Sacrificing Lydia

[BrettM]

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.

[Lord Garon]

A little off-topic,,,

 

Got back to Whiterun after a long quest up north. Was thinking that things were working fairly well after concentrating on some melee skills. Had to bend my "rules" a little to take out a Master Vampire. If I die, I usually leave/avoid the place for a while. This guy could 2-shot me, but I needed melee practice. So I reloaded a few times for practice and finally got him; hit, potion, potion, potion, hit, potion... Wandered back home collecting ingredients all the way from Iverstad(sp?).

 

Standing just inside the Whiterun gate was "A Challenger". He forces me into a mage duel and has killed me about 13 or 14 times now. Probably the stupidest thing I've seen so far in Skyrim. OF COURSE, I didn't save on the way back from Iverstad. Have no potions left after the vampire fight. The guy bleeds out Lydia with one fireball and I cannot make his health go down at all. Don't want to restore from way back in Iverstad and I can't get by him in Whiterun. Was gonna TGM the mob, but I hate cheating.

 

What the hell is this? I'd leave Whiterun, but my only house is there. From an RPG perspective, I've been killed in a duel. Game over. I don't have the interest to re-do all my completed quests again. I think I'm gonna go back to FCOM Oblivion until someone writes a mod that makes Skyrim playable. PLAY-able. For enjoyment and fun. Skyrim doesn't let you experience the world, it literally goes out of its way to kill you off. I guess that appeals to some players but I don't have a clue how to even prepare for something like this, let alone the "next" surprise(s). I have lots of hours invested in Skyrim, but the ROI just isn't worth it. Why the writers would kill you off after returning home from a hard fought adventure is completely beyond me. I was actually looking forward to sorting out my loot and experimenting with some new alchemy ingredients. Instead, there's a boss-level mob INSIDE the city, with no way around the encounter. What is the purpose of something like this?

 

Well, Lydia, thanks for all your help. You can keep all that gear you've carried halfway across Skyrim, your new Thane will probably need it. Gonna head back down to Anvil for a while and soak up some sun on the beach. Too bad you can't come with me, you'd like Bruma. Then again, there might just be a way...

[RedRavyn]

I feel your pain, Lord Garon. In some of my playthroughs I've met this person. In the vanilla game he tends to be tough, but not un-beatable. In my currently modded game I have destruction magic buffed, and destruction mages can be overwhelming when the game spawns one that is intended to be a real challenge at your level. I rather suspect you might have a similar problem.

 

1: Try turning down the difficulty, just for this scenario.

 

2: If that doesn't work, then forget the role-playing. I'm a serious role-player, myself, but I don't believe that a game, even modded, should throw no-win scenarios at the player. Use "tgm" and "tcl" and make like sheep and get the flock out of there. Take Lydia with you if you can, although you might have to use "moveto player" to do that.

 

3: Alternately, resort to a console kill. You aren't going to win this fight, and there's no point in letting it spoil Skyrim for you. I hate cheating, too, but sometimes you just don't have any choice but to do that to escape no-win situations. I've done this exactly twice in seven playthroughs. Once was when I had Deadly Dragons installed, along with my destruction magic mod, and the beast was just so totally overpowered that even with about 50% frost resistance it was killing me with one short puff of its breath weapon. The other was when I was overwhelmed by sheer numbers after I misjudged the hitbox of an object and shot an arrow that stuck into it (in mid-air, no-less) and the sound blew my cover, and me with no recent save since I figured that with stealth + poison this encounter would be a breeze.

[groupoffriends]

Awww! Poor Lydia! What I do is touch the Thieves' Stone in the beginning and work on those skills for a while, till I'm good at surviving - then I go back and touch the Mages' Stone and start on bring my magic skills up to the level of my Thief skills. *Then* I go off to the College of Winterhold, and other tough quests.

 

This strategy, Thief skills first then Mage skills, seems to give me a good balance to my skills and makes me versatile. Mage skills on their own leaves me too vulnerable, and Warrior skills alone seems too restrictive.

 

(Whisper: By the way, don't tell anyone but I use a Nexus mod which makes Lydia essential (unkillable). Sh-h-h! Keep it to yourself!) :)

 

Hope this helps

[groupoffriends]

A little off-topic,,,

 

Well, Lydia, thanks for all your help. You can keep all that gear you've carried halfway across Skyrim, your new Thane will probably need it. Gonna head back down to Anvil for a while and soak up some sun on the beach. Too bad you can't come with me, you'd like Bruma. Then again, there might just be a way...

 

What we need is a modder who can make a copy of Lydia in Oblivion. There's something deeply immersing about Lydia. She can make you *care* about her!

 

GoF

[RedRavyn]

I don't even like Lydia, myself, so when I get her I just let her go wherever she wants (Breezehome if I own it, or she stays in Dragonreach), and I never take her along on quests. I hate followers in Skyrim. They are just annoying, get in the way, blow my cover, bump me around, and push me off cliffs (all because of an abysmally-designed follow AI).

