Skyrim IV: Oblivion

[thegurullamen]

I had a weird encounter with Krosis. I knew he was there and was high enough level that I could take him and the dragon at once. I'd never been to Shearpoint before, so I had to walk over from I think it was Fellglow Keep. (Might be mistaken about that, though--it's been a while.) As I was walking, three things happened

A giant spawned behind a bush or something and snuck up on me
A dragon fell out of the sky
Both Shearpoint enemies noticed this as I was within sight and their reaction was to charge

What followed was one of the weirder things I remember seeing. Two dragons essentially breathed fire and frost at the other dragon's buddy while all four lost health faster than me against an army of archmages. Finished them all off with a staff of chain lightning that had the amazing secondary effect of staggering all opponents struck.

At the end of it all, I had to chug three strength potions just to fast travel back to town from all the swag I carried.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, probably Fellglow. It's just south and makes for the most conveinent access.

[Avilan the Grey]

EDIT: Huh; his name means 'sorrow'. Wonder if that's got anything to do with it.

I think Krosis also doubles as a meaning of "Regret" and "Apology". So, yes, maybe.

[Dhavaer]

Then the Neveraine dies of old age

Except the stabilised Corprus infection prevents the Neravarine from aging.

[Rhydeble]

So i just died like a girlscout trying to fight that shearpoint priest. (level 11 archer here (breton)). I killed the dragon just fine with lydia at my side, and ran towards the wall to get the words (3 of them, wow, still haven't figured out how to use the shout though, or maybe it's just funky on giants). Crosus doesn't even take any damage from my arrows. I ended up leaving lydia in town and running past to get the words and flee, but how do you possibly kill this guy.
Also, why can I fast-travel there when i've never been there?

[ShadowFighter15]

So i just died like a girlscout trying to fight that shearpoint priest. (level 11 archer here (breton)). I killed the dragon just fine with lydia at my side, and ran towards the wall to get the words (3 of them, wow, still haven't figured out how to use the shout though, or maybe it's just funky on giants). Crosus doesn't even take any damage from my arrows. I ended up leaving lydia in town and running past to get the words and flee, but how do you possibly kill this guy.
Also, why can I fast-travel there when i've never been there?

Can't help you with killing Krosis, but the short-version of how to use that Shout (Throw Voice), best thing I can do is link you here: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Throw_Voice

I think Krosis' page on there has combat tips as well.

[Knight13]

So i just died like a girlscout trying to fight that shearpoint priest. (level 11 archer here (breton)). I killed the dragon just fine with lydia at my side, and ran towards the wall to get the words (3 of them, wow, still haven't figured out how to use the shout though, or maybe it's just funky on giants). Crosus doesn't even take any damage from my arrows. I ended up leaving lydia in town and running past to get the words and flee, but how do you possibly kill this guy.

I find that one of the easiest ways to beat him is to force him off one of the ledges around wall. Sometimes he'll float off them by himself, but you can also push him off with Unrelenting Force. Once he's down there, you can crouch on the edge of the cliff and shoot arrows at him. When he tries to shoot fireballs back at you, he'll usually hit the edge of the cliff instead and you won't take any damage.

[TheEmerged]

Yes, I believe those are the names of the places (the tower and the dragon priest place). I've put Shearpoint on my "places to go back to with some more levels" list :)

I've decided to wrap up the main Companions quest chain and move to the Winterhold/Mage College quests next. I mentioned the feast/famine situation I have with dragons, yes? I ran into *2* dragons on the way to the tomb that is apparently the end quest for the Companions (the leader has died, we've reforged the legendary axe, and we're on the way to try and release his soul for Sovengard). The second one was amusing because two ice wolves, an orc, and a frost troll decided to take advantage of my distraction to kill me :smallredface: In any event, my collection of dragon scales etc is growing nicely.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, between that and Krosis Mask, Shearpoint is the best friend for a thief. Provided you can survive Krosis himself. Another trick I just learned is that facing the wall, there's a mountainous area to the right, and if you stay at the foot of that, most of Krosis Fireballs will smash into the ground short of you and not hit. I say most though, so beware.

[Knight13]

still haven't figured out how to use the shout though, or maybe it's just funky on giants
Throw Voice is mostly useful for stealthy characters. It causes the AI to hear a sound where you aim the shout, so they'll go over and investigate that spot. It's handy if you want to set them up for a backstab or even just sneak by them.

[Flickerdart]

Is it possible to beat feet and then come back when Krosis has broken off pursuit, or is his vengeance undying?

[Knight13]

Is it possible to beat feet and then come back when Krosis has broken off pursuit, or is his vengeance undying?

This gave me the hilarious mental image of a couple of guards patrolling outside Whiterun, when suddenly a guy runs past, followed by a floating, screaming, legless, scaly, mask-wearing zombie throwing fireballs all over the place.

Guard 1: "What in the name of Talos was that?!"
Guard 2: "Oh, that was the Dragonborn."
Guard 1: "The Dragonborn?! But what was that thing chasing him? Shouldn't we help him?"
Guard 2: "No, he does this kind of thing all the time. You kind of get used to it."

[Silverraptor]

This gave me the hilarious mental image of a couple of guards patrolling outside Whiterun, when suddenly a guy runs past, followed by a floating, screaming, legless, scaly, mask-wearing zombie throwing fireballs all over the place.

Guard 1: "What in the name of Talos was that?!"
Guard 2: "Oh, that was the Dragonborn."
Guard 1: "The Dragonborn?! But what was that thing chasing him? Shouldn't we help him?"
Guard 2: "No, he does this kind of thing all the time. You kind of get used to it."

Oh how true this is. What would make a guard's life more worthwhile is if he could hear the sound track thats playing while the dragonborn does his stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wFGKrg79Gk):smallbiggrin:

[Beowulf DW]

One of my funnier moments was when I was going after a dragon I had seen attacking some giants and their mammoth. I was just starting to fight it when a thief ran up and tried to threaten me.

It's a shame that their isn't a, "Bitch, I just started a fight with a dragon. I can kill you by speaking at you. I'm one of the best swordsmen and blacksmiths in the land. You think that those tiny daggers scare me?" option.

[Flickerdart]

This gave me the hilarious mental image of a couple of guards patrolling outside Whiterun, when suddenly a guy runs past, followed by a floating, screaming, legless, scaly, mask-wearing zombie throwing fireballs all over the place.

Guard 1: "What in the name of Talos was that?!"
Guard 2: "Oh, that was the Dragonborn."
Guard 1: "The Dragonborn?! But what was that thing chasing him? Shouldn't we help him?"
Guard 2: "No, he does this kind of thing all the time. You kind of get used to it."
Dragon Priest Conga!

[t209]

How many souls
have you saved in Sovngarde level? I saw two survivors, Kodlak Whitemane and Ulfric Stormcloak.

[Calemyr]

I've actually never seen anyone else there. Other than the Dragonrend Chorus and Tsun.

Who else has anyone seen?

[t209]

I've actually never seen anyone else there. Other than the Dragonrend Chorus and Tsun.

Who else has anyone seen?

After I killed Alduin, I walked around Sovngarde and found Kodlak and Ulfric walking towards the Shor's hall and praising my act of valor.

[Triaxx]

Funnier still is seeing Torygg and Ulfric both walking up to praise you. I guess being dead solves a lot of differences.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Depending on how you solve the civil war,
Rikke could be there in Soverngarde instead of Ulfric.

[Hazzardevil]

Depending on how you solve the civil war,
Rikke could be there in Soverngarde instead of Ulfric.

I thought she was a Human?

[Divayth Fyr]

I thought she was a Human?
Seeing how Redgards, Nords, Imperials and Bretons all are humans, she is one.

And being a Nord, it makes sense she appears in Sovngarde. ;)

[Hazzardevil]

Seeing how Redgards, Nords, Imperials and Bretons all are humans, she is one.

And being a Nord, it makes sense she appears in Sovngarde. ;)

As in Imperial Human like Tullius or the countless other imperial humans in Oblivion.

[Beowulf DW]

As in Imperial Human like Tullius or the countless other imperial humans in Oblivion.

Nope. She's a Nord. There are quite a few Nords in the Imperial Legion, actually. That's really what makes it a civil war: Some Nords really do consider themselves part of an empire, an empire forged by humans, and they're loyal to this empire.

[Dhavaer]

Is the damage from Flaming Familiar multiplied by the +fire damage perks in Destruction?

[t209]

Is the damage from Flaming Familiar multiplied by the +fire damage perks in Destruction?

I though you can't mix spell (at least until Game Jam shows spell combos).

[Suedars]

As in Imperial Human like Tullius or the countless other imperial humans in Oblivion.

Nope. A big part of her role as Tullius's second in command is to advise him on Nordic customs and how to win over the Jarls.

[Triaxx]

True, you can't mix spells, but he's asking about perks, rather than the spells themselves.

But as far as I can discern from the CK, the answer is NO.

[Silverraptor]

I have a couple of really important questions here.

First, are grand souls the highest ever soul gems can store and are human souls always grand when you store them in a black soul gem?

And, is there a set number of dragons you can encounter in the world? I recently encounterd four dragons in rapid succession from going from one end of the world to the other. However, each time I kill the dragon and move on, I always find an empty dragon burial mound close by like the one where you see Alduin resurrecting the dragon on the main quest when you first encounter the blades. Thats the only reason I think there is a set number. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[Arbitrarity]

I have a couple of really important questions here.

First, are grand souls the highest ever soul gems can store and are human souls always grand when you store them in a black soul gem?

And, is there a set number of dragons you can encounter in the world? I recently encounterd four dragons in rapid succession from going from one end of the world to the other. However, each time I kill the dragon and move on, I always find an empty dragon burial mound close by like the one where you see Alduin resurrecting the dragon on the main quest when you first encounter the blades. Thats the only reason I think there is a set number. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Yes, no. After you do an early quest (Dragon Rising, the one you mentioned) dragons start randomly spawning. They also scale to level.

[Silverraptor]

Yes, no. After you do an early quest (Dragon Rising, the one you mentioned) dragons start randomly spawning. They also scale to level.

So, the empty dragon mounds that I always seem to find close to the dragons are just clever designs to make it seemed "Oh, well heres the burial mound where this dragon was stuck under earth just a moment ago." Is there a correlation between randomly spawned dragons being spawned close to mounds? Because if there was, that would be awesome that the programmers thought about adding that kind of mechanice to the game.

[Dsurion]

I have a couple of really important questions here.Well, as far as I'm aware...


First, are grand souls the highest ever soul gems can storeYes.


and are human souls always grand when you store them in a black soul gem?Yes.


And, is there a set number of dragons you can encounter in the world? I recently encounterd four dragons in rapid succession from going from one end of the world to the other. However, each time I kill the dragon and move on, I always find an empty dragon burial mound close by like the one where you see Alduin resurrecting the dragon on the main quest when you first encounter the blades. Thats the only reason I think there is a set number. Can anyone confirm or deny this?Dragons at landmarked locations eventually respawn, though it seems that most of the time (IME), if you've already killed a dragon there, you won't get another soul from it. However, randomly encountered/spawned dragons will continuously appear throughout the game.

Again, all as far as I'm aware.

[factotum]

You do occasionally see dragons that are actually spawned from the burial mounds, but they always have names. I certainly never noticed any correlation between the un-named dragons and burial mounds, though--you can encounter the things anywhere.

[Dhavaer]

I think there are some set but unnamed dragons from the mounds; I know I always have a dragon to fight near Sky Haven Temple and there's a mound near there.

[Triaxx]

There's actually two quests. After you fight and kill Mirmulnir near whiterun, dragons begin spawning.

After you fight and Saklohnir, near Kynesgrove, dead dragons begin resurrecting. This can lead to a nasty surprise south of Riften as you fight the random spawn at Lost Tongue and the burial mound dragon from just in front.

[Knight13]

I've heard that occasionally when you encounter a random dragon it'll be Alduin. He won't come down to fight you, but if you follow him when he flies off you might catch him raising a dragon from a mound.

[Silverraptor]

I've heard that occasionally when you encounter a random dragon it'll be Alduin. He won't come down to fight you, but if you follow him when he flies off you might catch him raising a dragon from a mound.

Dude, that is so awesome.:smallbiggrin:

[Knight13]

I've never seen it myself though, so I'm not sure if it's true.

[Dhavaer]

I've never seen it myself though, so I'm not sure if it's true.

I've never come across Alduin just flying around, but I have seen him raising dragons from mounds a few times, so that part's definitely true.

[t209]

Is it possible to
go redcloak-on-Thanh (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0827.html) on execution of Ulfric Stormcloak? I mean using Atronach to burn, freeze, or electrocute him. I mean you get to crush the hope for Free Skyrim in front of his dying face. Will he appear in Sovngarde if you soul trap him?

[Silverraptor]

So, I need help navigating silverdrift. It seems that every where in there is a dead end and I can't move on past a gate. Some help please?:smallsmile:

[JadedDM]

So, I finally made it to Riften and...

Is it possible to expose Maven's corruption? I broke into her house and found evidence of a...whatdocallit, the ritual to summon the Dark Brotherhood? But I couldn't do anything with it. At one point, I even tried to assassinate her, but she turned out to be immortal so I had to reload.

[factotum]

Maven is pretty much the main power in Riften--there's nobody there who would dare act against her, up to and including the Jarl. It's certainly not possible to get her imprisoned or anything like that.

[Hazzardevil]

I have a question after having come across something weird about dragons.

Is it normal for people to occasionally find a dragon flying around with a name? Not part of any quests, just given a rather odd name.

[AsteriskAmp]

I have a question after having come across something weird about dragons.

Is it normal for people to occasionally find a dragon flying around with a name? Not part of any quests, just given a rather odd name.

It's very rare, there are few ones (so no random generation of named dragons), but it does happen.

[t209]

Maven is pretty much the main power in Riften--there's nobody there who would dare act against her, up to and including the Jarl. It's certainly not possible to get her imprisoned or anything like that.


