Level 54 Redguard...need to get Alchemy up to improve gear more but here's what I currently wear

Daedric Armor 372 Armor (Health Regen 31% Magicka Regen 62%)
Daedric Boots 161 Armor (Carrying Capacity 37 points Shock Resist 37%)
Daedric Gauntlets 161 Armor (One-handed 40% Unarmed 12 additional)
Daedric Helmet 180 Armor (Magicka Regen 62% Destruction 25% less)
Daedric Shield 149 Armor (Block 25% more damage)
Gold Emerald Ring (Carrying Capacity 26 points Health Regen 21%)
Silver Sapphire Necklace (Health Regen 21% Carrying Capacity 26 points)

Daedric War Axe 85 Damage (7 second soul gem fill, Burns for 21 points, extra fire damage)

All Skills and Perks - 11 perk points currently remaining

Conjuration 96 - Novice, Apprentice
Destruction 45 - Novice, Augmented Flames 1/2
Restoration 27
Alteration 39
Enchanting 100 - 5/5, Insightful, Soul Squeezer, Soul Siphon, Corpus, Extra Effect
Smithing 100 - Dragon and Daedric unlocked
Heavy Armor 97 - Juggernaut 3/5, everything else except Reflect Blows
Block 52 - 1/5
Two-Handed 78 - 1/5, Skullcrusher 1/3
One-Handed 81, 1/5
Archery 57 - 1/5, Eagle Eye
Light Armor 41
Sneak 59 - 1/5, Muffled Movement
Lockpicking 100
Pickpocket 60 - 1/5
Speech 68 - 1/5, Allure, Merchant
Alchemy 25 - really need to improve this one
Illusion 26

what you'll notice is I had a general direction for my character, then I spammed Smithing and Enchanting, and everything else is kind of halfass...basically now I'm content with my ability to kill anyone, so I'm trying to boost some of my lowest stats to get my overall rating up

my other character who is only like level 3 is gonna be a pure mage

2/10/2012 2:42:00 PM

i forsee creating 300 iron daggers this afternoon.

2/10/2012 2:53:03 PM

Quote :

"When you reach max level heavy and light armor are both pretty much the same anyway. Neither one of them slows you down or weighs anything, and both of them approach or exceed the max armor class (if you have smithing). "

the biggest diff for me was if i wanted to improve a daedric bow to super high levels i needed daedric smithing and i didnt want to waste points in the light armor side of smithing if i was gonna do the entire heavy side as well.

its stupid cause the solution is to make dragon smithing not useless shit and give it the best armor for both sides and the best weapons

2/10/2012 2:54:23 PM

heres a question, anybody else have Skald's (Jarl of Dawnstar) quests glitched? Like he'll send me to kill some bandits or a giant, I return to him for my payment, but the quest stays on my list? I think I have 3 different "Collect Bounty from Skald" quests...also I recently did the Nightcaller Temple quest so I got rid of the nightmares haunting the town, but even after that it seems like the quests still stay up

2/10/2012 2:55:26 PM

^ funny you mention that because I have one left from him in my active quests that won't go away. it was to kill the giant which i did and when i went to collect the bounty it wouldn't let me, there was no dialogue option.

2/10/2012 3:11:56 PM

there really should be a set of dragon weapons. i have no idea why this was overlooked. daedric bows are a lot better than glass bows, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna wast that many perks just to get a bow.

I went dark elf and am a sneak archer/one-handed

I use bound bow pretty much exclusively and chillrend if something gets close. I also have a glass dagger that will one-hit kill an ancient dragon on sneak. i use throw voice a lot because it recharges quick and allows me to just put the enemy where I can easily hit them.

i went 3x resist magic so I can just stand in a dragon's shout and take minimal damage, 3x one-handed, 3x archery, and then some health buffs and magic regen bonuses.

2/10/2012 3:51:54 PM

You guys must not have a PC.

My dragonbone bow with dragonbone arrows is fucking up everything that moves.

