The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Syngyne]

Originally Posted by ChildOWind

There's also a sentence in an in game book called "Twin Secrets" that also seems to hint at knowledge being lost. I'll spoiler the paragraph just in case, but there aren't really any in game spoilers at all:

But there's an enchantment perk that lets you enchant an item twice.

If you mean being able to enchant over a previous an enchantment, have you ever been able to do that?

[ChildOWind]

Originally Posted by Syngyne

But there's an enchantment perk that lets you enchant an item twice.

If you mean being able to enchant over a previous an enchantment, have you ever been able to do that?

You couldn't in Oblivion, I don't remember from Morrowind.

Regardless, though, that also seems to indicate that if that particular knowledge was lost, then other knowledge may have been as well.

[lranklin]

A cool storyline would be the dragons trying to destroy magic. This popped into my head because a guy on Skyrim reddit posted this.

[lranklin]

Minor spoilers.

Skyrim: The Gathering

UNDEAD PACK MULE

Many of you might already know this, but some might not. If you're anything like me and you have the compulsive need to loot entire dungeons but are eternally over-encumbered this might help.

Basically you need to find a staff called "Staff of Zombies" or "Staff of Reanimation". This staff allows you to reanimate a weak dead body for 60 seconds. You can obtain it from shops or a random wannabe mage in the wild.
Once you have cleared a dungeon simply store as many items as you wish into a weak dead body (plentiful in most dungeons) and then reanimate him. There seems to be no weight limit to how much they can carry which is what makes this much better that bringing a follower along - especially in Dwarven ruins where all the scrap metal is very heavy.

The zombie will them follow you anywhere you go and will even fast travel with you back to your home. You can reanimate him as many times as you like as you progress through a dungeon gradually adding more stuff. He's basically an unlimited pack mule. You can even make him follow you inside your house so once he drops dead you can retrieve all your items and store them with ease! Yesterday I looted an entire Dwarven ruin in Markarth in 1 trip and had enough metal to smelt 350 Dwarven ingots. The best thing is the staff is cheap to use and you can use it on the same guy forever.

My character is a warrior so I use this method - I know the other method posted before used with the conjuration spell "Raise Zombie" - but the disadvantage is it's one use only as the body melts into ash after 60s. There is a more powerful zombie spell called "Dead Thrall", but you need 90 conjuration so this method is great for lower level or non-magic characters.

[ChildOWind]

Originally Posted by lranklin

A cool storyline would be the dragons trying to destroy magic. This popped into my head because a guy on Skyrim reddit posted this.

I posted the same question to reddit and someone responded with this:

The history of Tamriel has shown that Magic ebbs and flows like the tides. Skyrim reminds me very much of the dark ages. The Empire "Rome" has fallen low and is struggling to stay afloat. Knowledge on a whole, whether Lore, Magic, so on have slowly been disappearing or being lost. People are truly beginning to fear things like Magic, because it's use is not common anymore, atleast in the Empire. Fear is keeping the different Holds apart and together all at once. Add Dragons to the equation and you are really looking at a social powder keg waiting to blow. Dragons awakening though could very much signal or herald a MASSIVE resurgence of magic into the world of Tamriel though.

Which actually makes a shit ton of sense, and is hella exciting. I hope that it holds true.

[Mike2016]

Originally Posted by lranklin

Bethesda made it too easy to take down a dragon.

Comparatively, yes. As a melee fighter, dragons are the hardest same-level challenge that I have. The only things tougher are things that drastically out-level me. But, they don't particularly bother me. I killed a Blood Dragon just a few minutes ago without too much of a bother.

I especially like the ones that shoot frost. Because I already have 50% frost resistance as a Nord, plus 25% magic resistance from the Lord Stone, plus 50% magic resistance if I block the attack with a shield. I took a frost blast to the shield at point-blank range during that fight a little bit ago, and it barely scratched my health.. 2-3% at the most.

It also helps if you shoot at the right dragon. I knew about the one in the air, but I also saw another one over the hill. He was closer, so I shot off a flame arrow at him. Turns out he was already dead, a previous dragon I'd killed that somehow got his skin back since last I saw him. In my defense, he was moving.. Bethesda's wonderful ragdoll physics at work.

[lranklin]

They ought to make dragon breath nearly insta-kill unless you have extremely high frost/fire/magic resist gear.

They also oughta make it so if you get too close to the dragon's mouth, you're chomped. Gotta attack it from the flanks.

And even after all that, sneak attack archery is still going to pwn them.

[Requesting Bear]

Originally Posted by lranklin

They ought to make dragon breath nearly insta-kill unless you have extremely high frost/fire/magic resist gear.