Unless you are
The don of the thieves guild or wiped out Dark brotherhood. (I did it to at least piss off her).
Also the Silverblood family
who use Forsworn to eliminate the competition, especially the Bretons with warpaints. Bribed the guards who cover up on Forsworn attacks (especially Imperial Spies). They might have use it to attack on Kaarthwasten Mine, send out mercenaries to take it over. Do you think Forsworn vs Silverblood could be Evil vs Evil trope.

[Divayth Fyr]

Is it normal for people to occasionally find a dragon flying around with a name? Not part of any quests, just given a rather odd name.
There are at least 3 named dragons (not counting any connected with the main quest) flying around + 1 sitting in a dungeon.

[Flickerdart]

Unless you are
The don of the thieves guild or wiped out Dark brotherhood. (I did it to at least piss off her).
How does that help?

[Triaxx]

There's actually a book about the dragons the Dragonguard (Blades) know of and killed.

And here's (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dragon) the UESP page on dragons. Spoilers, but there's a list of named Dragons on there.

[t209]

How does that help?

She gets to be in your pocket instead of having you in her pocket!If you are head of the thieves guild. Defeating Dark Brotherhood could piss her off!

[factotum]

You have that backwards, t209.


The Thieves' Guild does pretty much what Maven tells them to do--they certainly have no power to get her to do anything *they* want.

[Triaxx]

Not really.

By the end of the Thieves Guild quests, not only do you now have ownership of her precious bee farm, but you've killed Mercer, who is her contact with the Guild. True, she can still call on the Brotherhood, but Mercer was a poweful warrior in addition to being a mighty thief. So it's a gamble as to whether or not the Brotherhood can even succeed.

Not to mention that you've proven capable of getting into the heavily fortified bee farm in the first place and burning down three hives. Unless she intends to hire hundreds of guards to defend every beehive around from you, she's got to play nice with you.

[t209]

Do you ever wonder if Riften is based on Greysky City?
- Both of them are crime alley.
- Both of them have thieves guild.
- Mercer Frey is kinda similiar to Bozok.

[TheEmerged]

So, fourth day played has begun. I'm working my way through the Mage GuildCollege quests. I've enjoyed the quests, but there have been some frustration points.

1> I have several (3, I think) side quests at the college I can't turn in right now because of the 'emergency'. That means there are items in my inventory taking up weight that I can't get rid of. Thankfully I could at least put the cogs down...

2> When I got back to the college and the emergency started, I got to the point where you go outside the building to find the archmage is dead. It then forced me into a bit of dialog as an elder dragon started attacking. This was the first elder I'd run into, and it kept swatting me pretty fierce but I couldn't fight back because of the dialog - and it wouldn't let me interrupt it. On my third reload, I finally managed to bypass the dialog to fight the dragon itself.

2a> Oh, fun point about that fight. I've mentioned that conjuration is my best skill, well it's high enough I was able to do the 'mastery' quest for it. My mana score is nowhere near high enough to actually cast the new spells from it though... but the Dremora from that quest remained on the walls. So when the elder dragon landed on the wall to breathe fire on us, the dremora joined in the fight.

3> Good Lord, the loot in that dwarven ruin... I think I've got four or five chests in there practically gilled with dwarven metal items. I understand I need to take these items back to a forge to get dwarven metal, and some of them have pretty good weight\gold ratios anyway. Is it worth my time to try and drag this stuff back to town (I suspect it'll be 3-5 trips even with a follower) or should I just grab high-ticket items on a single trip? I don't actually have dwarven smithing but I could throw a perk or two that way if I wanted to.

4> I've reason to believe I'm about done with the college quests (I'm going through than Labrynth with the ghost of the archmage right now). When I finish, I've decided to do the Azura's Star quest next so I can start training Enchanting in earnest. Should I move onto the Thieves Guild (in Riften, from hints I've picked up) or go back to the main quest when I'm done? I'm in the mid-thirties right now.

5> As I've mentioned my conjuration is in the home stretch (~95). My illusion skill is high enough that I have the silent casting perk I want and I don't have a lot more interest in that. I'm probably not as interested in Alteration as I should be, I'm sure. I'm somewhat bothered by the rate my destruction & restoration skills are going up, even though I'm keyed to the Mage Stone. Is there something about training those skills that I'm missing? With restoration in particular, I'm increasingly tempted to find a spot where I'll take falling damage just to heal myself...

[Arbitrarity]

5> As I've mentioned my conjuration is in the home stretch (~95). My illusion skill is high enough that I have the silent casting perk I want and I don't have a lot more interest in that. I'm probably not as interested in Alteration as I should be, I'm sure. I'm somewhat bothered by the rate my destruction & restoration skills are going up, even though I'm keyed to the Mage Stone. Is there something about training those skills that I'm missing? With restoration in particular, I'm increasingly tempted to find a spot where I'll take falling damage just to heal myself...

Destruction is annoying to level, because it's based on damage dealt. Usually the solution is to enchant up some cost reduction gear and spam down dungeons with dualcast spam.
Alteration is easy, just enchant cost reduction and spam Telekinesis on some cheesewheels.
Similarly, dualcast that alteration spell that gives you mana for health, while casting restoration spells (preferably with cost reduction enchantment)
Seriously though, if you don't grind those up, or use them for all your battle damage, they level insanely slowly.

[Knight13]

3> Good Lord, the loot in that dwarven ruin... I think I've got four or five chests in there practically gilled with dwarven metal items. I understand I need to take these items back to a forge to get dwarven metal, and some of them have pretty good weight\gold ratios anyway. Is it worth my time to try and drag this stuff back to town (I suspect it'll be 3-5 trips even with a follower) or should I just grab high-ticket items on a single trip? I don't actually have dwarven smithing but I could throw a perk or two that way if I wanted to.
Keep in mind that only certain Dwemer metal items can be smelted down. They are: Large Dwemer Strut, Large Decorative Dwemer Strut, Bent Dwemer Scrap Metal (ONLY the bent stuff, regular Dwemer Scrap Metal cannot be smelted. And for some reason you can't take the regular stuff and bend it yourself), Solid Dwemer Metal, Large Dwemer Metal Plate and Small Dwemer Metal Plate. You generally don't have to bother with the other stuff unless you want to sell it as vendor trash, though I think there a couple sidequests that require some of the other parts and I know the Atronach Forge uses the power cores in some recipes.

[pffh]

Do you ever wonder if Riften is based on Greysky City?
- Both of them are crime alley.
- Both of them have thieves guild.
- Mercer Frey is kinda similiar to Bozok.

You seem to have this strange obsession with comparing everything with oots.:smallconfused:

And no slum cities run by thieves guilds are a fairly established trope.

[Triaxx]

Are you on PC? If so, go get Midas Magic Skyrim. It has several spells helpful to looting. The Feather Series, Culminating in six minutes of Grand Feather. Summon House, which is essentially your own personal Tardis, which can come to you anywhere. And most useful of all, is Midas Luggage. It's a Dwemer Spider, but interacting with it is like interacting with a chest. Including a take all key. Midas is awesome at that kind of thing.

I also have a mod now, my first one for Skyrim, Casting Circles. Based on Guardian Circle, they give you circles to stand in to boost your magicka and magicka regeneration. I finally got them working.

I'm pretty sure Val's Crafting Meltdown will let you smith the other bits of dwarven scrap. I know it let my Paladin max out her smithing skill.

My next mod is a bit of a vanity project. Picture Box will give you a way to take screen shots of armors without worrying about the terrible lighting in most of Skyrim.

[TheEmerged]

Destruction is annoying to level, because it's based on damage dealt. Usually the solution is to enchant up some cost reduction gear and spam down dungeons with dualcast spam. Alteration is easy, just enchant cost reduction and spam Telekinesis on some cheesewheels.

I was hoping to put any additional Destruction\Alteration perks off until after I'd hit my planned build + some smithing. Hmm...


Similarly, dualcast that alteration spell that gives you mana for health, while casting restoration spells (preferably with cost reduction enchantment)

Hey, I think I just got that spell. Worth a shot...


Seriously though, if you don't grind those up, or use them for all your battle damage, they level insanely slowly.

Well, my one-handed is >80 right now (and I have the +100% damage perk to show for it) so I probably will need to switch damage-dealing methods before long for skillup purposes. Now that I have the perk to remove the weight of equipped Light Armor, I'm thinking about starting to carry around that Elven Shield I've got in the house to raise Block a bit before then...


Keep in mind that only certain Dwemer metal items can be smelted down. I knew there were exceptions but hadn't sorted out which ones, thanks for the list.

[t209]

How will you give D&D alignment to Skyrim characters?
1. Silver Blood Family- Lawful Evil
They use Forsworn to eliminate rivals, especially the Breton landowner with warpaints.
2. Hadvar- Neutral Good
3. Ralof- Neutral Good (He's a rebel but the Stormcloaks are more like an Army)
4. Malacath- Lawful Evil
But Chief Yamarz is kinda deserve it.
5. Meridia- Lawful Neutral but her ideas are kinda like Paladins (hates Necromancy and undead).
6. Thalmor- Lawful Evil

[factotum]

1> I have several (3, I think) side quests at the college I can't turn in right now because of the 'emergency'. That means there are items in my inventory taking up weight that I can't get rid of.

Actually, they don't take up weight--quest items weigh zero, whatever the game actually says they weigh.

[TheEmerged]

Actually, they don't take up weight--quest items weigh zero, whatever the game actually says they weigh.

Hmm, okay. I know the cogs take up weight (boy, do they ever) but they may not count as a true quest item (I didn't get a counter for them the way I have with some quests).

[Silverraptor]

Alright. So I went through the Dwemer cave in the college quest picking up every scrap of dwarven material and valuables I could get my hands on. Anyone want to guess what my encumburance is?:smallbiggrin:

Edit: Oh...my...god...

While walking back to whiterun, I found an Ancient Nord Arrow sticking straight out of the ground right next to the road. I can only concur that it was one of the arrows I was throwing around like crazy trying to hit a dragon to attract its attention when it was circling a long, LONG time ago.

My god...:smallbiggrin:

[Silverraptor]

So, my smithing is up to 90 now. I need Dedra Hearts.

WHHHHHHEEEEEEERRRRRREEEEE?!?!?!?!?!?!

[AsteriskAmp]

So, my smithing is up to 90 now. I need Dedra Hearts.

WHHHHHHEEEEEEERRRRRREEEEE?!?!?!?!?!?!
Enthir at the mage college sells them.

Or...

Originally Posted by The elderscrolls.wikia.com http://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Daedra_Heart_%28Skyrim%29)
Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon, during Pieces of the Past. Four Dremora (two inside, two outside), each possessing one Daedra heart. The four Dremora respawn once each in-game week.
Nightcaller Temple, during Waking Nightmare. In the alchemy laboratory area, on the shelves amongst the other reagents.
Enthir, at the College of Winterhold, sells two at a time and will restock every two days. He must be approached first, and then met in his room on the second floor of the Hall of Attainment (first room on the left). The player will lose the option to barter with him if he fails to approach him before the College of Winterhold questline is completed. This issue will fix itself after the Thieves Guild questline is completed.

If the Dragonborn has never bartered with Enthir and has completed the College of Winterhold questline, wearing the Archmage's Robes and talking with him will fix the issue (PS3, does not work for Xbox 360 or PC). Bartering with him as a fence for the Thieve's Guild can prevent him from having the Daedra Hearts because he can no longer be found at the College, but at The Frozen Hearth instead (PS3).
Jorrvaskr. In the room where Kodlak is found, on or near a plate on the desk.

Respawns at the beginning of each month.

Must be stolen, unless The Companions' questline has been completed.
A second Daedra Heart may sometimes be pickpocketed from Kodlak.
Hall of the Vigilant. On the table at the far end of the main room.
Sinderion's Field Laboratory in Blackreach. On a shelf to the left of the laboratory entrance.
In a random encounter, a thief who is caught bothering a child may drop one after being killed by city guards.

Random and Recurring

Any alchemist vendor may have up to two Daedra Hearts in stock as early as Character Level 4.

May also have on in their inventory, which may be pickpocketed.
Any Apothecary's Satchel in the game may contain one.
Any dead Dremora may drop one.
Any enemy spellcaster may drop one, but only rarely. The more powerful the spellcaster, the higher the chance (Needs confirmation).
Drelas' Cottage. One may sometimes be found in the containers.
One can be found on a dead alchemist in a random encounter.

[JadedDM]

So, my smithing is up to 90 now. I need Dedra Hearts.

Same problem here. I know there's one in Koldak's quarters, too, in the Companions hall. I think it respawns once a month, too.

[Silverraptor]

So yeah. I just grinded up 2 whole levels from 36 to 38 (almost 39) from pure crafting all 300+ Dwarven Ingots I collected and then enchanting the items later. I am at smithing 93. Soooooo close to Dragon Armor!:smallbiggrin:

[Grue Bait]

So, my smithing is up to 90 now. I need Dedra Hearts.

If you've done the Daedric quest "Pieces of the Past," the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon has about 6 that respawn every week. But I'd just craft iron daggers and get Dragon Armor. A full set of dragonplate has 10 points on a full set of Daedric when fully upgraded. But Daedric weapons are sweet, so put your hearts into those.

[Arbitrarity]

If you've done the Daedric quest "Pieces of the Past," the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon has about 6 that respawn every week. But I'd just craft iron daggers and get Dragon Armor. A full set of dragonplate has 10 points on a full set of Daedric when fully upgraded. But Daedric weapons are sweet, so put your hearts into those.

Daedric is slightly better than Dragon armor, but weighs like 20 pounds more. Doesn't matter once you get 100 alchemy/enchantment though, since you can then hit the armor cap off of super-smithing.

[t209]

Do you guys saw the name of Nord Gods and Viking god similiarity (different name but same pronunciation and letter setting)?
Shor- Thor
Alduin- Odin
Mara- Freyja
Orkey- Loki

[druid91]

Well I got into a discussion today, are the souls trapped in soul gems/ enchanted weaponry still conscious?

If so what happens as you use up the soul power? Do pieces of the soul slip out to pass on? Or do they just cease to exist?

