RatcatcherOfKvatch

REPTILES ONLY CLUB! Mudcrabs are Arthropods. Nice try though. ;)

Oh, you're not using Fortify Restoration in your loop so you're not affected. What you've run into I'm sure is rounding error. If your feedback curve is too flat it gets rounded down at some terminal point in your loop and you can progress no further.

It's more good than bad. They over-nerfed the Fortify Restoration stacking exploit by making FR not work on items at all, but there's a mod that fixes that. They also removed hair item / head item stacking, which you could use to a variety of interesting effects including wearing 5 alchemy enhancement items at once. That I figure is a bug, as there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Falmer helmets being among the most powerful items in the game. The Jagged Crown, maybe, but Falmer helmets? There's some other silly changes, like, "We didn't think ebony ore belonged in this mine so we moved it to that one," but silly as they are they don't really diminish or fundamentally alter the game so I don't much care. The bug fixes are very nice, so the patch is overall worthwhile.

That was ... so cheesy ... still, I watched it.

Floor 1: Friendly Fire Dogs are pretty good at managing friendly fire because your inconveniently-tall bipedal follower can't go where the dog is and you can shoot over the dog's head. Sometimes the dog will jump and take some fire, but most of the time you'll be fine. The dog also helps you train your Restoration (or is an unarmored damage sponge who soaks up all your energy, depending on your situation). If the dog is hurt it runs away, so healing it is optional. Of course once your dog retreats your follower might start interfering in your line-of-fire again. The 90-degree rule is good when you have the maneuvering room and don't want to hit your follower. Wishing for 90 degrees in most situations might as well be wishing for angel wings, but still, it's good when you can get it. Floor 2: Managing Multiple Enemies Emerging from a narrow corridor into a large area containing numerous enemies is dangerous. Summoning an atronach and retreating is practically risk-free. Tell your follower to guard in the room at the back end of the corridor -- not in the corridor itself -- so you have a clean line of retreat. If you can no longer hear the sounds of fighting check "Active Effects" to see if your atronach is still active. If enemies follow you you're drawing them into your ambush instead of walking into theirs. The odds are pretty good the entire room won't rush the corridor, just a couple at a time, but if they do bum-rush you the narrow corridor works to your advantage instead of theirs. Floor 3: Haberdashery and Ladies' Unmentionables I don't really know how this "Floor System" works but it's a fun change of pace, so why not?

Silly question but do you have the money on you?

The Ratcatcher's Looting Flowchart: Is its value >= 5x its weight? (Add a zero, divide by 2) Yes: Loot Is it an upgrade? Yes: Loot and pass the old item through the Flowchart Can I use it? Yes: Loot Can I make something useful out of it? Yes: Is it an ancient Nord Weapon? Yes: STOP! You already have enough of these. How many Nord Hero weapons do you really need? No: Loot As you can see the flowchart has been through one very significant revision. :tongue:

The masters of fire and steam felled by undercooked food. Oh the irony.

Well I'm pretty sure you meet spirits in Sovngarde who also had draugrs running around on Nirn. (Olaf One-Eye comes to mind.) I would guess that if you ST'd a ghost / angel in Sovngade you'd get a black soul, but if you ST'd their animated draugr husk back on Nirn you'd get a white soul. One sentient = one black soul. If the soul's in the ghost it isn't in the draugr.

Unskippable content's a pet peeve that grows moreso after the billionth playback. I understand that Godlike beings need to have something about them, but for replayability's sake unskippable monologues are I think an unwise expression of their Godliness.

I think most of the Orcs are waiting to see who wins. That could easily change if either side made them angry.

Hah hah, training Sneak is even easier than Sneaking thanks to the prevalence of reclining draugr who, even if they detect you, will ignore you and "go back to sleep" if you're not within their area of interest. What this means most of the time is that even a lousy sneak can sneak up to a "sleeping" draugr, wait for the "sneak-eye" to close, sneak-attack the not-yet-walking-dead, and get a massive sneak skill increase. If you dispatch the draugr quickly enough its neighbors will most likely just continue to lay there, allowing you to work your way down the line. Most barrows are loaded with these guys. They're like training halls.

You can draw some giants and mammoths into the Moonforge. I think you might also have to lure the indoor bandits outside as well ... I can't remember if there are any sleeping pallets outdoors or not. Okay that's kind of a pain in the rear, isn't it? I've actually died attempting this "easy money" so maybe not ... "Join the Companions" was a pretty good idea ... that's about the quickest way from here to there. I've died doing that, too, so make sure if you're Level 1 on Legendary you smack Vilkas with a shield before scoring your one hit that ends the training. He'll kill you in one shot otherwise. Marry Uthgerd, crash at her place. You'll have to win a fistfight first, and without a dozen healing potions she'll clobber you. Okay never mind. This is quite the challenge you've posed. Where's the bed nearest Whiterun that doesn't require fighting or paying to sleep in? The "not wanting to spend money" thing is possibly part of an efficient leveling plan. If you trade gold ore at Kolskegger you can avoid training the Speech skill for several levels. If you don't trade gold at Kolskegger you can accomplish the same by scrounging for a free bed ...

