Hey need some insight on my stealthy Breton: I'm trying to be somewhat level efficient because I plan to use alot of nonused major skills and stop around 20-25. So let me hear your thoughts.


Breton for sure, I like playing as a human looknig kind of guy.

Apprentice or Thief, I plan to use a good use of paralyze and command and conjuration so I'll need a bit of magicka. Don't care much for the magicka weakness due to breton canceling that out well.

Major Skills: most will be magicskills I will not use, except mysticism.

Alteration- not in use
Myticism +INT
Restoration-not in use/stealth is my armor
Blunt-not in use
Security (not planning to use Skel key) +AGI
Acrobatics +SPD
Armorer- like to get this up fast/a bit iffy on this one

Any advice would be great. I expect Acadian will have something to say.

Give me some help on the level limits and which ones to pick.


My character goes with stealth and a bit of magic(with conjuration for distractions) and then blade as a last resort

I had this in GDiscussion and copied it here.

I'd recommend against Acrobatics as a major and use Light Armor instead, but aside from that, looks okay.

I'd add Invisibility and Chameleon into your planning since you want to focus on stealth, anyway. They'd be perfect for such a character, after all.

Max out your sneak and security. That will take your Agility to max, most likely, which means you should be able to use Marksman/bow whenever you want without worrying about points. Do the math to make sure, though.

Using Blade as last resort, are you planning to use bow as primary weapon, then? It would make sense, but you don't say clearly one way or the other.

Poisons through Alchemy would be useful, but it depends on how you want the character to behave, of course, or when you would choose to use them, at least.

Hmmm... well, you say you don't plan to use either Alteration or Restoration. If you are strict about this, you may have trouble getting Willpower maxed, and that would mean you wouldn't have the best recharge rate for your magicka. Since you want to use magicka, you may want to relax your restrictions on this a bit, at least to the point of maxing Willpower. Just a thought.

Armorer doesn't go up fast no matter what, but you probably want it to 50, at least. 75 eventually would be nice, of course. Fortunately, focusing on it a bit at the beginning will also allow you to raise Endurance for health when you level, so that's a plus. I would think Block would also be used for Endurance as it fits the character more than Heavy Armor.

Overall, I'd suggest focusing on Endurance and Agility first, as well as Speed. Do those for the first 4-6 levels and get +20 to +30 on the them. Should be easy to do, I think. After that, you could switch Speed and/or Agility to Willpower or Intelligence (I'd go with Willpower first, but that's me). You'd also switch from 5-5-5 to 5-5-1 and increase Luck at that point (around level 7) unless you don't want to increase Luck (but that would seem a shame for the character, I think).

I've started focusing on Personality, too, for my Illusion based characters. That's up to you. It's more useful than most people seem to think due to the related skills, but it depends on your character's personality (pun intended ).

On the light armor. I find myself always wearing leather and it levels unchecked sometimes. But I'll think about that suggestion and see if I can do this.

Bow is definately my primary, sorry for not clearing that up. magic I will use on some of the stronger enemies and blade is for those YIKES! moments.

Ill be getting up alchemy appropriately. I love poisens. Also on the will power I hope not to level this to much actually. Going for a morrowind kind of thing where you rely on magicka potions more than time, I feel it adds a bit of a risk factor that I like. "Should I really use that spell?" I sometimes question myself. Also most spells and bonuses I use will be gotten through enchants.

Luck I've never noticed a difference form my experience and Personality when I think I have enough END and other stats to go around I start dumping my 5s into my character around his end levels. Always nice to have people actually like you for RP reasons.

I'll rethink my build and maybe switch out security for h2h.

You're sure you don't want Marksman in majors? It's a seriously slow levelling skill even as an on-spec major.

Speechcraft is THE perfect unused major. Never any reason to use it, but easy to level if you want to for some reason.

I've always felt Apprentice is a really bad deal. Swapping the Breton's 50% magic resistance for 50% magic weakness in exchange for a paltry 50 magicka? Bah!

Mara

You're right about the light armor. If that's what you normally wear and you're trying to control your leveling, you probably don't want it for a major. The only argument in favor of making it a major on a deliberately slow build is if you're going to be spending the vast majority of your time killing at long distance and just need it for those few times that you'll be at melee range. Then it can be kind of nice to make it a major, just so that the little experience you get for it will count for as much as possible. But then you're back to it increasing on its own instead of when you want it to. It'll move slowly that way, but it'll still be out of your control.

I'm not quite sure how you plan to not use restoration, unless you're either going to depend on potions or wait an hour regularly, neither one of which is as practical as Heal Minor Wounds. But if you think you can do it, more power to you I guess.

Personally, unless I'm playing a true mage, I like the Thief or the Warrior with Bretons. They just provide a nice head start. With this sort of light armor/stealth/marksman build, I think I'd go with The Thief too.

I'm not sold on both security and alteration as majors. You're going to have to use one or the other to open locks, and they both increase fairly quickly, and since you run into lots of locked doors and chests, you're going to have no choice but to use whichever one fairly regularly. If it was me, I'd make whichever one includes the method you're going to actually use to open locks a minor.

Other than that, it seems fine.