And all this was started by someone saying it was sadistic of me to chase down bunny rabbits to fill petty soul gems.

[Silverraptor]

What are soul gem fragments good for?

[druid91]

What are soul gem fragments good for?

IIRC the same thing plates are good for.

Decoration.

[pffh]

Do you guys saw the name of Nord Gods and Viking god similiarity (different name but same pronunciation and letter setting)?
Shor- Thor
Alduin- Odin
Mara- Freyja
Orkey- Loki

Nope Thor is supposed to be pronounced Thoar, Odin as Oathinn and Loki as Lo-kih and their motives and personalities aren't even close to similar.

[Triaxx]

If you have the Buckler's mod there's a Shield of Winterhold that makes use of Soul Gem Fragments in crafting.

Speaking of crafting, Val's Crafting Meltdown is terribly useful for raising Smithing. Strip a dungeon or two, render it down to components, make your daggers, render, repeat. 0-to-100 in a little over two hours. Boring? Absolutely. Less boring then wandering around for ten hours, mining every single vein of ore on the world map and finding out you're STILL short of the last level.

Oh, and Mining Flames is a good one, but it's incompatible with Midas Magic so I don't use it.

[t209]

Well I got into a discussion today, are the souls trapped in soul gems/ enchanted weaponry still conscious?

If so what happens as you use up the soul power? Do pieces of the soul slip out to pass on? Or do they just cease to exist?

And all this was started by someone saying it was sadistic of me to chase down bunny rabbits to fill petty soul gems.
TO be honest
Yes, according to Azura's quest (Nephila or Azura Priest). I wonder if I can still see Galmar or Ulfric in Sovangarde if I soul trap them.


Nope Thor is supposed to be pronounced Thoar, Odin as Oathinn and Loki as Lo-kih and their motives and personalities aren't even close to similar.
Well, Shor ran a place for dead Nord Warriors. I am wondering if Shor is based on Thor.

[pffh]

TO be honest
Yes, according to Azura's quest (Nephila or Azura Priest). I wonder if I can still see Galmar or Ulfric in Sovangarde if I soul trap them.


Well, Shor ran a place for dead Nord Warriors. I am wondering if Shor is based on Thor.

Which Thor did not. If anything Odinn would be the closest analogy for Shor and even then it's only the fact that both run halls for warriors. Anyway this is leaning towards real world religions so I'm not saying anything more.

[Coidzor]

I wonder why one would think to connect Nords with Nordic peoples. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic)

Probably because the person at Bethesda was feeling particularly uncreative that day and just stole from real life.

[Grue Bait]

Does anyone have a way to easily get magic skills to go up quickly without spamming the Oghma Infinium? I have a tank-build character, and I'm having problems with magic skill leveling.

[Eledragon]

Does anyone have a way to easily get magic skills to go up quickly without spamming the Oghma Infinium? I have a tank-build character, and I'm having problems with magic skill leveling.

Enchant a:
Helmet
Chestplate
Amulet
and Ring with fortify [magic skill] 25% each.

For Alteration:
Find some brave and valiant Mudcrabs. Run around with them chasing you, casting Alteration spells. When Alteration is 50, buy Telekinesis and levitate cheese wheels.


For Illusion and Destruction (Dark Brotherhood spoilers):
Do the DB quests until you get Shadowmere. Proceed to shoot said super-awesome-horse with spells. Suggested you tape down Flames attack buttons and leave the game running. Use Courage for illusion, to have the most valiant horse in all the lands.

For Conjuration:
Find yet more brave and valiant Mudcrabs. Run around dual-casting Bound Sword. Stab when done.

For Restoration (College spoilers):
Do the College questline to Labyrinthian. Grab the spell Equilibrium inside Labyrinthian. Cast Equilibrium in one hand, while casting your healing spell of choice in the other.

For Enchanting:
Craft millions of iron daggers and buy everything enchantable you can. Proceed to enchant all of them. Sell for massive profit.

[Silverraptor]

So, I now have Dragon Armor and 2 Daderic swords (One Life steal, one soul steal) maxed out on improvements. I do over 200 damage with each swing thanks to the perks for double damage with the sword. I look so freaking badass!:smallbiggrin: (Somewhat sad that there's no dragon weapons, but, oh well.)


On the humorous note, I walk past an imperial camp around the time we get attacked by a blood dragon. So after a little while, we end up killing the dragon with one of the soldiers getting the last arrow kill. Then instantly after dealing the killing blow, the Imperial soldier said, "Man, I'm bored sitting around here. I can't wait for some excitement."

Really? Killing a dragon is not exciting enough for you?!:smallbiggrin:

[AsteriskAmp]

I'm at the annoying point in every heavy armoured character's life where to be able to survive she's got to jump in and out of armour constantly.

Armour on Fight - Armour off Regenerate stamina and run.

And then die to the unforeseen dragon attack.

[Silverraptor]

Is there anyway to get Nirya of the college of winterhold to join you?

[AsteriskAmp]

Is there anyway to get Nirya of the college of winterhold to join you?
No. It was taken out during the beta

[Silverraptor]

No. It was taken out during the beta

Damn! If there was anyone I would've wanted to sacrifice, it would've been her!:smallmad:

Oh well. Is there anyone that I can help that I will dislike so much to give cause to sacrificing said person?

[AsteriskAmp]

Damn! If there was anyone I would've wanted to sacrifice, it would've been her!:smallmad:

Oh well. Is there anyone that I can help that I will dislike so much to give cause to sacrificing said person?
You could use console commands to make her available as a follower...

The Markath mercenary, Sven/Faendal or Lydia are some of the prime candidates.

Some recommend Marcurio in Riften because he cannot be made free, but he is one of the most able companions. I myself sacrificed J'zargo, if only because I never used him and I'm not exactly fond of Khajit.

[Silverraptor]

You could use console commands to make her available as a follower...

The Markath mercenary, Sven/Faendal or Lydia are some of the prime candidates.

Some recommend Marcurio in Riften because he cannot be made free, but he is one of the most able companions. I myself sacrificed J'zargo, if only because I never used him and I'm not exactly fond of Khajit.

How do I use that particular console command?

[JadedDM]

How do I use that particular console command?

Hit the ~ key.

Click on the character in question.

Type: Addtofaction 5C84D 1

Hit enter, then press ~ again.

Should do the trick.

[Silverraptor]

Hit the ~ key.

Click on the character in question.

Type: Addtofaction 5C84D 1

Hit enter, then press ~ again.

Should do the trick.

K thnx.:smallsmile:

[Silverraptor]

Well, Nirya didn't cut it. Now what's the command to stop her from following me?

[Grue Bait]

Anyone know how to quickly cure vampirism?

[t209]

Anyone know how to quickly cure vampirism?

Find the redguard mage in Morthal. That's all!

[Grue Bait]

Great, now where can I get a filled black soul trap? 'Cuz I don't have soul trap...

[Arbitrarity]

Great, now where can I get a filled black soul trap? 'Cuz I don't have soul trap...

Black Soul gems can be bought at the College, the sketchy guy on the second floor of the hall of Attainment sells them. Apparently the guy you're talking to also sells them. To fill them, either use Soul Trap, or get a weapon enchanted with Soul Trapping. If you have neither of those, get one. The College and most other mages sell Soul Trap spells.
Black Soul gems can only be filled with the soul of a humanoid. So you should probably go find some bandits to murder or whatever.

[Dsurion]

Black Soul gems can be bought at the College, the sketchy guy on the second floor of the hall of Attainment sells them. Apparently the guy you're talking to also sells them. To fill them, either use Soul Trap, or get a weapon enchanted with Soul Trapping. If you have neither of those, get one. The College and most other mages sell Soul Trap spells.
Black Soul gems can only be filled with the soul of a humanoid. So you should probably go find some bandits to murder or whatever.Or get the Conjuration perk that adds Soul Trap to Bound Weapons.

[Triaxx]

Or just become a werewolf. Instant cure.

Going out into the sun will also solve your problem... ;)

[t209]

Or just become a werewolf. Instant cure.

Going out into the sun will also solve your problem... ;)

Don't forget
Burning the witches' head in Ysgrammor Tomb.
Isn't sunlight gonna kill the vampire.

[Knight13]

Isn't sunlight gonna kill the vampire.
Precisely, then you're not a vampire anymore, you're a heap of charred ashes. Grue Bait never specified that his character had to survive the process. :smallamused:

[Grue Bait]

I will be sure to specify that I want to live next time.:smalltongue: I'm good though, vampirism cured, world's back on it's usual vicious track. Does anyone know if fire/frost breath shouts are good against anything, or am I doing something wrong?

[Flickerdart]

I will be sure to specify that I want to live next time.:smalltongue: I'm good though, vampirism cured, world's back on it's usual vicious track. Does anyone know if fire/frost breath shouts are good against anything, or am I doing something wrong?
They're really nice in the early game - an opening Yol! can take care of a couple of bandits before you engage with the rest. However, I would imagine that as enemies scale and you have to use the longer recharge versions, it becomes less and less useful, like all shouts.

[AsteriskAmp]

They're really nice in the early game - an opening Yol! can take care of a couple of bandits before you engage with the rest. However, I would imagine that as enemies scale and you have to use the longer recharge versions, it becomes less and less useful, like all shouts.
Direct damage shouts never scale, so beyond level 10 they start becoming real useless.

At the end, the only ones that matter are 4:
Unrelenting Force: For the lolz, cheap kill and staggering the Death Overlord Shouting Draugrs before they do it to you.
Whirlwind Spirit: For Speed when walking around the overland.
Become Ethereal: For base jumping.

Depending on Focus:
Dragonrend: Because sword swingers can't fly yet.
Throw Voice/Aura Whisper: Because the wind just killed their friend and surprises are annoying.
Storm Call: Because a wizard is all about doing it with style and maximizing collateral NPC deaths.

[Grue Bait]

Unrelenting Force: For the lolz, cheap kill and staggering the Death Overlord Shouting Draugrs before they do it to you.
...
Throw Voice/Aura Whisper: Because the wind just killed their friend and surprises are annoying.
Storm Call: Because a wizard is all about doing it with style and maximizing collateral NPC deaths.

Love doing the first and third.:smallbiggrin: and the second reminds me, "It must have been my imagination." Yeah, your imagination definitely perforated your brain.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Elemental Fury is a good shout too, I think. It won't work on enchanted weapons, but it adds soooooo much damage.

[TheEmerged]

Direct damage shouts never scale, so beyond level 10 they start becoming real useless.

At the end, the only ones that matter are 4:
Unrelenting Force: For the lolz, cheap kill and staggering the Death Overlord Shouting Draugrs before they do it to you.
Whirlwind Spirit: For Speed when walking around the overland.
Become Ethereal: For base jumping.

Depending on Focus:
Dragonrend: Because sword swingers can't fly yet.
Throw Voice/Aura Whisper: Because the wind just killed their friend and surprises are annoying.
Storm Call: Because a wizard is all about doing it with style and maximizing collateral NPC deaths.

Okay, I'm noticing a shout I use quite a bit not on that list - Slow Time. I only have it at 1 word, but it seems fairly effective once I get in range of a foe. Is this a case of something that loses power over time, or placebo effect (I'm kicking butt with it, but I'd be kicking butt without it so it's not contributing as much as I'd thought).

I've hit level 40, still in my fourth day of played time. I'm at the same point in the main quest (looks like my next mission is going under cover; the last thing I did was kill a named dragon). I've finished the "main line" for the Companions & Mage GuildCollege; pretty sure I have a few 'radiant'-type quests for both yet.

Conjuration is capped now, and I'm enjoying the Twin Souls perk. I took the perk to make bound weapons automatically soul trap, and I'm finding it a mixed blessing. I fill up my petty gems moderately quickly, and then they start going into my lesser gems. It's gotten so I don't carry anything but petty & lesser gems.

Restoration has hit 60 (primarily on the Equilibrium trick) so I have both points of the "mana regens faster" perk but not the "nerf undead" perk. One-handed hasn't quite hit 90 yet but I'm done with what I want from that tree.

Smithing has hit 80, largely on the strength of having taken the Dwarven Smithing perk and *many* trips back and forth from that Dwarven ruin (Mzfelt or something like that) from the mage guildcollege quest. I think I have one more trip to make there, come to think of it... I've been saving my dragon scales & bones in the eventual hope of taking the dragon smithing perk once I hit my planned build.

I primarily made Dwarven Shields and Bows, and then made use of my recently-learned paralyze enchant to dump a load of petty/lesser/common gems to level enchanting. I'm still selling the bows off, which will take a while due to still having >20 of them worth >1000 gold (between being Epic improved & paralyze enchant).

The slackers right now are Destruction (still), Alchemy, and Light Armor. Light Armor is the highest of the three; I have the perk for stamina regen on it but I'd like to hit the capstone before too long. Alchemy is just going to be a matter of buckling down & doing it; I have some +alchemy enchanted pieces (nothing too impressive yet) and a horde of ingredients ready to go. Destruction is... just not going anywhere. I have no perks in it and no perks to spare for several levels yet. I think the only thing I'm really using it for is some occasional softening up of targets as they run toward me, and for killing foxes/etc for their skins while out running.

I've decided to clean up my quest journal a bit before moving on to Riften / Thieves' Guild. I'm doing the nettlebane/tree quest, and I plan to do the quest for Azura's Star next (I have the "breadcrumb"). I think I may have missed something on the nettlebane/tree quest, though, apparently there's a pilgrim I'm supposed to meet on the way. Only thing I met on the way was an elder dragon...

[Triaxx]

Really depends on what I'm doing as to what shouts I'm using. Elemental Fury is awesome. I mean, combine berserker, elemental fury and a Legendary Ebony/Daedric Mace and you can quickly mince just about anything that decides to attack you.

I comboed just a berserk and dwarven mace and killed the named dragon before he got his skin on.

Animal Allegiance and Kyne's peace are pretty much the only two I don't use. Fire Breath is great for interspersing with other shouts to hit dragons on the wing, or while you're backing out of melee range. It's got just a bit of knock back and so it can interrupt an attack on you and keep you from dying.