2/10/2012 4:38:52 PM

i dunno why dragon bones are so expensive...500 gold each? i mean i understand scales, but i've left a few dragon skeltons on the outskirts of numerous towns, dunno why people dont just go steal the bones from there

2/10/2012 4:41:38 PM

do you ever use them for anything?

i've got like 50 of each just sitting in my chest.

2/10/2012 4:49:15 PM

wife bought it for me for xmas on the PS3 along with a new turtle beach headset. neither of which i had even mentioned to her. and i don't look awesome gift horses in the mouth

the 1.4 patch seems to have fixed the lag issues on the PS3 - thank god. was getting tired of restarting the game every couple of hours.

[Edited on February 10, 2012 at 4:49 PM. Reason : .]

2/10/2012 4:49:34 PM

^^bones needed to smith dragonbone heavy armor, scales needed to smith dragonscale light armor

2/10/2012 4:57:08 PM

Quote :

"You guys must not have a PC. My dragonbone bow with dragonbone arrows is fucking up everything that moves. "

im not a big fan of item mods cause they tend to be op :-P

2/10/2012 5:01:26 PM

my 2nd character i am playing now is a Level 39 light-armored female Wood Elf.

She is primarily a sneak/archer/one-handed character wearing:

Glass Armor (Legendary) - with light armor skill enchantment
Glass Boots (Legendary) - frost resistance enchantment
Glass Gauntlets (Legendary) - bows do more damage enchantment
Glass Helmet (Legendary) - bows do more damage enchantment
Kyne's Token necklace - damage taken from animals is reduced and bows do more damage
Ring of Archery - bows do more damage enchantment
Spellbreaker (Flawless) - magical shield that creates a ward to protect against spells when blocking

Weapons layout includes:
"Daedric Wrath" - Ebony Bow (Legendary) - 118 damage with shock damage enchanted
Ebony Arrows/Glass Arrows
Dawnbreaker (Epic) - 43 damage + burns for extra damage + turns undead or destroys undead
"Lightning" - Glass Sword (Legendary) - 58 damage with shock damage enchanted
Mehrunes' Razor (Epic) - 41 damage + hits having a small chance to instantly kill
"Soul Snatcher" - Elven Dagger (Legendary) - 50 damage + soul gem filling enchanted

Skills include:
Enchanting - 49 - enchanter 2/5
Smithing - 90 - all unlocked except dragon armor
Block - 51 - shield wall 1/5
One-handed - 65 - armsman 3/5, hack & slash, bone breaker 1/3, bladesman 1/3
Archery - 81 - overdraw 5/5, eagle eye, steady hand 1/2, critical shot 2/3, power shot, hunter's discipline
Light Armor - 81 - agile defender 4/5, custom fit, unhindered
Sneak - 83 - stealth 2/5, muffled movement, backstab, assassin's blade, deadly aim
Lockpicking - 73
Pickpocket - 35
Speech - 42
everything else remains untouched since i don't use magic at all

2/11/2012 8:45:08 PM

Quote :

"im not a big fan of item mods cause they tend to be op :-P"

yeah but at least I have something to do with all the surplus dragon bones and scales besides sell em.

2/13/2012 8:54:01 AM

I finally started a new character after I think 140 hours on my other guy. Just started up the Companions quest line and almost want to go back immediately to do that with my guy, if nothing else but the very first part where you have to beat up the Companion to get in...or just going in and slaughtering everyone.

I went with a heavy armor smash and bash tank last time, so now I'm going with a light armor/sneak/archer/magic khajit or w/e. I'm still having trouble getting away from just using the sword full time. Also going to try and avoid blacksmithing to make it more challenging and make loot rewarding, but that's already getting difficult because I enjoy the payoff/reward system of putting in work to create and improve your new set of armor. I guess it doesn't really take that much effort to forge a ton of leather bracers or iron daggers if it comes down to it.

One thing of note is that I was never aware that you could sneak around the draugr dungeons and avoid waking them all up if you were quiet enough. I snuck past about half of the draugr in Bleak Falls Barrow

I'll probably keep enchanting but might pick up alchemy more so this time in order to craft poisons, which fits into the scheme of a sneaking assassin.

