Requiem early game

[iSmithyy]

The other day I decided that I would play "hardcore" Skyrim, I installed RN&D, Frostfall and Requiem, the latter being my focus point here.

 

Does anyone have any tips on how to survive more than 5 minutes in the wild without being owned by a bear or a passing spriggan?

 

Not trying to beg for help or sound like an utter scrub-lord, because it is doable, (albeit in a very challenging, bloody, gruelling process), but a few tips would be very welcome.

 

 

 

Also, if you have any tips on RN&D that would be great, Frostfall I have grasped though, but again any tips are welcome!

[ArtMurder]

The trick to requiem? Well sadly there isn't one. Early on, about all you can do is fight smart. Stick close to towns, try to have guards near by whenever possible. Do your best to find a follower, though i personally got to level 20 and never found a follower last time I played with requiem..

 

Think of it in a realistic way. "adventuring" is a very difficult thing for a person to do. You have to crawl before you can run. You start out as a nobody, a whimp and have to work your way up from the very bottom.

 

Also, certain areas seem to be leveled a bit higher then others. Stick to the whiterun-riverwood-falkreath area, don't go into dungeons and such yet. Any area with snow is going to be higher leveled with snow cats, snow bears, and ice wolves, all of which will demolish you until you hit at least level ten. The forsworn in the Reach are also to much to deal with yet, but the rift should be okay, though there are bears there.

 

Also, alchemy is almost required for requiem to even be bearable in my opinion, at least early on. You will grow to clamor for every single tiny buff you can get from those nerfed potions, and every health potion is a second chance at life.

Edited July 18, 2014 by ArtMurder

[documn]

Bows are very strong against lightly armored foes, and two-handers are good against everybody. Shields are extremely powerful at blocking one-hander damage, though you're better off trying to dodge two-hander attacks.

 

I think the easiest start in Requiem is putting 2 points into heavy armor or 1 point into conjuration. 2 points in heavy armor gives you good protection against one-handers and arrows and stops the constant stamina drain. Conjuration lets you summon skeletons to pull aggro off you. Heavy armor greatly increases your mana costs so you probably won't be able to do both. Any kind of weapon is pretty powerful against light armor so that's why I suggest spending your first perk points on defense rather than offense.

 

Healing is pretty hard until you get the 2nd level healing spell or a good stock of potions. Early on, your best bet is to use a slow heal over time (cast a healing aura or use a healing poultice), and then wait an hour so that it's like an instant heal. You can craft healing poultices at tanning racks with 3 tundra cotton + 3 blue mountain flower + 1 ale. (It's in the Requiem manual!)

 

For some easy smith levels you can smith leather helmets and break them down at the tanning rack, and then repeat. For easy gold and alchemy levels you can craft high value potions. IIRC "damage ____ regen" and "resist ____" give good xp and have relatively common ingredients.

 

At low levels you'll probably have to stick with fighting easy animals (mudcrabs, skeevers, wolves) and light armored bandits. Undead are hard without a silver weapon. Avoid poisonous enemies.

[iSmithyy]

Thanks art, I didn't know about the levelling in different areas, I knew snow and ice was tougher and stuff but never really clicked because, well I'm slow.

 

Doc, thanks as well, I never thought about going down the magic route myself and I usually always go light armour, but what good would a mod be if it didn't make you re-think your strategy a bit, and the undead are brutal, good to know a silver weapon works better, (they just keep regenerating health? That's new!)