I have 100 in blacksmithing, and I do not find my legendary glass dagger OP in backstabs. There are some powerful enemies that I cannot 1-shot. I am level 39.

Simple fix for this

Start new char on master difficulty and dont use - OVERPOWERED - specs = SHIELD,ENCHANTING,SMITING

1Handed is nearly overpowered also.

Evrything else is fine.

OP is using console cheats to max out so fast?

Sad what a waste of a great game. I'm 20 hours in playing a wood elf ranger/stealth class. I've not had time to work hard on professions as there is so much land and quest to venture with. You wouldnt be already on a second character at lvl 40+ after making a max level char already, within the games release time frame without cheating surely?

If you have then you really don't have any reason to shout "Over powered class spec" if in reality that spec and its awesomeness takes an age to achieve due to the ingredient gathering needed. If you cheated and got it without effrot then you would think its OP.Stop trolling

If you didn't cheat then you couldn't have slept any to nearly max out two separate chars.Get some sleep dude

The issue isn't that it can/can't be removed by players, but that players have to actively make a decision to play in a weaker manner than they know is possible. Attack us by saying we have weak willpower all you want, but that doesn't solve the issue that crafting skills are powerful enough to replace the use of standard skills on their own (and the combination of the two is frightening). While I am not calling for total balance, I do ask that certain "routes" of play result in characters within +/- 50% strength of another character.

Simply put, it is silly that a pure crafter (100 in alch/enchant/smith, with needed perks assigned) is about 85%-95% stronger than a pure knight (100 heavy armour/block/one handed and associated perks). That is to say, a "perfect suit" of daedric armour/shield/sword, with only fortify one handed/fortify heavy armour enchants applied to it results in an overall strength completely (> 50%) greater than a skill/perk based character using the same (although not smithed/enchanted) gear.

Add to this that crafting is portable (can be used to focus on any skillset, not just one), and it becomes an absolutely stronger means of advancing your character. If I intend to play a stealth/ranged type, clearly I should use crafting to be better at it. If I play a mage type, clearly I should use enchanting to decrease costs of spell schools. The issue is that I will specifically need to apply willpower to avoid using these tools. They supplement any style of play, better than any other individual perk that could be purchased with 20+ perks it takes to maximize crafting. Sure, you could buy +100% armour rating perks, but you can nearly hit armour cap with absolutely no skill, and just a highly enchanted piece of armour. Sure, you could improve one handed damage by +100% with perks, or I can apply 120% worth of +damage for one handers as an enchant. Those perks saved are perks that can just as easily be spent elsewhere (or on those things to make them better).

Yes, you can say characters don't need to be this powerful, and this is true. But the issue is still that crafting alone is a superior means of getting to that bare minimum of "power" to get by in the game. Yes, you can say that as a single player game, there is no need for balance. But this issue generally affects all characters I create; I must actively choose to gimp myself, or embrace crafting. Yes, you can deride munchkin style players with your "role"-playing over "roll"-playing arguments, but at the end of the day, both are valid sources of entertainment and deserve to be accounted for.

The issue is that with crafting as it is, the only reason not to take it is so that you can specifically gimp your character. RP is valid, sure, but even with RP, if it turns out that the world you live in has aspect X that can be safely exploited to gain unlimited power, well... Yes, you might not intend to play a blacksmith, but you will realize that being a blacksmith is the superior method of reaching your goals.

Another part, unlike previous ES games, where it was arguable on how to get to god-like strength, there simply is no contest that alch/enchant/smithing is essential to truly maximizing your character. By the way the perk system works, there is no better way to spend the 20+ perks for crafting that result in equivalent (once again, I'm talking +/- 50% range here, not truly equal) output from normal perks.

What I'm asking for here is the option to not feel that I'm hindering my character by taking a perk in the A-Y perk trees instead of taking a perk from the Z perk tree. Once again, I'm speaking on the order of +/- 50% here, not exact equivalence. I don't expect perfect balance, just enough to argue a case that it is dependent upon style of play; stealth/archers should put perks into stealth and archery first, mages should put perks in magic schools first, warriors should put perks in weapon/armour perk trees first. As it is now (as long as you have money to practice the skills to 100), it is superior to focus first on crafting, and then on the "playstyle" perks.

@ KommissarK

Great post, nothing more to be said.

Thank you KommissarK -- I agree that there is a genuine issue here beyond "if you don't like the results then don't play that way".

I also think it's reasonable for players to hope that if they use the in-game advancement methods available to them, they will still be able to sally forth and be met with credible opponents. It's a big world with varying challenges and there's a difficulty slider, so players can self-select the level of challenge they want to experience -- but only if there's been game design that accounted for the level of power players can legitimately achieve.

There should at least be side quests / achievements that are only attainable by high-power builds. How many dragons can you take on simultaneously? Can you defeat an army that uses flanking archers? Can you defeat a pair of your mirror images?

Presumably such will come with DLC / Mods.

(Note: I am massively enjoying Skyrim -- especially the questing / storytelling aspects.)

So following the advice of other and being told my first character was too uber so I rerolled this morning and made restrictions-

mage
destruction only
sparks spell dual cast only
no enchanting or smithing
no armor besides store bought or dungeon found
no weapons

just finished the caster guild a bit ago and now im the arch mage, starting main quest line now..I feel like even ocarina of time was harder than this game

lulz