BrettM
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Posts posted by BrettM
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Things will get a LOT tougher for you later on when your character matures and finds that his enemies are dealing out two to three times as much damage as you can.
Amen. I would not call myself a veteran player, but I have found that the right time to start seriously leveling the crafting skills is around level 30. The leveling curve is steep enough at that point that you can gain a number of levels in Smithing, Enchanting, or Alchemy without raising your overall level a great deal. You can craft and enchant a good handful of iron daggers each time you level naturally without going up more than another level, which doesn't make the fights noticably more difficult. In between I go out and do more quests, and it doesn't take that long before all the crafting skills are maxed without turning my character into a complete squishy for anything that gives me a whack or two. YMMV, but this has worked pretty well for me over three characters.
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Read So You Want to be a Mage. This helped me TREMENDOUSLY when I made my try at a mage character.
Mages seem tougher to get going than martial characters. By the time I got to Riverwood, it was clear to me that I needed leather armor, a bow, and a sword for backup. Stealth archery mostly carried me until I got Destruction up enough to do some real damage. When forced to melee, I used spells as much as possible, but pulled out the sword when things got tight.
Trust me, it does get better eventually, as you get access to the projectile spells and the magicka to use them. I never use the sword any more. As a full-blown shock mage with Dual Cast and Impact, I have little to fear from anything in the game now and can stun-lock any dragon. Mages seem to go from vastly underpowered at the start to vastly overpowered at higher levels.
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No. Pretty much everything respawns at intervals, including alchemical ingredients, books, coin purses, and container contents.
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I don't think you want to try power leveling by raising crafting skills. Having 100 Smithing does not raise your combat skill levels, and those are what you need to survive and win. The level of the foes in each new quest is determined by your level, so all you would do is make things more difficult for yourself by having a higher level without the skills that should go with that level.
I don't know how much good advice I can give you, since I have a similar problem at lower levels. Sometimes I get so disgusted after trying forever to take out a boss that I set the level down to Apprentice just to get it over with. Call me a bad player if you like. I'm working on my third character now. First was a scout type -- stealth archery plus sword-and-board. Second was a mage, which seems more difficult to get started than any other type of character. Third is on the heavy-armor, two-handed path. All have gotten soundly trashed at times in simple quests, much less the more complex ones.
About the only thing I've learned for sure is that certain quests are best avoided until I start pushing level 25-30. The College of Winterhold main quest would be one of those. It does seem to start getting easier at that point, as you've started gaining some power in whatever skill lines you're using, have improved your armor and weapons somewhat, etc. If you find a certain quest too tough, then the best thing to do is to leave it and go do other things for a few levels. Travel to a new town, do some side quests there, etc.
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You can always go to Dead Men's Respite or Volskygge to get the second word for Whirlwind Sprint, which would make it dead simple to beat the gates. The first dungeon is probably your best choice, unless you feel up to taking on the Dragon Priest Volsung. Dead Men's is where the Bard's College sends you on the quest to join.
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Paarth states his intention to recruit other dragons to the Way of the Voice after we defeated Alduin, but it isn't clear that he has gained any followers yet. Odahving certainly has doubts that the recruiting would work, and he wasn't a convert himself. Paarth IS trying, though, and he deserves credit for that.
I did notice that some time after the end of the main quest, Paarth returns to the Throat of the World and there is another dragon circling about overhead. It's kind of funny to stand there and watch Paarth swivel his head to watch the other. Who can say what's going on, though? Is that one of Paarth's converts, or a challenger working himself up to a dragon-style "debate"?
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As I understand it, kill moves should only happen a fraction of the time when two conditions are met: you do damage that actually kills the target and the target is the last one in range. If, say, three foes are attacking, you only have a chance of a kill cam when the last one is killed.
I've been getting kill cams for bows pretty frequently. In fact, it seems to be glitched a little, because I've gotten kill cams for foes that didn't die and for foes that were not the last targets standing. I have no idea why you aren't getting them at all.