Frost Breath is useful against warriors, slowing them down and quickly dumping stamina, so they don't power attack as much. The right timing of Ice Form can insta-kill a target as they sail off a cliff.

Disarm speaks for itself, and unlike the hand to hand disarming, it works on multiple opponents.

Dismay isn't as useful, though it can still be handy early on.

[Qwertystop]

Really depends on what I'm doing as to what shouts I'm using. Elemental Fury is awesome. I mean, combine berserker, elemental fury and a Legendary Ebony/Daedric Mace and you can quickly mince just about anything that decides to attack you.

I comboed just a berserk and dwarven mace and killed the named dragon before he got his skin on.

Animal Allegiance and Kyne's peace are pretty much the only two I don't use. Fire Breath is great for interspersing with other shouts to hit dragons on the wing, or while you're backing out of melee range. It's got just a bit of knock back and so it can interrupt an attack on you and keep you from dying.

Frost Breath is useful against warriors, slowing them down and quickly dumping stamina, so they don't power attack as much. The right timing of Ice Form can insta-kill a target as they sail off a cliff.

Disarm speaks for itself, and unlike the hand to hand disarming, it works on multiple opponents.

Dismay isn't as useful, though it can still be handy early on.

There's hand-to-hand disarming?

[Triaxx]

There might be, but I think I meant the sideways power attack having a chance to disarm an opponent. I blame it being really late at night.

[TheEmerged]

So, I mentioned my stash (>20) of Epic Dwarven Longbows of Paralysis I'd made and was working my way through. Um, that stash isn't as large as it was a while ago. I'm getting close to the end of my "gotta have 'em all" collection of enchants, and two of the holdouts were Fortify Heavy Armor and Banish.

I had both come up at the same time on a vendor. Banish was on a Glass-quality weapon, so it set me back 12 of those bows on its own. That leaves my list at Fortify Speech, Water Breathing, a couple of resist enchants (poison & disease, I think), and I think that's it.

I finished out the Nettlebane quest - seems the pilgrim was supposed to talk to me before I left the temple. Said pilgrim had pathing problems in the grove, but I eventually got it done. I also ran into an amusing bug where anytime I fast travel near that shrine, the dead body (not skeleton, body) of that elder dragon I killed on my first trip appears when I arrive.

As such, I've started the Azura's Star chain. I'm up to the point where I have the 'broken' star and quests to either take it back to the shrine or to that paranoid elf in the bar. I understand it to be in my interests to take it to the paranoid elf in the bar, despite my growing dislike of the golden elves in Skyrim :D

On that note, I noticed there's a staff to steal in his room worth 6k gold, but don't remember its name :smalleek: Urge to take up a life of theivery suddenly increasing...

Took a glance at my Alchemy skill, which is far behind where I thought it was. I may have to try grinding this a touch before I go to Riften.

[Triaxx]

Talk to the Jarl's steward. He wants you to steal the staff for him. Of course, then you can steal it back and sell it...

[Silverraptor]

So, whats a good enchanment for head gear that supports sword and shield type of character and where can I find it to disenchant it?

[The_Jackal]

Bam!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting_Effects

If you're looking for guidance, Fortify Destruction will increase the efficiency of fire/frost/shock enchants on your weapons, causing them to consume fewer charges per hit. Water breathing is a crummy pick, imo, since you can just throw it on a 0.3 lb. ring and explore to your heart's content.

[TheEmerged]

Okay, if I'm reading that link right, let me test an example. I'm going to want to make a set of Fortify Conjure clothing. This will be four pieces (head/neck/chest/finger). With the perk @ 100 enchanting, I can put two different enchants on the same item -- but they have to be different enchants. The page isn't clear on whether I can stack +conjure with +conjure & regen, which would only matter on the chest anyway...

The base increase is 8%. I need to use only a grand soul if I'm serious about the enchant. Without any +Enchant potions but a full spread of the perks & 100 skill, I'm looking at a x3.13 effect - resulting in the 25% figure I keep seeing. With the best possible +Enchant potion, that multiplier is x3.65, which comes up just shy of 30%. So I can (as I've seen around) make 2 schools free to cast, and with a bit of maximizing and twisting I could get 2 schools to 14% cost and a third school to 40% cost.

With the chest piece, I'd be getting only +18% (instead of +29) with 10% mana regen, compared to +73% mana regen (20*3.65) if I used one of the two chest slots for pure regen. Hmm... this also leaves me looking for good hands & feet slots (shield is pretty well marked for +block and +resist magic, unless there's one of those "something that looks better on paper than in practice" things I need to know about).

[t209]

Bam!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting_Effects

If you're looking for guidance, Fortify Destruction will increase the efficiency of fire/frost/shock enchants on your weapons, causing them to consume fewer charges per hit. Water breathing is a crummy pick, imo, since you can just throw it on a 0.3 lb. ring and explore to your heart's content.

How about Fortify Block on Shield?

[Arbitrarity]

Okay, if I'm reading that link right, let me test an example. I'm going to want to make a set of Fortify Conjure clothing. This will be four pieces (head/neck/chest/finger). With the perk @ 100 enchanting, I can put two different enchants on the same item -- but they have to be different enchants. The page isn't clear on whether I can stack +conjure with +conjure & regen, which would only matter on the chest anyway...

The base increase is 8%. I need to use only a grand soul if I'm serious about the enchant. Without any +Enchant potions but a full spread of the perks & 100 skill, I'm looking at a x3.13 effect - resulting in the 25% figure I keep seeing. With the best possible +Enchant potion, that multiplier is x3.65, which comes up just shy of 30%. So I can (as I've seen around) make 2 schools free to cast, and with a bit of maximizing and twisting I could get 2 schools to 14% cost and a third school to 40% cost.

With the chest piece, I'd be getting only +18% (instead of +29) with 10% mana regen, compared to +73% mana regen (20*3.65) if I used one of the two chest slots for pure regen. Hmm... this also leaves me looking for good hands & feet slots (shield is pretty well marked for +block and +resist magic, unless there's one of those "something that looks better on paper than in practice" things I need to know about).

Actually, don't bother with Conj/Regen. Only the regen gets multiplied, so they tend to suck. Just stuff another Fortify in there.
Also, don't forget to make a full set of Fortify Smithing/Alch, and potions to match. Results in effective 875 smithing skill. That lets you max out your armor value in Dragonhide with no armor perks (or anything better than Steel, actually, as long as you have the smithing perk). It also makes your weapons pretty ridiculous (+46 base damage, which is triple to quadruple damage, depending on the weapon)

[t209]

Do you guys wonder if Dragonborn shouts (Unrelenting Force) are rip off from D&D Shout spell? OR if Wizards decide to put thrown across the room power to shout spell (people says that 4 e is more like WoW).

[Coidzor]

No, not particularly at all, ever.

[The_Jackal]

As Arbitrarity points out, the discount/regen enchant is a bad choice, because the skill bonuses to effect only apply to the mana regen, whose full effect is only applied out of combat.

At 100 enchanting and your centerline perks all chosen, you can put 2 effect on any one piece, as long as they're not different, as TheEmerged says. Each fortify school enchant will be 25% (max skill, centerline perks, grand soul), before taking Fortify Enchanting potions. So four pieces of fortify school will reduce that school's mana costs to zero, making mana regeneration (as well as any characteristic increases to mana) totally redundant for that school.

As for fortify block, given that you can quite easily cap out your physical resistance through armour (567 worn armor rating gives 85%), with the right investments into enchanting and smithing perks, in virtually any suit of armour, I'd say that the marginal gain from fortify block is amazingly low. Instead, I'd drop fortify health and resist magic on the shield, ensuring that you're capped for magic resist and just generally tougher.

Having played a dual weilder and seen how invulnerable you become with maxed armour, maxed magic resist and high health, I don't even know I'd bother to perk blocking at all. Vanilla bash is usually all you need to stagger enemies trying to power attack you, and at that point, all you're carrying the shield for is another enchant slot and bonus armour.

[Arcran]

Do you guys wonder if Dragonborn shouts (Unrelenting Force) are rip off from D&D Shout spell? OR if Wizards decide to put thrown across the room power to shout spell (people says that 4 e is more like WoW).

Seriously? Not everything in Skyrim has to be based off something DnD related.

[t209]

Seriously? Not everything in Skyrim has to be based off something DnD related.

Oh Well, I just will just ask the difference between Shout Spell and Unrelenting Force. I know that they are voice based attack.

[factotum]

Shout does sonic damage to a target. Unrelenting Force throws a target backwards but doesn't necessarily damage it (unless it falls off a cliff). Other than them both having a vague association with the mouth area, not seeing much of a link there. (And along similar lines, this clearly means that Soul Trap is a ripoff of the D&D spell Soul Bind since they both have the word "Soul" in their names... :smallsigh:).

[Fri]

You should've just said that skyrim's fireball is based on dnd's fireball :smallwink:

And flames is definitely based on burning hand!

Hmm... power attack? Is skyrim's power attack is based on dnd's power attack?

Wait, both game also have 'stealth' skill. And they're also used in roughly the same manner, to sneak around undetected!

The point is, there's something called convergent evolution.

[Arbitrarity]

As Arbitrarity points out, the discount/regen enchant is a bad choice, because the skill bonuses to effect only apply to the mana regen, whose full effect is only applied out of combat.

At 100 enchanting and your centerline perks all chosen, you can put 2 effect on any one piece, as long as they're not different, as TheEmerged says. Each fortify school enchant will be 25% (max skill, centerline perks, grand soul), before taking Fortify Enchanting potions. So four pieces of fortify school will reduce that school's mana costs to zero, making mana regeneration (as well as any characteristic increases to mana) totally redundant for that school.

As for fortify block, given that you can quite easily cap out your physical resistance through armour (567 worn armor rating gives 85%), with the right investments into enchanting and smithing perks, in virtually any suit of armour, I'd say that the marginal gain from fortify block is amazingly low. Instead, I'd drop fortify health and resist magic on the shield, ensuring that you're capped for magic resist and just generally tougher.

Having played a dual weilder and seen how invulnerable you become with maxed armour, maxed magic resist and high health, I don't even know I'd bother to perk blocking at all. Vanilla bash is usually all you need to stagger enemies trying to power attack you, and at that point, all you're carrying the shield for is another enchant slot and bonus armour.

Block actually stacks multiplicatively with armor, which is VERY useful. Cutting damage to 3% from 20% is great, especially considering, say, Draugr Death Lords deal something like 300 base damage with arrows on Master. You can shrug that off while blocking, but if you try to tank it, even at armor cap, it chunks your health a fair bit. Of course, you don't need to perk block at all to hit the block cap, with an enchantment, so meh.
Mind you, I still don't really get that much use out of it. Mostly good for tanking Dragon fire, though I bet Spellbreaker will come in handy when I pick it up.

[Fri]

By the way, for beginners, what are the easiest way to get money in Skyrim?

[Qwertystop]

By the way, for beginners, what are the easiest way to get money in Skyrim?

At low levels, find a Woodcutter's Axe and a woodchopping block. There are people in various towns who will buy chopped wood for a good price. Also, you can use it to upgrade basic bows.

[Avilan the Grey]

At low levels, find a Woodcutter's Axe and a woodchopping block. There are people in various towns who will buy chopped wood for a good price. Also, you can use it to upgrade basic bows.

Definitely. Patience is needed, but you can get UNLIMITED money chopping wood. Especially handy when you try to buy good starting gear at the beginning.

[Triaxx]

Not to make an argument here, but if you delve into the Elder Scrolls lore the entire series is actually derived from PnP games played by several of the original creators. And Ultima Underworld.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_history_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_series

Under influences.

[Fri]

Isn't ultima underworld is basically influencing all 3d adventure games beyond that? Tomb rider, elder scroll, you name it.

Aand okay, I'll put the idea of becoming a fulltime woodchopper in my head. After that, any other way to make money in skyrim? Like, I mean, after you chop enough wood to get good starting gear and gain a few level, I guess.

[TheEmerged]

As the others suggested, upgrading the stuff you find (bows etc) is worth some coin -- there's a reason smithing is probably going to be my second skill to cap out. I also made a fair bit of coin just bulk-producing low-end weapons & armor from the stuff I got walking from place & killing the elks/bears/foxes.

The bulk my my money right now has come from a single clean sweep of a dwarven ruin - the one for the college quest (Nzufelt or something like that). Yes, it took me 4-5 runs with a follower to get everything out. I still have over a hundred bars of dwarven ore to work through, too. Combine that with my recently-earned Banish enchant and the Conjuration perk that has turned me into a soul-stealing machine, and I can't sell those now>2k gold bows fast enough.

In other news, scored the Muffle and Speech enchants so that leaves Resist Disease, Resist Poison, Water Breathing, and some obscure "off of one item" type enchants for my collection. I used the first Grand Soul from my Black Star to make a +20% alchemy ring :smallbiggrin: I don't want to do too much yet, since I'm 2 pts of Enchant Skill shy of the +100% perk.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah. Even if you don't perk Smithing, making stuff with all the hides you get from random animals is good. Hide gear and random potions/poisons you make (but have no use for) are a source of money that nearly builds up on its own.

[t209]

When I first played Skyrim (the only WRPG I played), I found the unique things.
1. The Empire is not portrayed as Star Wars Galactic Empire. They're pretty Benevolent even though they sold out their own emperor god instead of keep fighting (sold out redguards who kicked the high elves asses after leaving Titus "The Man") but The Riverwood Blacksmiths said that The Empire ignore their Emperor god worship
Until Ulfric started his rebellion in skyrim.
2. The rebels are like Viking William Wallace and Rebel alliance but their tactics also weakened the crumbling empire. They're also racist
Their leader is an unwitting pawn to the elves. Possible to end them like Azurite Resistance in 827 except I soultrap Galmar Stonefist (is it possible to use atronach to execute Ulfric?)
3. Evil Elves that is all.

