Paarthurnax on console and still join the Blades? I know there isn't supposed to be a way but I was wondering if there were any workarounds. I'd like to join the Blades but not if I have to kill the big guy to do it. If not, do Delphine and Esbern ever lose their essential status? Flipping the script and killing them instead sounds fun.

The only "work around" is to not start "Season Unending" or "The Fallen" if you stop before then, you can join the blades and do a "Dragon Slayer" thing... It' what I did when I played on 360. If their is another way, I don't know it.

My "Dragon Slayer" did that having Esbern give her the quest's... she did that for about 15 lvl's. I got a good 150 hr's out of just the begining of the MQ and then the Dragon Slaying, when it came time to keep going she choose to not Kill Paarth. I just made sure that the "Blades" were followers I would not want later.

If you are open to mods, then The Paarthurnax Dilemma mod takes care of the matter for you: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18465/?

Can't do mods on the console, Flojo.

Whoops! I guess I was too "flojo" to read the post clearly and think about what i was saying. Sorry.

Ss'ok... can y'all come up with another way...work around?

Is this a difference between the pc and consoles?

I've never killed the old lad but I didn't avoid taking quests. I got the order to kill him but just ignored it. Everything played through fine...except that the bigoted blades wouldn't talk to me and Delphine went off in a huff to wander Skyrim like an outcast. I bumped into her and tried to kill her but she was marked 'essential'. I tried the console to mark her as non-essential because she wasn't needed any more but couldn't. This was the only thing that not killing Parthurnax seemed to do...it prevented the dialogue I should have got with her and what's his face.

I think all it allows you to do is recruit more blades and then get (continue to get?) dragon killing missions from Esbern. Consequently the Greybeards get in a huff and won't tell you about further words of power...

The vanilla game is the same either pc or console... the OP asked how to ...not Kill Paarth and still be able to be a Blade...meaning ( to me anyway ) recruit, get Esbern's potion & blessing and to have him tell you where dragon's are that need slaying.

On PC their are of course a couple different MOD's that allow one to not kill Paarth and still have all the benefit's of being a Blade.

I don't really have a solution for you op, for console. I will say that even though there are mods for me on pc I never use them, Delphine is the worst, and for someone who is supposed to be serving the Dragonborn she sure barks orders a lot, like I work for her. What I'm saying is if she's what's left of the Blades I'm content to let them go.

Ok. The Blades side quests can be done, but you must stop the Main Quest after Alduin's wall.

• It is possible to begin this quest without killing http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Paarthurnax by talking to Delphine after the completion of http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Alduin%27s_Wall.

So after you get to the temple, give your blood and check stuff out, talk to Delphine about rebuilding the blades. You go get 3 people and induct them into the cult... er group. Then talk to Delphine who points you to Esbern for some 'dragon research' which is a fancy way of saying 'go kill a dragon and get some scales and bones'. So off you go. Your rewards for this are the potion Dragon Infusion, which gives you a permanent 25% less melee damage from dragons, as well as Dragonslayer's Blessing, which grants a 10% increased critical hit chance versus dragons for 5 game days. Look at this one as you would a shrine. Except Esbern is the shrine.

So the Blades are stocked, staffed and handing out dragon locations and blessings. You can keep doing the hunt for dragons in a fetch quest cycle of boredom and snoozery or you can then kick off the next quest in the Main Quest, F the Blades and start meditating on words of power and doing the fetch quests for the Greybeards. Yes, you lose access to the Blades, but outside of Dragonslayer's Blessing, there isn't much reason to go visit them. They don't have anything of note at the temple (which is really an oversite if you ask me- entice my dragonborn ass to hang with them if I'm gonna kill one of the coolest characters in the game.) This isn't to say the Greybeards have all that (because they don't) but I think their fetch quest/"blessings" are better than the Blades fetch quests/"blessing". Plus ... hey ... Paarthurnax is your buddy.

Esbern and Delphine are dikes. Serve the Dragonborn, my nordic ass.