So I personally am sick of crafting. Absolutely done with it. Its mind numbingly tedious, and I find myself not being able to enjoy the depth and different flavors of the game (I.E. finding loot barely registers besides ooo wow I can disenchant this). And the game honestly just seems like a chore until I get that dual enchant perk and 100 smithing. Anyways, I am creating a Nord dual wielding warrior with light armor and archery. Thats where I'm at now at about level 20 playing on Adept (yeah what a new player/casual/pleb) and so far I'm having a blast. I am only making food items and I only BUY enchanted items and use what I find in dungeons (so much more rewarding!) Im wondering i anyone else has gotten fed up and forgone crafting for a warrior/barbarian build on at least adept difficulty and how you found it to be.

I do this sometimes as well and often wonder why Bethesda didn't add NPC's who could temper/enchant/create potions for you based on having your character give them the raw required raw material and telling them what to make.

That would be an interesting angle but would kind of defeat the purpose of taking perks and crafting yourself IMO. So how did you find a play through with no crafting whatsoever? I'm assuming it was a bit more challenging? What kinds of challenges did you face and what ways did you overcome them?

For example, me being light armored and dual wielding I have a very low defensive capability, so to counter that I have taken up archery to wittle down the health of more powerful enemies from afar before closing in and bashing their skulls in when they are weak and vulnerable (cant wait to get the 50% stagger perk for archery, boy oh boy hehe) It feels very "barbarian" to me. Lightning strikes, harass the enemy until the are vulnerable then close in for the kill. I of course only do this for the most powerful enemies, so far I can obliterate most opponents with my axe and mace with relative ease. Also have the elemental fury shout and atronach stone both of which I am finding very useful...

I've done this a few times and you're right that it removes the tedious aspects of crafting from the game. When I do use crafting now I limit myself to one tree (complete) or two trees (when I just partially perk them).

It does require adjustments but it's very manageable. Besides, it gives a lot more value to armors and weapons that you find in game whereas when you craft you tend to throw them in a chest or sell them all.

As for your light armor angle, you can still improve the armor a bit and maybe spend a few septims on training to compensate. And you're right about the shouts, it's a good way to mitigate whatever weakness you might have.

Managing player level through restricted skill development and lowering difficulty level. Keeping your level down keeps enemy level down. Lowering difficulty keeps the enemies you do face more manageable.

Michi handles most enemies with little difficulty with only 100 in health and no armor. She's level 17 and her only skill is archery, which is at 100 with perk tree filled completely. She's not completely craft free though. I enchanted her foot ware with muffle because it's the only way to get 100% muffle on non-armor foot gear. And I did smith her bow, adding only 1 point to the long bow's base damage. Smithing is still level 15.

I've tried leveling smithing to 100. But this brings her player level to 25, at which point she starts getting one-hit killed by bandit chiefs and others. Your choice of light armor may keep that under control.

Edit: I've just started a Breton Archer that will use the Bound Bow exclusively. She too uses no armor and will be played on novice. I put 150 in health in hopes of alleviating the one-hit dilemma. See how it goes. Leveling her Archery is still a work in progress, something the troll in Clearspring Cave isn't appreciating.

I hear you on the restricted skill leveling bit, as I level almost entirely only the skills that apply directly to my build (minus lockpicking, because I am ridiculously OCD abut that) but I don't want to be on to low a level as that takes away the challenge. I would like to be able to play on expert with this build at some point IF its fie sable but I guess only time will tell if that is possible. I haven't been a victim of a one hit kill by any bandit. A giant probably but your average enemy isn't a problem. Even trolls and dragons I can dance around with relative ease. And like I said I really am looking for anyone who has made a play through with NO CRAFTING. Period. But I do appreciate your input and wish you the best on your new build! Cheers!

I'm attempting this right now with a light armored Destruction mage. It's liberating not having to hold on to an ungodly amount of components.

It's okay so far, but having absolutely no magicka regen might be a problem in the future as I plan on sticking to Barbarian Armor+Ranger Hood or Fur Armor in colder climates(and the Imperial Mage Armor when I decide to do the CW). I might take the Apprentice Stone in the future, but that'll depend on what enchanted jewelry I could find.

It really does bring back that feeling of excitement when you found an enchanted piece of armor or jewelry in Oblivion.

I think Morrowind handled this quite well, actually. You could pay magi to enchant stuff for you but you had to pay an obscene amount of money for even the simplest enchantment even though it was based on your own abilities(the spells you could cast) and you supplied the materials. I think a good compromise would be that what you get is dependent on the merchant's skill and there would be certain things only the player could obtain by taking the skill themselves (like dual enchantments). It would be neat to custom order potions and weapons, too. It grants a new layer of RP, it does.

Thats exactly it though! Without crafting you are forced to find different strategies to deal with problems like a minimal amount of magic or stamina regen! Using light armor is definitely an interesting way to play a mage...when i did my pure mage build I made use of enchanted robes and items I found/bought but hey to each their own! I'm sure it will be quite an interesting adventure.

The more I play Skyrim the more I want to play Morrowind and Oblivion...from what I've heard they're a bit more challenging. It seems with Skyrim everyone just gets 100 enchant and smith and OPS everything. So lame.

Yeah I could see getting into the smithing tree at a higher level onces I've maxed out all the other skills I want to work on. Maybe even alchemy a bit for health potions. I agree completely that you can go into crafting trees and not make your build totally OP and I more than likely will be getting training in light armor and maybe archery and one hand. Thanks for the feed back! Good to know I'm not the only one out there who can enjoy the game without being God-tier ! Cheers!

