Wow I think a mudcrab can 1 shot you on master with no armor

Wouldn't surprise me. I play on master and when I entered the Thalmor Embassy I only chose my dagger (forgot my armour).
Then when I had to fight those damned Thalmor I had to reload my save a hundred times before I finally beat them. Those mages are deadly I tell you.
Somehow this incident made me really appreciate armour in a new way.

That's right, as long as you don't kill the first whiterun-related dragon, no dragons will appear.

Currently I'm running a gentleman vampire (stage one), using only one handed sword (blades sword preferred) illusion and speech to get myself around. Will have to put some points in block since I like to humiliate my opponents in 1v1 combat. Everybody loves me since I help them and I use it to rob all of them from the goodies and help thieves guild gain coins (which in turns gets me coins), can afford almost everything, use only cloths and have tons of fun ~^

I'm now definitely afraid of traps yeah. (The way it should be!)
I even kinda wish I didn't need to take the sneak perk that makes you not trigger pressure plates as a requirement for the next perks... Traps are supposed to kill you if you walk into them like a dumb ass.

The 40 HP is only outside *and* in broad daylight though. At night or in caves you'll still have 100 HP. Not that it matters much... ^^

As for the dragons, I did the main quest so they will appear at random and let me tell you, everytime one flies over I hide in the bushes like a lil' sissy (THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!!). Much better gameplay experience when you're actually afraid of what the game is all about. On my other character I just stood in front of a dragon all day long...
Now, if I wanna beat a dragon I'll need my companion, dog, conjurations, vampire ressurect and good preparation (buffs/poison/..) before I can even stand a chance.

Hiding from a dragon, scared [censored]less, hoping it flies away...... 10 times more fun than killing countless of them without any fear.

all this sneaking around must make the entire game extremely long 500 hours plus no? i just wouldnt have the patience..

Sounds like a fun and unique build.

For my second playthrough, I'm going full on shield bash warrior where my real weapon is my shield. I'll be adding dot mechanics as well (targe of the blooded, ax dot perks and lingering damage poisons). Should be a lot of fun and VERY different from the common thief/assassin/warrior/mage builds.

Let us know how it goes. So far I'm loving my build, but I'm only level 4. :hubbahubba:

I'm not really following... most people don't just play to beat the game fast. (It can be done in 2-3 hours if you want.) A better gaming experience over a longer duration has my preference.

The sneaking around doesn't necessarily make it much longer though. With my vampire I'm moving much faster than my paladin in heavy armor. Out in the open I just walk normally with much longer sprints and when I accidentally bump into a difficult enemy I simply calm them or make them flee at first, use the "Become Ethereal" Thu'um if needed, cast invisibility, sneak away and then proceed to take them out as I see fit.

The biggest difference comes from handling otherwise friendly NPC's that now want to kick your Vampire hiney (fyi; it sparkles). "Calm" is easy to use though and it adds to a whole new role-playing experience. Especially getting in and out of towns is lotsa fun and adds a unique challenge. I've had many guards chase me through town, having to dodge numerous knee-homing arrows and what not. Sometimes I go in at night to make it a bit easier and if I snatch some nice loot here and there that's just a bonus. :happy:

Love the bleed build and the Targe shield, have seen it before but I fear the damage output might drop of steeply on later levels and harder difficulties. These type of builds usually take some time to set up properly. In my game I didn't become a vampire before lvl 12. I could have but decided I need some proper sneak and illusion skills first before I become a fully fledged stage 4 vampire.

A good intermediate solution while leveling and still being able to be a full vampire is the Dark Brotherhood (and thieves guild as well) quest chain. They accept you for who you are as a vamp because they got vampire members themselves. The lair of the Dark Brotherhood is not in a city so easy to access as well. This gives you a way to hone your stealth and illusion skills which you'll definitely need for later missions when the other quest NPC's aren't so friendly to your... peculiar red eyed gaze.

Woahh, that's challenging but the highest level of being a vampire means people will attack you on sight right?? So you won't do any quests???

I have followed this thread with great interest, as I′m planning a quite similar character for a DiD-run on Master.

For Dead-is-dead, your build has some severe drawbacks of course. Getting killed by traps or wandering bandits while picking flowers is not acceptable for me. So I′ll rely on invisibility, stealth kills, the Become-Ethereal-Shout as a panic-button as well as maximum armor and magic resistance if things go wrong. Though for a non DiD-playthrough, your build offers quite more fun, I think.

Regarding the Master difficulty, you might have misunderstood something. Enemy damage gets doubled, yes, but this is far from getting one-shot by everything. Armor still mitigates up to 80% of incoming physical damage, magic resistance even 85% of spell attacks. Oh, and regarding the armor penetration through maces: tests have shown that there are almost no (!) armored enemies in the current game. The most armored are ironically random bandits, and even they only wear steel armor. Dragons, Dwemer Centurion Masters, Draugr Overlords - no armor at all.

@Greyshanks;
I wouldn't recommend a DiD run with the vampire build described in this thread though it can be done. I haven't died often yet and when I did it was my own fault and could have prevented it. I don't really see the point though, DiD/hardcoe makes you play way to save. The fear factor is good but when you get one shot there's plenty of fear to go around already.
Going max armor and max resistance every game has become boring for me. Basically me playing this 40 HP vampire is a way of getting that DiD feeling without still abusing the imbalance of the game.

There are mainly 2 groups of people on these forums who claim master is either too easy (yay crafting skills) or too hard. I try to walk that fine line in between and limit myself just a little. The maces over daggers is a good example as explained earlier. As far as the armor penetration go, though it's true there aren't that many armored enemies, maces still have the highest base value thus making them best for a sneak attack alternative.

