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What is a Valid Opponent?


jayrichardm

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Skills increase when they're used against a "Valid Opponent". I wouldn't consider a goat to be a valid opponent, but the game does. I've gotten destruction skill level ups blasting goats with a fireball. I also know that Mud Crabs and Deer are valid opponents for the same reason. I'm wondering about foxes and rabbits.

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I would say a valid opponent (based on AD&D and other games) would be something that can fight back.

 

In Bethesda games, not always so.

 

Mud crabs can fight back and kill you.

 

The others should be valid if you are a hunter, although using a fireball to hunt roasted goat, rather than shooting one with a bow, seems a little odd.

 

But the ULTIMATE valid opponent, if you want to be an outlaw hated throughout the empire, is a CHICKEN!!

 

(Save your game before you shoot one in Riverwood)

 

 

:D

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LOL OK, a chicken huh. Never killed a Chicken in Riverwood. Have to try that :laugh:

 

The goats are usually running and Fireball has a blast radius of 10 feet or so. So you only have to get close to them to lay them out.

 

By the way. Mud crabs are my favorite friends for leveling up some skills. There is a small pond just East of Dustman's Carin with five mud crabs around it. I'll go there and let them beat on my armor, light or heavy, while I'm also leveling up Illusion using the courage spell or Conjuration using the soul trap spell and/or Restoration.

 

Oh, but don't use soul trap on the two Mammoths that are usually standing nearby. They'll charge and kill your crabs.

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  • 1 month later...

I've gotten my answer. I don't normally blast away at bunny rabbits, On this day I did. And I happened to get a destruction skill level up when I blew it over a cliff. So the game also treats bunny rabbits as valid opponents and gives skill level increases for killing them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You know, no one is making you use your skills on things you don't want to level on!

 

That said, I do practice my sword and shield on the mudcrabs in the low levels.

Other times I just horseback hunt foxes and one even eluded me for half an hour then disappeared into a river that turned into a waterfall on a precipice near the Forsworn camp...

I also enchanted a woodcutter's axe and horseback chopped every wolf and sabre cat in the fields near Whiterun with it...

Edited by bitoolean
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