jeters5

I found no Magical or Disease effects. I tried curing at an altar and sleeping to no avail. Eventually, I just retured to an earlier save and re-fought the battle. Tough and fun for an archer-mage with no abuses. Just a little tedious jumping from pedestal to pedestal for an hour while dinking a little fire damage with Flames spell (and occasional Flame Atronach). Sorry I couldn't offer a cause and effect answer, though.

Hello all, Has anyone seen the archery skill get dropped in the Forbidden Legend quest? Search returned no answer. I finished the quest and got the amulet. However, in reviewing saves, I find that my archery skill dropped form 60 to 15 (in red) during the fight with the archer brother (second fight). I don't see any negative magical or disease effects on me, just a red 15 for archery. I'd appreciate any suggestions because I don't want to have to repeat the tedious battles to complete this quest. (Took me over an hour because I'm a weak mage-archer playing on master.) Thanks

I'm disappointed to hear of your problem. Regrettably, this was the pattern with Oblivion as well. After the save file grew enough, the game would CTD with painful regularity. Oblivion essentially became unplayable. I only bought Skyrim on the hope that the problem would have been addressed. Apparently not. I decided when I bought the game that, if the problem arose in Skyrim, I would abandon it and Bethesda. The problem is just too irritating for such a wonderfully conceived game series. I have a few hundred hours to go, but I've emotionally prepared myself to just walk away if I must.

I loved Morrowind but I never modded it and found it a little clumsy. A fully modded Oblivion was far more fun for me. However, at the top of my list, and I'm surprised at how rarely it's been listed is the Baldur's Gate series. They were fantastic, humorous, and interesting given technology at the time. Minsk was hilarious, and that dude who would always say "You are right behind me, yes?" I think a fully modded Skyrim has the potential to unseat my favorite, but only if the game doesn't start crashing 6 times an hour, like Oblivion. That will be my single deciding factor in loyalty to Bethesda after this.:confused:

Marthos' game room is awesome!!! I'm pretty happy just having a desk. And in answer to the "how many hours" question. I used to play about 20 hours per week, but I played about 60 hours per week after leaving the corporate world 8 years ago. Then I bought a small retail store a few years ago, and I'm back down to about 20 hours per week. Oh well. I hated spending so much of that precious time figuring out how to get FCOM installed correctly on Oblivion.:verymad: I sure hope Skyrim can handle the mods I'm sooooo anticipating.

Wow, I'm the original poster, and I never thought this would get such a response. Thanks everyone for posting your stories from over the years. I saw one negative remark about a me being a PDP-8 guy which made me laugh. He was right. I started programming a PDP-8 in high school. You know the one with a 5MB (yes, mega) hard drive that was 20" in diameter. Then I moved up to an IBM with punch cards at MIT when I went to college. I also had the opportunity to play D&D for several years with a group including one of the original Gary Gygax core players, so I love the comments about using imagination. That's what the original RPG was all about, and my mind is all over the place when I play RPGs on the computer. It's totally my escape. Glad to see all the comments. Thanks.

I see a number of posts requesting features to make the game more difficult than master. I'm not sure any additions at this time are valuable. Ultimately, game overhauls like FCOM for Oblivion will allow users to customize the challenge. Almost anything Bethesda implements will be modded anyways, and I prefer it that way. In the meantime, I use master difficulty, don't make any items for myself, don't buy spells, limit potions, and wear cloth. I need surprise attacks, strategic retreats, occasional outright running, and I need to plan companion placement ahead of time or they screw up the whole offensive. I die occasionally when I make a mistake, but not so often that I feel I need much more debuffing. The final arrow in my quiver, should the game get routine, will be the console command to raise my apparent level, forcing me to face higher level opponents more frequently. Let the modders offer everyone customized challenge in the future. Let's ask Bethesda to create a program that is more stable for mods. The 1.2 patch discussions and Steam concerns disturb me much more than difficulty.

My wife and I have different accounts set up on the same computer. When we login, we get our own documents folder including games/saves folder, so we have no conflict or maneuvering to do.

I tried the game on the default (mid-level) setting at first, but found it too easy. I'm using a destruction mage/archer this time on master and finding it a little challenging. I need to run, drink potions, and I probably can't miss that first arrow on sneak either. I also have to be more selective with spells, can't just burn everything to a crisp. I saw someone post a difficulty "cheat" if you want to call it that. He uses player.advlevel in the console which does not advance attributes or perks. It just makes the game act as though you were a higher level, so all opponents are appropriately increased to match your fake level. I may try that if it doesn't get harder. He said he also reduces the health regen rate, but I suspect that may not make much difference in a quick fight.

I almost always play a female even though I almost always play in first person mode. I almost never see my character, but I imagine that my character is a friend, it's not me. I prefer female friends. I usually play a thief/mage type, but when I play a fighter, I throw in more male characters. There's probably some version of politically incorrect chavinism in those sentences, but I'm 53 years old. Don't care.