RatcatcherOfKvatch

haha The Hero of Kvatch knows what's up! Sonny, I was fightin' the Daedra infestation in Kvatch since before "Keeper Carcette" was even a twinkle in her mama's eyes. Somebody had to do it or Kvatch'da been overrun with the cursed little varmints years before the "Oblivion Crisis". "Oblivion Crisis", hah, I wanted to tell 'em all, "Welcome to my world," but they was all dead. I tried to warn 'em, but the consarned critters were nobody's problem but mine and folks liked it that way. Then I leave town for half a day, get myself arrested on account o' the usual mix up with the Watch, and the whole place goes to Oblivion. If ever a town needed a Ratcatcher ... wait, what were we talkin' about again? Did I ever tell you about that time in Kvatch, there was this scamp with a taste for flax powder, he'd snort it up and sneeze fire ... [ramble ramble ramble]

Nord Hero Sword!

Legendary is brutal. The equipment you give your followers and your skill at healing them are where you can do the most good.

Heck in Oblivion I was Franz Mesmer on roller skates. If you out-leveled your illusions you could just make new ones. It is possible in Skyrim to keep up, it's just a lot more work. My Illusion level inevitably doesn't keep up, and I fall back on the old standbys like Conjuration. Sorry. :( (I keep meaning to try an Illusion build, it just never seems to work out that way in the end.)

So you're feeling my pain ... yes, you've got the right Ratcatcher. "Lucky Lydia" is a widow; her husband who saved the world from Alduin rode that elevator shaft straight to Sovengarde. Kodlak died so much better. What's my new guy's name? Can I even remember? Umm ... I bought a dog ... Legendary difficulty is freakin' murder, I've got an atronach and a dog and Lydia (strictly in the "friend zone") and slightly-improved steel armor which was the best I could scrape together and I still almost died from a single claw swipe from a saber snow cat frost leopard or whatever those things are. I think on Legendary they shifted the monster levels up a category; I should be seeing Ice Wolves and instead it's those killer snow cats. The name's "Victor", that's right, it sounded lucky, it's French so it's good for Breton ... "Victor" is the new guy's name. Hey isn't that the name of the Robot Cowboy from New Vegas? He was lucky, right? The "no armor grace period" is gone. On Master difficulty you could run around in mage robes the first 5-6 levels and not worry too much about 1-hit kills. Those days are over. You're vulnerable right from Level 1. One unprotected fool tried to join the Companions and got 1-hit killed by Vilkas during training. Low-level armor does almost nothing, but you still need it on the off chance it tips the balance barely in favor of surviving the 1-hit kill. Throw in the Lord Stone and it piles on a little more protection. I desperately don't want to die ... I've freed Madanach from Cidnha Mine, gotten Dinya "Bear Necessities" Balu's 15% MR, visited the Azura Shrine, killed 2 dragons, taken the 10% MR perk from Alteration, joined the Companions (shield-bashed Vilkas to avoid the 1-hit kill), built Lakeview Greenhouse, and with every accomplishment I'm only that much more terrified to even walk out the door. Oh, yeah, about that "terrified to walk out the door", there's a good reason for that. Lakeview got attacked by a giant when I was like level 10. I ran right past him before I even knew he was there. I heard his breathing before I saw him and immediately bolted for the stables. Kynareth rewards those who are kind to their horses I guess. My poor dog got hammered, but better him than me, and he managed to survive. So did Lydia. Faendal was my steward but I think he slept through the whole attack. We walk in the house after fighting from noon to dark, the giant finally succumbing after dozens of atronachs and hundreds of arrows, and f'in slacker Faendal is all, "Hey bro! Got some brewskis in the cellar!" And I'm all like ... too tired to be mad, know what I mean?

DSM: "Breathe ..." Draugr: Rawr! *CLANG* Chop ... DSM: "Breathe in the air ..." Faendal: "I'll see you in pieces!" DSM: "Don't be afraid to care ..." Vigilance: *bark* *bark* Chomp ... DSM: "Leave ..." Arvel: "Don't leave me up here for Arkay's sake!" DSM: "... but don't leave me." Actually everything syncs to Dark Side of the Moon and BFB is merely a symptom, so ... never mind.

I had always hoped you could strike a deal with the Dark Brotherhood-hiring dude, "After the Emperor is dead you surrender Skryim in exchange for an alliance against the Aldmeri Dominion," something like that. Have the DB do something good for a change.

Argonians start out Lizardborn. Then Akatosh says, "Lizardborn, I choose YOU!" Then Akatosh sees that you're super-effective! Then you evolve into Dragonborn: the very best, like no one ever was.

