» Fri Dec 16, 2011 4:56 pm Skyrim Immersion, Difficulty & Roleplaying Guide
Classes
Choose 4 major skills and 3 minor skills. A perk in a major skill can be chosen at any time. A single minor skill perk my be chosen once every 5 levels.
Choose your characters class/occupation and apply those skills you think are most appropriate to that class/occupation as the major skills, and any other skills they might possess as minor skills. If your character is a blacksmith for example, then smithing should be a major skill, even if you would really rather have one-handed weapons in its place, this is part of the challenge and the fun.
Increase or decrease the number of major and or minor skills to get a more challenging or more diverse character to suit your tastes.
The following skills may never be used at all during gameplay unless they are chosen as a major or minor skill:
All magic skills - no spell may be cast from a magic class that you have not chosen as a major or minor skill, although you may still use shouts and racial abilities even if you didn't choose any magic.
No bows may be used by a character who did not choose the Archery skill as either a major or minor skill.
No shield may be used by any character who did not choose Block as either a minor or major skill.
No armour may be used if you did not select either of the armour skills. Light armour may not be used unless you chose the Light Armour skill, no heavy armour may be used unless you chose the Heavy Armour skill. This includes shields (so you must have both block and an armour skill to use a shield).
No one-handed weapons may be used by a character who did not choose One-Handed as either a major or a minor skill.
No smithing may be carried out by a character who did not choose the Smithing skill as either a major or a minor skill.
No two-handed weapons may be used by a character who did not choose Two-Handed as either a major or a minor skill.
Alchemy may not be attempted by any character who did not choose the Alchemy skill as either a major or minor skill.
Lockpicking may not be attempted by any character who did not choose Lockpicking as either a major or minor skill.
Pickpocketing may not be attempted by any character who did not choose Pickpocketing as either a major or minor skill.
Sneaking may not be attempted by any character who did not choose Sneaking as either a major or minor skill.
As far as I'm aware you can not avoid using Speech. Thus any character may level up their Speech skill, but only those who chose it as a major or minor skill may choose any perks in it.
Misc Abilities
Choose misc abilities that you think suit your characters class/occupation and try to stick to them, if you don't possess the ability, don't use it.
Gathering/Herbalism/Survival- The character has knowledge of plants and herbs and is able to pick them. They may eat them raw, sell them or if they also possess alchemy as a major or minor skill use them in alchemy. Not all alchemists may possess this ability and may have to buy their ingredients.
Miner- The character has experience of mining and may use a pickaxe to mine for raw materials. Not all smiths will possess this skill and may have to find, steal or buy their materials.
Woodcutting- A fairly simple task so most characters may possess this skill, but perhaps not a stuffy mage who spent his whole life locked in a library with his nose stuck into dusty old tomes.
Cooking- Another fairly simple task that practically every character will possess. But, perhaps you are a spoilt brat who never cooked in his life... so buy your meals.
Skinning- The character may take pelts from slain creatures. Not all smiths may know this and may have to buy their leather.
Dual Wielding- Wield two weapons at once.
Shield- You may want to take light armour and block as major or minor skills for a thief for example, but this doesn't mean he can use a shield. Choose shield misc ability for anyone able to use a shield.
Healer/Priest- You may wish to treat Restoration as a healer/priest class of spells and have it only availble to your character if he has the healer or priest misc skill and not give it to mages.
Weapon Abilities
Choose the abilities you think your character would possess and use only those weapons, for example: Daggers, Swords, Axes, Hammers, Maces, Magical Staves or other magical items.
Fast Travel
Some ideas that may or may not increase your enjoyment of/immersion in the game.
Don't ever fast travel.
Fast travel only via carriage.
Fast travel only when on horse back.
Fast travel only via carriage or while on horseback.
Fast travel whenever you like and just pretend its an uneventful journey.
Walking and Running
Don't run everywhere. Try only running when the situation demands it for example: when following or chasing someone else who is running, while in combat, while sneaking up on an enemy, while fleeing.
Followers
Take followers for a mission or two only and only if you think it is something that suits them, then part ways. For example the elf in riverwood loves that girl who had something stolen from her shop, perhaps he would accompany you to retrieve it, to appear a hero to her.
Hire someone to help you. Transfer gold to them (is this possible?) or just drop gold somewhere as a cost for their service - 200 gold perhaps, for a dangerous mission.
