eat a bunch to learn their properties, then start brewing your own potions so that you can do things like create healing and stamina draughts, potions for heavy lifting, and invisibility. It's cheap and useful.

And agreed on Riften. It's a fun town for getting into trouble, getting some money, and some new quests, especially for a thief.

Yeah, I remember that, but I never ended up with her following me. Probably one of those things where no one mentioned that I had to talk to her to actually have her, or something and I managed to skip over it by accident.

The instructions for the game are a little lacking. The above advice from others is really what I have to say too, so +1 to all of them.

One question I haven't seen yet, what platform are you playing on? If you are on PS3 there is no downloadable content yet so any advice regarding Dawnguard is null and void.

Have you checked out http://www.uesp.net/ yet? They are full of helpful information. I use them a lot for assistance.

PC, but I'm not going to pay $30 for an expansion to a game that I paid $30 for.

.... and why not?

Heck, I pre-ordered Skyrim, for the full $60. Then, the very day Dawnguard was available, plunked aother $30 down on it. And you know what? Dawnguard adds enoughcontent, it's worth MORE than teh $30 pricetag, IMO. Not only the Dawnguard-or-Vampire quest chain (which includes an opportunity to get a summonable ghost-horse), not only the new weapons (dragonbone weapons, crossbows, Auriel's Bow, Harkon's Sword), not only the fun opportunity to own THREE Elder Scrolls at once (!!) ... but also the Aetherium quest line, culminating in a choice of three very special items (I especially like the circlet - having TWO guardianstones at once is just too awesome to pass up, IMO). Plus new potions, magical ammunition for those crossbows, a hireable/purchasable "armored war troll" companion, an awesome-looking "Ancient Falmer Armor" set to collect, up-rated gear for higher level Falmer (Honed falmer weapons; Heavy falmer armors); new enemies (Gargoyles; Chauus Hunters (that fly)), a whole new Thu'um, and an encounter with two "water dragons" at the same time (that was a b!tch of a fight, haha!) ...

... yeah. Worth every penny.




On a separate subtopic: since you're playing the PC version, let me recommend a few mods that make the game easier to play (but not easier to "win"):

• Detailed Mine Markers - appends what sort of ore you can get from a mine, to the mine's name on the map. Extremely useful for smiths!
• Dungeon Quest Awareness - explore without worrying about whether or not a given location is part of a primary quest. The name of each location has a note appended to it, saying if it's part of any quest(s). Very useful for exploring.
• Smeltdown - almost all armor and weapons can be broken down into raw materials. It always irritated me that I could have a stack of 100 iron daggers, and I couldn't just melt them all down for their iron content. With this, you can! (Incidentally allows easier Smith skill levelling, in that you can stretch some materials further - with the iron to make 8 iron daggers, you can then melt them down into enough to make 4 more, then melt dose down into enough to make 2 more, and finally melt them down into enough to make 1 more. 8 iron -> 15 skill-ups (thoughyou'll need more leather strips, naturally).
• Sol's Secret Stash - summonable chest to dump your loot into, mid-dungeon. I got tired of constantly cashing, relay-running, etc to haul all the loot out of a dungeon ... and believe me, when I was done with a location, there wasn't anything worth HALF a clipped coin left, that could possibly be pried from the floor or walls. I did a LOT of "you are carrying too much" slow-pace plodding through securely cleared-out and depopulated dungeons. BOOOOOOOOring! So now I use this (yes, I admit: very cheat-y) spell, instead.

Yeah. Totally didn't understand a world of that.

I know this may sound stupid, but did you try adjusting the difficulty?

The two main things I remember disliking about Skyrim were that smiths and enchanters don't provide those services, and the theives guild being mafia thug flavoured rather than stealthy Robin Hood types.

But otherwise I really enjoyed it.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Long_Haul

The first half is in plain English, extolling Dawnguard's bang-for-your-buck based on how much content it adds.

The second half is a straightforward list of mods I recommend - also in plain English. You know, the whole Steam Workshop thing? If you're signed in to Steam via the Web, those links should take you right to the page for each mod, so you can Subscribe to it (and each is then automatically downloaded and activated, the next time you start up Skyrim).

...

What's not to understand?

Yeah, I love that Perk.

I dislike your mod because it can be done anywhere. If it were restricted to say outdoors areas and towns I would have a lot less problem with it. In that sense, it becomes a mod that eliminates pointless grind of fast traveling from dungeon entrance to town over and over. It's basically a pointless exercise that doesn't cause any additional danger to the PC but rather just wastes time.