A student heading for the College of Winterhold who has never been in a violent situation before. He very quickly realizes he's going to have to learn to survive in a world that seems to want to kill him, and that he'll have to learn this well before he even sees the College. "Come on, Breton, get up! The Gods won't give us another chance." Ralof's words ring forever true, and Ralof will always be a true friend.

I play at max difficulty (Legendary since the patch) with the house rule of "Permadeath" (aka Iron Man, DiD, or Dead-Is-Dead). Whatever happens I want to live through it. I once died because a Briarheart poisoned me and I had no resistance to it. I was level 50-something and down I went. (I was poisoned several times in rapid succession before the Brairheart finished me off. Everything went green for a couple of seconds from all the poison before the fade-to-black.) So yeah ever since then "Resist Poison" has a top priority. I role-play to the extent I dress like a Stormcloak, carry Nord Hero weaponry, and filter my actions through the moral dimension of what is best for the College of Winterhold. Come to think of it that's quite a lot of RP, isn't it? @ruvuk: I finally found the right place to put the .ini command to disable the accursed kill cam. I had tried this before: [VATS] bVATSDisable=1 but nowhere I put it seemed to make a difference. It goes in Skyrim.Ini under "Users" directory tree. (...\My Games\Skyrim\Skyrim.Ini) not where the Skyrim program files or mods are located.

Fortify Destruction potions [of sufficient power] are the most powerful items in the game. Combined with a dual-cast cloak you can wipe out whole armies while leaving friendlies miraculously untouched (most of the time -- Cloak spells are dangerous around neutrals). But FD does more than help you clear the yard trash; against very powerful opponents FD turns 2 dozen Flame Bolt or Incinerate spells into half a dozen. The great thing about FD as opposed to poison is that it lasts 60 seconds, however many shots you get off. It's like a rocket launcher with unlimited ammo. Back to the Cloak spells, FD potions increase the range as well as the strength. From the point-of-view of your allies you would seem quite terrifying: first the Dragonborn drinks a potion, then he claps his hands together, then every enemy soldier within shouting distance spontaneously bursts into flames. Ralof's still your bud, though. He remembers you back when he was the one keeping you alive.

Oblivion, New Vegas, and Skyrim stand the test of time. I would also say Fallout 3 except it's really depressing to return to after New Vegas.

The difficulty setting has a lot to do with whether followers are blessing or curse. On Legendary I'm at my strongest conjuring something then keeping my follower healed while she does most of the fighting.

Paarthurnax, yeah. He's earned his respect. And good call o Elisif. Every time she speaks you can just picture vampire lady ... what's her name? Sybil Stentor? ... you can almost sense her suppressing the urge to facepalm. Oh, right, Stentor got it wrong on Wolfskull Cave. Do you think she actually wanted those events to transpire and tried to allay suspicion on purpose?

TES IV? Umm ... more Oblivion gates? More uses for Sigil Stones?

Whenever I get married it's for pure gaming purposes, which means I need the spouse to go with me on missions. At some point I go from trying to stay as low-level as possible to wanting to max out my enchanting level at the lowest possible cost, and that's around the time I get married. How romantic, right? :P Anyway to me a spouse needs to be an adventure-spouse, not an arrow-in-the-knee spouse, and she needs to be able to move quietly when necessary. That leaves surprisingly few candidates: Brelyna, Aela, and Jenassa AFAIK. You can build any follower top-quality armor and while not as good as a "real" weapon the Staff of Magnus is pretty decent for mages, but with stealth she's either got it or she doesn't. So you can pick from those three (unless you want to marry a dude, or maybe there are some stealthy female marrying types in the DLC's.) "Lucky Lydia", who saw me safely through the entire MQ without even a horse as a casualty, bumped me down an elevator shaft in Solstheim. I guess I had her carrying too many of my burdens.

She's the Hero of Kvatch, the Champion of Cyrodiil, and the new Sheogorath ... that is if you believe her when she (as a he) says, "You can call me Ann Marie." (S)he might be joking. (I hope the original Ann Marie is still in there but wearing the Sheogorath persona for official duties. It would suck for her to save the world from Oblivion then do all that work in the Shivering Isles only to have her persona wiped and rewritten.)

The problem with The Farz is that the voice actor obviously doesn't understand the context or meaning of the words and puts the inflections in the wrong place. He could do a fine job sounding arrogant and dismissive if he'd just accent the right words. Even a "flat affect" has some inflections, so I don't buy the flubbed lines were on purpose. The "director" or whatever you call the person who manages the voice actors should've caught that and fixed it. There's a lot of good voice work, including the voice actor in question, but Frankenfarengar was an obvious stumble.