Inventory
Limit the amount you can carry to something realistic. Here are some suggestions, as with everything else in this guide ignore it or tailor it to suit your own tastes, thats what Roleplaying is all about anyway:
Weapons- Carry only one of each type of weapon your character is able to use and no more. For example if you are playing a Thief who knows how to dual wield daggers and fight with a sword in one hand, carry two daggers and a sword, no more. You may or may not wish to allow yourself to carry one extra peice as loot.
Armour- Carry only what you are wearing and a "casual" set of clothes to change into while walking around in town (or leave those in a house if you own it). You may or may not wish to allow yourself to carry one extra peice as loot.
Arrows- Pcik a limit and stick with it. In Oblivion when running low on arrows an arrow would disappear from your quiver every time you fired. I carried the exact amount so you would always see an arrow go from your characters quiver when you fired. In Skyrim, I personally limit myself to 25 arrows, set your own limit and stick to it.
Food- Carry 10 food items maximum, or for extra challenge only 5. Don't carry something that would spill, like a bowl of soup, eat it right away.
Misc Clothing (rings necklaces etc)- These are small and valuable, carry no more than 10.
Misc Items/Loot- Carry no more than 10 peices, count large heavy items as 2.
Metal for Smithing- Heavy stuff, carry no more than 5 peices, this will also prevent you from becoming overpowered via the smithing skill. Leave extra peices in a home and collect them for smithing (you can make an exception in this case, to walk from your house to the smith).
Plants- Small, but I suggest carrying no more than 10.
Potions- For a very hard game carry only 5, but I recommend carrying 10.
Food Ingredients- Carry only 10, or for an extra challenge count food ingredients and food as one and only carry a combined amount of 10 between the two categories.
Firewood- Clumpy and heavy, carry only a few at once.
Quest Items- Exempt these from the rules above, or if you are truly a hardcoe masochist count them in the above and be able to hardly carry anything when quest items build up.
Other Items- I probably forgot something above, but make your rule and stick to it.
Archery in Armour
In real life it is not possible to fire a bow while wearing a suit of heavy armour as you can not bend your elbow back far enough. Special armour without arm protection, or lighter armour such as cloth or leather would have been used. Interpret this into Skyrim as you choose.
Eating and Drinking
Try to eat three meals a day. Make it a decent meal you might eat at that time of day - soup, bread and some mead for lunch for example, or bread and cheese for breakfast perhaps. If your character is an alcoholic or just a burly norseman with a lust for mead, stop by the tavern each evening and spend some gold on mead.
Maps
Use only the map that arrived in your Skyrim box.
Use the in-game map only when in towns.
Do not use the map at all (this makes some quests virtually impossible unless you want to walk around the wilderness for hours searching for your objective).
If anyone knows a way to remove your own marker from the map (the arrow that represents you) please let me know, I would like to be able to use my map whenever I like, but without quest markers or my own marker. The only one I can't find a way to remove is the arrow that represents me, as a compromise I use the map only when in towns now.
.ini Modification for Roleplaying/Immersion
In Documents/MyGames/Skyrim/SkyrimPrefs.ini. None of these need to be added, they already exist and just need their value changing.
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=0 - Will disable floating quest markers
bShowQuestMarkers=0 - Will disable quest markers on compass/map
bShowCompass=0 - Will disable the compass
fBlockMaximumDistance=140000 - Will stop the flickering mountains in the distance which some people have and which is really distracting especially if you walk instead of running and don't use fast travel.
Console Commands
set timescale to # - This will change the timescale in the game. Setting it to 1 will make the game time pass in realtime. Warning: This may or may not screw up quests. DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE OPENING AND LEFT THE CAVE WITH RALOF. If you mess something up I found returning the timescale to 5 temporarily fixes things, otherwise I've encountered no problems with it set to 1.
player.modav healrate -0.7 - This will stop you from automatically regenrating health, thus making your potion and food limit (if you choose to impose that on yourself) really mean something.
Dead is Dead
Never tried it myself, but this seems popular. If you die, game over, go back and start a new character.
Difficulty
You might want to fluctuate your game difficulty so that it is more immersive.
For general humanoids/beasts make it one level easier than default, this makes your damage output more realistic and it is still challenging due to your lack of automatic healing, healing spells, potions etc.
For supernatural or scary monsters like the undead leave it normal.
For skilled individuals or special creatures or bosses up the difficulty by one.
For super creatures like Dragons and Giants, max out the difficulty.
Final Words
I hope you have gained something from the above that will improve your game experience. If not, then oops, sorry for taking your time. Please leave your own ideas, you can tell what kind of a player I am, so let me know if you got any ideas I might like.
Have fun and please suggest and discuss immersion roleplaying ideas and things that are essential to you as a roleplayer.