[Edited on February 13, 2012 at 9:20 AM. Reason : asf]

[Edited on February 13, 2012 at 9:23 AM. Reason : I was never aware that poisons only lasted one hit]

2/13/2012 9:19:38 AM

it's been so long since i played the main story line, i've kinda forgotten everything that was going on.

oops.

2/13/2012 11:22:27 AM

Quote :

"One thing of note is that I was never aware that you could sneak around the draugr dungeons and avoid waking them all up if you were quiet enough. I snuck past about half of the draugr in Bleak Falls Barrow I'll probably keep enchanting but might pick up alchemy more so this time in order to craft poisons, which fits into the scheme of a sneaking assassin."

Yep. Sneak fucking owns dungeons. Random dragons and bosses it's totally fucking worthless but the rest of the time it's great.

I thought the same thing about poisons and then I got tired of pulling up the god damned inventory after every hit. I really need a hotkey mod.

2/13/2012 11:28:18 AM

my Sneak is 59 but I also have a couple followers so I often wake up Draugrs...but I do like every now and then when I walk up to their little alcove and find one still sleeping and kill it with one axe slash

2/13/2012 11:30:32 AM

you can have multiple followers?

i accidentally killed lydia dead dead yesterday, so i picked up j'zargo for some college side quest work.

got mjoll and the other mage dude just waiting since i've already got followers, they won't come along.

2/13/2012 11:32:44 AM

I somehow let Lydia die too

I have Mjoll and Barbas following me...one humanoid, one animal...but theres some video I posted 4-5 pages ago that shows some dude with like 10 followers

2/13/2012 11:33:40 AM

You haven't ditched that mangy mutt yet?

2/13/2012 11:37:19 AM

i consider it every time i'm in my house and he knocks all my shit off the table

2/13/2012 11:39:52 AM

i know exactly where i killed her.

while doing the "clear soljund's sinkhole of draugr" quest, the last guy, the draugr deathlord was giving me fits, how he'd always heal himself every time i'd do a little damage.

fire attronauchs weren't working, so after quite some time i just went balls out charge, with the summoned dark brotherhood guy as assistance, lydia, me, a flame attronauch, push him down with unrleanting force, then run around and shoot him with arrows until he fell or i fell, while dodging the firebolts, his unarm shout, other shouts, and his pretty ferocious melee attacks....

i popped lydia in the face with an arrow as i was about two shots away from killing the scourge lord, and lydia was kneeling healing herself.

considering the dilly dally time and shit, that fight took me like 30 minutes to complete. i hadn't been using a follower for the last 20 or so hours of play, and haven't had an issue, so i figured fuck it, i've got other followers, i'm going to let this one go and go ahead and save after clearing.

[Edited on February 13, 2012 at 12:13 PM. Reason : ew]

also, i didnt sell the strange amulet to the calexico dude, and so now after finishing that quest, it appears as if it's going to be stuck in my inventory forever. that sucks.

[Edited on February 13, 2012 at 12:29 PM. Reason : e]

2/13/2012 12:12:50 PM

Yeah, I have all sorts of quest items in my inventory forever. And quests in my log that won't complete even with console commands. I heart Bethesda.

2/13/2012 12:52:46 PM

my only regret in playing the game thus far has been putting perk points into lockpicking, mace, and destruction. that's 7 points that would have been much better utilized elsewhere

2/13/2012 4:08:06 PM

Don't give up on the mace. Destruction and Lockpicking are pretty useless though.

