I already have a fine share of Ancient Dragons, but they're all about using become ethereal when they spit fire. I also get a lot of Draugr deathlords, but they hit for next-to-nothing, when they get to hit me.

I always am getting one shot but I have only 150 hp. I use my summons and sneak + ranged destro and a bound sword up close. Very viable. O ya, I too use plenty of paralyze spells.

EDIT: Apparently 2-hanger is vastly inferior to sword and board

I don't understand that sentence but nvm.

Oh and btw I reloeaded an old save (by old I mean 3 hours ago) and it's back to normal it seems, my paralysing 260 damage deadric greatsword is doing wonders and i'm losing 1/4 to 1/3 of my health when being struck, so maybe it was a bug, I'll monitor ir closely.

So thanks for all the helpfull comments I'll definitely invest in health from now on (and thanks as well for the less helpfull ones...)

And yes there is a block skill wich is amazing when using a 2 hander with only 2 points invested, once time is slowed by the enemy power attack just strafe and power attack him/her from the side/back. That's how I get rid of the Deathlords with my low health :tongue:

I scoff at ancient dragon fire, but I have capped magic resistance and 30% absorbtion. If they get close enough to melee me I'm dead though

I can get killed three times by a single breath, God bless the Become Ethereal shout! On melee though... I pretty much faceroll them unless I unequip a lot of armor, that's why I'm wearing 390 right now. I've always been kind of a hardcoe gamer, though.

I can guaranteed you 100% there is something wrong mechanicaly, as in bugs, or extraordinary situation, I played 3 chars from lvls 1-54 now, and the situation you are describing, even if admitbly you have extremly low hp, never happen to me.

sadly theres no combat logs, but try to observe what happens, are you not being hit by multiple sources? are you not being hit by a rogue/poison attacker? are spell casters using dual spells?
believe it or not, understanding whats going on and whats being used against you often reveals whats going wrong, and itsn ot always a "technical" problem
I am on PC and never experienced resist bugs or anything... I can tank casters with last rank ward with 60-75% magical resist with little difficulty, my biggest vulnerability is poison and IIRC my lowest hp char (pure mage) as about 320-420 HP (depending on gear loadout) and he does not get one shotted, ever, dunno if I was ever shot without having my ebony or dragon skin buffs up but ye.

Work on this, get it up to as high as possible (Lord's Stone + Agent of Mara + 1 ring + 1 amulet). Do another round of enchantment if you must and let us know how it works out. Unless you have 5 perk points lying around that you can absolutely afford to throw into alteration's 30% magic resistance. Cap's 85, so do your maths before investing the resources.

edit: though your physical resistance isn't working. You should not be taking that much damage from physical attacks since your AR has hit the physical resistance cap. I agree with Ganan's post, something has gone wrong somewhere.

Apparently it was my savegame who went wrong, because now (after loading an older one) I tested in the same place I was getting one shotted 30 min ago and it's back to reasonable values damage wise.

And i'll prob won't reach 85 on this char since I'm not planning on using any magic school beside Resto, keeping sneak/pickpocket/light armor and all magic school for my 2nd playthrough (1st playthrough the "nice warrior guy", and second one the "pure evil caster"... I always do that ! Its my rule if you want to see most of the content :wink_smile: )

This.

Although I would recommend getting block for your 2H at least up to 30 so you can get the Quick Reflexes perk.

Health should be more than Stamina and if you are not casting that many spells, never put anything in Mana.

I don't think that's it. While I have a lot more than 240 health, it wouldn't really matter if I did or I didn't. I could stand in the middle of a forsworn army and just wander around killing them. They don't come close to one shotting me. With that kind of AC and resist he should be talking very little damage. They'd have to be doing like 1000 damage a stroke to one shot him.

I tend to split 50/50 between Health and Stamina, but I'm a hopeless pack-rat and want the added carrying capacity. It should really be more 2:1 between them, since you can always take more trips back and forth to empty a dungeon but getting repeatedly killed means you can't clear it to loot it in the first place. At higher levels high Magic Resistance (Absorb optional, but recommended at higher difficulties) becomes vital, as top-end caster mobs deal insane amounts of elemental damage and do so rapidly from range, and Ancient Dragons can vaporize you with one Breath attack.

For reference: my L68+ Mystic Archer has about 370 or 380 (I forget which) HP, and on adept one Breath from an Ancient Dragon takes off about 75% of that due to her not having any resists. She's rarely in melee and when she is her capped armor means it just tickles, however Dragons and casters are painful if she doesn't get the jump on them. I have another character I started last night, and he'll be getting high Magic Resist so that such encounters are much less of a hassle.

Honestly, this sounds like a bug to me. My dude has about that much armor, and i can just mess around with 90% of enemies I run into, including draugr deathlords and whatnot. I mean, a single hit does maybe 5-10% of my max health; that they're oneshotting you sounds like your armor isn't being counted at all. Try unequipping it and seeing if it makes you any weaker?

You must be doing something wrong, at level 50 i hadn't even started leveling smithing yet, so my gear was just "fine" i wasn't even armor capped and i used light armor. I also played a more of mage btw. I started leveling my melee skills around 50, so i was in melee with a character that was not armor capped which you are and i had no problem. I had more health than you do though. I put every other level in health and mana, nothing in stamina (as again i played a mage) also had some health enchanted, since my enchanting skill was always pretty high from playing a mage and i had put talents in it.

Edit. forgot to say i was playing on expert at that time (master now).

No I dont think that is normal at all, unless your gear is messed up or you invested 0 perks on armor. Is it legendary? You said you have 100 smithing. Even if your hp is low, 250, it doesnt mean they should be one-shotting you like that, not on adept. Something is definetly off

Are you playing on patch 1.2? Perhaps your magic resist is still bugged

i'm level 27 and have 350 hp without enchantments >_> but i'm a mage type character with most points in conjuration so maybe it doesn't count.

Problem: 250 health at level 54.

I was going to say it was because of your max hp but then I noticed the replies and thought about it.

You have 250 HP and you are getting killed by one blow.
Even if you have 500 HP you will only get killed by two blows.

So I'll just say you leveled some non-combat and combat-but-still-useless skills like illusion, speech, pickpocket, etc and you wasted your levels which made everybody else stronger than you. It also depends on what kind of people who you are fightning against. There are bandits that goes down with 2 slashes and there are bandits that make you hack, slash and dodge for 40 seconds.

This happens to most people. I wish I found out this sooner. I got used to "leveling up is always good" way of thinking by playing too much Morrowind.

i encounterd that Phenomen once after i hit lvl 40 with my Bard, an Foresworn char onehitted me at full Health, only coud stealth by him, no change in combat.
also an Vampire Master drained my Life instant one Time, here i had to use an Bow to finish him. And i am at around 350 Hitpoints.