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I'm now the

Leader of the Imperials

,

Harbinger of the Companions

and the

Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold

.

Just doing some random quests and some of the Daedra shrines now. :D

I was worried that, like Oblivion, after you completed some of the main factions things would start to slow down, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Dragons still annoy me and I end up running away from them if I fight them on my own, none of my spells seem very powerful against them. I even have adept level spells like Fireball, but it's no good :(

Daedric artifacts I have so far:

Masque of Clavicus Vile

Wabbajack

Mace of Molag-Bol (amazing weapon)

Sure I have more but I can't remember!

Ok, well I (admittedly) cheated slightly, and temporarily boosted my smithing from 90 to 623, which is the max you can get if you do the proper alchemy/enchantment things to gear and boost it that way (its the highest temporary smithing skill you can legitimately get) to upgrade my dagger to legendary. It went from 54 damage to 185 damage, or, with the 30x sneak attack multiplier, 1620 damage to 5550 damage. Sure it is cheating, but I'm not going to waste time power leveling alchemy, enchanting, and smithing and have a lvl 30 character with 0 combat skills.

It is retardedly OP, even at its 54 damage it 1-hit everything including one of the dragon priests (couldn't sneak-attack the dragon though so I can't say it 1-hits everything), and now I just boosted its damage by 340%....plus I have a feeling its going to kill things very quickly even without sneak attacks. The bad part is I only have 4 out of 5 armsman, so once I get 1-handed up to 80, I'm going to get another 20% damage.

Oddly enough though, ignoring enchantments (probably a bad thing to do), the Blade of Woe is the strongest dagger in the game. It has the highest base damage (or at least tied for the highest), but even side-by-side with a deadric dagger, it has higher damage, only downside is it's already enchanted with a pretty weak late-game enchant (absorb 10 health for 1 second, only usable 6 times before it needs recharged). That's the only thing that might make the daedric dagger better, is you can enchant it with your own enchant, but in terms of raw damage, no dagger so far trumps the blade of woe.

I'm now the

Leader of the Imperials

,

Harbinger of the Companions

and the

Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold

.

Just doing some random quests and some of the Daedra shrines now. :D

I was worried that, like Oblivion, after you completed some of the main factions things would start to slow down, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Dragons still annoy me and I end up running away from them if I fight them on my own, none of my spells seem very powerful against them. I even have adept level spells like Fireball, but it's no good :(

Daedric artifacts I have so far:

Masque of Clavicus Vile

Wabbajack

Mace of Molag-Bol (amazing weapon)

Sure I have more but I can't remember!

Can now add:

Mehrune's Razor

And

Ebony Blade

To my list of artifacts :D

I've been playing the game without fast travel for the past 100~ hrs of gameplay (yes, I've been playing this game constantly since release).

It really slows your progress and allows you to enjoy the game more, as well as enhancing immersion. I have been playing only one character for the whole time and I am only level 35. It really turns the game into something that's not just about combat and missions. It makes you prioritize based on how accessible locations are. You get to see much more of the landscape and find many more locations. It's a pain, but you enjoy that pain. I experience things most of my friends never see when they rocket through the game in 30 hours to finishing all guilds and main quest.

There is a carriage system, and horses can sprint (two majorly overlooked facts), so playing like this isn't exactly all traveling between locations. Locations between the Reach and Whiterun can be hard to get to, and between Whiterun and Riften is a lot of distance. But really you'll only have trouble getting to quests that are in those two criteria.

That's how I'm playing the game and I'm really enjoying it. I used fast travel a ton in Fallout 3 and kind of regret it. I know I missed so much in that game, I'm going to go back and play it again. Not really in a hurry to finish Skyrim, personally.

My problem with extending the game by not using fast travel is the way I play....generally speaking, if I am going from point A to point B, I'm going to avoid any encounters as much as I can. If I didn't use fast travel, I would spend an hour or two for every few hours of play just on travelling between different areas, with a chance of finding something cool, sure, but the extra playtime dedicated to travelling between point A and point B is not worth it IMHO.

One thing I have done though, is accept every quest I happen upon, and so far, 57 hours in, I have completed the thieves guild, brotherhood, and only a few quests into the companions guild, bard guild, and mage guild. The main story, I stopped doing about 2-3 quests after becoming thane of Whiterun. I am also now the thane of Solitude, and partial thane of riften (haven't bought the house yet so I don't have the title yet). I also just joined up with the stormcloaks and did maybe 2 quests for them.