The mod as it exists makes encumbrance a non-factor since you just dump all your gear where you are when you hit encumbrance. I feel that needing to cart your illgotten loot outside to stash it is a suitable trade off avoid encumbrance while dungeon crawling. Though I could see permitting the spell in a dungeon if you could check for no active traps or living hostiles.

Anybody have a list of mods that they consider indispensable? I'm looking to FINALLY start playing this (after having gotten it at Christmas) when I'm tired of Tribes, and I really just can't stand vanilla anything from Bethesda. Prettyifying mods are fine, but I'm mainly interested in things that make gameplay better, fixes stupid design decisions, etc. Sure, I can go look at top X lists and what not, but, well...lazy.

I don't know about indispensable, but I have a short mod list that I find makes the game MUCH more fun. Especially since it balances out the combat and makes magic more useful at higher levels. In vanilla skyrim, nothing comes close to dual wielding. Not that it stopped me from going to town with a nord using heavy armor and and a 2her, but light armor and dual wielding is just all around BETTER without mods.

Looking in my Nexus mod manager (all my mods are from Skyrim Nexus) I have...

A Quality World Map (yay for roads on my map!)
ACE (re-balances smithing, combat styles, armor, combat itself, really look into it, also, archery - has long and light bows)
Apachii Sky hair (more, good looking hair styles)
Armored Circlets (I get tired of looking at helmets)
ASIS (makes the NPCs fight smarter amongst a host of other properties)
Apocalypse Spell Package (adds a host of extra magic spells that are fun, unique, and not game breaking)
CBBE (I like my female models to look better)
Immersive Armor
Empowered Magic (rebalances the magic trees, makes magic scale on skill like weapons)
Artifact Overhaul (I don't know about you, but I got mad when none of the daedric artifacts or rare gear was actually worth using over self enchanted weapons. This helps fix that, making them side-grades to uber crafting/enchanting).
Wearable Lanterns (for those people that get mods to make it REALLY freaking dark, but don't want to give up their shield or other weapon to have some light. Or just play a Khajiit for Night Eye, wusses =P )

Also, the HD pack.

Hmm..dont forget that when your running around you can spam resto or illusion spells, etc..so long as its not an attack spell you should be safe

Not really. Restoration only increases if you're healing damage (or doing damage with some cases) and illusion has to have a target... save for maybe clairvoyance? I don't know if it increases skill or not. Alteration and Conjuration spells will only increase your skill if used in combat, sadly. But they are easy to spam in combat and increase much more quickly than restoration or destruction.

Muffle. Self Targeted, gives skill.

You can also dualcast flames and heals on yourself. That levels restoration and destruction at the same time.

damn lunch, you beat me to it

also, its not to hard to run off a lil cliff every now and again

Muffle and Clairvo were my big things, and then when you hit 75 (i think) Illusion you can buy invis, which for the most part means win.

I always forget about muffle. I'm curious as to how you're casting flames on yourself. Are you talking about fireball? Or is there something silly like aiming straight down with flames hurts you?

I don't think it's cast on you.

Let's see....



And I care, because?



This means...?



WTF is Aetherium. This English word is not one I recognize.



And they do what, exactly?



Again, with the English words.

Something to keep in mind. Skyrim is not a game that you "win" in the traditional sense. Even after you beat the main story line you can keep playing. So the quests and such listed above are just more things that you can do while playing the game.

-D

P.S.
The English words above are proper nouns, names of people, creatures, and quest chains.

Actually, they're adjectives in the context that you used them.

If it could only be used outdoors, then .... you'd have the pointless grind of shuttling all that loot to the dungeon entrance. Back and forth, back and forth, trudging the sme hall, stairs, and chambers a dozen times.

I did it all fair and legit the first time through - and popped Alduin at the end, too. Now, on my fourth and fifth playthroughs? I'm tired of that sort of tedium.

First off, "don't care" is not the same as "don't understand".

Second off, I pointed out that there's actually quite a lot of content and features packed into Dawnguard - making it a pretty good value for it's price, as DLC go. I thought you might care about those details.


Um ... exactly what it says: yu get to have THREE Elder Scrolls - the incredibly powerful and rare artifacts, after which the entire franchise is named.


Stop being an obtuse asshole. Skyrim is a fantasy game; the names of specific places, materials, people, etc - yes, NAMEs, as in Pronouns - are generally made-up.


The circlet allows you to benefit from two Guardian Stones at the same time.

The shield turns enemies ethereal for 15 seconds when they're bashed by it - so they can't hurt you for a brief while. Good if facing a crowd, perhaps.

The staff summons a dwemer construct - the Spiders, I think, though maybe a Sphere is possible too - at the spot you're targeting. That construct then fights on your side, for 60 seconds.


Again, with the "being a dick for the sake of being a dick".

