Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim

[GomerBucks]

You can spam smithing and enchanting together to make some loot and level both at the same time.... 1000 enchanted Iron daggers? Yes please.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

My sister got me this for my birthday. Now I just need an Xbox on which to play it.

 

[morbitzerker]

3. On the flipside - blacksmithery is awesome. I am having a blast making my bow more powerful and my armor better.

4. Enchanting stuff looks important, but Grand Soul Gems are freakin' expensive.

Enchanting is a good way to get powerful customized gear. It's not essential though, and even though I've maxed out my enchanting skill, I haven't actually enchanted anything for my character's own use. I'm just using what I've found, and my character is pretty much unstoppable. As you advance in the game you'll find more and more enchanted items that may suit your needs.

Grand soul gems & black soul gems are expensive, especially filled. There are plenty of ways around that though, whether by looting, bartering, theft or creating them.

One of the cool things about the game is just how deep you can get into making weapons and apparel if you want to. My wife rolled her eyes one time when I told her I had spent two hours in a video game mining iron. If it's your kind of thing you could have your own vertically-integrated dagger-making business, where you mine & smelt the ore, harvest and tan the leather, fill the soul gems and enchant with custom effects. A lot of the finer specialty weapons are really detailed and look pretty cool, too.

Touching on Smithing, if you want to level up quickly - Go to a merchant, buy all iron ingot and iron straps, go to a forge, create all possible iron daggers (1 iron ingot, 1 leather strip) it took me a while to realize that smithing seems to just depend on that act of making something - not what you make. You will level up in no time to 100 Smithing, which I personally have - Enchanting takes a while longer but the double enchanting is totally worth it for your gear and weapons in my imo.

For instance - I have all Legendary Dragon Bone Heavy plated armor double enchanted with Health Regeneration and Heavy Armor Skill increases. Boots with extra carrying and stamina, Gauntlets with increased one-handed weapons and blocking skills and a helmet that regenerates and increases Magikca. I also have a Legendary Daedric War Axe with Health Absorption and Shock Damage enchantments and the Legendary Spellbreaker Shield with the Blocking skill that increases resistance to fire, ice and shock by 50% - it took a lot of time to do this, but I am virtually unstoppable against anything. The beauty of the game though is that you're free to do whatever you want and don't necessarily have to take this route and will still have success. I'm just running through everyone and everything, hacking and slashing.

Edit - To add, I have different rings and necklaces that I've double enchanted such as a necklace that resists Fire and Ice, for Dragons, and various rings that increase carrying & smithing, blocking and one handed weapons, or archery and magicka, things of that nature.

 

[BigWoof31]

Earlier BP reviews of this game have been spot on. It's flat out fun, even to the point where you laugh at yourself for taking on people you have no business fighting or all the random ways you can die.

Yesterday I completed the 2nd Companions quest to retrieve the artifacts from the Tomb. I exit the tomb take four steps forward and I'm approached by three thugs in Iron Armor

"We're here to teach you a lesson" Their levels are way higher than mine and I'm dead in about 15 seconds.

I re-load, sprint out of the tomb and out of their sight. I find a path far away from them and encounter 4 high eleves escorting a Nord prisoner.
I speak to the leader and all he tells me is "This doesn't concern you"
So I shoot an arrow in his head.

BOOM - all of them are mages and I get shock blasted to death in 10 seconds.


Bottom line - if you're outside of a town, DON'T TALK TO ANYONE.

 

[BUCKYLE]

So I had played for a few hours here and there, then a lot on my vacation week. Had my Nord heavily bearded. Level 20 with some one handed bad assedness and a touch of magic. I imagine when I turned the game off, he was just getting laid left and right, mostly by the cat women. Get it? lol Anyways, my nephew comes over and he's a part of what I call the "fucking douchebag cheater take it as easy as you can get it" generation that loves to exploit any glitches in the game to make it super easy then bitch about how boring it is. I fall asleep. He finds some book that by reading it gives you five points in three categories. He does some shit and when I wake up I'm a level 81. So my question is this...when I bury his body in Blackhand Gorge Nature Preserve, should I use lye?

 

[jlb1705]

Earlier BP reviews of this game have been spot on. It's flat out fun, even to the point where you laugh at yourself for taking on people you have no business fighting or all the random ways you can die.

Yesterday I completed the 2nd Companions quest to retrieve the artifacts from the Tomb. I exit the tomb take four steps forward and I'm approached by three thugs in Iron Armor

"We're here to teach you a lesson" Their levels are way higher than mine and I'm dead in about 15 seconds.

I re-load, sprint out of the tomb and out of their sight. I find a path far away from them and encounter 4 high eleves escorting a Nord prisoner.
I speak to the leader and all he tells me is "This doesn't concern you"
So I shoot an arrow in his head.

BOOM - all of them are mages and I get shock blasted to death in 10 seconds.


Bottom line - if you're outside of a town, DON'T TALK TO ANYONE.

I can never just let that shit slide. If I'm outmatched I'll spend hours or even days at a time fighting the same battle until I can at least kite them or cheap shot them to death.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

So I had played for a few hours here and there, then a lot on my vacation week. Had my Nord heavily bearded. Level 20 with some one handed bad assedness and a touch of magic. I imagine when I turned the game off, he was just getting laid left and right, mostly by the cat women. Get it? lol Anyways, my nephew comes over and he's a part of what I call the "fucking douchebag cheater take it as easy as you can get it" generation that loves to exploit any glitches in the game to make it super easy then bitch about how boring it is. I fall asleep. He finds some book that by reading it gives you five points in three categories. He does some shit and when I wake up I'm a level 81. So my question is this...when I bury his body in Blackhand Gorge Nature Preserve, should I use lye?