Honestly, anyone completing the game in 30 hours, even using fast travel constantly, is missing like 75% (likely more) of the game.....I'm at nearly twice that and haven't even finished half of the faction quests yet.

As far as horses being able to sprint, while true, they seem to have really low stamina bars (it seems like about the same as your stamina bar, because it feels like my horse sprints longer as my stamina grows), but come on now, how many horses do you know run out of stamina as fast as a person? They should easily be able to sprint 2-3 times as long as your character can.

To anyone who's done the dark brotherhood questline,

Once I've killed the emperor and kitted out the new Dawnstar Sanctuary, I can start getting contracts from the Night Mother and Nazir again. Is this a continuation of the DB storyline or is it just what you get to do at the end of every questline - i.e. for the companions you can kill monsters, rescue people ,etc, and for the imperials you can attack stormcloak military camps. They're not a continuation of the questlines, just something you can do to earn money etc. Is this the same thing for the DB? Reason I'm asking is 'cause I'm kinda bored of the DB quests but at the same time I want to finish it!

To anyone who's done the dark brotherhood questline,

Once I've killed the emperor and kitted out the new Dawnstar Sanctuary, I can start getting contracts from the Night Mother and Nazir again. Is this a continuation of the DB storyline or is it just what you get to do at the end of every questline - i.e. for the companions you can kill monsters, rescue people ,etc, and for the imperials you can attack stormcloak military camps. They're not a continuation of the questlines, just something you can do to earn money etc. Is this the same thing for the DB? Reason I'm asking is 'cause I'm kinda bored of the DB quests but at the same time I want to finish it!

Yes, once you start getting those quests its just for some extra money. As an example, as soon as you finish one, it has you return to the Night Mother and get another contract.

It's really a shame that you can't ask the initiates and other brotherhood members to go perform the tasks for you. I mean, in Oblivion lore, the Listener is the 2nd highest rank, only 2nd to the Night Mother herself. You should have the option to pass the information onto Nazir or someone else and they should go out and perform the contract. You obviously wouldn't get as much money personally for the contract, but it should be an option considering you are basically the leader.

Does selling/buying only very gradually increase the 'Speech' skill? My Speech level is only at 25 but I'm having to sell about 6,000 septims worth of items to upgrade a single level :huh: (I know you can upgrade it using persuade/intimidate but I thought buying/selling should be upgrading it quicker than it is).

Anyway, great game even with the bugs. I'm around 20 hours in and have barely done any of the main quest.

Just explored Alftand which netted about 25,000 septims worth of goodies (before I accepted the quest so I couldn't activate the dwarven mechanism, doh!) :p.

From what i have read, speech levels up based on number of items, not value. So selling lots of cheap items will get you more speech experience than selling a few expensive items. I am not sure about that, it's simply what I've read, but mine is around 40 or 50 and I power leveled smithing up to 93 or so, selling all the iron daggers I made 1 at a time. I also do as many persuasion checks as I can. Generally speaking, persuasion and intimidation checks are a much better way to level speech. Another good way, is to get the perk that lets you bribe guards. Pickpocket people until you get caught, wait for the guards to arrive, and bribe them to let you go, then go it a different town and do it again, bribing gives quite a bit of speech experience, and this particular method also helps you level up pickpocket if you want to.

EDIT: Actually, I was only half right:

The amount of skill progress gained is based on the base value of the item being bought/sold. However, if you trade multiple units of an item in one transaction, you will only gain experience equivalent to trading a single unit; for optimal leveling, sell each item one at a time, and sell expensive items.

So if you have say 50 iron daggers, sell them 1 at a time for optimal speech experience, but selling expensive items gives more speech experience.

Thanks, for me it still seems to be levelling up strangely slow, I sold about 150 items worth a combined 5000 septims (one item at a time) and my speech didn't even increase by half a level. Guess I'll just try bribing/persuasion instead.

--

Just another hit a rather annoying bug, has anyone had this? My companion/follower died but still follows me around (dead on their back), I can't talk to/dismiss them and I can't hire another companion because it says I already have one, think I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save.

