myrdred

You can pretty much win any one on one fight with impact perk. Dual cast fire bolt (cheapest spell that has the effect I believe) and you have a combo of direct damage and stun. If you get your regen high enough to handle the drain you can just yawn, shoot them with a bolt, watch them fall back staggered, wait for them to recover, yawn while waiting, shoot again. Pretty sure it works on dragons too, great way to keep them grounded if so. Conjuration: Atronarchs are the only things worth using really, unless you get the perma thrall on something insanely good. Also, if you're happy with a slower leveling, more power experience grab the lord stone. 50 damage resist and another 25% magic resist. Tankiest glass cannon you can make, those Bretons...

Ralof didn't attempt to kill me. The Imperials did. No more reason is needed for any sane person. But to further the argument: To Ralof you are a fellow escapee from a group of people who are unjust. Unjust in his eyes. And unjust to you. As I mentioned earlier, the backstory of the dragonborn PC is left totally open except for one fact: You were crossing the border at the wrong place and the wrong time. That's it. Nowhere are you actually guilty of a crime before the game starts. You might envision that for your character, but you could simply be a traveler. It's stated outright that they have no info on you, no reason to believe you are in league with their enemy. Yet they still sentence you to death. You watch them take their enemy and refuse to give him a trial, just go for the kill. They are shown to be unforgiving, unfair, brutal killers. Maybe the Stormcloaks are as well, that's left up in the air. I'll grant that. But when given a choice between a guy who probably sees you as a potential ally, or at least not 'his' enemy and the enemy of his enemy, and a guy who was about to accept that you be beheaded without cause, who would the sane man choose? Known evil vs complete unknown. I choose unknown every time. Anyone with more than a few functioning brain cells does. That's not to say the Imperials are actually evil. Just that they've been evil to you. In this one instance. But it's all we have to judge them on at that point in the game. NO sane character could go with the Imperial, and it bothers me there's even an option. So I'm hoping someone creative will come along and make up a story where it makes sense.

^2 - There is a reason to go with someone. You're tied up, unarmed, and there's a dragon killing everyone. Pretty good reason to want allies, want someone to cut your ropes, and all that stuff. Even if the alliance is only a few minutes. That they're on the most wanted list is true, and if it weren't for the dragon it'd give people pause. But I'll take someone on the most wanted list who hasn't shown himself to be a nutcase over ANY person, no matter how many times they say they're sorry, who was going along with my beheading. ^ Spoke up on your behalf? "He's not on the list, should we still kill him?" isn't exactly giving me warm fuzzies. For all I know he just hates paperwork. Nor does his "Sorry, I'll send your corpse home though. Don't hate me, k?" help. If the legion is so trustworthy and does what is right he'd have put a stop to your execution, not gone along with it. The game makes it clear that your morality is totally up in the air. The only reason you're in custody is that you were unfortunate enough to stumble onto the grounds of this ambush. The only reason you even have a chance to go with him at all is an act of god, essentially. So no, he has nothing in his favor over Ralof. As for the "I'm a loyal subject" that's what I meant by retarded reasons. Essentially the only reason you can imagine is "I'm so brainwashed I'd rather go with my would be beheaders than a Nord who thinks they're jerks." The epitome of retarded Player Character syndrome. Please, can someone come up with a GOOD reason?

Can anyone come up with a legitimate reason, envision a non-retarded character, who runs off with the guy who is a member of the army that was moments away from CHOPPING YOUR HEAD OFF instead of Ralof? It's bothering me. A lot. The only scenario I could come up with so far that had me entering that door instead of the other was one where I did something legitimate like running away from everyone and the dragon at top speed, hoping there was more space to run past that door (before anyone got there to show me there even was a choice between two people) and darting inside because I had nowhere else to go. Normally I'm all for choice, even bad choice, but this one makes me think someone at Bethesda was stoned when coming up with the intro.

^I meant with prerequisite perks. I could still be wrong though.