2/13/2012 4:11:55 PM

mace was ok. but i went sneak, so I'm mostly bow and dagger. and chillrend is just too great a sword to not use on the odd chance i get detected.

if i was going heavy armor brawler, I'd probably go mace over sword (that daedric one from out west is kickass)

2/13/2012 4:17:58 PM

just got the Discover 13 Standing Stones achievement or whatever its called but I found maybe 5 of them total...I got it when I fast traveled back to the original stones to get near another place I needed to go to for a quest...I had heard the achievement was glitched but can confirm it on 360

2/13/2012 7:18:34 PM

finished the thieves guild questline today though i guess i can still do vex and delvin missions to get more shit added to delvin's bookshelf...the guild master armor looks good but i was at least hoping to get a key to the treasure room

2/14/2012 10:31:08 PM

Has anyone had trouble with talking to characters and getting "locked in" the conversation? After completing the Companion and Thieves Guild questlines and doing side missions, I have on multiple occasions become "trapped" in the conversation.

Reloading from a previous save point makes no difference. I actually had to kill a couple of of the companions just to escape! Playing on 360 - Level 56 Redguard.

[Edited on February 14, 2012 at 10:48 PM. Reason : sp]

2/14/2012 10:48:00 PM

trapped as in you cant hit B and back out? ive had some conversations where it seemed to lag for 5-6 seconds with my dialogue option grayed out but while the NPC was still talking...but never had a conversation i couldnt at least back out of with the red button

2/14/2012 10:57:36 PM

No matter how often I hit B, I cannot back out of the conversation. If it does back out, it's for only a second, and the character initiates the conversation again, requiring me to choose a scripted answer.

It ONLY started happening after I completed the Companion questline and did 10-12 additional companion missions.

2/14/2012 10:59:26 PM

hmmm, might just be a glitch, i've done about 4-5 companion missions after finishing that quest, game is so expansive its hard to beta test everything, maybe they'll patch it

2/14/2012 11:12:08 PM

is there an end to the companions quest? it keeps telling me to go talk to them to get more jobs and all they end up being are "kill the stupid animal in somebody's house"

2/15/2012 1:39:20 AM

for some dumb reason i thought that when i got to 100 smithing up the light armor chain it'd let me do daedric also. kinda going around the loop so to speak.

it does not.

2/15/2012 8:30:39 AM

Once you are the Harbinger of the Companions, you can get those quests forever. Gives you money and stuff.

On another note, I just started a High Elf Female story and ditched the Nord one.

2/15/2012 8:49:43 AM

Yeah, it seems that once you finish any of the main quest lines, they will give you menial randomized fetch quests.

2/15/2012 8:52:01 AM

2/15/2012 11:34:18 AM

is there any good way to travel long distances while overencumbered? i'm in the middle of nowhere and there isn't anything I want to drop

I might just whirlwind sprint... wait... whirlwind sprint... wait... etc til i make it to Windhelm

[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 1:53 PM. Reason : not actually wait, just... wait]

2/16/2012 1:47:19 PM

Quote :

"is there any good way to travel long distances while overencumbered?"

if you have a horse you can fast travel while on the horse

2/16/2012 2:02:40 PM

you can also give stuff to your companion if you have one

2/16/2012 2:05:55 PM

there are potions for increasing carrying capacity for, i believe, 300 seconds so you could use those as well. how much are you over-encumbered?

2/16/2012 2:13:07 PM

no horse, no companion

oh well. it shouldn't take too long

^ can't remember exactly. I think its like 360/320 or something like that

[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 2:13 PM. Reason : .]

2/16/2012 2:13:13 PM

if i'm on my way to do a quest and i have to fight a dragon on the way, i always go ahead and discover the quest location, then fast travel to whiterun and drop off the bones and scales before resuming...i am kind of anal about that since a lot of dragons have 3 bones and 3 scales and thats 105 carry weight...unless i have a companion

i thought i was gonna be screwed one time when i got a mission about bringing somebody 10 dwemer cogs and i was inside some dwemer ruins collecting them and they weigh 10 each...i got lucky and when the quest ended i was probably 396/410 or something with 10 cogs in hand

2/16/2012 2:35:45 PM

I've just dropped stuff on the ground and come back to it before. Also have put stuff in random chests that are nearby (usually where the loot came from) and recovered them no problem...but I also do immediately fast travel back to that spot

2/16/2012 2:37:12 PM

If its not a very far distance, alternate Whirlwind Sprint with single-hand power attacks (dagger/sword is what I always did).