They also oughta make it so if you get too close to the dragon's mouth, you're chomped. Gotta attack it from the flanks.

And even after all that, sneak attack archery is still going to pwn them.

This is a terrible idea. Yes, let's nerf the fuck out of warriors, especially two-handed ones.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by lranklin

They ought to make dragon breath nearly insta-kill unless you have extremely high frost/fire/magic resist gear.

They also oughta make it so if you get too close to the dragon's mouth, you're chomped. Gotta attack it from the flanks.

And even after all that, sneak attack archery is still going to pwn them.

They do chomp you if you get too close

Instant killed me a full health many times and they tossed my corpse 50 ft.

[Syngyne]

The only time I've ever been chomped is when I've had a quarter health or so.

[Salo]

It's not a too terrible idea, I think. Dragons pretty much never did my warrior any damage, other than the occasional tail whip or the one hit kill chomp attack. Beefing up the breath attack would be fine, currently it's just like water off a duck's back.

OR, implement more, and more diverse dragon types, so that there'll be more resistance/tactics combos.

[lranklin]

Originally Posted by Requesting Bear

This is a terrible idea. Yes, let's nerf the fuck out of warriors, especially two-handed ones.

It has nothing to do with two-handed warriors.

This would make dragons harder for everyone. Their breath would be feared instead of "lol, just gonna sit here while he breathes on me."

Originally Posted by Riot

They do chomp you if you get too close

Instant killed me a full health many times and they tossed my corpse 50 ft.

Yeah, but it seems like I can far too easily just walk up to their snout and wail away on them. Which I've gotten into the habit of doing after my arrows fell them, because I want to see the finishing animation.

[Syngyne]

Originally Posted by lranklin

Yeah, but it seems like I can far too easily just walk up to their snout and wail away on them.

Yeah, I have a character specced for light armor/sneak, and I can still basically go up to a dragon and *pokepokepoke* it in the nose until it dies.

[lranklin]

Originally Posted by Salo

OR, implement more, and more diverse dragon types, so that there'll be more resistance/tactics combos.

One of the worst current things they have dragons do is that "stop and hover" animation. They turn into sitting ducks, and if one of my shots stuns them, that's usually game over.

[Wonk]

Got the game about a week and a half ago - loving it. Makes me want to go back and actually finish the main quest lines to Morrowind and Oblivion when I finish this game some time next year.

Thank you all - I spent the last couple of weeks reading this entire thread (just finished about 5 minutes ago) and it's been a big help for things that I couldn't find in the Skyrim phone bo- erm, strategy guide.

I'll probably have a go at the game with 2 characters. I'm still working on my first, Nord fighter with a two-hand weapon, heavy armor, healing and archery and blacksmithing abilities. Snorre Tankard is now level 13, a Companion, and is just wrapping up the quests in Whiterun. I'll be heading out to the Graybeards and then who knows where I'll get to? I'm basically relying on my brute strength, mad two-hander skills, shouts, potions and whatever gear that I come across to get me through the game. I'm not sure I have the patience for soul gem/crafting/enchanting but I highly respect those that do.

My second character will definitely be a thief/assassin type - most likely a Bosmer but I'm seriously considering another Nord (Nords rock). I followed the other prisoners escaping with my Nord fighter so I'll probably follow the Imperials on this character.

I think I'll part ways with Lydia once I head out of Whiterun for the last time. I don't want her to end up getting killed and I'd like to try out some other hirelings.

[Yunara]

Originally Posted by Striker

One extremely important detail to keep in mind: The higher your skill with a school of magic, the lower the casting cost. No amount of fortified magicka or regen will allow you to chaincast dual firebolts around skill level 30, but at 60? No problem whatsoever. For most forms of combat, skill increase is a fairly linear progression in effectiveness. For mages, it's exponential. Focus on those skill increases, train whenever you have the spare cash.

Skill level has no impact on casting cost or spell effect in this game. It is only used for unlocking new spells from vendors and as pre-requisite for perks.

For example, Fireball is 114 mana to cast for a naked level 1 character, and 114 to cast for a naked level 50 caster with 100 destruction skill and no destruction perks. However casting cost is reduced by gear and perks. Each tier of magic has a perk to lower cost by 50%.

Originally Posted by Striker

As for armor...well, at the start you'll want to be wearing armored boots and gauntlets, because every little bit helps. Head slot will usually be taken up by a +magicka item, torso slot should be a robe. Once you get to the necessary level in alteration to take the mage armor perks and reliably dual-cast shield spells before fights (dualcasting produces a spell that is as powerful as the next tier and lasts twice as long...the cost is rather impressive though).