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Thank you, Anya. This brought them back to the stables, so I guess they weren't dead after all, just hiding somewhere. I can live with the other peculiarities, like the extra horse.
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The only mods I use are SkyUI, Item Sorting, Quality World Map, and Psiijic Master Outfits.
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I fast-traveled back to Riften Stables as I often do rather than going directly into Riften. I found the place deserted except for the carriage guy. No Hrofgrir, no Shadr, no guard at the gate, and a Khajiit camp with no Khajiit. The usual saddled and unsaddled Riften horses are there, and also one saddled horse from Katla's Farm. (I don't own any horses, so this can't be the bug where you buy a second horse in Solitude to replace a dead one and it shows up at Riften stables. This one offers the option to steal it, while I can borrow the saddled Riften horse since I befriended Shadr.)
The Khajiit camp disappeared a couple of trips later, so perhaps they'll show up again at their next stop. I'll check Dawnstar next time I get a chance. Everyone else is still missing.
It's possible this is somehow my fault. A couple of days ago -- before the 1.5 patch -- Hrofgrir and Shadr were both killed in a dragon attack and I did a console resurrect on them so I wouldn't be forever precluded from buying a Riften horse. A couple of guards got killed, but I didn't rez them, and the Khajiit were present, but none got killed. Everything seemed fine on subsequent trips back to the stables until today.
How screwed am I now, and is there anything to be done about it?
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What if you do the heroic thing by killing Astrid and then wiping out the Dark Brotherhood? In that case the Emperor isn't assassinated at all.
As for the Stormcloaks letting the Emperor visit, I don't see a problem. He's just there to attend a wedding, not pacify Skyrim, and it isn't strange that he would have his personal guards with him. Ulfric doesn't want to take over the Empire, he just wants Skyrim to be independent so it isn't bound to the terms of the Concordat. The Stormcloaks don't even really hate the Empire and I'm sure they would like the break to be on the friendliest possible terms so that future alliances against the Thalmor are not ruled out. By showing the Emperor that they can treat him in a civilized manner, they have a better chance of negotiating independence rather than continuing a fight that will drain both sides.
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I assume that you chose the Extra Effect perk so that you can dual-enchant your gear.
Paralyze is always good on a melee weapon, since it gives you an extra swing or two to get the job done if your first hit doesn't do it. I prefer sword-and-board over dagger, and I use a combo of Absorb Health and Paralyze, which is especially good against those blasted mages who kite like skeevers.
For my bow, I went with Shock and Stamina Damage. It rarely makes a difference, since most foes go down to sneak attacks even using an unenchanted bow. (Legendary-improved bow, good arrows, archery enchants on gear, and triple bonus for sneak bow attacks adds up to plenty of damage.) Still, those enchants give you a nice all-around combination of damage to health, magicka, and stamina that makes it useful against any type of enemy -- magical or martial. Shock does less direct damage than fire or frost, but you don't find many foes with resistance to it either.
For armor and jewelry, I have Archery on helm, bracers, and ring. Stealth is on the ring also, as well as on my boots. Fill in the other enchants with a mix of useful stuff: Light Armor, One Handed, Blocking (if you use it), Lockpicking, Water Breathing, or whatever you need most. If all else fails, throw in Health. I would probably use Muffle on the boots as well, except that I have not yet been able to find anything with Muffle that I can disenchant.
If you use a shield and don't yet have the Elemental Resistance perk, then Fire and Frost resistance is handy to have against dragons and mages. Until I got that perk, I had two shields hotkeyed: one with Block and Health for regular use and one with Fire and Frost for dragon encounters.
It can be useful to carry around a few spare pieces of jewelry enchanted different ways. For example, a ring with Stealth and Lockpicking, a necklace with Carry Weight (for getting back home with the loot), etc.