[The_Jackal]

Block actually stacks multiplicatively with armor, which is VERY useful. Cutting damage to 3% from 20% is great, especially considering, say, Draugr Death Lords deal something like 300 base damage with arrows on Master. You can shrug that off while blocking, but if you try to tank it, even at armor cap, it chunks your health a fair bit. Of course, you don't need to perk block at all to hit the block cap, with an enchantment, so meh.
Mind you, I still don't really get that much use out of it. Mostly good for tanking Dragon fire, though I bet Spellbreaker will come in handy when I pick it up.

It's true that block stacks multiplicatively with armour, but that doesn't mean it's worth doing. So to take your 300 base damage arrow example, you'll take 60 damage. Sure, max blocking will knock another 51 points off that, making your character functionally immortal. Except that blocking precludes attacking with your weapon, and your Draugr Deathlord will drop in a few hits of that weapon.

And the tradeoff to enchanting for block is that you're passing up the other two choices I recommended as better: Magic Resist and Health. Given that magic/elemental attacks hit harder and are harder to avoid than your Draugr Deathlord shooting arrows, and that Magic Resist is harder to cap, I don't think anyone is going to argue that that's the no-brainer pick for the shield. So it really comes down to health vs. blocking. So, at capped 80% armor reduction, the blocking enchant will shave off 51 points of your putative 300 damage arrow. But since 80% armor also quintuples the effect of a health enchant, the 62 health you get from the health enchant counts as 310 health added to your base, meaning your Draugr Deathlord needs to stick you 6 times with before you're at break-even. I don't know about you, but I have no intention of letting him live that long, and even if he does, getting that 62 health back is just a matter of quaffing a single health potion. And most importantly, extra health just WORKS, all the time, versus physical and elemental damage.

[CrimsonAngel]

Doesn't Unarmed scale worse than everything ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBiNx749Zw That's why only vikings can handle it.

Hey guys, I've been playing Skyrim for about a month.

I

*disappears into the shadows*

[t209]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBiNx749Zw That's why only vikings can handle it.

Hey guys, I've been playing Skyrim for about a month.

I

*disappears into the shadows*

I thought it is better with Thundercats.

[Arbitrarity]

It's true that block stacks multiplicatively with armour, but that doesn't mean it's worth doing. So to take your 300 base damage arrow example, you'll take 60 damage. Sure, max blocking will knock another 51 points off that, making your character functionally immortal. Except that blocking precludes attacking with your weapon, and your Draugr Deathlord will drop in a few hits of that weapon.

And the tradeoff to enchanting for block is that you're passing up the other two choices I recommended as better: Magic Resist and Health. Given that magic/elemental attacks hit harder and are harder to avoid than your Draugr Deathlord shooting arrows, and that Magic Resist is harder to cap, I don't think anyone is going to argue that that's the no-brainer pick for the shield. So it really comes down to health vs. blocking. So, at capped 80% armor reduction, the blocking enchant will shave off 51 points of your putative 300 damage arrow. But since 80% armor also quintuples the effect of a health enchant, the 62 health you get from the health enchant counts as 310 health added to your base, meaning your Draugr Deathlord needs to stick you 6 times with before you're at break-even. I don't know about you, but I have no intention of letting him live that long, and even if he does, getting that 62 health back is just a matter of quaffing a single health potion. And most importantly, extra health just WORKS, all the time, versus physical and elemental damage.

Well, I have Block/MR. Since I switch between training 2h, dual wielding, backstabbing, bow, Destruction, and S&S, I suspect health wouldn't be that useful. Not like it matters. I don't even use (very low cost) potions to buff my stats for fights, I forget to use shouts, haven't used racial power in ages. Game is just too easy once you get properly made gear, regardless of difficulty setting. Kinda makes sense though, since if you equip wrong, you die.

[Triaxx]

Not me. Shouts have with the exception of sneak attacks, and there an exception for Throw Voice, become a part of my combat style to the point I keep tapping Z while playing New Vegas.

And my favorite racial still has to be the Orc berserk. When it just needs to die. NOW. Though against that Death Lord, combining block, armor and Berserk means it does perhaps four or five damage, and then you can kill it with a single shot.

[PhallicWarrior]

Just got the game, and have been playing my first char very RP-Heavy. Loosely-defined backstory and all.


Adama, Imperial, Warrior-skill focused. Former Imperial Blade, sent to Skyrim off the books to try to destabilize the Stormcloak Rebellion. Name struck from the books, declared dead, Blade gear destroyed/redistributed, the whole deal. Absolutely ready to do anything and everything necessary to accomplish his goal, followed by a quiet life in Imperial Skyrim.

That is, until he got caught sneaking across the border and was sentenced to die for the crime of being near some Stormcloaks while they were doing the same. As a result, he's basically abandoned the mission and fallen in with Ralouf and the people of Riverwood, where he's staying until he figures out what he wants to do with his life. As far as anyone outside of his Blades superior is concerned, he's a nobody, so he can't exactly go back to Cyrodiil with no identity. As of my latest save, he's making a living in Riverwood by chopping wood, hunting, and selling the potions he makes from stuff he harvests.


Loving it so far, and so does my sister. She had me roll up a Wood Elf Rogue today. Could be a while before I get to go back to Adama...

[Flickerdart]

Was running around the south today on my unarmed character, looking for Autumnwatch Tower to kill the dragon on it. Naturally, I got sidetracked by some guy's shack, who told me to go kill a superskeever. Then it turned out there was a way up the mountain behind the shack, so I followed that, and after engaging in battle with a Blood Dragon and a Draugr Death Overlord (who used up all of my potions!) I followed the rest of the path, climbing a bunch of stairs and towers to get...Withershins, which I already read and didn't get the bonus. What a letdown.

Then I fast-travelled back to Autumnwatch, thinking I had already killed that dragon back in the mountains. Nope! Not only was there a new dragon, but Alduin showed up, and was flying around observing how his underling was doing, so there were two dragons swooping around. Pretty epic.

[druid91]

Interesting glitch I've discovered. However spoilers on the Dark brotherhood quest.

Ok so after you complete Innocence lost, and get kidnapped. once you kill the people in the shack, if you strip them, raise them with a staff of zombies, and then change areas (Walking through a door or gate that loads, fast travel doesn't seem to work.) Their inventory respawns. For as long as you keep raising them.

[TheEmerged]

And now for the update on Day 5 played.

Smithing remains on pace to be my 2nd skill to 100, thanks to being sent to a second dwarven ruin for one of those "nifty ability" quests (Unfathomable Depths). I've been emptying merchants of iron ingots & ore to keep up with the number of dwarven ingots I need to make bows with. My one-handed skill (the bulk of my damage) is currently in 3rd at 91, with enchanting in the mid-80's. Enchanting will probably be the 3rd skill to 100, though, as I have more control over it...

I'm officially calling the Conjuration perk to automatically soul-trap things with bound weapons a mixed blessing. Has it done wonders for my collection of petty/lesser/common soul gems, and therefore been a boon to my efforts to train Enchanting as well as my bank account? Oh heck yeah. Has it caused my Azura's Star to get stuck with sub-grand souls when I didn't realize I was out of gems? Yes. In fact, I created a sword with the Absorb Stamina enchant explicitly so I'd have something to recharge if that happens again.

Restoration has hit the 'magic' number of 70 for the perk I want (Necromage), and I'm not far from earning the perk point for it. This will, of course, assure that I never run into an undead mob again :smalltongue: Okay, yeah, those dragon priests are undead, so maybe I'm due for a Shearpoint rematch...

I nearly doubled my Alchemy score over the last day played, which isn't as impressive as it might sound. I spent my Sunday night gametime going down the list of alchemy reagents and making potions solely in the interest of unlocking all four effects for every ingredient I could. There were 2 I simply didn't have (I understand 1 exists as a single quest drop) and one I messed up on (Daedra Hearts). I have the perk up to +60% and I have the +25% bonus to skill potions perk. I get +86% from +alchemy items right now, and I won't be making more of those until enchanting hits 100.

I'm starting to consider when I should pick the main quest back up. My original plan read: "Get to level 50. Get my main combat skills (Conjuration, One Handed, Light Armor) all to 100 with the capstone perks." Conjuration is there, One Handed is on the way, and 50 could happen just from leveling alchemy right now.

It's Light Armor that's giving me fits at the moment, at all of 75 or so. Apparently I'm doing too good a job of killing things before they hurt me... I've confirmed that this skills up based on the damage dealt (before reduction) not the damage taken (after reduction) from multiple sources. As an experiment last night, I let a bear beat up on me while I healed whenever I got low. This handily got me my last point to the Resto talent (#70), but wasn't as passive as I'd hoped. I got a couple of skillups in Light Armor before a spider joined the fight and killing was called for.

My armor right now is all light, but is something of a hodgepodge (the boots are scaled +sneak, the gloves are glass +lockpicking, the chest is elven +conjure,and the helm is glass +regen) - essentially whatever I've been able to find that is light armor and at least halfway useful. I didn't want to put too much work into it until I had the full spread of perks I wanted.

Well, last dungeon I scored not one, not two, but THREE glass shields. One was Resist Magic, one was Fortify Block, one was blank (for the future!). I was struck with a bit of inspiration, so I did a little checking and right now a fully-improved Elven armor set will have more armor value than I could improve a Glass set to (I don't have the Glass Smithing perk yet, it's planned as a post-50th level perk). I'm pretty sure I have the mats for some Elven pieces stored at home... So I'm thinking of making an Elven set, improving it, enchanting it for +Light Armor, equipping my Glass Shield of Blocking... and finding a bear and letting it beat on me while I read a book or something. I wonder how many Block points I'll get along the way.

[t209]

Yeah he rebels against authority. The Empire counts as an authority.

I forgot to give you a quote from Tiber Septim,
"The Empire is the law, The law is sacred".

[Howler Dagger]

So, I just got Skyrim and I have murdered thee entire population of Riverwood. Is this a problem?

[druid91]

Creating a ghetto for one non-Nord race and fencing another off at the Docks? Ulfric sure is a hero.

IIRC the Dunmer made that Ghetto themselves. They wallow in their fake oppression and so the place falls apart around them.

I still question why the heck Argonians are up north anyway. I could maybe understand Riften. But windhelm? It's always snowing there. They should be freezing to death just trying to reach the place.


So, I just got Skyrim and I have murdered thee entire population of Riverwood. Is this a problem?

That depends. Most of them are quest givers so they should get back up.

As for the rest... can you kill them faster than they can kill you?

[Howler Dagger]

That depends. Most of them are quest givers so they should get back up.

As for the rest... can you kill them faster than they can kill you?

No, I actually killed most of them, but I have already served my time for my 2000 gold bounty

[t209]

IIRC the Dunmer made that Ghetto themselves. They wallow in their fake oppression and so the place falls apart around them.

I still question why the heck Argonians are up north anyway. I could maybe understand Riften. But windhelm? It's always snowing there. They should be freezing to death just trying to reach the place.

Dunmer told me that Ulfric taxed them more than other people.
For Argonians, maybe Windhelm is much more near than Riften.
IIRC, that a group of Nord thought that Dunmers were spies to Imperials and the Aldmeri Dominion.
Does Nord and Dunmer racial tension (Since the war with Chimer with Dwemer allies) has to do with Viking hatred of Trow (Viking version of Drow except they're white)?
Don't forget about how Ulfric attacked Forsworn invaders. According to this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12527887&postcount=6), They're just different.
P.S- what is race relation between Nords and Orcs (Both of them are about hitting people)?

[druid91]

Dunmer told me that Ulfric taxed them more than other people.
For Argonians, maybe Windhelm is much more near than Riften.
IIRC, that a group of Nord thought that Dunmers were spies to Imperials and the Aldmeri Dominion.
Does Nord and Dunmer racial tension (Since the war with Chimer with Dwemer allies) has to do with Viking hatred of Trow (Viking version of Drow except they're white)?
Don't forget about how Ulfric attacked Forsworn invaders. According to this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12527887&postcount=6), They're just different.
P.S- what is race relation between Nords and Orcs (Both of them are about hitting people)?

And one of the Dunmer living in the gray quarter told me that he was ashamed of his family, just as they were ashamed of him. Because he decided to go out and work for a living. Instead of simply blaming it on discrimination and do nothing. All things point to it being the dunmer community collectively playing the victim card to get by.

Windhelm is almost as far up north as Winterhold. They'd have to pass through riften to get there.

[Silverraptor]

No, I actually killed most of them, but I have already served my time for my 2000 gold bounty

You know, this actually disturbs me. Most people would get life imprisonment or years for killing someone. In skyrim, looks like just a few days.

O.O

[druid91]

You know, this actually disturbs me. Most people would get life imprisonment or years for killing someone. In skyrim, looks like just a few days.

O.O

Hey, I killed 23 people. 22 of which were Guards trying to arrest me for the first murder.

My penalty? About a week in jail. About a month later when they finally replaced the guards.

[Grue Bait]

You know, this actually disturbs me. Most people would get life imprisonment or years for killing someone. In skyrim, looks like just a few days.

O.O

Heh. Not even that. Walk into a small town like Rorikstead, and use the Storm Call shout. It'll kill almost everybody there, and you should be able to wipe up the stragglers. No bounty if nobody sees, see? :smallwink:

Needless to say, my character is of less than good moral standing.

[Knight13]

Smithing remains on pace to be my 2nd skill to 100, thanks to being sent to a second dwarven ruin for one of those "nifty ability" quests (Unfathomable Depths).
Heh, you probably should have done that one first, since the ability you get at the end of Avanchnzel makes your blacksmithing go up 15% faster. It's usually one of the first quests I do.

[t209]

Heh, you probably should have done that one first, since the ability you get at the end of Avanchnzel makes your blacksmithing go up 15% faster. It's usually one of the first quests I do.

Plug you get better stat with Dwarven Armor.

[TheEmerged]

Heh, you probably should have done that one first, since the ability you get at the end of Avanchnzel makes your blacksmithing go up 15% faster. It's usually one of the first quests I do.