If you do decide to make a vampire character as well, let us know how your experience goes!

And just for giggles: A few times how I've died:

- With -100% fire resistances (vampire) and -100% magic resistances (Apprentice stone), turns out fire traps are quite deadly.
- Arriving in Whiterun. Not yet vampire stage 4 but some random mage at the gates challanges me. My RPing responce is "Oh hell now!" and kindly decline ingame yet he attacks me anyway wtf... In a DiD run that might have gotten me by surprise. Stupid guard didn't do anything about me getting murdered in broad daylight either. Don't worry, I relieved him of his duty.
- 2 mudcrabs, lol. Was over confident, missed a power attack and paid the price.
- Main quest dragon fight at the watchtower. Epic battle when you have backup archers. Running around hiding behind stones. Sneaking up to the dragon trying to avoid the flame breath. Turns out the dragon was defending her pooper quite vigorously with a deadly tail whip. Must have had some bad experiences with Alduin me thinks..

This is a really good idea, I like it. I'll give it a go after I've finished my LAAMWNFT character. What would be a great update by Bethesda, would be if you are a vampire that you could set up your own master lair in a cave and that if you go to a city at night (eg Dawnstar) and sneak into someones house then as well as drinking their blood you should have the option of 'turning them into a vampire' (one of your fledglings, a 'follower' basically) who go and live with you back at your lair. Up to 5 fledglings, I would have Ysolda, Aela, Syjlia, Muiri, Hroki and Annekke, all wearing vampire gear and lounging around my lair and laughing at my jokes through witty dialogue options. (yes i know Aela is a werewolf but this is my fantasy)

Yes pretty much everyone will attack you on sight. Members of the brotherhood, thieves guild and your companion being exceptions (maybe more). You can calm everyone though and then proceed to talk to them normally.

Here's an example to illustrate the changed gameplay experience:

Had to make a spell tome run in Whiterun as a stage 4 vamp. I sneak into the city, calm some guards on the way, make a run for it on the bridge to the Dragonreach castle. While inside the guard next to the door spots me, dang. I use my vampire invisibility spell and return to the shadows. I went in at night so the court wizard is sleeping alone in his bedroom making it easier. I sneak up to him, calm him and then do my shopping. Voila! Easy peasy. Now all that's left is making it out alive...
Two options left; either sneak out like a pro or make a run for it and have half the town chasing you with torches and pitchforks. Though I usually end up with a combination of both... :whistling:

I got this idea from another thread which I really liked, it's a roleplaying rule you have to follow as a vampire:

Whenever you feed on someone, you kill that person.

It means you'll have to pick your targets more carefully this way as you have to be able to beat them and it can't be in a public space unless you want to kill off all the witnesses too. :rolleyes:

Since I rarely feed anyway so I will definitely implement that feature into my gameplay. In fact I'm gonna go back and retroactively kill the only one I've fed on so far.
Poor old mill lady. You shouldn't sleep alone at night...

That's the thing, stealth is maybe overpowered, but firing a bow off from long range always attracts attention, so there's nothing to stop you getting spotted regardless of how high your sneak is. Another problem I've encountered is come lvl 40 or so, lots of enemies take more than one hit to down, especially on master, so hp is vital for those times when you run into trouble - and you will.

My only real beef with the stealth system is being semi detected when firing your first arrow. Hell, even firing a high powered sniper rifle once irl wouldn't blow your cover as it takes 2 shots before people can get their bearings when it comes to detecting sound. That's completely ignoring the fact arrows are almost always silent.

Huh? Have you ever fired a bow in real life? The bow itself makes a loud "thwap" sound when it fires and you can hear an arrow whizzing through the air... Just gotta say I disagree with you here. Plus in skyrim you can usually get a second shot off before you are detected and before they turn around, but yeah, they are going to start looking as soon as they are shot...

I've been following your thread and yesterday I made sure I contracted vampirism. I'm not going as hardcoe as you tho. Just some basic rules for myself such as sticking to hide armor and eventually forsworn and not allowing myself any smithing or enchantment perks. I had originally thought to limit myself to daggers, since they are terrible in a real fight I thought it would add to the difficulty, and it has in the low levels. I'm reconsidering now tho after reading how they become OP later.

Yeah, replacing one-handed weapons with archery in this way of vampire gameplay is also good. Depends on your taste really. I prefer the get into people's faces way of sneaking and dual wielding maces gives a higher damage output. Archery has it's clear benefits as well though.
My main beef with two 1h weapons is the annoying switching after you double cast spells. Wish there was a hotkey for going to your dual wield configuration instantly... :sadvaultboy:


So far it hasn't been much of a problem with a 12x sneak attack with 2 maces. I one shot pretty much everyone. Haven't even upgraded them yet with smithing nor enchanted so there's plenty room for more dps output. And at 1h skill level 70 you get "Dual wielding power attacks do 50% bonus damage" which should be a massive increase (50% to be exact) as well. Getting that sneak power attack *is* vital though because I barely scratch them without.

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I really don't feel more HP would help me much at the moment though. I would have to spend a lot of Health upgrades for it to have a noticeable life-prolonging effect and even so I would only make the drawbacks of being a vampire (-100% fire resist) weigh more heavily. Plus I can't really use the Apprentice stone either (meaning zero mana regeneration during daylight). Plus I wouldn't be able to have a massive mana pool so as a result I would be forced to go for the cheap -100% illusion cost enchants on my armor meaning I would have to sacrifice other good enchants instead.

• All in all I think abandoning HP with a sneaking/illusion character is the way to go. Both in being more powerful in the fields that matter *and* have more fun in game because everything is a potential threat, though easily beatable if you use the right skills.