Whichever you pick, I can't imagine a player character that runs off with the imperial instead of Ralof during the tutorial. Hmm... should I go with the guy who was a fellow prisoner but doesn't seem to be a petty criminal, or with the guy who said "Sorry we have to chop your head off." Anyone who picks imperial THERE is brain dead. I'm a little stunned it's even an option in the game. You'd have to be retarded.

^There's a lot of options here: Play a Breton for 25% Guardian Stone 25% 5 perks in Alteration tree (I think it's 5) nets 30% Magic Resist Gear. You can get huge defenses easily.

Honestly, as if someone could steal your heart without you noticing... *rolls eyes* Livers, sure, but hearts and lungs? That's just silly.

It doesn't make sense. But this is a world where magic does exist, so we start from there. Honestly *sigh*. EVERYTHING NPC has huge wells of magicka and health and armor on high difficulties. The problem you're talking about here has nothing to do with magic. It's all with NPC beefiness. Which I could probably agree with. I refuse to play on anything but the hardest difficulty, and there's some tough stuff in my gameworld. None of it is unbeatable, but it would be nice if anything that was a normal-ish race (all player selectable races, humanoids that we can't pick, etc) had to level up in the same way we do. Finally, magic itself: Normally mages AREN'T hitting you with physical objects. My mage currently shoots fire and lightning, conjures elementals, and casts crowd control/defensive spells. Pretty much does everything a mage should do. The only spell he has that shoots a physical object is the icicle you mentioned, and he doesn't use it because it kind of blows. So in my experience, which I admit doesn't cover all spells but does cover a very wide range of them, 99% of spells shouldn't be affected by armor if I think about it. For the 1% that should? This comes down to annoyances in programming it in. Having to have an extra thing to keep track of whether a spell should be resisted by armor or not and all that. When magic has it's own 'armor' stat that is actually more effective at resisting it than armor is at resisting physical damage there's no good reason to put this in.

I'd rather pickpocket livers. There's a LOT of drink available in this game. I think I could make a killing selling livers to the nords.

Gotta disagree here. For one thing, magic isn't all that powerful and it should be. You're sacrificing lots of defense and endurance for what should be huge bursts of big effects. Sadly the magic system doesn't support that as well as it should. So nerfing it? BAD idea. Second, why should armor protect you against magic? If you're talking non-elemental spells, then just no. Armor provides no illusion or drain health defense or anything like that. Makes no sense for it to. For elements: Fire heats the material (metal and such) or burns it (non metals like hide, leather, etc) Electricity electrifies the material at worst and just goes through it at best unless you've found rubber armor Cold turns it freezing or just ignores it, causing it to stick to your skin on contact and if the cold is cold enough to hurt you (as it is with spells) causing that cold to linger This isn't what happens in game, but it makes real world sense.

Why would a dragonborn bother? Ok... good dragonborn: You have to accomplish a goal. Say you need to get into a place, nab the ancient artifact of gloom and doom, and get out. In order to get in and out you need a key. You could kill the guards who are just doing their jobs, who may well not be evil at all but just don't know any better, or you could snag it from a pocket and not kill the innocent. Evil dragonborn: No man, even the hero of this story, is an army. We need food, places to hole up and be safe at times, storage, etc. If you can acquire what you want without killing people you can still live in society and have those advantages. Your pickpocket gripe: I half agree. I think sneaking up on someone letting you take their weapon from their belt or disarm them and steal it real quick makes perfect sense. BUT you should be auto-detected at that point. Armor? Just no. That's silly stuff.

The perks will boost the level of opponent things work on, I know that much. I remember playing with perks and the starter fury spell on the altmer went from topping out at somewhere between 4 and 8, to 16, pretty quickly.

I have this mental block with games where if I feel like leveling up my sword is more important than leveling up my character I'm not having fun. It feels less heroic when the character matters less than the gear. So I'm curious: How would you fix crafting so that it doesn't blow away all other skills? As it stands you'll see much bigger increases in power if you go gather flowers, metal, etc. than if you actually play. The thread isn't meant to start an argument on things, just to see what tweaks people would make to rebalance this. Because, whether you're a fan of the current state of things or not, there's no argument that the balance is not there.