I'm sure I've seen invisibility somewhere, but I can't remember where. I just remember it not working because the invisible enemy was either on fire from Flame Cloak or from fireballs cast on the ground setting him on fire. I swear I can remember a flaming invisible enemy, but I can't remember the circumstances or type of enemy at all. I'm not even sure if it was human or creature. Wish I could be more help. Maybe someone else remembers more.

Re: Ann Marie and definition of 'person' Whoa, if former humans turned immortal count that would mean Tiber Septim is oldest, beating out Ann Marie by centuries! Unless you're Thalmor, but those losers probably don't acknowledge Ann Marie as a God either.

Maybe wait a full day outside any cell she might inhabit? I've "re-asked" and succeeded, so I know it can be done. If you've already adopted two children the option to adopt disappears from all dialog everywhere, including the orphanage leader, Camila something-or-other. Have you already adopted two other children?

"Butt-sniffing Barbas" was fixed in one of the patches. Annoyed the heck out of me before they fixed it. He's really the only dog you can travel with, as any mortal dog is dog food after level 20 or so. I don't want Barbas because of friendly fire. If you friendly-fire him once too often he attacks you, your follower attacks him, and now you have an unwinnable fight with an immortal dog. He'll never do enough damage to either you or your follower to be a threat and you'll never kill him. There are ways around this; I think the one time it happened to me I just ran and fast-traveled. But what if you're in the middle of something? I didn't want the hassle. I loved the "Dogmeat" angle though. Very cool. If you've ever played Fallouts 1 or 3 you should travel with a dog in Skyrim at least for a little while. My Stormcloak uniforms were obviously not enchanted with awesomeness when I got them. You can use whatever light armor you wish. I'm the Archmage and at this point both my College and I are mortal enemies of the Thalmor, so I'm going to wear my Stormcloak colors wherever I go to reinforce the College / Stormcloak alliance so the College won't be completely politically isolated when the Thalmor come for us. But it's not the uniform that's awesome; it's how I enchanted it that makes it work. You could just as easily dress like a Forsworn. Edit: Almost forgot: you have to have a follower if you're a "pure mage" because the "kill cam" locks up the UI and prevents you from actually making kills. Any enemy with a lot of hp and fast regeneration becomes unkillable until you get lucky enough to fire 2-3 shots in a row without the kill cam shutting you down. Your follower has freedom of action while you're paralyzed by the kill cam and can finish what you've started, especially if you've given her good weapons.

I don't disagree with your overall opinion that we're playing a brainstorming session, but on your specifics I think you're wrong. The Civil War is part of the conditions in the prophecy for Alduin's Return and sets up the Thalmor as long-term villains. The dying Empire and the rise of a New Skyrim Hero (or New Nord Hero if you're Nord) to face those villains has historical roots. Alduin's rise heralds by prophecy the Empire's fall and a new force, a new Dragonborn just like Tiber Septim of old, rises to defeat Alduin and take the Old Empire's place. It is only fitting that at the place where Men won their freedom from genocidal Elves long ago the Men destined to defeat the Thalmor would rise up once again and defeat the symbolic "End of Men" at the hands of the Thalmor by defeating the actual End of the World at the hands (claws?) of Alduin. The fall of Talos and His restoration -- by the Dragonborn no less -- are also symbolic. That seems well thought-out to me. When there's Nazi Elves in your neighborhood who you gonna call? On the Imperial side you could make the same case for the Blades; they also fought dragons and their [loose] predecessors defeated the Ayleids. Now the Empire is back with new Blades and new attitude to save the world once again. Dying Empires don't defeat world-eating dragons. The strength of the Empire rests in the hands of the heroes like the Dragonborn and Blades who defend it. The Empire was waiting for a new Dragonborn. The wait is over. The Dark Brotherhood was a great quest-line that leaves you wondering whether you're saving the Empire or hastening its demise. The fall of the Empire into corruption heralding the rise of the Brotherhood seems the most likely story to me, but like the end of the Sopranos the big question is left a mystery. Your critique was spot-on, but I don't have a problem with that. Not everything in Skyrim fits together coherently, but I think putting the player on rails defeats the purpose of open worlds. I think you should give the main story another look. Unlike most of the rest of the stories that one makes complete sense.

Eww.

"She fights all right, for a Skaal." "There's something ... not right here." "So this is Raven Rock? Not much to look at." "For Whiterun!" She also makes a comment like, "What have you got there?" right before you use the Dragonborn MacGuffin* and "Not again!" if you use it again. *