Another instance where Skyrim just amazes me. Similar to my "Fun at the College" thread, I am escorting Esbern back from Riften. I actually succeeded in my intimidation check at Valtheim Towers (first time for me) and headed on to the Whiterun Stormcloak camp. I sold some of my heavier stuff there, then played the camp a song or two. I was on my second day (about noon-ish) without sleep, so I curled up in one of the haypiles at the camp.

Waking up bright up and early (about 5:30AM), and refreshed, Esbern and I start out to Riverwood again. As we come around the curve by the Ritual Stone, I see 2 Giant Frostspiders duking it out. Since I still have my "Voice of the Sky" active, I just watch. Also, a Brown Bear is meandering about nearby.

Then I hear a roar. I see this HUGE shadow pass by. An Ancient Dragon decides to have some fun. So, I have a bear, a giant frostbite spider, the guy from the stone comes to check us out after the dragon "notices" him, and even some Stormcloak soldiers jump into the fray.

4 reloads later (lost my "Voice of the Sky" benefit twice, and hit a soldier with a shout once), I am victorious! Gods I love when the game does this!

Share your own "massive battles", with us

Buffy and Superian (her mare) were traveling through the forest west of Half-Moon Mill. More specifically, halfway between Bannermist Tower and Knifepoint Ridge. Up ahead through the trees she saw what looked like a blackrobe mage casting spells. As she got a bit closer, there were numerous figures running around and fighting. She drew her bow but held Superian steady for a time to let things settle down. As the activity ahead seemed to stop, she rode closer – only to be attacked by a pair of Thalmor.


After dispatching them, she dismounted to recover her arrows. That’s when she noted several more corpses in the area. Curious, she cast her detect dead spell and it seems half the nearby forest lit up with the glows of dead bodies! She checked them all and this is a fairly accurate account of what she found:

- 3 Thalmor, one of them with an execution warrant for her.

- 4 Bandits.

- 3 Stormcloak soldiers.

- 3 Necrodudes, one of them with an execution warrant for her (doubtless from helping Azura recover her Star).

- 1 Blackrobed ‘fire mage’.

- 1 Flame atronach.

- 1 Refugee (one of those annoying dudes who interrupts you by stuffing some trinket in your inventory and demanding that you keep it for them).

- 2 Foxes.

- 1 Goat.

- 1 Partridge in a pear tree.

It seems that particular spawn point went hyperactive!

HOLY COW! What a loot haul!

I would almost be tempted to load a saved game near there, type in tfc, and zoom over to watch the battle

Watching a big battle with free cam would indeed be neat I should imagine!

How did old Esbern fair during your epic ancient dragon attack?

Esbern rocked! He and his Storm Elemental

He also got the Giant Frost Spider for me so I didn't lose my Voice of the Sky benefit

Not exactly 'epic', but 2 Spriggan Matrons, 1 elk, 2 bears, 3 wolves, and a bunny.....LOL yep, a bunny....all animals glowing green.

(though the spriggans, and my character at lvl 9 made for a tough battle, but I had follower help)

If you have USLEEP, then there was a bugfix for the hardest intimidation checks. There are hidden game settings that give target confidence multipliers to intimidation checks as one of the factors (the others being player level, intimidation target level, speechcraft skill, and any intimidation-boosting perks). There was a gradual increase in the mult, from 0.0 -> 0.5 -> 1.0 -> 1.5 ->.....100. http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?app=trac&module=issues§ion=issues&do=view&id=19173

Valtheim Tower's guard was one of the Foolhardy-level intimidation checks and was affected by the bug.

My most recent big moshpit was a vampire fight in the city where it seems the random spawn was constipated before hand. I think two vampire drops (vamps, thralls, death hounds) occurred AND the vampire "traveler" too. I got two lifting skewer killcams on my Dawnguard Greatsword in the process.

Also... http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/images/579106/?

LvL 2...

10 wolves

1 Momma bear

2 bear cub's

3 slaughter fish ( breathing air)

between the Lakeview manor plot and lake. Not the greatest but it was pretty dang fun!

Those Spriggans can svck! I've had deer, goats, and foxes, but never a bunny... yet

Thanks for that info, MadCat! I never knew that

Also, those pix were great

That's quite the "gathering." I used to get slaughterfish on the shore (land) in Morrowind quite frequently, but only lately have I started to get them in Skyrim. Just had a couple in the past few days

Spriggans almost got her while I was looking at the bunny, laughing and thinking WTF?

I will confess that I caused this one myself. In one of my mods, I added another source of "hired thugs", and put a player home near an encounter zone.

So my player character goes home and is met by a giant and a frost dragon, and three hired thugs, just outside the Western Watchtower, which has its complement of Whiterun guards to join in when they feel threatened. She just sat on her porch and watched them all. The last one standing was one of the guards, who wasn't hostile, so all that was left was to stroll over and check for loot.

The giant/dragon encounter is one that happens fairly often, and can draw in the guards sometimes if it drifts the right way. The hired thugs always pursue the player, but will also get involved when arrows go astray. The watchtower guards are a good source of random arrows.

No bunnies in this one.

I know I wrote about this in one of my stories... but

Akemmi stopped in wonder to watch... http://i.imgur.com/OWCdQSu.jpg...http://i.imgur.com/Kn3I24x.jpg....http://i.imgur.com/Yl149yu.jpg....http://i.imgur.com/jfI6be7.jpg their are two closer than the fire and ice fight... all in all I think it was about 15 or so Rielkings with a couple wolves added in here and their for good measure. Save, then a free floating camera... was awesome to watch.

I love when all I have to do is "clean up" afterwards!

Watching AI battles are great, aren't they? When I have my "Voice of the Sky" in place, I'll pass NPCs on the road and knowing what's up ahead, I'll turn around and just watch as they get attacked by some animal(s)

"Mammoth Hunting" is another favorite activity, though I feel "cheap" doing it. So many wolf pelts and Saber Cat pelts gotten by friendly (to me) Mammoths

"Spriggan" is an Ayleid word. For REALLY ANNOYING KINDLING!

Some of you may know where I learned that little factoid.