Yeah, when I read through them the first time I only noticed the +armor bonus when wearing Dwarven armor and I always go with Light armor in these games. I won't complain too hard, it served those last 20 points of smithing skillups well. I officially scored 100 last night with the purchase of 6 extra dwarven ingots.

I also shored up my Light Armor skill with the help of a couple of mudcrabs just outside Whiterun. It didn't quite hit 90, but it got high enough I'm not worried about doing so now. I actually got 2 levels between it and block alone, and nearly got a third one before I was interrupted by an elder dragon :smallamused:

Just for the record, I got more skillups from those 2 mudcrabs than I did with a sabre cat I tried it with first. The sabre cat wasted most of its time trying to flank me.

My "training" set is somewhat amusing, actually. I forgot a Fortify Skill enchant can't go on head or feet, so I ended up enchanting the head with waterbreathing and the feet with Carry Weight. Between the six pieces, my Light Armor skill is in the 180's when wearing this set.

My first test with a +Enchanting potion was a disappointment though. It only lasted long enough for me to make 1 item, and that was with a 3-ingredient potion. Guess I'd better level Alchemy some more then...

[Silverraptor]

In Sovengard. Aulduin's days are numbered to less than 1.:smallamused:

[t209]

Do you think Redguards (before Oblivion) are meant to be played as Dashing Swordsmen (Redguards are adventurers and proficient with long blade)? Except Elderscrolls started this in the game before D&D or this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0390.html) (Elderscrolls Adventures: Redguards).

[Arcran]

DnD was around long before Elder Scrolls.

[pffh]

Do you think Redguards (before Oblivion) are meant to be played as Dashing Swordsmen (Redguards are adventurers and proficient with long blade)? Except Elderscrolls started this in the game before D&D or this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0390.html) (Elderscrolls Adventures: Redguards).

They also got bonuses to heavy armor, medium armor, axes, blunt weapons, short blades and athletics so in a word no. They are the ultimate soldier.

[Arcran]

If anything the Skyrim Nords would be the closest due to Light Armor, One-Handed and Speech, but even that is a pretty major stretch. Dashing Swordsman isn't really fitting in TES universe.

[Howler Dagger]

Do Khajit claws benefit from the One-Handed perk?

[Flickerdart]

You mean the perk tree? As far as I know, no.

[t209]

If anything the Skyrim Nords would be the closest due to Light Armor, One-Handed and Speech, but even that is a pretty major stretch. Dashing Swordsman isn't really fitting in TES universe.

No They're barbarians (Dashing swordsmen's rapier are one handed while Nord favors going conan (greatsword) or going viking (great axe)).
I think I mistake Cyrus as typical redguard (Cyrus is more of a dashing swordsman).
P.S- Do you think Thalmors are Genre Savvy about players infiltrating their HQ and read about Ulfric Stormcloak
? I mean according TV Trope, if I side with the empire, thalmor can benefit from White Gold Concordat. But if Stormcloaks win, Empire will be destabilized and skyrim could fall due to lack of allies.
I am feeling that Skyrim is Elderscrolls version of Azure City Resistance arc (Nearly Good Guys are losing and bad guys are winning).

[Arcran]

I was simply going off of your logic of Good with Sword+Adventurer=Dashing Swordsman.

And no, the Empire is like the Roman Empire far more than the Azure City arc. Outer reaches rebelling against it and a foreign force decimating them? Anyways, the enitre Empire is based off of Rome. Azure City resistance is an underequipped band fighting against overwhelming odds. The Empire is a powerful political body that has lost control over its own people resulting in an opening that the Thalmor decided to exploit.

[t209]

I was simply going off of your logic of Good with Sword+Adventurer=Dashing Swordsman.

And no, the Empire is like the Roman Empire far more than the Azure City arc. Outer reaches rebelling against it and a foreign force decimating them? Anyways, the enitre Empire is based off of Rome. Azure City resistance is an underequipped band fighting against overwhelming odds. The Empire is a powerful political body that has lost control over its own people resulting in an opening that the Thalmor decided to exploit.

No what i mean is that Playing skyrim is like reading the strip 825-827 of OOTS. Watching the empire that you have supported for entire Elderscrolls saga crumbles is kinda sad. No matter how you side with any factions in Civil War, Thalmor still wins.

[Flickerdart]

Nah. The Thalmor win if you let both sides fight. An end to the Skyrim conflict either way means that the Empire is no longer distracted by Skyrim.

[t209]

Nah. The Thalmor win if you let both sides fight. An end to the Skyrim conflict either way means that the Empire is no longer distracted by Skyrim.
But The empire will still licking the boots of Thalmor, so thalmor still wins.
Plus their army will be weak from the fighting (well, not as weak as stalemate but still weak).
I only chose Empire because Ulfric Stormcloak is a Thalmor agent and I like Tulius better. I hope I chose the right faction.

[Flickerdart]

Plus their army will be weak from the fighting (well, not as weak as stalemate but still weak).
Not really. The amount of Imperial forces in Skyrim was fairly minimal, all things considered. Most of them were Nords themselves.

[druid91]

But The empire will still licking the boots of Thalmor, so thalmor still wins.
Plus their army will be weak from the fighting (well, not as weak as stalemate but still weak).
I only chose Empire because Ulfric Stormcloak is a Thalmor agent and I like Tulius better. I hope I chose the right faction.

Ulfric stormcloak is a thalmor asset Not an agent.

His rebellion distracts the empire so it's good for the Thalmor.

A stormcloak skyrim would be a nightmare for the Thalmor.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Ulfric stormcloak is a thalmor asset Not an agent.

His rebellion distracts the empire so it's good for the Thalmor.

A stormcloak skyrim would be a nightmare for the Thalmor.
This is true, and cannot be understated. Ulfric didn't swear allegiance to the Thalmor. They manipulated him in the past, and while the Thalmor benefit from the Civil War, that's definitely not Ulfric's intention. No matter which side you pick in the Civil War, the Thalmor still suffer a setback in that they now have their enemies' undivided attention. I still support the Empire because I think Ulfric's selfish and manipulative, caring more about image and symbolism than the actual plight of Skyrim, but that more boils down to a personal dislike of the man instead of believing the Stormcloaks will doom Skyrim.

[Darklord Bright]

Well, I finally got around to finishing the main quest today. The Alduin stuff I mean, I couldn't really care less about the feud when there are dragons about. Speaking of which:
Getting the brief treaty between the factions for the main quest was hilarious in how much Ulfric whined through the whole thing, even when his side of the deal was far better. :smalltongue: He really is a petulant leader. "If you don't agree to my every whim I'm taking my ball and going home!" indeed. The world is apparently going to end if we don't kill Alduin, dude! You're a "True Nord" aren't you? You should at least understand that!
But that's beside the point. I actually really enjoyed the main plot, with a few frustrating bits here and there. I played through the whole thing on my Breton sneak-archer and it was a blast! There's just one thing that nags at me though...
Dragonrend. With a name like that, and the fact that they built it up as this whole "Created by people who really hated dragons, it forces them to understand mortality and is really cruel and stuff." thing, and then all it does it make them glow and land for a minute or two? Kinda underwhelming. I was hoping for a 'Crash to the ground' effect like some of my earlier kills when I shot dragons so that they actually created huge meteor-trails in the ground. Plus, as an archer, forcing them to stay on the ground is actually NOT a good idea. :smalltongue: Teeth hurt! Ah well.
All in all, though, I really enjoyed it! There were a few actually really close and tense fights through there, and it's one of the few RPGs I've actually put aside my alternate character making reflexes for long enough to finish the main plot. Good fun!

[t209]

One strange thing about the civil war is that both side have their own counterpart.
1. Riften (Stormcloak) and Markath (Imperial)
- Black Briar owns Riften while Silver-Blood family owns Markath
- Both of them are filled with poverty and crimes (More poverty on bretons in Markath and More crime on Riften)
-At the end of civil war, Maven will become the jarl with the help of the imperials while Thonvar will become the jarl with the help of stormcloaks.
- Both of them are Smug Snakes and Karma Houdini but Silver-Bloods are more evil since
they murder political opponents and took the mines of native bretons using Forsworns assasins. What would Silver Blood alignment be? (And also Madanach, King of Forsworn).

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Well, I finally got around to finishing the main quest today. The Alduin stuff I mean, I couldn't really care less about the feud when there are dragons about.

This sums up the entirety of my opinion of the civil war plotline.

[Fri]

After hanging around in skyrim for a while, I have two major disappointment on it.

1. Even more limited magical customization. I mean, the enchantment system is less than even Oblivion, and you can't even make custom spells. Man, making custom spells was my favourite part of morrowind and oblivion!

2. Skyrim is such a dump. Really, at least in oblivion, major cities have the gall to be major. Here, I visit what marked in the map as a major city, and they have like two houses, an inn, and the jarl's palace. What a sad place to be a jarl.

Anyway, do I have to pick a side in the civil war?

[Volthawk]

2. Skyrim is such a dump. Really, at least in oblivion, major cities have the gall to be major. Here, I visit what marked in the map as a major city, and they have like two houses, an inn, and the jarl's palace. What a sad place to be a jarl.


Sounds like Winterhold to me. If it is, note that it used to be a bigger city, but most of it collapsed into the sea before the game started (the local Nords suspect the College was behind it in some form).

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Anyway, do I have to pick a side in the civil war?

Nope. You can mostly ignore it, though if you do you'll have to briefly get involved to broker a truce between the two sides so you can deal with the dragons. And you can't get the house in Windhelm until you either earn Ulfric's trust by working for him or conquering the city for the Empire. Other than that, though, your involvement in the war can end right after you arrive in Riverwood if you choose.

[pffh]

And you can't get the house in Windhelm until you either earn Ulfric's trust by working for him or conquering the city for the Empire.

Yes you can. I got it long before even starting the civil war questline.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Really? I thought in order to get it you had to either have Ulfric's trust or put Brunwulf in power. :smallconfused:

[pffh]

Really? I thought in order to get it you had to either have Ulfric's trust or put Brunwulf in power. :smallconfused:

All I know is that I got all the houses (and Windhelm was my second house) before finishing the main questline and I didn't start the civil war questline until I was sure I had done almost every other quest in the game first.

[Triaxx]

The house is actually related to quests you've done in the city. I think being able to buy Hjerim is related almost entirely to Blood on the Ice.

[Flickerdart]

I'd recommend doing the Civil War early on though. Doing it when you're legendary Dovakhiin, slayer of gods and all around badass turns it from a major struggle involving dozens of men fighting along with you to a mop-up operation starring You, with some annoying people you're not supposed to kill tagging along.

[Lamech]

I'd recommend doing the Civil War early on though. Doing it when you're legendary Dovakhiin, slayer of gods and all around badass turns it from a major struggle involving dozens of men fighting along with you to a mop-up operation starring You, with some annoying people you're not supposed to kill tagging along.Wow, wow, wow. Are you telling me there were people I wasn't supposed to kill? Ah man I think I screwed up a lot of those missions. /silly But yes basically correct. Those missions are a bit weak with storm call or summon dragon.

[t209]

I'd recommend doing the Civil War early on though. Doing it when you're legendary Dovakhiin, slayer of gods and all around badass turns it from a major struggle involving dozens of men fighting along with you to a mop-up operation starring You, with some annoying people you're not supposed to kill tagging along.

I did and
Kodlak and Ulfric praise me for the victory over Dovahkiin. I still see Galmar even though I soul trap him.

[Triaxx]

I've started a short lived character, a redguard who's sole purpose is to complete the civil war for the imperials. So far I'm less than impressed. The Stormcloaks ask me to kill an Icewraith. Not strictly an easy task, but not that impossible.

The imps? Oh, go clear out this bandit infested fortress. I'm not sure if that's confidence in my abilities, or just trying to get me killed. Not that I can't do it, but seriously.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I've started a short lived character, a redguard who's sole purpose is to complete the civil war for the imperials. So far I'm less than impressed. The Stormcloaks ask me to kill an Icewraith. Not strictly an easy task, but not that impossible.

The imps? Oh, go clear out this bandit infested fortress. I'm not sure if that's confidence in my abilities, or just trying to get me killed. Not that I can't do it, but seriously.
Or it could be they wanted to capture a strategically important location and what better way to test your loyalty and ability than to sic their new Dovahkiin recruit on 'em?

[Hazzardevil]

So, I was browsing mods for skyrim, I found a rather good one.

Here's some pictures I took of it.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559811256423010942/9A2E1DD606E393FA59BCCB6951F0502526C8E6C8/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559811256423006943/94EA5B8D912C6904AD58CA84D5DD7DEDA36E540A/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559811256423015066/0541613E3DF9A00E50B931B2CF63916B08ED563D/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559811256423008683/84C8DF61AF29DCDE5CA5E13A61CE6051DBD9AD4F/


Evidently the Adeptus Astartes enjoy getting drunk on one of the

[Cespenar]

I've started a short lived character, a redguard who's sole purpose is to complete the civil war for the imperials. So far I'm less than impressed. The Stormcloaks ask me to kill an Icewraith. Not strictly an easy task, but not that impossible.

The imps? Oh, go clear out this bandit infested fortress. I'm not sure if that's confidence in my abilities, or just trying to get me killed. Not that I can't do it, but seriously.

So, Bethesda is apparently uninspired in their quests? Gee, that's news to me. :smalltongue:

[TheEmerged]

So, enchanting & smithing hit 100 now but it's going to be a while for alchemy. Now that I can put two enchants on things I might as well enchant that "crafting" set I had planned first (+alchemy & +smithing to 100, a few ancillery enchantings). It's a good thing I've been buying up Grand Souls since this is going to cost a fortune of them...

...wait, why is it only letting me select one gem for enchanting even with two enchants? It couldn't be true that this perk is letting me put two enchants for the same soul is it?

Oh my :smallbiggrin: THERE'S a happy little detail that snuck up on me. I ended up being able to make my crafting set *and* most of my adventuring set with the grand souls I'd planning for just the crafting set. Add a couple more souls and my adventuring set was done too.

In other news, 100 smithing + perk to improve armor + a full set of smithing enchants = easily broken armor cap, as some of you were nice enough to warn me before I burnt too many perk points on the +armor talent. In my adventuring set, I break it without using the shield.