Look, I've been trying to HELP you, and all you can muster as a response is to be an asshole ...?

Not really. It's a game that I have no intention of finishing the main quest, why would I double-down on it?



WTF is an "elder scroll"? Sorry to be so obtuse but has it occured to you that I haven't actually given half a thought to the series prior to a month ago?



Mhm. They are made up.
I still don't know what they mean. What I was pointing out that they were not plain English as you casually insulted me by saying as such. Every single qualifier was preceded by a made-up noun-used-as-an-adjective. I have no idea how good or useful wargfarble armor is.



I meant the guardian stones. I have no idea what one is or what it does, or why I'd want two of them.



You're the one trying to sell me on an expansion pack after indicating that I had little interest in the base game.

To sum up the conversation:

Me: I regret paying $30 for Skyrim
You: Buy the expansion! It's well worth it for $30! It has wargfarble armor!
Me: What the hell is wargfarble armor?
You: You're an obtuse asshole

So, wait. You expect me to explain every little tiny fecking detail ...??

Google. Use it.


You cherry-picked a few unfamiliar pronouns as being non-English.

After having claimed you didn't understand a single word of what I had posted.


Oh for fuck's sake. While running from Helgen to Riverwood - you know, from "the place the dragon turned into rubble" to "the first intact town in the game" - you come across three of them and the NPC still attached to you at the hip explains what they are. It's part of what is essentially the tutorial for Skyrim.

What the hell were you doing during that process .... sleeping?


No, that is not at ALL how this has gone. Try this on for size:

You: "I'm not going to pay $30 for an expansion to a game that I paid $30 for. " (this is an exact quote, word for word)
Me: *lists several possible reasons why you might consider changing your mind*
You: "Totally didn't understand a world of that. " (again, this is an exact quote, word for word)
Me: "I posted in plain English. What's not to understand?"
You: *cherry-picks a few pronouns to whinge about*
Me: "Grow up" (praphrase)
You: "No!" *stomps his little foot* (paraphrase)

You both need to cool it or you're just going to bring the mods down. I get why you're frustrated, Pax, but using ad hominem and excessive vulgarities doesn't make your point stronger.

That out of the way, outside of using something like the Build Your Own Game mod (which is neat, honestly) I would kill *cough* for a faster way to level destruction. Conjuration and Alteration always feel terribly easy to level and for restoration you can sit on an arrow trap and use healing until the cows come home. Meanwhile, destruction feels like it levels as slowly as an armor skill. Which is to say - very.

@Pax,
It seems you are very frustrated with Skyrim as a game. If this is the case I would recommend that you place it on a shelf for a little while and maybe come back to it once you have released your anger towards it.

Being a spell caster is one of the harder starting "classes" (I know it's a classless game) in the game. I found a light armor wearing, stealth archer using one-handed weapons for CQB (close quarter battle) to be one of the easiest setups to play. You are slow moving using stealth everywhere, but you are safer (mind you not actually safe, just safer). Using this tactic you also abuse the IAs very short attention span, but it is easy to play.

I'm currently on my second play-through and enjoying it as much this time as I did the last. I do wish you luck in your game (if you choose to continue to play).

-D

Like I said, my issue is mostly to do with the fact that it bypasses the encumbrance mechanic which does have an impact on combat. Encumbrance is not something that matters when fast traveling. It is something that matters when moving through a dungeon.

I am fully aware that you would still need to haul all the loot you want to the entrance.

I am currently (thanks to someone reminding me i had the game! ) on my 2nd playthrough, no expansions, and as a mage it is hard as hell to start, but once you get going...cause monsters to stagger every time you dualcast destruction, make them light on fire and run around screaming in fear with fire spells, or dusting them with lightning? is awesome stuff! Running around with no armor as of right now, the better for alteration spells, etc.

I dunno, I started as a two-handed weapon brute and have very little of the difficulty that Draco is describing.

And I haven't really leveled ranged attacks much, either bow or spell. I can count on my hands the number of times I was in a ranged-only fight. Even with dragons, I just run around avoiding fire til they land, then go to town on them. And they always eventually land.

My skills are pretty much in two-handed weapons, armor, and blacksmithing. Oh, and lockpicking/stealth, cos I rob just about everyone blind without them noticing.

Level 16 now and I've died maybe three times.



-k

Um ... no? It's not the game I have a problem with. In fact, I <3 it very much; I'm at 218 hours played, and will possibly be at ~225 by this time tomorrow.

... it's Draco18s I'm frustrated with.






... not if you're depositing piles of loot in convenient, easily-remembered containers before becoming encumbered in the first place. Which is what I always did, prior to that mod.