I play Dead-is-Dead on Legendary, so crafting is often mandatory, however I did have one character who didn't actually use any of it.

She was an Artisan, so everything was made for sale aside from a few pieces single-enchanted with Fortify Alteration (Transmute, Paralysis, TK) and Archery (hunting critters for skins, mostly). I don't recommend it for a 'vanilla' game, though, as it's simply not practical; it only works for me because I run a mod that greatly increases both the cost to train and the number of times I'm allowed to per level, which drains away the cash as quickly as I can make it. She only wore cloth, but did upgrade her bow and arrows as she went. I'm actually working on a new iteration of her right now, but this time I may allow a little more leeway due to the original plan rendering some targets (notably Dragons, due to Paralysis immunity) simply unbeatable past about L30 or so.

Is this viable on the higher difficulties though? Most of the time early on with Legendary difficulty it's hard to get by, I find you need the better equipment to manage the difficulty curve.

Well, I do have the advanage of greater training availability, so I don't stay low-leveled for very long thanks to the conversion of all that cash to additional knowledge, but yeah, in a 'vanilla' setup it would be pretty brutal. Stealthy archery was the order of the day, but against bandit bosses that got tricky; since the weaponry wasn't silenced, each hit ticked the boss off and forced a mad scramble to get out of visual range so that I wouldn't get one-shot by a power attack from a 2H weapon. It was actually done mostly as an experiment; I'd already run a bunch of heavily armed and armored characters up, and wanted to see if a cloth-user was viable on higher difficulties.

As it turns out the answer is 'yes', although it's definitely not for everyone as you spend a lot of time on the end of your seat and a stealth-centric play style is largely dictated by necessity. Definitely not recommended if you're running certain +Difficulty mods, as you'll get slaughtered on a regular basis.

From all the blogs and videos I've watched on youtube I don't think playing a warrior even sword and board is a very good choice for Legendary or even Master difficulty. I could be wrong but that was the impression I got. I don't care for the higher difficulties because It seems you are forced into a few narrow play styles (if you don't have mods or the like, which I don't; Im on an Xbox 360) and pretty much have to either be a sneak character and basically avoid combat or be a tricked out mage with enchanted gear and just [censored] [censored] up. The later is a blast for sure, but I want a True Nord warrior who is to busy crushing Imperials and elves to be bothered with enchanting and crafting. Still playing on Adept to keep it interesting, and I want to try expert at some point I don't think master or legendary will be possible without getting into AT LEAST restoration. Which I will not with this character. RPing is a big part of what keeps this game interesting for me personally.

I forgot to ask the last time I responded to this, but what difficulties were you playing on and what kind of builds were you using when you played through with limited or no crafting? Also what kind of strategies? I'm asking more out of curiosity, I love to find stratagies and tactics out myself but am always interested to hear the experiences of others!

You can do it without Restoration, provided you invest in either Alchemy or abuse of Vegetable Soup for unlimited power attack stagger spam, or even both if you're paranoid about the condition of your HP bar. For what it's worth: I had a 2H+Heavy Armor character on Master who did invest in crafting but not restoration and did fine, however I played him berzerker-style so the opposition rarely had the time to get set for (a) power attack(s). It was pretty high-risk, though, so not for everyone.

Im considering investing in alchemy later on in the game. Im a light armored dual wielding warrior who also uses archery. I also play as what you described as "berserker style." I fly in and smash everything to bits before it knows what hit it. But if I know the enemy is just going to crush me in a few hits (such as a giant or dragon) I use archery to weaken them before I close in for the kill, I feel this strategy could work on higher difficulties. I do use vegetable soups as well.

My guy's equipment was smithed to the point where he seldom needed archery, save vs. dragons, however that was on Master. Were I to try again on Legendary, I'd almost certainly engage in archery first in order to thin enemy numbers due to the increased risk.

I only exclusively play on Master difficulty with 1H (primary offensive), Shield & Archery (secondary offensive) but experiment with different armors and NEVER use weapon or combat enchantments. I like to feel satisfied by building up only my characters skill through shear experience and not relying on leverages like those enchantments I mentioned.

That playstyle you refer to from youtube can be done with proper management and some help from followerers, but not with followers all the time. Heck, some followers get lost and you can loose them pretty quickly if you get ahead too fast, so they are not entirely reliable and besides they can get in the way sometimes. I use anything to distract high level enemies such as conjuration for example, while you fiddle with tactics to wear them down. Obviously at this difficulty setting, smithing is a must and I'm not afraid to admit it. Smithing is more of a chore untill you legend it, after that, you will have copious quantities of resources to level up again MUCH faster in smithing than 1st time, hence negating the tediousness

But I hear what your saying and appreciate the idea in the first place, however I could only possibly do this on mid level difficulties at most with followers a lot of the time, even though they can be inconveniant

PS: I'm having a ball atm with only Elven light armor highly smithed up on lvl 70, Imo its the best weight to armor effectiveness ratio in the whole game! but you can't craft it.

Crafting became a chore for you, because you thought you couldn't do without it. As a result, it became your primary focus.

You're not the only one. That been said, I liked crafting back in the game's early months and I still do. But I don't go crazy about it anymore and I certainly don't prioritize it over everything else