Just another hit a rather annoying bug, had anyone had this? My companion/follower died but still follows me around (dead on their back), I can't talk to/dismiss them and I can't hire another companion because it says I already have one, think I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save.

It happens every now and then....if you are on PC you can push the key left of 1 (tilde, ~), which will open the console. Then click on the dead companion, and type "resurrect" (without quotes), and hit enter. Now close the console (same button) and your companion should jump back up, from there you can dismiss them, then, if you wish, open the companion back up, select the companion, and type "kill", so that they remain dead.

While technically yes, it is cheating, it is cheating to fix a bug so to each their own.......if you are not on the PC version though, I have no clue how to open the console (if you even can).

Ok, well I (admittedly) cheated slightly, and temporarily boosted my smithing from 90 to 623, which is the max you can get if you do the proper alchemy/enchantment things to gear and boost it that way (its the highest temporary smithing skill you can legitimately get) to upgrade my dagger to legendary. It went from 54 damage to 185 damage, or, with the 30x sneak attack multiplier, 1620 damage to 5550 damage. Sure it is cheating, but I'm not going to waste time power leveling alchemy, enchanting, and smithing and have a lvl 30 character with 0 combat skills.

It is retardedly OP, even at its 54 damage it 1-hit everything including one of the dragon priests (couldn't sneak-attack the dragon though so I can't say it 1-hits everything), and now I just boosted its damage by 340%....plus I have a feeling its going to kill things very quickly even without sneak attacks. The bad part is I only have 4 out of 5 armsman, so once I get 1-handed up to 80, I'm going to get another 20% damage.

Oddly enough though, ignoring enchantments (probably a bad thing to do), the Blade of Woe is the strongest dagger in the game. It has the highest base damage (or at least tied for the highest), but even side-by-side with a deadric dagger, it has higher damage, only downside is it's already enchanted with a pretty weak late-game enchant (absorb 10 health for 1 second, only usable 6 times before it needs recharged). That's the only thing that might make the daedric dagger better, is you can enchant it with your own enchant, but in terms of raw damage, no dagger so far trumps the blade of woe.

I actually just got the blade of woe and upgraded it to legendary, its awesome :) Before that I was using Mehrune's razor, now its in my display case in my markarth house.

I actually just got the blade of woe and upgraded it to legendary, its awesome :) Before that I was using Mehrune's razor, now its in my display case in my markarth house.

I still carry around my Mehrune's Razor.....it only does a little less damage than Blade of Woe, but its chance to 1-hit is too good to pass up on dragons. At best dragons take 1 face to face hit, at worst I have to hit them once more with my dagger.....that is of course when I'm willing to stand point blank to a dragon with a dagger. But it definitely doesn't hurt to have Mehrunes on hand when I miss a backstab on a boss mob (doesn't happen often, but sometimes they turn around and detect me mid swing).

I am just starting on One handed after just super-equipping Lydia and having her tank for my bow.

The last archery perk is absolutely amazing. 1/10 times you'll freeze an enemy as if you use Ice Form. Except there's a catch - You can attack them in that state! I've taken to paralyzing them and whacking them as much as I can with Dawnbreaker to train one handed.

Also: Do buy the home in Markarth! I love it.

I don't know what it is, but Lydia is just not working out for me. I have her in full Dragonplate armor, tempered very high, with the Daedric Greatsword. Though she cannot tank, she dies so fast and I have to reload a lot. I came across a bandit camp and took on 3 at the same time, while she fought 2, and she got wrecked. They didn't hit that hard at all. I don't get it. Is there a better companion somewhere else that can utilize my armor correctly, because there are some things I can't do alone, but neither can Lydia.

For what it's worth I've read Lydia is supposed to be a rogue companion, not a tank. There is a lady (forgot her name) in the inn in Whiterun who is a warrior/tank. The first time you talk to her you get the chance to brawl her.

Ah, ok. I ran with that lady once and then got Lydia so I dropped her, as I wasn't sure if I could find the lady from the inn again, and Lydia ofc lives with me. I'll give her a go.

I don't like Lydia because she's a do-gooder. I need someone who doesn't mind

my thieving, murderous ways. :)

:p.

I am a 'good' person. Question. If I dismiss another companion with my gear, will they still have it when I need them again? I know Lydia does, but she lives'with me.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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