Then I'd have to go through the whole thing again, backwards (where possible), collecting the contents of each cache, and slowly dragging the load to a container just inside the entrance (since rarely is there a convenient container OUTSIDE the entryway). And then, trip by trip, load by load, endure load screen after load screen to get that loot home.

And it really is a LOT of staring at load screens. One to leave the location, one to fast travel, one to enter a home; then, again to leave the home, again to fast travel, again to enter the location and gt the next load of loot. Six load screens each way ... and sometimes eight or ten trips just for "the GOOD stuff" (armor, jewels, ingredients, weapons, scrolls, potions, craftig goods, and any odds and ends with at least a 5:1 value:weight ratio). O_o

So, instead of walking twenty paces to X chest or Y burial urn to make a cache of loot, I summon the Secret Stash. No more slowly hauling piles of loot to the door. No more thirty-to-sixty load screens. Just done, and done.

Really? That's how you did it? That's an excessive amount of effort. Whenever I was near my encumbrance limit, I ran to the door dumped my loot on the ground, then continued on. Of course, this is usually only ever a problem with dungeons that contain bandits or other humanoids since it's weapons and armor that typically throw you over the limit.

Things dropped on the ground are (a) a pain to pick back up, and sort through, when trying to maximise how much each load taken "home" weighs ... and (b) have an IMO unacceptible risk of being "lost" by the computer - falling through the world, despawning, etc. The only safe place for something is in a container (or on a weapon rack, shield rack, or mannequin in a player-home).

On the topic of starting mages, raise zombie is pretty easy to get early on (I think it's in the Riftwood store), and once raised, the zombies can be used for target practice with whatever weapon you choose.

And I've explained that I paid $30 for it because it was on sale, that I was not willing to pay more than $30 for it, and that I regretted the decision:





Or did you forget that half of the conversation?

Alright, lets start with getting you better armor. I assume you're going to stick with heavy, so I'll direct you to a better set. Go to Markarth. Once in the city, enter the palace. Now you have two choices: to your right is a museum with a full set of dwarven armor you can steal(a bit difficult to do). Or to your left is a door to some dwarven ruins(get the key of the dark elf mage at the nearby enchanting altar). If you invest a perk in dwarven armor smithing you can gather some dwarven junk from the ruins, bring it to the smelter back in town and melt it down into dwarven ingots. You can then smith yourself a full set of dwarven armor and weapons. The dwarven junk you need to collect is very heavy, however, so go in with a very light pack.
**Note, in the elder scrolls series Dwarven=Dwemer, in case you get confused.

Now, if you want to give your new gear a test run, leave Markarth through the main gate and follow the path straight. On your right you'll soon see a mining camp, with a discussion happening outside. Talk to the orc and you'll get the option to clear out his mine. It can get a little tough, but it is a gold mine. So bring a pick axe for extra profit. The 'boss' of the mine is a powerful mage(called a briarheart i believe). If you're feeling sneaky, you can pickpocket a briarheart(an alchemy ingredient. Pretty useful) off of him. This will actually kill him without any combat(since you literally end up ripping out his heart).

Yeah, I picked up that much from my friends already.

In any case, I'll try that.

In other news, if you want a better bow, theres a goon in the ratway under Riften with an orcish bow. If you want a better, elven bow you can go to Aela's room in the Companions guild house in Whiterun. She has one in a locked display case(i think the pick difficulty is hard or expert)

Of course, Dwarven Smithing isn't easy to get in itself. You'll need to build up your smithing skill somewhat.

This can be made easier, without being unreasonable or "cheat-ish" IMO, if you get the mod "Smeltdown" ... hmm, lemme find a URL for you ... aha: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=11056

This makes a lot more things smelt-able (which by rights should be smeltable). ESPECIALLY dwemer "junk", but also, weapons and armor can be rendered down into a portion of the materials needed to make them. If you come up with a pile of iron, and a stack of leather strips? Make iron daggers all day long, and build that Smithing skill up. Which can and will give you level increases in the process, too.

Once you've got Dwarven Smithing, you can make tons of money smelting that dwemer junk down and making stuff from it. Dwarven Bows seem to be the most-frugal option. Make a bunch, reforge them to make them even better, then sell them. When you run low on dwemer ingots, just find a new dwemer ruin and spend a few in-game days vacuuming out everything smeltable in it, and start at the top again.

Don't most dungeons reset monsters/loot/chest after 7 IG days?

You can burn through a pile of even hundreds of ingots in a matter of a couple in-game hours. And I say it's better to go empty a SECOND dungeon of loot, than to sit on your hands for 5 or 6 in-game days waiting for the FIRST one to restock.

It takes maybe a minute to accelerate 7 days.