That in turn led to my next little discovery. I ran into a random bear while walking to my next word wall, and noticed I was close to the next point of both destruction & light armor. So I beaned him with firebolts until I was out of mana, then let him beat on me while my mana recovered... On a lark, I loaded the Healing Hands spell to see if I could heal the bear. Yes, you can in fact heal the bear :smallredface: Suddenly it doesn't look like Destruction is going to be as hard to cap as I'd come to fear, and I'll be able to level restoration, block, and armor a bit in the meantime.

====================

Finally, I've hit a snag. The last update did something to my video settings and I'm having trouble finding useful help on it. My screen goes grey underwater; I had this problem in WoW once up a time and there was some setting that eliminated it, but I can't find what the setting was in WoW nor anything helpful about it for Skyrim. I also get a weird "flicker" effect on some walls when moving but that's very minor. No addons, for the record.

[t209]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/340862/is-dawnguard-the-first-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-dlc/
Possible Skyrim DLC?
-Can't wait for Spears or Orsinium or Morrowind (now a wasteland).

[VanBuren]

Bethesda Softworks senior designer Joel Burgess took to his personal blog to share a transcript of his GDC speech (http://blog.joelburgess.com/2012/03/gdc-2012-transcript-pursuing-elegance.html), which is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the company's development philosophy, how they transition from game to game with a single development team, how they approached various design hurdles in regard to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the importance of maintaining a proper workflow, and much more. Regardless of what you think of The Elder Scrolls, it's pretty amazing what BGS is able to accomplish with a team of less than 100:


While the game existed in some conceptual form for a number of years, full-scale production didn’t begin until Fallout 3 was finished. We are a one-project team at Bethesda Game Studios, so most of the content team was still on Fallout 3 DLC throughout 2009. This means that Skyrim was only in full production for around three years. We are a large team at just under 100 developers, but we aren't massive, either. Some other games with similar scope involve literally hundreds of developers spread out across multiple studios worldwide. Everyone at BGS is based in Maryland and we have tried to espouse an environment where everyone knows and can approach everyone else on the team. We do use some outsourcing, but it is quite limited. Mostly we outsourced armor and weapons, which we still did our own concepts and game-specific implementation for. Speaking to level design specifically, we had a team of eight LDs on Skyrim. Between us, we were responsible for over 300 locations and events in the game. These include very large, multi-hour dungeon crawls, smaller experiences, all the way down to one-room affairs and exterior locations. Level designers also were responsible for areas of the game you may not expect, such as the traps system and combat design for certain creature encounters.

The last data point I’ll share is one I’m especially proud of. In an industry plagued by delays, where you expect a big game like Skyrim to slip once or twice, we hit our ship date. We didn’t just hit our date, but we called it to the day over a year in advance, and of course we knew that date internally for months ahead of the announcement. Furthermore, we didn’t just ship in North America, but finished the game in enough time to cert, localize, print and ship to nearly every territory where the game is available on the same date worldwide.

The point of all of this is to highlight that while we are a well-backed studio, we aren’t extravagant in our resources. While we have steadily grown over the past ten years, we’ve avoided explosive growth. How we are able to do that while continuing to make games known for their massive scale is in large part thanks to our studio culture.

My boss, Todd Howard, has several mottos for the studio. One of these is:

“We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.”

Taken skin-deep, this is simply a statement about having to choose your battles. But looking a little deeper, there are some further implications. First, it implies a high level of ambition. Every developer at Bethesda has pet features they’d like to see appear in game, or we wouldn't have to be selective about where we pool our resources. To that end, we’re very good about seeking compromise. I think we’re good about recognizing when something isn't quite working and re-thinking if we need to scale back or cut the feature. The most important thing about this is that it doesn't live in some mission statement or is only held by an inner circle of highly-placed leads. Every developer in the studio ends up embracing this approach to development.

[Cespenar]

Regardless of what you think of The Elder Scrolls, it's pretty amazing what BGS is able to accomplish with a team of less than 100:

Of course they can make games with such a small group. They don't hire writers!

*rimshot*

[Triaxx]

Who need writers when there are bandits stealing swords? Have at thee!

[Flickerdart]

Who needs writers when you have curved swords? Curved. Swords!

[Calemyr]

VanBuren, that is very interesting article. Besides allowing us a glance into the industry, it also answers a question that has preyed on my mind since the blasted game came out: how could the game be so well designed and the items be so unbelievably full of bugs? Things like missing upgrade settings, missing upgrade perks, not being applicable for certain perks, etc. Even if the outsourced resources were very thorough and professional and Bethesda worked its hardest to maintain an active conversation with them, it would be very difficult to keep all the items consistent - especially if perks and the upgrading system were altered due to testing.

I always wondered. Now I know. SPAAAAACE!!

[Knight13]

You're asking why a Bethesda game is buggy? It's Bethesda.

[Coidzor]

Hell, a single Pratchett is worth its weight in gold. Granted there's only two of them at the moment, but I imagine a sufficiently motivated person could change that. :smallamused:

[TheEmerged]

Day 7 /played has begun.

I'm still unable to view underwater. It hasn't caused any critical problems yet, but the dearth of actual instructions on this is becoming bothersome. All I'm able to find are some references to reverting the update but no instructions on how to do so.

Light Armor & One-handed hit 100 -- during the same fight, ironically enough. I've replaced "Bound Sword" with "Bound BattleAxe" at long last, and once I get done with some minor errands I'll be making a Heavy Armor set with all those dragon leftovers I've been stockpiling. Then it will be off to find a couple of bears or mudcrabs :smallbiggrin:

I've set the Thieves' Guild quests aside to run the Bard's College while I wait to get my sneaky skills up. I've bought my second house in Solitude; I rather like having an enchanting tool in the home, but I miss having the apothecary sack right on top of the alchemy bench there. Also, Whiterun seems more centrally located. So I don't think I'll have my in-game wife move into the bigger digs yet.

My alternate sets are going nicely. My alchemy isn't high enough for me to remake my crafting set yet (alchemy/smithing/alteration), and I mentioned the heavy armor set I'm about to make. I've got a roguish set just about done too - primarily sneak & pickpocketing. My skill rank for the two skills still sneak, so having a +160% bonus to them strikes me as a good idea.

------------------------

Given reports I've heard about stamina usage in heavy armor, I believe my next perk is going to be the Restoration one that heals stamina when you heal yourself. I've got 3 future perk points pointed at the remainder of the Smithing tree so I can make/improve Daedra weapons.

After that, I've got 4 perks in Heavy Armor that interest me (especially Mr. "worn armor doesn't encumber" Perk). I have to admit the merchant half of the speech tree intrigues me, even though I've got almost 100k gold even after buying my 2nd house and I've got tons of 2k dwarven bows & potions yet to sell.

Which brings me to Alchemy, the next skill I'd like to cap. It's currently in the 80's (insert bad fashion joke here). I can't seem to find enough of the Great 9 to raise this reasonably. Given that I'm not exactly short of funds I thought about seeing if I could just pay a trainer... but it seems the only trainer that matters is with the Dark Brotherhood, traditionally the last faction I run through in these games. So I think I'm just going to have to slog through some lesser potions -- wish I could find a good one for Chaurus Eggs, I've got enough of them for a couple of playthroughs of the game :smallwink:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Do you have anti-aliasing on? Anti-aliasing is one thing i know that causes screens to specifically go grey.

[TheEmerged]

Do you have anti-aliasing on? Anti-aliasing is one thing i know that causes screens to specifically go grey.

Checked as soon as I got home. Darn it, that wsn't it :smallmad: Thanks for at least trying.

[t209]

Which side did you took in Skyrim Civil War by that comic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0826.html) update (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0827.html) (Resistance Wiped out arc).
It was the time I aided the Resistance drive out the tyrants of the Empire and their Thalmor Puppets (this writing does not reflect my belief but to appease Stormcloaks supporter). But I realised now that my execution of Tulius made me look like Redcloak. He told ulfric that he had handed the victory for Thalmor, but he just killed him for his narrative story.
Even though the civil war arc is grey scale, Whenever I kill Ulfric, the image of Thanh struck in my mind. Just let him see his resistance wiped out by one man (or thing). I gave him two flower as an offering of his grave.

[Triaxx]

Alchemy? Easy. Harvest some wheat, and murder some giants. Brew healing potions. Also helps with armor/blocking skills.

[t209]

Alchemy? Easy. Harvest some wheat, and murder some giants. Brew healing potions. Also helps with armor/blocking skills.

More easier, find some red flowers instead of giant!

[Divayth Fyr]

More easier, find some red flowers instead of giant!
Ah, but potions brewed from the remains of giants have a higher value, therefore increasing the skill faster.

[TheEmerged]

Heh, I've been afraid to try giants from the way everybody talks about them :smallredface: I've probably got a few toes on stock from buying out every alchemy merchant I run across, I'll see how many I've got.

[Arbitrarity]

Easiest way to level alchemy is make random potions (preferably with a guide open so you don't fizzle) looping between Markarth and Riften. This is a 51 hour loop, so both stores restock each time, and you can easily make profit off of this. Especially if you have +alchemy crafting gear.

[pffh]

Why do you need a 51 hour loop? The stores reset every 24 hours so it's probably quicker to just wait outside one of them than to always have to run from the front gate to the store.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Stores reset after 48 hours.

[TheEmerged]

I tried the semi-random potion thing. The trick is that it's very obvious rather quickly that the amount of skillup you get is directly related to the value of the potion that results -- at some points when I first started the alchemy grinding, I was getting 2 levels every 3 combines from some of the multi-effect potions\poisons.

Compare that to the 20 or so combines I needed from some of the best Chaurus Egg potions I could figure out, and it's not a hard decision to make.

Dragon's Tongue + Fly Amanita + Mora Tapinella = 4 effect potion that isn't the most useful or valuable, but has the benefit of being fairly common/easy to get ingredients.

Creep Cluster + Mora Tapinella + Scaly Pholiota = five effects, and one of the more valuable potions that doesn't require anything weird/hard to get.

Glow Dust + Glowing Mushroom + Hanging Moss = five effect, valuable potion. Glow Dust is usually the hurdle with this one, the cave I got all the Chaurus Eggs from was also from of the Glowing Mushrooms.

---------------

I seem to have hit another small bug. For some reason, even though I improved the Dragonplate set I'm using to train Heavy Armor, the extra armor points aren't showing and aren't counting. Apparently this is a semi-known & common bug. Meh, this isn't a "real" set as far as I'm concerned, no sleep going to be lost.

Speaking of training, I have a new favorite "final kill" animation. As I said in an earlier comment I've switched from Bound Sword to Bound Battleaxe in order to train 2h Weapon. A couple of times since I've gotten an animation where I put the weapon behind their head and headbutt them to death. This is especially amusing since both times, I've had an arrow sticking out of my head and the animation caused it to clip through theirs, as if I'm killing them with their own arrow :smallamused:

[pffh]

Killing the enemies with their own arrows in the only honourable way to kill them.

That's why I love slow time. I often go out bandit/draugr hunting with just my bow and no arrows or other weapons and will rely solely on arrows, shot by them, that I catch mid flight.

[druid91]

Killing the enemies with their own arrows in the only honourable way to kill them.

That's why I love slow time. I often go out bandit/draugr hunting with just my bow and no arrows or other weapons and will rely solely on arrows, shot by them, that I catch mid flight.

How on earth do you do that? What rank slow-time?

[pffh]

How on earth do you do that? What rank slow-time?

Three words now but I've been doing it since one word. It's quite easy. You just wait for an archer to notch an arrow, shout, stand still so he shoots, wait until the "pick up arrow" thing pops up and then click the loot button.

If you are feeling flashy you can sidestep out of the way and snatch the arrow from the side instead of head on.

With the right timing you can even do it without slow time but I've only managed to do that once and that took me probably hundreds of tries (I didn't count).

[druid91]

If you use manipulation to grab the arrow can you kill people with it?

I wonder... could I use telekinesis to fire arrows at people?

I'd always figured launched arrows were no longer objects...

[Grue Bait]

Killing the enemies with their own arrows in the only honourable way to kill them.

Well, that and punching them to death. Usually I enjoy wandering into Stormcloak/Imperial camps with no weapons, only my fists and occasionally a shield to work on my blocking.

[Fri]

I'm at level 30 now and I haven't seen a single banish weapon. Is it that rare? Do vendors sell them, or it's loot only? Because I've been diligently combing every vendor everytime I passed through a city for any reason. Or do I need until even higher level?

[druid91]

I'm at level 30 now and I haven't seen a single banish weapon. Is it that rare? Do vendors sell them, or it's loot only? Because I've been diligently combing every vendor everytime I passed through a city for any reason. Or do I need until even higher level?

I've never seen one either. And I've gone up to level 68. So I doubt level is a factor.

[Knight13]

Vendors definitely sell Banish weapons, that's how I got the enchant. I bought one off the blacksmith in Whiterun and I've seen others in her stock several times. It's easily one of the most valuable enchantments, once you start putting that on stuff your biggest problem is going to be finding vendors that have enough gold to buy them.

[Divayth Fyr]

I'm at level 30 now and I haven't seen a single banish weapon. Is it that rare? Do vendors sell them, or it's loot only? Because I've been diligently combing every vendor everytime I passed through a city for any reason. Or do I need until even higher level?
These can be sold, but - as you have already experienced - are extremely rare.

[Triaxx]

Try White River Watch for a banish weapon. I keep finding them there.

And I always do a loop from Riften to Solitude. My route takes me through Ivarstead, Riverwood, Whiterun, Rorikstead, Dragon Bridge and then Solitude. Fewer Forsworn, more road to pick. If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll take a carriage from Solitude to Winterhold and go back to Riften through Windhelm, Kynesgrove and Shor's Stone.

Giant's are only bad at low levels. Higher up they just can't hit as hard, and so as long as you don't let your health get too low you'll be okay. Plus since they still hit you, you can level up Heavy Armor while you're at it. Particularly since you'll usually find two of them at a camp.