Agreed on the Apprentice - there are much easier ways to get an extra 50 Magicka. I've always had problems with leveling Speechcraft without having to resort to trainers over the long haul. If you're planning on using Illusion and doing any major bartering, your Personality is going to reach decent levels on its own, which means people are going to generally like you more (I suppose you could chug Cheap Wine beforehand) and increased Fame will have a similar effect. But if you don't mind paying for training it, Speechcraft is not a bad choice. Ramara's thought on Marksman strikes me as more useful, though it is seriously slow-leveling.

I'll think , I'll switch secrity for marksman, I forgot how slow it is to level even with stealth picked.

On alteration, I will not be using it.

I think your right on the birth signs there are other ways to get magicka.
(guys I though apprentice gave you 150 magicka buts that vanilla console version)

I've decided to change that to thief. thx. I am putting an effort on alchemy and raising that early for decent potions. I want to rely on potions more and beds for a more exciting playthrough when I get found out. Not as exciting when I spam minor heal in tough situations. trying to set limits for myself.

Revised character sheet

Breton

Thief

Alteration-not in use
Restoration-not in use
Mysticism INT+
Marksman AGI+
Light armor SPD+ (try to just wear regular clothing during my training process)
Blunt-not in use
h2h-not in use

I always 'train' my characters to lvl 10 or so. And the 3 skills will stop me around lvl 20-25 I think.

@stinson -you have trouble with Speechcraft? I find it very easy to level. Or I'm just so used to the mini game, no real drawback to it except tp rebuild you disposition to them

Also if anyone knows: When you start a new character at the sewers, do your stats reset? My asking is how you know the tutorial you level inside there and that might effect some of your leveling later on in game. I noticed that it only stays at full bar when it resets but doesn't level.

No. You keep any skill experience you got during the tutorial, but any time you redo major skills/specialization/race, the skill levels will be readjusted accordingly.

Mara

Marksman never levels slowly for my characters. Plus you only need it at 75 anyway, unlike other skills.

The point about Light Armor is that it is the only one of the three Speed skills that you can control. Both Athletics and Acrobatics are difficult to impossible to control. LA is easy... don't wear it unless you are leveling with it. Same with HA, of course. But you'll almost certainly need Acrobatics as a stealthy character, so avoiding using it could be difficult if you make it a major.

Same with any primary skills. Marksman is an example... I gave up having it as a major because it is too hard to control its use. As a minor, I don't have to worry about it and can use it as I like. Same with Destruction, Restoration, etc.

The reason I started maxing Personality earlier is because it winds up making the play much easier due to Mercantile going up. Once Personality is maxed I no longer have to worry about 1) selling stuff [since Merc is uncontrollable, too] and 2) using Illusion whenever I want [which may be a concern for you since you want to stealth].

Just my input... your choice.

Ive never understood how personality affects illusion?

Also i read the wiki and when personality is at 180 animals will stop attacking you. Gotta try this one day

It doesn't.

In spite of what the game says, attributes don't really affect skills at all. Some of the attributes affect the same things that skills affect (for instance, strength affects melee weapon damage, agility affects marksman damage, personality affects disposition), but none of the attributes affect the skills directly. If anything, it's the other way around, since increases in skills grant attribute bonuses.

So personality doesn't affect illusion at all. Illusion increases provide bonuses for personality, and that's the extent of their connection.

impossible

You can boost your Personality by doing the Speechcraft minigame frequently. It also tends to save you money on bribes, which can add up after awhile. I like using it on merchants, then it's easier to haggle a better price if they like me. My own Breton necromancer is leveling veeerrry slooooowwwly due to all his skills being magical except for Blade. Add frequent use of Stealth, Speechcraft, Armorer, Light Armor and other secondary skills, advancement is slowed to a crawl. Which suits me fine; I'm in no hurry to fight ogres and higher Daedra, thank you very much.

regarding this
Alteration-not in use
Restoration-not in use
Mysticism INT+
Marksman AGI+
Light armor SPD+ (try to just wear regular clothing during my training process)
Blunt-not in use
h2h-not in use

I'd take out Alteration because it is very handy to keep a feather spell going at all times unless you want to waste a slot on feather then it is even still helpful. very easy to raise willpower - you could put in Speechcraft, agree with comments above about easy controlling.

Increasing skills is based on a system of experience (the exact numbers are invisible to the player). The end result of this system is that leveling a skill a couple times in the tutorial, when it starts at five, might not actually be enough to level at all if you wind up majoring it. Like mara said, the "skill experience" is still there. It's just that it suddenly became a drop in the bucket compared to the massive chunk of skill experience the engine adds for your class.

On the extreme other end, if you set on Sneak/Walk and go AFK for a couple hours, your sneak will get up close to 75. If you then choose to both specialize stealth and major sneak, you'll become a Master, because these factors have a dramatic effect on experience requirements.

Well I hardly ever use feather spells or anything in alteration( I never used shield spells/ unless there enchanted). I never even use the lock spell.
Also I can't help myself on speechcraft, I love that stupid minigame and find it addicting. :blush:

I've never cared or found a use that I use usually with alteration. I mean I'll enchant a cuirass for 20% protect or some reflect effect but those gladly don't level it.

@ tristan, good to know thx :icecream:

You can also look up specific skill experience progression on UESP wiki. The info there shows experience gained for all skills, including breaking them down by the four possible combinations (minor, minor specialized, major, and major specialized).

Bretons are stealthy to begin with because they're 4 foot nothing. >_>