Other idea is to enchant a set of cloth armor with increased carry capacity. I know that boots can handle it, but sure what other pieces do. In the case of my boots, I carry around the extra 1 pound for the ability to be able to carry 30 extra pounds on the way back.

I was going to see how high you could enchant the bonus and what other pieces supported it, but then I got a horse (Shadowmere) and it became irrelevant.

2/17/2012 10:58:25 AM

i'm weirdly bothered by the fact that when you're over-encumbered you walk at a snails pace, but you can still jump straight up in the air just like normal.

2/17/2012 11:03:31 AM

pulling out your bow and drawing an arrow helps you walk around faster while over encumbered

2/17/2012 11:23:58 AM

Quote :

"Bethesda: Skyrim DLC Will Feel More Like Expansion Packs We've been promised substantial downloadable content for last year's blockbuster Skyrim, but it sounds like Bethesda is thinking really big. "For Fallout 3 we did five DLCs," Howard told me during an interview last week at the DICE Summit. "That was a very aggressive path for us. Our plan now is to take more time, to have more meat on them [for Skyrim]. They'll feel closer to an expansion pack." Some of Fallout 3's expansions, such as Operation Anchorage were slender, linear mission sequences that lasted a few hours, but others, such as Point Lookout were entire new regions filled with quests. It does sound like there will be fewer than five of these expansion-pack additions to Skyrim. "With Fallout 3, it was, 'Ten dollars is the sweet spot for us and we know we want to put out five of them. And we had overlapping teams. We were coming off Fallout 3 and right back in." He describes that development cycle as "a real hardcore loop," but adds, "we just think we can do better content if we approach it a different way." In between those expansions, Howard is committed to releasing smaller pieces of content for the game. "Because that gap is going to be bigger, we want to put litle things out for free in between. We've already done that for PC with the high-res pack. We're trying to figure out what those things are." Even if you don't factor in the DLC, Bethesda has bigger plans for tweaking and enhancing Skyrim post-release than they have had for other big games they've released. The game was destined to be more organic. "We knew before release that we were going to support it in a larger way, with lots of updates every month," Howard said. "We knew we wanted to do more stuff to bring mods to people." (They have, through the recently-released Skyrim Creation Kit.) "So I think we had more of a plan and thought process of 'We want to make the game better after it's out.' We don't know what that means yet. People will tell us. But maybe we want to rebalance it. Maybe we want to add some features and patch them in, whereas in previous games, like Oblvivion or Fallout 3, our thinking was just to patch it, fix the big problems. Our bandwidth at that time was that we needed to work on Skyrim. But now, with the game's popularity, we really want to do all that stuff." Shortly before Howard and I talked last week, he showed a video featuring all sorts of wonderful additions to Skyrim that his developers had cooked up in one week after the game shipped. They had characters riding dragons, guards re-lighting torches, water arrows, fat giants, players as vampire lords and so much more. Some of that—Howard would stress the "some"—could be coming as part of all of this expanded content. "There are definitely things in there that we are planning on exploring," he said. "It looks like a ton of stuff that could ship right now," he admitted, "but it's in a sizzle video. It's, you know, it's not bug-tested, polished, balanced." He thinks it shows off the creativity of his team and says that some of it is being worked on, but don't take that as the blueprint for the expansions. Of course, he couldn't resist teasing more: "That wasn't all of it. It's probably 60% of it. The other 40% doesn't show as well in a video or we didn't have good footage." We have no actual release dates for the Skyrim expansions. No specific plans. But we do have what sounds like a long-term commitment to beefing up this game. Howard says his team is "very early" into the development of the DLC, but it's happening. Skyrim will be getting bigger—much bigger, it sounds like"

2/17/2012 11:46:43 AM

i just enchanted a ring that lets me carry a bunch of extra weight. it only weighs 0.3 so it doesnt hinder me

2/17/2012 1:17:25 PM