 

Why you would want to import her into Oblivion is beyond me, groupoffriends, is beyond me. If you want a truly well-designed female companion for Oblivion, then look up Vilja. Not only does she have a custom-designed and very extensive AI, but she's fully voice-acted, and doesn't have any of the standard follower-based problems that plague followers in both Oblivion and Skyrim. This is a testament to the team that works on Vilja. I'd much rather see her imported into Skyrim, and I might actually start using followers (or at least Vilja).

[netson]

@ netson: And the first time you get munched by a dragon or punted by a giant you'll have second thoughts about that 60% magic resistance which will avail you diddly squat. Trust me. The veteran players of this game will just about all disagree with you that concentrating upon Enchanting (or Alchemy or Smithing), while neglecting your "survival" skills is a Bad Thing in the long-run, and most of them have learned this through experience. Enjoy your newbie character with that 100 Enchant while you can. 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.

 

mmm so far i have a lv48 mage now that runs just clothes since lv1 true that dragons at close range will deal massive damage in some cases might even 1 hit... however u can get 100% resist to frost fira and shock and have enchant slots left (at 100 enchant skill) not that i might call myself a pro or close to it but i have almost 150 playing hours (i know thats almost nothing for hardcore players) as i can see by myself the enormous elemental resist can almost nulify enemy magica so just melee and ranged (archer) will deal damage ebonyflesh does seems to be buged though (it says 300 armour but wen i get hit the dmg is too high) i end up runing and casting runes on the ground while healing myself it ends up always to work but you can always go light or heavy armour mage. i made a LIGHT not heavy but light armour warrior wen most would make heavy. at lv61 it still gets highly dmged from magic spell (with 60% magic resist) and has 500 hp currently... 4 ice spells from master necromancers drain all stamina and puts me to walk very slow however wen u play mage even if u use the same spell the enemies dont seem to be not even half slowed that what i am on my warrior

[fraquar]

If you are gonna sling arrows, grab every Frostbite Venom that drops off spiders (and you should see a ton of those and wolves early) - they really do help a lot in the early levels. 1 or 2 of those can make a big difference when you are trying to thin out a crowd fast - and help equally well in bringing down a boss before your companion bites the dust.

[StayFrosty05]

I know this is a cheat, but it is one that can be used sparingly at your own discretion....I have the mod: Summon Animal Pets....I use the Snowy Sabre Cat....For survivability when things get really tough and I'm in trouble, my Dovahkin just equips his ring and the immediate result is a very tough, tanking, meat shield, high damage dealing distraction between him and the attackers....and if the Sabre does happen to die (overwhelmed by numbers), just re-equip the ring and the cat's back.....If you do choose to use this mod though, I would suggest not having the ring or necklace eqipped at all times (only in emergencies) as the pet summoned will steal a great deal of your XP opportunities.

 

I play a predominantly duel wielder, using stealth bowman to soften up his targets/whittle down number first...he uses no magic what-so-ever aside from the Shouts....like you I also want to RP a character....the cat works beautifully for this build, but I would think it should work just as well for a Mage.

[Lord Garon]

Thanks for all the helpful advice.

 

I guess I shouldn't "complain" about Skyrim. Its not like I can't deal with the frustrating situations. Its more of a disappointment. I like a particular genre of games and a particular play style. I've said before that a good game can involve me as much as a good book. Maybe even more as the involvement is not simply vicarious; you can "participate" a little more in a game. Skyrim has just sacrificed the "world" concept somewhat for a different set of game mechanics. That's fine. Hey, I probably wasted more time playing DOOM than any other computer game. But I'm not drawn to TES games for just the mechanics. Morrowind and Oblivion (to a lessor extent) managed to maintain a storyline within an existing, somewhat functioning, world. And by "world", I mean not only the "physical" aspects, but the "attitudes" and "behaviors" of the AI's populating it. I'm trying to play Skyrim like an RPG, but its too much of an action game. It's really sad for me because Bethesda almost got it. Its so close.

 

I'm trying to mod Skyrim a little right now, but everything in the new game engine is different. I learned to mod Oblivion because the game hooked me. I don't feel the same motivation for Skyrim. We've (RPG palyers) taken a step backwards from Oblivion and the amount of work necessary to fix things is somewhat daunting, not simply challenging as was Oblivion.

 

At any rate, Skyrim is the Little RPG That Could. It hasn't, yet, but the potential is certainly there. The Creation Engine is fast and seems to have a lot of headroom left; just what the modders need. I just wish there was more writing (immersion) to be experienced and less rote programming (mechanics) to deal with.

 

On the other hand, I guess I could make the duel a fair fight. You have the same weapons in a real duel, right? And the Challenger is not exactly honorable; he'll try to slice you up with a dagger while yelling, "Magic only!" Okay, Mr. C, let's have a look at your spell inventory...