I hate low-quality textures and have a one-mode monitor of ridiculously high resolution, so I've tried a lot of things to try to boost performance. None of them have noticeably worked except for HiAlgoBoost. I'll warn you it isn't perfect, and especially underwater you'll notice the degraded quality, but after using it a couple of hours on land you'll stop noticing when it's working except in very rare instances, and you'll get incredible performance. Illinata's Deep has always been a total clusterfark on my system, but with Boost installed the place was actually playable. The final battle, a real GPU-killer with multiple enemies, falling water, and flickering lightsources from every direction, I could maneuver around well enough to put up a real fight instead of having to use cheese tactics to compensate for the horrific lag. So you probably stopped reading at "degraded quality" but if you're still here take heart: it only degrades the quality while you're moving the mouse. You'll never notice unless you look for it, and once you get used to it it's more like a motion-blur effect than an an unwanted optimization artifact. In fact the only time I notice it is when I stop moving the mouse and the last blurred frame is replaced by a high-quality frame, which you notice because it happens after you stop and there's nothing I think that could be done about that. The thing is when you notice is when the lag would've been so bad without it you'd be wading in molasses as the alternative. Having your framerate flip between laggy and perfect during combat also takes a little getting used to, but like the deck of a ship at sea if you put in some time you'll get used to it. Or you'll get seasick and curse my name. YMMV.

@Lachdonin: Good point, although the Imperials accepted the treaty in exchange for the restoration of Imperial control over Markarth, so the legal argument for secession still stands: the Empire promised Talos; the Stormcloaks demand that promise be kept. That the Empire didn't pen the treaty became irrelevant once they agreed to it.

Substitute Alchemy for Restoration and you've got a pretty basic Stealth model there. If you've made the substitution to keep your weight down "Infiltrator" has a nice, dramatic ring to it. No empty potion vials left behind as evidence by this dude ... no fussing with plants and ingredients, either, so if you're under observation you're not doing anything suspicious and no one can tell what your plans might be from the potions you're [not] making.

Make him Faendal's cousin or something.

Are you using the unofficial patch? It removed potion effects from equipment. There's a mod that reverts it back to vanilla.

Alduin would free his oppressed cousins the Argonians. From the smouldering remains of Windhelm he would build a new Dragon Cult. "One to Rule the Sky, Many to Rule the Seas, All to Rule the Land." It would be a Reptilians Only Club. No scales, no spines, no service.

Once Destruction hits 40 it's not all that important to go out of your way to train it. Enchanting and alchemy become more important. With, say, 85% or more cost reduction in FD you can cast the Adept-level AE spells even without the perk. The Cloak spells are especially helped by Fortify Destruction potions, in both range and firepower. A Skill 40 Flame Cloak with a 100% FD is twice as strong as a Skill 100 + Adept Perk Flame Cloak with no FD potion. The minimum practical Destruction investment is: Skill 40 Novice Dual-Cast Impact Aug. Shock Book: Lightning Bolt You can stun dragons with just that. If your enchanting isn't up there yet Lightning Bolt needs Apprentice to be practical cost-wise. So 4-5 perks in you can shift to supporting this solid foundation in destruction with other perks, like alchemy and enchanting. (If you're going to scrimp on perks specialize in shock; almost nothing resists it.) As a final note on Legendary difficulty you'll fire off so many destruction spells just walking to work you'll level to 100 almost without noticing. Keep an eye on Faralda for the top-tier single-target spells; she'll start selling them around like skill level 60-70. Those aren't too bad, even on Legendary. They're a huge step up from the low-level versions.

Legendary Difficulty Permadeath Real-life ethics. If I wouldn't do it personally I won't do it in the game. (Permadeath helps with this: would you really risk your life like you're contemplating? If dead is dead you'll think twice, plan just a little harder, as you would if you were there yourself.) Will only marry a "fighting spouse", no homebodies Nirnroot Conservator (if it won't grow back don't pick it) No Fast Travel without a Horse No fortify restoration stacking No using a fifth alchemy slot The gestalt of the character is, "Talented at everything except fighting when everything is trying to kill him," which is really the gestalt of Legendary difficulty. If he's going to survive long enough to become the Legendary Dragonborn he'll have to earn it. In the meantime he invests a great deal of his attention helping Lydia stay at the top of her game. There are some things other "hardcore" players don't allow which I'm not so strict on: Use Ralof to get the Treasure Map 1 safe container. Permadeath creates a book of opening moves to rival Kasparov. Will savescum if fast-traveled to wrong destination. Will restart game if merchants run out of money. Will use Fortify Restoration on equipment, but not past 60 seconds Mammoths poached like Eggs Benedict Dragon Souls to Perks. I try not to abuse it too badly, but if I don't use it at all I stop caring about dragons after a few key shouts are nailed down. Skyrim isn't itself without dragon fights. More on Fast Travel: I don't fast travel untraveled routes. Taking a carriage to Windhelm then to Winterhold is all right -- the carriage driver knows the way -- but to then fast travel back to Windhelm would be off-limits. That means taking a carriage to Winterhold is a one-way trip, at least until you do some trailblazing. This is an interesting restriction because it makes the game more immersive than walking everywhere all the time. If you walk everywhere you eventually "wear down the grass" -- all the spawn points are popped, you build a mental map of every rock and tree, and parts of Skyrim start looking less like a huge, open world and more like a theme park. I killed all the mystery in a couple of places before I realized it was a mistake. Fast traveling makes the world seem large, keeps some mystery going, and keeps the spawn points turning over like they should if you do find yourself walking about in the wilderness. "No fast travel of unique routes" to me captures the best of both worlds.

Hadvar doesn't make it. If you go to the "Imperial Door" after following Ralof through the "Stormcloak Door" no Hadvar. It's kind of like the double-slit experiment, with you as the photon. (See, I'm being philosophical ...)

Trust the artist. They say they need to move the real-world money as far away from the art as possible, why not trust their judgment? The worst that could happen is they screw it up and everyone stops playing. Their games are good enough they've earned some trust.

@Chrysolite: I hope he was flattered by the extra-worldly attention.

You still lost control during the trip with Aela. I'm not saying it's automatically evil, I'm saying a good person would be worried about losing control and harming the innocent, in somewhat the same way a modern version of a "good person" might worry about driving after a few drinks.