[Arbitrarity]

Also, with good crafting skills and Assassin's Blade (especially with Shrouded Gloves) you can oneshot Giants with daggers trivially.

Actually, that works on every enemy in the game, except things that you can't reach (dragons), and enemies with supersenses (Draugr Deathlords, some dragons).

When I say supersenses, I mean "detects you invisible and muffled while sneaking unencumbered with 100 sneak"

[Knight13]

Can you find the double backstab damage enchantment on anything besides the Shrouded Gloves, such as random gloves in shops or as loot? Because I used to think that the Shrouded Boots were the only boots in the game that had a Muffle enchantment, until I saw a random pair in a shop that had it too, so I could learn the enchantment. I'm just wondering if the same is true for Shrouded Gloves.

[TheEmerged]

According to the wiki (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Specialty_Gear), it doesn't seem to. It's not on the list of enchants there either.

I got both Muffle & Banish from the two-vendor blacksmithing shop in Whiterun, although Banish was one of the last few I got. I still haven't gotten the Resist Poison enchant from anything yet, though. I've made a substantial portion of my in-game wealth from the Banish enchant. Per the wiki, however...

"Finding merchants that sell items with this effect for disenchantment purposes is only possible when you are level 22 or higher."

[Douglas]

wish I could find a good one for Chaurus Eggs, I've got enough of them for a couple of playthroughs of the game :smallwink:
Make invisibility potions with them. It's one of the more valuable effects, and it's their fourth property.

The effects you should be looking for to produce high value (and therefore good for training) potions and poisons are:
fortify or damage any kind of regen
invisibility
slow
paralysis

I'm not sure whether to add frenzy to that list.

The Giant's Toe ingredient inexplicably produces potions worth a lot more than their effects would indicate. If two potions have identical effects but one was made with a Giant's Toe and the other wasn't, then the GT one will have a much higher price tag. Combine this with it having one of the top value effects (damage stamina regen), and it can be used to make some spectacularly pricy potions/poisons.

[t209]

How do you refill the White Phial?

[Triaxx]

Wait 24 hours if you've completed the second quest. If not, complete the second quest.

[VanBuren]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.5.26 PC Patch Released

An "incremental" v1.5.26 beta patch (http://www.bethblog.com/2012/03/29/incremental-pc-update-live-on-steam/) has been released that features a handful of small but useful bug fixes for the RPG. Console players can expect the patch soonish, too:


The most recent beta update, 1.5.26, is now live for all users on Steam. The update adds upon the fixes introduced in 1.5.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed issue with frequency of first person kill cameras
• Underwater effects now display properly
• Fixed crash when loading certain plugins (PC Only)
• Fixed issue where sun would not appear properly after fast travel

As an update for folks playing on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the 1.5 update you’ll receive has been submitted to the console manufacturers. Once we know the live dates for PSN and Xbox LIVE, we’ll share more information.

Storytelling in Dark Souls and Skyrim

Forbes is offering an editorial that compares the methods of storytelling in Dark Souls and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/29/storytelling-in-dark-souls-and-skyrim/), with the author favoring the first over the latter due to its unobtrusiveness and for being deeply tied to the video game medium. Obligatory sampling ahead:


Games are a unique medium, and a game like Dark Souls takes full advantage of this medium to not just tell the story, but to let the story unfold around you during the game itself. “Show, don’t tell,” is a fundamental lesson in crafting good fiction; in games we go one step further. Story ought to be embedded within the gameplay itself, with only the briefest interludes.

A game like Skyrim may at first glance appear to do just this – after all, there are no cut-scenes to speak of; but in fact, the narrative portions of the game are still very much parceled off from the actual game. Every moment you spend working your way through dialogue options is a moment you could be off exploring.

Then again, the more I sit with Skyrim and think about what all that exploring and questing amounts to, the less impressed I become. I’ll admit that playing Dark Souls has had a huge impact on how I’ve been thinking about games recently, and what heights games can reach if they truly stick to what makes them unique; to what makes them games in the first place.

Perhaps embarrassingly, I find myself simply thinking about Dark Souls a great deal these days. Its mystery has taken root and even though there has been virtually no dialogue and even though I am still only beginning to piece together the story itself, I find myself turning it all over in my head time and again even when I’m not playing. Maybe this is precisely because there is so little story to go off of, that I as a gamer am forced to drag my imagination out from where it’s been hiding lately.

[Calemyr]

Speaking of the patch, has anyone else found their game has become nigh unplayable since? My game freezes at random times on an almost hourly basis now and it wasn't doing that before.

[Triaxx]

I'm getting crashes very often now. It might be one of my mods, but I've got so many that it'd take months to diagnose.

[t209]

Let's make a poll on supporters of Skyrim Civil War.
1. The Empire
- You can view them as tyrants who sold out their own subjects or buying them time to get back on their feet when they sign White Gold Concordat..
2. Stormcloaks
- Either Good guys rebel or racist idiots who is unintentionally destroying skyrim and the empire.

My pick is on The Empire

[Pie Guy]

Empire for me, no question.

Edit: What I mean to say is, the Empire is a lesser evil in this situation, and since supporting either side is bad for the Thalmor, it's not much of a choice for me.

[Lamech]

I'm getting crashes very often now. It might be one of my mods, but I've got so many that it'd take months to diagnose.

How many mods do you have? I assume 1024.
Okay step 1: Turn off all mods and see if the problem remains. If it remains its the patch, if it vanishes its the game.
Step 2: If its the mods, turn off half of the mods see if you have a problem. Do the same for the other half. If neither is a problem its some combination of mods, if only one is a problem its only one mod.
Step 3: Repeat step 2, except instead of turning only half mods off, classify all the mods in the non-problematic half as good mods, and only turn off half the bad mods. If both halves work alone pick the half you like more as non-problematic. Then go back to step two except "half of the mods" is half of the non-problematic mods. It should take about 8 tries of step two to finish.

P.S. If in step 2 you ever find that both halves are problematic, you'll need to turn off one of those halves, and ignore them for a while. Once you have found one of the problem mods, turn that mod off, and then go back to step 2, and work back through the previously ignored mods.

In all seriousness though, turning all the mods off and seeing what happens will tell you if its the patch or not at least.

[Flickerdart]

Let's make a poll on supporters of Skyrim Civil War.
1. The Empire
- You can view them as tyrants who sold out their own subjects or buying them time to get back on their feet when they sign White Gold Concordat..
2. Stormcloaks
- Either Good guys rebel or racist idiots who is unintentionally destroying skyrim and the empire.

My pick is on The Empire
One of the two tried to execute me. The other thinks I am the bee's knees. It's got to be Stormcloaks for me.

[Hawkfrost000]

Why not option C? Join the stormcloaks long enough to overthrow the empire, then destroy the stormcloaks and take your place as Witch-King of Skyrim, move the capital to Whiterun, use the thieves guild and dark brotherhood as enforcers, and the companions and military leaders, backed by battle mages trained at the colledge, all of them loyal to you alone.

DM

[t209]

Actually, I was making a poll and statistics of Skyrim Players' civil war factions in giantitp forums. (Skyrim poll shows more stormcloak supporters by a margin while escapist shows imperial supporter by over 70%).

[thegurullamen]

Empire for the simple reason that they're all-inclusive, even if they suck at governing. Better than racist yokels being in charge. Shame about Talos, but if Elisef, the wife of the murdered king, can come around on that issue, it wont be long before other Imperials/White-Gold Concordant supporters do, too.

[t209]

Empire for the simple reason that they're all-inclusive, even if they suck at governing. Better than racist yokels being in charge. Shame about Talos, but if Elisef, the wife of the murdered king, can come around on that issue, it wont be long before other Imperials/White-Gold Concordant supporters do, too.

Alvor said that Imperials actually ignored their secret talos worship before Stormcloak Rebellion.

[Flickerdart]

Why not option C? Join the stormcloaks long enough to overthrow the empire, then destroy the stormcloaks and take your place as Witch-King of Skyrim, move the capital to Whiterun, use the thieves guild and dark brotherhood as enforcers, and the companions and military leaders, backed by battle mages trained at the colledge, all of them loyal to you alone.

DM
Because ruling is boring? Just mosey on up to the Dominion and burn it to the ground.

[Triaxx]

Not nearly that many, but I'll try. Pity that NMM lacks FOMM's Deactivate All button.

[Zale]

I don't like either.

The Empire is.. The Empire, which kind of tired to kill me for no apparent reason.

The Stormcloaks are a bit racist.

Anytime I begin to favor one, I see something to tilt me away from them..

Is there a "Nuke All" option?

[Calemyr]

It's hard to blame the entire Empire for one Captain's judgment call. You were there illegally, after all. Neither option was good from her standpoint, as she didn't want to let a possible conspirator escape, but she eventually went with the "only way to be sure". It was a measured, practical response to a difficult decision. It's also the only good reason a non-Nord might consider the Stormcloaks other then the "Empire=Bad" cliche that's been engrained in our collective skulls for decades.

Me, I don't like the fact that I can't take the fight to the Dominion, but I'm always a loyal Imperial dog. The Stormcloaks do nothing but harm, even to their own cause.

[Volthawk]

Besides, in terms of fighting the Thalmor, having the Empire win is better. If the Stormcloaks win, then you have the Empire, the Stormcloaks, Hammerfell and any other factions I missed, not united against the Thalmor, and the former two having just come out of a war with each other. Not exactly the situation that makes a second war against the Thalmor easy. While if the Empire wins, then it has access to Skyrim's forces as well as the other provinces of the Empire (although that may just be Cyrodil at this point, not too sure about that), providing a more unified force to deal with the Thalmor (Hammerfell still wouldn't be part of that unity, but their big problem with the Empire is that they let the Thalmor invade and do their stuff, so they'd probably be willing to take on the Thalmor again).

[t209]

If we count in faction supporters from other forums.
Talya (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12559681&postcount=15) (Stormcloak)
Janus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12561992&postcount=29) (imperial)
Top Cat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12561332&postcount=26)(imperial)
Beowulf DW (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12715097&postcount=769) (Stormcloak)
I will start counting the polls tomorrow.

[megahobbit]

RACIST YOKELS they may be a bit xenophobic but they have good principles what would you do if someone said you couldnt worship your deity. Everybody thinks oh no the dunmer are in the ghetto but they dont have a spotless history of racial equility play morrowind they keep slaves. Yes SLAVES. So put me down for stormcloak (though witch king wouldnt be so bad). The stormcloaks let me in and im a high elf. Plus they have cool names.

[Hazzardevil]

Because ruling is boring? Just mosey on up to the Dominion and burn it to the ground.

Since when did that stop the main character being a king/queen in Fable?
And also, if Dovahking becomes kingm he would likely become a warrior king like the old ones. Being that gives you the right to rule caldria immediately, you just have to show you can lead.

[t209]

Results for the factions are
7 Imperial Supporters (63.64%)
4 stormcloaks Supporters (36.36%)
So most people in Giant Forum supported Imperials.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Imperials all the way. Sure Tullius can be a bit of an ass, but Rikke is a good solid Nord woman. Conversely, Ulfric is a total racist jerk and his 2nd in command is even worse.

[Triaxx]

You know, I wouldn't object to the decision from the Captain so much if it didn't feel so arbitrary and tempermental. Just feels like she's doing it because she's in a mood. I mean, it's not like she had to run all the way to Solitude for higher orders. The bloody military commander in charge of the entire imperial legion in Skyrim is standing thirty feet away. I mean, I'm not going anywhere. I suspect it's just pure laziness that she didn't want to walk over and ask. Or send someone to run over and ask for him. Yeesh.

It's not asking that much for a little effort before you just lop my head off..

[Calemyr]

She did just have to shoot a runaway who was proclaiming innocence (after a fashion). She probably was in a mood. Of course, she almost destroyed the world because she was too busy to pay attention to protest.

From a practical stand point, it was necessary. Her hard-nosed judgment puts everyone in the same spot at the beginning of the game no matter their race or supposed origins. She doesn't care. You were caught during the ambush, whatever your excuse for being there, you get executed - no bias, no favoritism, no mercy. It's a lot easier to build a story from a single starting point.

[t209]

She did just have to shoot a runaway who was proclaiming innocence (after a fashion). She probably was in a mood. Of course, she almost destroyed the world because she was too busy to pay attention to protest.

From a practical stand point, it was necessary. Her hard-nosed judgment puts everyone in the same spot at the beginning of the game no matter their race or supposed origins. She doesn't care. You were caught during the ambush, whatever your excuse for being there, you get executed - no bias, no favoritism, no mercy. It's a lot easier to build a story from a single starting point.

Well, the runaway's name was listed in the book.
Hadvar: Lokir of Rorikstead.
Lokir (Runaway): No I'm not a rebel.

[pffh]

That runaway was a horse thief and horse thieves are almost worse then murderers (from a viking/medieval perspective) since they either stole the horse from a noble (death sentence anyway) or they stole it from someone that probably depended on it for survival meaning he doomed their entire family.

[t209]

Question: Is there any reasons why Stormcloaks were not listed as La Resistance in TV Trope. (Too Racist? Too Organized? or Too Feudalistic?)

[Flickerdart]

Question: Is there any reasons why Stormcloaks were not listed as La Resistance in TV Trope. (Too Racist? Too Organized? or Too Feudalistic?)
La Resistance is more of an occupation/underground dynamic. The Stormcloaks are fighting a civil war, with equal manpower and resources to their opponents.

[Triaxx]

Fits better in Your Terrorists are our Freedom Fighters.

[t209]

La Resistance is more of an occupation/underground dynamic. The Stormcloaks are fighting a civil war, with equal manpower and resources to their opponents.

How about Forsworn? They use hit and run, mountain hideouts (unlike Azurites, they divided into cells)
and Deep Cover agents to attack Nords by tricking the Silverbloods into using them.
to liberate their homeland. Well, they're kinda like Barbarian Savages.

[Triaxx]

The Forsworn/Silverblood thing shows that even Skyrim can manage Grey/Grey Morality.