Definitely. Leave no trace.

 

[BigWoof31]

I can never just let that [Mark May] slide. If I'm outmatched I'll spend hours or even days at a time fighting the same battle until I can at least kite them or cheap shot them to death.

I killed the three thugs in Iron last night. Pretty much just ran around a house and burned them when they got close. Lydia picked them off with arrows as we ran around but she kinda sucks so I was doing alot of it myself.

Once all three were dead I stripped em' bare, burned their bodies and left them in a cabbage field. Made Lydia carry all their shit back into town and sold it #thuglife.

 

[Deety]

I like the places where you can stand way up on a mountain and pick off pixel-size baddies as they stand over the still-warm bodies of their fallen comrades and decide that the sound they heard must have been their imagination.

 

[BUCKYLE]

I want to play this on a drive-in movie screen.

 

[Buckeye86]

I just finished the Thieves Guild quest line and am going to start working on the Dark Brotherhood.

I am level 42. I have houses in Whitetun and Riften but I want to get to level 50 before I purchase the remaining houses (my next goal) so my remaining housecarls will be level 50 as well (which I understand to be their max).

I figured doing the Guild and Brotherhood quest lines would be a good way to level up while keeping the game interesting.

Oh yeah, I also maxed out my smithing perk recently and crafted a 750 set of Dragon heavy armor. I only used a smithing potion because I haven't really touched alchemy or enchanting yet so it would be a waste to go through to steps to max the perks right now.

Eventually I want to go through that three step process (alchemy, enchanting, smithing) to max out some armor and some weapons, but just the standard 750 dragon armor makes me pretty untouchable for the time being.

 

[jlb1705]

I just finished the Thieves Guild quest line and am going to start working on the Dark Brotherhood.

I am level 42. I have houses in Whitetun and Riften but I want to get to level 50 before I purchase the remaining houses (my next goal) so my remaining housecarls will be level 50 as well (which I understand to be their max).

I figured doing the Guild and Brotherhood quest lines would be a good way to level up while keeping the game interesting.

Oh yeah, I also maxed out my smithing perk recently and crafted a 750 set of Dragon heavy armor. I only used a smithing potion because I haven't really touched alchemy or enchanting yet so it would be a waste to go through to steps to max the perks right now.

Eventually I want to go through that three step process (alchemy, enchanting, smithing) to max out some armor and some weapons, but just the standard 750 dragon armor makes me pretty untouchable for the time being.

I didn't even use smithing potions - I've stashed the ones I've found. I have used found smithing gear when improving my armor (gauntlets, necklace, ring, notched pickaxe) I haven't even tried any of the exploits to truly max that stuff out.

I stopped short of doing the Dark Brotherhood stuff at this point. I've taken a break for a while - I'm playing some FIFA and MLB for now and I'll be back when the first DLC comes out, which will hopefully be soon.

 

[Buckeye86]

I didn't even use smithing potions - I've stashed the ones I've found. I have used found smithing gear when improving my armor (gauntlets, necklace, ring, notched pickaxe) I haven't even tried any of the exploits to truly max that stuff out.

I wasn't going to use any of the exploits.

Max alchemy, enchanting, and smithing (check).

Create some fortify enchanting potions, enchant some fortify alchemy cloths (if you can, I don't even know).

Repeat (I believe you can do this twice before the enhancing affects peak without any exploits) and enchant some fortify smithing cloths and some fortify smithing potions to max out some armor and weapons.

I don't consider that an exploit, right?

Either way, I won't be doing that for a long time and may not get around to it ever since leveling up alchemy and enchanting is relatively boring and time consuming.

 

[BigWoof31]

I've seen some videos online that show amazing Ebony and Dragon Bone armor, I'm simply going to have to build and enchant the hell out of them.

Tried to pickpocket a mage yesterday and he proceeded to pound me with fireballs. Had to shout at him and run like hell.

 

[jlb1705]

I wasn't going to use any of the exploits.

Max alchemy, enchanting, and smithing (check).

Create some fortify enchanting potions, enchant some fortify alchemy cloths (if you can, I don't even know).

Repeat (I believe you can do this twice before the enhancing affects peak without any exploits) and enchant some fortify smithing cloths and some fortify smithing potions to max out some armor and weapons.

I don't consider that an exploit, right?

Either way, I won't be doing that for a long time and may not get around to it ever since leveling up alchemy and enchanting is relatively boring and time consuming.

I think it's a little exploit-y. My opinion on that is based on the fact that you couldn't do anything quite like that in a previous TES game, while Bethesda won't patch it out of the game and will refer to that aspect of the game with a wink and a nod, you likely won't see that capability in the next TES game. To me it's kinda like the constant effect absorb health weapon enchantment in Morrowind, or the 100% chameleon enchantment in Oblivion.

That's not to say that I'm against it - quite the opposite actually. I did each of those things on the old games, and I plan to eventually stack my abilities for super enchantments in Skyrim. After finishing the quests, the pursuit of making my character invincible is one of my favorite parts of the game.