Well i decided to man up and go master from the jump.

Crazy thing is instead of starting with the imperial dude, i ended up starting with the stormcloaks. I was shocked because i made 4 different characters prior and never got a different beginning.

Well once I got the elf archer dude. (name to complicated) I decked him out in some imperial gear with a shield and mace. OMFG. He is a damn beast.


We just shoot arrows to draw agro then smash everyone's heads in when they come in range. He is literally the most gangsta companion i ever had. Now that I know i can deck out companions, it is on like donkey kong. I might even keep him with me forever because he is that gangsta.

It is quite harder on master but I am keeping up with armor upgrades. I plan to max enchanting/alch/ and smithing but I do not plan on exploiting the clearly stupid stacking that can be done. I will make the basic form of thebest stuff and evenly enchant and see how that does for me. I don't want a [censored] ez late game.

Companions ftw.

fo shizzle

I was level 25 before i had a companion accompany me on an adventure. Wow, what a pleasnt surprise! The companion dynamic was much better implemented than i had anticipated. She behaves reasonably realistic & predictable most of the time. The only issue worth mentioning that obviously needs tweaking is her pathfinding ability- i often have to backtrack to collect her because she's hung on some uneven terrain.

I play on expert difficulty and Lydia has improved my survivability. I play as a ranger and have her equipped w/ heavy armor & shield. We just took out krosis & succeeded without dying. (she went down but helped enough for me to finish him off)

Companion pros:
- strength in numbers
- enjoyable sense of companionsip
- Mule! Yea, do "carry my burden"
- lydia is easy on the eyes, lol
- changes appearance when you equip various gear

Companion cons:
- pathfinding is spotty
- needs more equippable slots (not really a con, rather wish for more)
- companion in heavy armor sometime negates my stealth archer's playstyle