Anyone forgone levelling entirely? Describe how that went. Game still playable with just skill increases and no perks?

Also get a follower. With it doing the killing, you won't get to touch anything that much as to level your skills.

I have one character who never levels. If he were to level he'd be Lvl26 (easy to check from a save game). Well, alright, he did go to Lvl2 but only for the Steel Smithing perk; has a fondness for Steel War Axes. :whistling:

He is my Cartographer, if you will.
I do this with every TES game; one explorer to reveal the map. He simply walks a grid pattern to open areas and find what's where.
Ingredients, for example. It's nice to note clusters of jazbay graqes. Where are hawks nesting?
What is the walking time between Riften and Winhelm? How does that compare to hiring the carriage?
How close is too close to a giant camp? Will they helps against wilderness creatures if I run through?
Where are the surface ore veins? Corundum and Iron? Quicksilver and Gold? Note concentrations for later forging.

He wanders and takes notes for my other characters to utilize.
Cheezy? You betcha.
Still fun? Without doubt. He is one of my favorite characters, finding himself in jams more often than not.

It's a single-player game and there is simply no right or wrong. Do with it what you will.
Perhaps, if given the chance, you'd enjoy a non-leveling, non-questing, off-the-beaten-path Cartographer. :read:

Character advancement is one of the most important aspects of an RPG to me. So no, I would never forgo leveling up.

I dont do grinding skills, so while I'm @ lvl 35, leveling is not nearly as frequent as it was before.

I have! :nerd: Not yet with Skyrim, but in both Oblivion and Morrowind.

I just level up as I can I never rush it.

ive played long stretches without using my perk points partly because i just forgot to use them and also on some occasions i want to save them up because im still undecided what i want to do with that particular charater. its doable but some of the perks come on handy.

my last couple of characters i just prebuilt with a bat file. its get my character to level 40, medium tier weapons and armor increased skills in whatever i type in the text file and a bit of money and some lockpicks. im actually having fun playing this way because instead of starting from crap bottom in every skill and somehow magicaly becoming 10000 times better over the period of a few weeks i can make up a backstory for my character such as him being a seasoned orc infantry soldier, or a fairly powerful breton mage who escaped highrock, or an imperial agent sent from cyrodil undercover to assassinate ulfric. all of these would require someone of some skill right away and not some inept bumbling idiot that initially couldnt stab a tomato with a fork.