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Ulfric's counter argument would be that use of the Voice is traditional in Nord combat, by the oldest traditions they have, dating back to the original colonists from Atmora. That is why the Draugr are able to use shouts against you, as they are all Nord warriors from the ancient days when this was part of their training. Tsun uses shouts when you must battle him to prove your right to enter the Hall of Valor. This is a tradition that is honored in song and story by Nords all over Skyrim.
Unfortunately, it has become a non-traditional tradition. The thu'um has become a thing of legend, and modern Nords seem shocked that anyone could or would actually practice it other than a few old monks tucked away on top of a mountain. Based on casual comments by hold guards, modern Nords aren't even sure as to whether the thu'um is something that can be taught like other combat skills. They know the legends but have forgotten the practice.
Is Ulfric's honor really stained by following this old tradition in modern times? I don't think the answer is as simple as comparing it to a gun at a sword fight.
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But still, that may be a good way to at least play through the Blades quests, just to see how they are.
There aren't really any Blades quests, though, except bringing more recruits (if you haven't brought three before you get the demand to kill Paarth) and some "kill the dragon at lair X" repeatable quests. The Blades storyline is basically over once you get to Skyhaven Temple and see Alduin's Wall, so killing Paarth doesn't open up anything to do except having the Blades accompany you on dragon-killing missions.
It really seems strange that Delphine is so fixated on this. The Blades haven't been dragon hunters for hundreds of years. They've been security, intelligence, and covert ops for the Empire. That's what Delphine and Esbern have been for their whole careers, and they sure didn't join the Blades because they wanted to hunt dragons because nobody knew that the dragons would be returning. With Alduin dead, the biggest threat facing humanity is the Dominion, and I would think Delphine would be more concerned with that since she's been dealing with that threat for years.
As far as I'm concerned, if Delphine can't get off her high horse then she can find her own recruits, and they can all sit there in Skyhaven Temple accomplishing nothing until they rot. They're of no use to anyone under the circumstances.
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It seems to me that the key to the mystery must be in the transition from the Akaviri Dragonguard to the non-Akaviri Blades. How and when did this come about? The transition may have been very sudden, based on what I see in the lore.
If I understand the lore correctly, here is the situation:
As a result of both the Dragon War (Merethic Era) and the Dragonguard presence starting with the Reman Dynasty, dragons were getting hard to find by the end of the First Era. The Annals of the Dragonguard seems to confirm this. By the beginning of the Third Era, there must have been very few dragons left at all. After Tiber Septim achieved divinity, many believed them to be extinct (There Be Dragons), and eventually dragons became matters of legend heading towards myth. (Of course, we know this wasn't entirely true. Paarthurnax survived until the current day, and a few others were known to exist during the Third Era, though I don't know what became of them or if any survived until Alduin's return.)
After the death of Tiber Septim, not only are the dragons believed extinct, but there is no further mention of the Akaviri in the literature. Instead, it is the Blades that served the remainder of the Septim Dynasty and the following non-Septim emperors, until the start of the Great War. But the Blades were basically an imperial-security/covert-operations group, not dragon hunters, as there were essentially no dragons left to hunt by the time the organization took that name.
So what happened here? The Blades use the armor and weapons of the Dragonguard, follow the same oaths and organizational structure, and use the old Dragonguard temples. The continuity seems complete except for the name. Yet, if it was just a matter of non-Akaviri being recruited over the centuries to keep up strength, why would there be a need for a name change? It is as if the Akaviri disappeared and a new organization was brought into existence to carry on their traditions. A suspicious mind might even wonder if they knew they were going to disappear (or planned to disappear) and made their own arrangements for successors first. But we seem to know nothing about how the Blades came to be other than that they are the heirs of the original Dragonguard.
It sure would be nice if we could have a chat with Esbern about this. He and the scraps of organizational history he managed to save may be the only clues left in Tamriel as to what went down back then.
