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.
