Basically, I'm trying to figure out how I want to gear up my character. I'm using mostly blades, but I like to use the bow in the right situations. I'm finding the bow to be less and less useful, not to mention it's sneak attacks are now doing half (or less) of what I get from my dagger. I kind of have a catch 22 with it. AFAIK, the only way to improve a skill is to use it, but at this point, it's too weak to be useful. I'm tempted to ditch it all together, unless someone has some advice as to how I could beef it up without getting myself killed in combat.

I'm also wondering about long swords, vs. short swords, vs. daggers. Currently, I'm using a glass dagger just because I happened upon a good drop and was previously using a elven long sword. I have mixed feelings about the weapons. Current, my blades skill is 38. I'm doing 7 points of damage with the glass dagger, and was doing 8 with the long sword. However, I think that the dagger (in this situation) is the superior weapon because it also attacks 40% faster. I'd rather stick with the dagger (it's a lot lighter so I can carry more loot), but the impression that I get is that daggers might be a little more superior in the beginning, but eventually the speed advantage gets outclassed by the damage differential when you skill gets high enough. You could say that this applies to armor, too. Lower level armor might be better for the weight, and at low skill levels it doesn't really matter much. Later on, however, it will matter. Anyway, am I right about this effect. If so, is there any reason to use daggers later on? And what good are shortswords in general? It seems that at low skill levels, you're better off with a dagger and at high skill levels you're better off with a long sword.

Lastly, clothing. I'm finding tons of clothes in the game, but I'm not bothering with any of it since they have pretty much no benefit (unless you're playing mage heavy, then they spell effectiveness matters). Are there any clothes out there that make it worth ditching armor entirely? The only non-mundane piece of clothing I found (in 10 levels) was some vest that gives a very ironic boost to light armor.

Let me just offer one tip that relates to your bow concern. Enchant a bow with demoralize at max magnitude x 2 seconds. Add the same thing with turn undead (or put it on a seperate bow). And of course toss the obligatory 1-2 seconds of soul trap on to help keep the bow(s) charged up. A simple bow like this can keep your foe 'dancing' between run away and charge animations for as long as you keep shooting. You could basically do the same thing with command creature and command humanoid enchantments, again only for a couple seconds. Drain speed to 0 for a couple seconds works even better, but is a harder effect to get available for enchanting. A bow is the only weapon my character will touch.

Find a place to store all your weapons, collectibles, etc. Then you can pick and chose at your leisure.

Only real down side to daggers might be reach. The other differences are marginal. The dagger can make up the damage difference with its speed.

There are better articles of enchanted clothing, but not in abundance. It may be better to enchant some yourself.

Heheh, try gathering up ingredients, making them into various poisons, and then annoint the bow. An example:



You hit an NPC with one of these from a distance, and this usually takes care of most of the damage. If they don't die within a few seconds, they'll be weak by the time they get to you. :wink_smile: I find it very fun to "live off the land" with my new character Kate. She's constantly gathering ingredients to make them into poisons & potions.



Acadian already got this one. Personally, my only beef with daggars happens on a roleplyaing level, because the game allows us to BLOCK with a daggar, even if it's blocking a huge 2-handed hammer or something. That's stupid. Whenever I have a char. who uses a daggar, I always run if I'm figthing a character who's got a huge weapon.



Most of the clothes (I agree) are quite useless during combat. If I'm fighting an NPC who can possibly poison me, for instance, I'm not gonna have my character switch off her armor for a shirt that Resists Poison. Occasionally there will be an item of clothing that one of my characters can use (like that vest you mentioned), or a shirt which boosts Personality or Merchandising (useful when buying / selling I suppose) but most of this stuff gets sold off.

You know, I've been doing a fair bit of alchemy, but I've yet to brew anything that has knocked my socks off. Most ingredients I find are only good for weak potions, usually fatigue restoration. I occasionally find what I need for a poison, but not enough to make a difference. I certainly haven't been able to keep myself in a decent supply of any poison, nevermind the weak ones.

My bow is currently doing about the same damage than my dagger. Even with a steady supply of poison, that might barely make up the difference in sneak attack damage. x3 vs. x6? That's hard to let go of, and I generally don't find enough sniping positions to make it worthwhile. Not to mention, using a dagger almost doubles my armor value as I can use a shield which gives me more armor than actual armor.



I haven't made it as far to be able to enchant things. I'm fairly certain I have to get into the arcane academy for this, so I've been scrambling around doing mage guild missions. I definitely think the bow will be more useful if I could lay some voodoo on it.



Yeah, I was tempted to ditch my shield and just use my weapon to block. However, I get more armor value from my shield than any other piece of armor. Still, it's kind of odd to be running around as a rogue-ish character, yet be wearing chainmail and a carrying a huge metal elven shield.

This is one of those things which you gotta keep at. Alchemy gains bonuses over time, just like everything else in the game. Since my new character is at Level 1 and already an apprentice at Alchemy, she's able to do a lot of damage with just a Damage Health 3 pts./12 seconds or whatever she's been making. I imagine your game (which is more advanced) might take more time to see anything like this.



YEa, unfortunately we can't enchant in the vanilla game until we're in the university.




:)