Hmm. I have vanilla installed, no patches. I just got creamed by a bandit chief. I was blocking and blocking and he just two handed me through the shield and I was dead in 3 blows. 2 powerbashes did nothing to him, no stagger. The strange thing is, when I reloaded and tried it again the blocking worked, his blows dealt a small amount of damage but didn't slice through me like butter and power bashing staggered him allowing me to get some swings in on him.

I was playing at master, and was at level 10, and my blocking skill is at 32. My health was 180, so presumably he was doing at least 60 damage with each blow. When I kiilled him on reloading I found he was fighting with an orcish two handed sword doing 20 base damage...? So either he had a really high two handed skill or criticalled me three times in a row? Or was it smoething else?

I know, I can just shrug it off, but this chacrater I've been playing is DID, so it's game over. UNless it was a bug.

Do critical hits go straight through blocks? Do power attacks also automatically go through blocks? The thing is, he didn't stagger me with his blow - which is the sign I normally take that I've been hit with a power attack.

Anybody understand the mechanic of blocking? I thought it meant, that provided I had my shield up, I always blocked some of the incoming damage - and my skill determines how much of it (persumably factoring in the opponents blade skill too somehow). But what just occured would imply some other mechanic...because some blows were definitely blocked, some weren't?

If I recall correctly, sword and board takes a backseat to 2h weapons or dual wielding.

Yup, Skyrim went the way of WoW - all DPS, all the time.

Uldred