LE Saarthal - Alternative to Mage Guild

[Kotyonok]

Regarding the Forbidden Legends quest and one of the amulets being locked behind a door that requires you to join the Mage's guild before you can complete the (basically unrelated) quest.

 

I've seen it brought up before, but the only thread that got responses tended to have a lot of players saying "Well, if you're a warrior/thief then just join the Mage's guild for a bit, and then leave it alone." I understand that one can do this, and it's a relatively quick quest, but I play different characters and really enjoy the role play aspect of this game. This whole Saarth underground thing is utterly immersion breaking.

 

So I'd like to make a request for a mod that simply allows for an alternative way to get through Saarth without any involvement with the Mage's guild. I think removing the key requirement for the door and allowing lock picking (or having it unlocked) would be a start, but also if there is anyway to take the invulnerability off of the boss. If I remember correctly that's all that's really needed for the area and the mod would be done. It'd be useful to a lot of people who want that amulet, but don't want to have to kill the quest and be forced into joining a guild.

Edited December 30, 2012 by Kotyonok

[Exlorian]

A mod to fix this would be nice.

 

I feel the same way about the role-playing aspect, and the level of immersion is important to truly enjoy the it. The Elder scrolls has always been about choosing your own path, and deciding how you want your character to progress through the game, both in actions and how you build your skills. I recently realized that in TES5 that if you want to choose the path of a good-nature'd, hero-type Nord warrior (no thieving, spell-casting, assassinating, nor doing absurd dirty work for demon lords), you will be cutting out a huge portion of the quest lines, and even some side quests like this one involving Saarthal, and the Gauldur amulet. Skyrim is the home of the Nords; an honorable, warrior-class people. Yet, if you want to see 75% of the content you need to play a character less like a goodly hero, and more like a heartless evil-doer. Bethesda forces many of these quests on you, without an option to choose another path, except to just ignore the quest. So, it's up to modders to fill in these gaps, or at least fix little things like this Gauldur fragment quest, and give us alternative options to these non-true-Nord quest lines, ie (Mage and Thieves guild, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Daedric Lords.)

 

I have already found a couple mods that begin to touch on this, but it's just a start to making Skyrim just as viable (content-filled) as a goodly Nord warrior, as it is a cruel and cold criminal, or even a spellcaster, which is not ideally Nordic in my opinion.

 

The Choice is Yours - fewer forced quests and improved dialog options

Thieves Guild Requirements - Brynolf will not auto start his quest if you are not a thief

Quest Eraser - remove annoying quests that you have no intention of doing

 

 

My character is a Nord warrior named Falkar. He wields both one-handed or two-handed swords, a shield, bow and arrows, and wears both heavy and light armor. As Nords tend to live off the land, he is also a ranger/hunter type familiar with all the flora and fauna, so he knows a thing or two about alchemy, and can be stealthy when he needs to be. In his adventuring, dealing with all-manner of people, and trading, he has developed a knack for speechcraft. Aside from the fact that I want to stay immersed and accurately roleplay this character, focusing on these skill trees doesn't leave much room for learning magic even if I wanted to. He is the farthest thing from a mage, and the College is the last place he should ever be. In the interest of completing the Gauldur fragment quest, I gave up immersion, deviated from my intended path and joined the Mage's college. I had to use a combination of mage items just to get my Magicka high enough to conjure the Atronoch, and then I had to time it perfectly and could barely keep the Ward up long enough for Tolfdir to cast a fireball on me. My point is, I shouldn't have to be forced to play mage for 5 minutes in order to complete an unrelated quest. There should be another way to enter Saarthal and obtain the fragment.

 

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv226/jonahmf/WhichOneisNotaMage_zps3a42a9af.jpg

 

Falkar doesn't belong here.

 

I digress.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Exlorian

[fraquar]

I think the biggest part of the problem is the way the Galdur quest is forced upon you. In reality Falkar (above - and most that play a character with a distrust level of magic) wouldn't even pursue this quest line.

 

Why would they chase down a source of magic power all over Skyrim to begin with?

Why would they be so engrossed in the writings of a mage detailing this source of magic power, and that the power was the very reason he was killed by his sons?

 

Makes no sense from a role-play perspective, and thats the issue virtually all of my characters are faced with.

 

I normally don't play mage types, but every once in a while I'll play a Thief with some Illusion support skills that make at least a little sense to join the College - since that is where the Master level trainer is. Then and only then does the Galdur Legend become something worthy of interest - even if vaguely.

[GlockPants]

I'm honestly surprised there haven't been any mods for bypassing the College of Winterhold.

 

I know there are work-arounds for not completing CoW quests like ignoring them or using the quest eraser, but this option just feels like a better opportunity to RP. I mean, there is a mod to trash the Thieves Guild and the vanilla game allows you to destroy the DB and gain access to their word wall and stuff. This leaves the Companions and the CoW and the later is the only faction that requires access to progress the story (if you neglect the already known work-arounds).

 

*Main quest and Dawngaurd Spoilers*

The main quest and Dawngaurd MQ require you to find the elder scroll, which I know can be bypassed by just going to Septimus, but I feel this breaks immersion. What I imagine as a good mod to circumvent this is an option when speaking to Faralda is a dialog option like "I'm looking for information about an Elder Scroll." Then perhaps she asks on what authority would some random non-mage be seeking knowledge about such a thing. Depending on which quest you're on, if it's for the MQ you might say something like "I'm Dragonborn and I need an Elder Scroll to defeat Alduin." Or if on the Dawngaurd MQ "A Moth Priest has asked me to look for an Elder Scroll about a vampire prophecy." (This might be different depending on which faction you side with)

 

Then Faralda will unlock the main gate to the college allowing you access to the Arcanaeum (Perhaps one could plant a key to Saarthal here as well).

 

I'm honestly considering picking up modding just so I could do this since no modder seems to have any interest in doing it.