Bethesda did the smart thing. Instead of a casting penalty, the casting bonuses for not wearing armor are simply awesome. It'll be a long, long time until you'll be able to enchant an armor piece with +100% magicka recovery and +15% to a specific school, but robes like that are available for sale the moment you hit skill 50 or so in any school.

Mage armor is not strictly necessary, I would recommend a mage decide early if he's going to invest in alteration or enchantment. Alteration will want to use cloth only, which often means early game you'll have to wear nothing on your hands, since the game throws surprisingly very little cloth gloves around unless you find a pair and enchant them yourself.

A mage who chooses to ignore alteration and focus on enchanting will get by with robes until high level, but can use generally the best class of heavy armor for gloves and feet. As there is no reason not to wear armor except to free up inventory space if you aren't doing mage armor perk.

Originally Posted by Striker

RE: Dragons

Fus Ro Dah. Other than that, throw up a ward and pray your magicka reserves hold out. Or, failing that, run like hell for cover (my favored choice ).

Impact. Do wards even work against Dragon breath? Also just hide behind anything and wait for magika to regen until enchanting makes all your spells free.

[Striker]

Originally Posted by Yunara

Skill level has no impact on casting cost or spell effect in this game. It is only used for unlocking new spells from vendors and as pre-requisite for perks.

For example, Fireball is 114 mana to cast for a naked level 1 character, and 114 to cast for a naked level 50 caster with 100 destruction skill and no destruction perks. However casting cost is reduced by gear and perks. Each tier of magic has a perk to lower cost by 50%.

Nope, and on the PC it's easily testable using e.g. player.modav Destruction to give yourself a skill bonus. Chain lightning (found the tome somewhere) on my very nonmagical orc: 149 magicka. Same orc, same gear, +40 bonus to Destruction skill: 119 magicka.

Impact. Do wards even work against Dragon breath? Also just hide behind anything and wait for magika to regen until enchanting makes all your spells free.

Yep, wards work. I got to the point on my mage where the lowest ward is basically a free cast, and it works like a charm to mitigate dragon breath while I run for cover.

[bazokajoe_2k]

I'm amazed at how small quests turn into much bigger events than you think they will. Without spoiling anything, I was asked to retrieve a little trinket for someone, just a little side quest. I imagined that I would delve into a small cave, kill some bandits and get it. Turned out to be a 30 minute plus dungeon with a significant boss battle and in addition to some new gear, there was a dragon wall and I learned a new shout!

Totally didn't expect anything that big from such an unassuming quest.

[Requesting Bear]

How does weapon damage work? For instance, if I have a sword that does 40 damage, and then says "10 Shock Damage" or something, is that 40 damage including that 10 shock, or is it really 50 damage?

[Yunara]

Hmmm, I could have sworn early game the mana costs weren't changing. I suppose I'm mis-remembering unless that command changes other bonuses. I went enchanting early, so my destruction spells have been almost free for a long time, and completely free for the last few days.

[bata]

I have a question about houses. Are there any with some good decoration opportunity ? I would really like to set up a library with collected books in a home, like on shelves instead of chests, if possible. Don't need to tell me which one, just a yes or no will suffice. I only know the home in Whiterun so far. Haven't seen any others from the inside yet.

[Kamileon]

Originally Posted by bazokajoe_2k

I'm amazed at how small quests turn into much bigger events than you think they will. Without spoiling anything, I was asked to retrieve a little trinket for someone, just a little side quest. I imagined that I would delve into a small cave, kill some bandits and get it. Turned out to be a 30 minute plus dungeon with a significant boss battle and in addition to some new gear, there was a dragon wall and I learned a new shout!

Totally didn't expect anything that big from such an unassuming quest.

Yeah, I went to a nearby thing on the map to get to a place for a Thieves' Guild quest and ended up finding an elder dragon and a seriousass dead magic guy and a wall with three shout words.

And I'm all "I... was just going somewhere nearby..."

[The Ben]

Originally I was dreading starting Boethia's Quest because I hate having to permanently off characters, especially followers. I didn't want to sacrifice a follower that didn't need to get involved in this Daedric shit.

Luckily after finishing the one Daedric mission where you meet the White Glove Society's Skyrim Chapter it was pretty easy to sacrifice someone who would sacrifice another just to eat him.

Sorry Eola, guess you just tasted betrayal.

That's it, got the dumb achievement, no more selling my soul to the Daedric Princes for the rest of the game.

[Buck]

I FOUND A TREASURE MAP AND IM SO EXCITE

[Killjoy]

Originally Posted by Requesting Bear

How does weapon damage work? For instance, if I have a sword that does 40 damage, and then says "10 Shock Damage" or something, is that 40 damage including that 10 shock, or is it really 50 damage?

Those are separate damage types, so yes it's 50 damage until you run out of charges for the shock magic.