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And just to nitpick, I think the Elder Scrolls do tend to remain in one place (surprising for a Tamrielic artifact, I know). The Imperial Palace has managed to retain one, as had the Dwemer, and I'd assume the Colledge of Winterhold 9if the player gives them one).
I should have expressed myself more clearly. The issue I had in mind isn't really the possibility of ES moving around on their own (though they seem good at that when anyone tries to count them), but the fact that they are coveted artifacts. Over the course of time they get lost and found by researchers, thieves, heroes, and villains. There is no reason that one or more could not have ended up anywhere on Nirn, even if every one of them originated in Tamriel. One can imagine several simple scenarios by which one might have gotten to Akavir. Suppose one of the battlemages at Ionith had brought one with him "just in case" -- like Felldir the Old at the Throat of the World -- and lost it during the disaster?
As for the Dragonguard having the population to reproduce, that is one of the things that is puzzling me. If this is true, why are there no full-blooded Akaviri living in Tamriel now? It is a bit hard to believe that a viable population of very long-lived beings would have completely assimilated into the human population so long ago that there aren't even any clear records of their appearance and nature. We know Akaviri were still around at the beginning of the Septim dynasty and they were involved in getting Tiber Septim on the throne. The historical record for most of the third era is pretty good, yet the Akaviri seem to have disappeared completely early on. Even the Cyrodiil families that claim to have blood ties to them don't seem to have any solid documentation of this or the Tsaeci would not be as much of a mystery as they are.
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Even if the Elder Scrolls were written in Tamriel, how do we know that they all stayed in Tamriel over the course of millenia? The world is full of artifacts that seem to have a life of their own and move around at will, disappearing for decades or centuries and then reappearing, and this is particularly true of Aedric and Daedric artifacts.
Whether the Akaviri worship the Aedra or not seems irrelevant, since the Aedra DID create all of Nirn (all of Mundus, for that matter) and not just Tamriel. It's hard to believe they would have left all the other continents out of their prophecies.
@RightHandofSithis: I was particularly thinking of that passage when I wrote my post. Certainly the writer was Akaviri and thought of the Dragonguards as an Akaviri organization. But, it also indicates that they were recruiting or there would have been no decision to make as to whether to let Kalien join or not.
It also raises the question of how Kalien, who is apparently Akaviri himself, got there if he was not a Dragonguard to begin with. Did the original invasion include non-Dragonguard members? I don't recall any source that suggests this. But there is also no source to suggest that other Akaviri came later, after matters were settled following the battle at Pale Pass.
In any case, authors may be using the term "snakes" very loosely, just as many Nords refer to Argonians as "lizards". The term does not necessarily mean that Akaviri don't have limbs, but simply that they have various characteristics associated with snakes despite a roughly-human form.
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Tiber Septim was also Dragonborn, but he had a dragon (Nafaalilargus) serving him, and gave his protection to Paarthurnax. Dragons and humans appear to have lived at peace in various times and places, such as in Atmora or in Skyrim before the Dragon Priests got power mad. If peace is possible, then what excuse is there for blanket genocide of an intelligent species?
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Alduin's Wall depicts that Dragonguard (At the time Akaviri [Tsaesci]) as human, with the usual human limbs (and Esbern points out that thwy are the Dragonguard).
It seems likely that the Tsaeci are not human based on evidence of their extremely long lives and statements about "coiled kings" and "snake captains" in Remanada. But humans and mer have the same usual number of limbs despite being different species, so the limb count is not a sufficient test for determining humanity. A time-worn carving of armored, helmeted warriors on a wall would not allow one to distinguish easily between humans and another species of similar build. I don't think Alduin's Wall can be taken as a smoking gun proving the humanity of the Tsaeci.
Furthermore, at the time Alduin's Wall was constructed the Dragonguard had been in Skyrim for around 100 years, correct? (From the time of Reman I to Reman II, with at least one emperor in between). Unless there were many Tsaesci survivors of the battle at Pale Pass -- enough to form a viable breeding population -- wouldn't most of the Dragonguard in 1E 2812-2818 have been humans recruited from the population of the Empire? If so, would it be any surprise if they depicted members of the Dragonguard in a far-future time as being human, regardless of the appearance of the Tsaeci?
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Pretty simple choice for me-- Would love to support the Stormcloaks for all the usual reasons, but they are a bunch of racists. Bad as the Empire is, still the better choice.
Have you ever spoken to General Tullius? He seems to consider all Nords to be barbarians incapable of self government and thinks they would all become brigands if the Imperials weren't around to enforce order. That and some other comments sneering at "jarls" and the "Nord sense of honor" make him sound pretty darned racist to my way of thinking. In fact, he sounds worse than Ulfric, who never makes a direct racist comment of any sort but is only accused of racism by others. Yet we never see any proof of those allegations.
Then there are the Altmer, who consider themselves superior to all other species on Nirn.
And let's not forget the Dunmer, who have some pretty racist attitudes of their own, particularly regarding the Argonians (who they once enslaved). That Dunmer woman who manages the Shatter-Shield operation complains about the nasty treatment she gets from the Nords and follows that up with her own nasty comments about the laziness of the Argonian dock workers. Apparently she is oblivious to her double standard.
I think it's hard to single Ulfric out as being more racist than average for Nords. The Khajiit traders are excluded from ALL Nord cities, whether they are under Imperial or Stormcloak control. If you play an Argonian character, you are often greeted by the NPCs with comments like "What do YOU want, lizard?" no matter where you go.
Those are just a few examples. Racism seems to be endemic everywhere you look in Tamriel, among all the races. That makes it a little hard to use racism as the defining criteria for deciding who to support.
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If you notice, he shouts each of the three words at a different spot on the ground, where they show up in glowing dragon script like the active word on a word wall (but a different color). You have to approach each word and stay there long enough to absorb it. It does seem to be a little tricky to get in the right position for each, but just keep looking down at the word and shifting position a bit until you trigger it and it stops glowing. Then move to another word. (They don't have to be done in any particular order.)
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But there is one Breton in Markarth who tells you that he has absolutely no sympathy for the Forsworn and considers them barbarians. So it isn't a simple matter of race being a determining factor, any more than all Nords agree with Ulfric.
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Okay, after researching the lore in the UESP wiki, I have become a believer in the appropriateness of DLC involving Akavir. Forget Atmora. What could be more appropriate as a followup to Skyrim than the Last Dragonborn dealing with the Tiger Dragon? Who else could possibly deal with a dragon who is reputedly the largest dragon on Nirn and has intentions of invading Tamriel? An Akaviri invasion attempt is long overdue, and could certainly serve as a unifying force bringing all Tamrielans together, making all issues of rebellion, Empire, Dominion, etc. seem trivial in comparison.
Heck, even the Blades might forgive you for refusing to kill Paarthurnax (assuming you did refuse), and there might even be a chance to rally the dragons of Tamriel to fight on your side against the invasion. I see that there are some exciting possibilities in such a storyline, even if it never involves visiting Akavir at all. Though actually going there would certainly be icing on the cake, especially if one also got to travel through areas of Tamriel between Skyrim and Akavir.
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If Alduin was actually drawn to Helgen by the presence of a dragonborn, he must have been mighty puzzled about what he was sensing. The Dragon War took place during the Merethic era and Alduin was banished into the time stream at that time. The first known mortal with dragon blood was Alessia, in the First Era, long after Alduin was gone. It seems an interesting paradox.
Perhaps it was the strangeness of sensing a soul that was a dragon-yet-not-a-dragon that drew him to investigate. Once he found out what you were, he considered you insignificant, which would explain his insults at the first dragon-resurrection ceremony you witnessed, and why he didn't bother trying to kill you himself but just ordered Sahloknir to do it.
My sister shouted me apart :)
in Skyrim LE
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