A speculative 'perhaps' on both counts.


This is actually the point of greatest balance in the game. Obviously, a difficulty curve is implemented via leveling in order to keep the game fresh and challenging. Most often, you will be fighting enemies that are tailored to your current level. However, if you find yourself in a situation that is too difficult for you, use the Difficulty slider in the Game Settings to scale things down a bit, or revert to previous save that will allow you to take an alternate route. And while I think you're exaggerating the hits taken/given ratio for Adept difficulty a bit, turning the difficulty down solves this also.


There are boss/miniboss/underling creatures in every dungeon. Once again, tailor the difficulty to suit your needs. On note of the Companions questline, the first quest you receive from Farkas is a radiant quest, which basically means it will take you to a random location to accomplish a random objective. Often this will take you to Shimmermist Cave, as example, which is a Falmer/Chaurus lair, at the end of which you fight a Gloomlurker (Falmer boss) and a Dwarven Centurion at the same time, which is ridiculously hard for a low level character at any difficulty. My suggestion would be to create a save file before you take on a radiant quest (or any type of quest, if you can't tell the difference), so if you find yourself overwhelmed you can reload and try for a different location.


This for me is really the only point of overt imbalance in the game. Dragon fights should be brutally difficult, at least as compared to any other fight on that difficulty.


Here is where I think you are really screwing yourself over. While I think your disbursemant of points in HSM is fairly accurate for your class (though Stamina could use some more), your perks don't look as well. Being a level 12, you need to have many more skill points invested in armor, and why are you splitting your attention between light and heavy? Figure out which one you need the most and distribute points as needed. Blocking is a very useful defensive skill, but neglecting your armor is seriously hurting you.


No, it isn't a balance issue so much as a strategy issue on your part. And I've certainly never heard of a bug that does that.

I am around level 25ish. I am finding the game really hard as well. I keep putting the Difficulty slider down alot of times. I believe the problem is, I am leveling up because of the skills I use are non combatant skills, like lock picking or reading alot of skill books because I wanted to collect every book I could find. I never did Smithing or Alchemy though but still leveled up a bit.

Also I didn't use all my Perks as well. So I find it funny so many people complain about how easy the game is, I find it hard just like the Original Poster. So the only thing I can think of is if you want to get better in combat, you will have to only level up your combat skills and nothing else. Thing is, for me, that is not fun. I want to do other things as well, but sadly that causes me to level up and make the game harder.

It could also be play style. In Fallout/Oblivion, I play a sneaky guns/archer character. Same with my first Skyrim character, and had no problems. Things would often die before they reached me, life was good.

Then I decided to make a sword and board warrior, and I was actually surprised with how quick my health could go down and how often I died, even wearing heavy armor. I had been just charging into rooms, assuming I was almost immune. It took me a bit to learn how to successfully play a melee character.

light AND heavy armor perk?

1 of those is wasted.... not THAT big a deal.... you can afford a few bad spends... but they do hurt, especially early.

Pick either Heavy or Light armor. Light Armor is easier on your stamina and weight early in the game. Heavy armor grants more armor. In the end it honestly won't matter all that much but light armor will still have better stam regen and heavy will give better armor ratin. Pick 1 type and stick to it... use ONLY that type of armor and level it as fast as possible.

Grinding Skill Levels:
You can grind some skill levels. If you find a trap that does ~50% dmg in a dungeon... let yourself get hit by it (armor levels based on dmg taken) and heal with restorartion. sit there and rinse & repeat and gain a couple skill levels.

Sneak can be grinded by just moving around silently near enemies, but even easier, by summoning a familiar and backstabbing it.

Block can't be grinded other then just letting a non-threatening enemy wail on you with shield raised. Bashing enemies interrupting power attacks also gives good xp.

One-Hand is only leveled by doing damage. You can kill your own summons to this end BUT 1hand levels slowly and it's best just to always use it in combat and let it level naturally.

Smithing and Enchanting can be EASILY power leveled. Once you find a stamina damage, health drain, paralyze, fear, turn undead, or... the best one... banish, you can make absurd amounts of money leveling them. Bear in mind you do NOT need to invest ANY perks into smithing or enchanting for this.

To level smithing:
Whiterun is best, 3 shops to buy material from (4 if married). Buy up all the iron ingots & ore.
Turn collected hides into leather strips (you get like 16 from a bear, 12 from cats, 4 from wolves... so you should accumulate plenty)
Forge daggers en masse. Do not sell, store in container. You'll use them for enchanting.

Leveling smithing on it's own is a money sink. When you power level enchanting those daggers become fat cash.
Alternatively you can easily level smithing with just buying Iron Ore (dirt cheap) and using most of your leather to make leather bracers. You'll need to be very active in collecting pelts but it's a cheaper way to level smithing if you have no interest in enchanting.

For Enchanting:
First you'll need soul stealing. The spell works, but a 1handed weapon is what you'll want. If you find ANY soul stealing weapon, you can disenchant it, and enchant the best 1handed weapon you can, improve it, and enchant it with a 1 second soul stealing effect (most # of charges) A greater Gem will give you like 300 charges. A Common Gem is plenty good enough around 150 charges.

Buy empty petty and lesser gems from all the college mages and court mages everytime you come through their area. Also buy up filled petty gems (they'll cost you ~150 tops, and the enchantments listed above on daggers sell for 200+)

Everytime you have a stack of 20+ petty & lesser gems, go grab out some daggers from your stash, mass enchant, and then use the daggers as trade in stores.

Here's the thing... you'll have more daggers than you can easily sell... but say Eorlund has some ebony armor and weapons you want.... $4,000 worth.... well, that might be too much if you've on;ly got 6-8k but if you also have a stack of 20 $200 daggers (Daggers I enchant now with petty gems are worth $2k in stores... but I'm maxed with perks so I get double enchant) then you can buy up the expensive equipment and get your money back trading in those daggers. Don't forget "General Stores" sell just about everything and buy anything and so make great trading posts for your daggers letting you buy up rings/necklaces with enchantments, potions, soul gems, etc

PS: A high level smithing will allow you to greatly improve your weapons and armor. Take the perks for it (go either left OR right... left if you chose light armor, right if you chose heavy. However if you want dragon light armor you can go to the right so you can craft and better improve ebony/daedric weapons which are the strongest and craft your own dragonhide light armor after powerleveling to 100. Takes about 250-300 daggers so bear that in mind before you drop perk points).

If you don't want to enchant your own gear, then you may just want the arcane smithing so you can improve the magic weapons and armor you find. Be aware that taking Enchanting (perks. Just skilling it to enchant daggers for money does not) minimizes the importance of loot hunting in the game.

The main thing to note is that the further away you get from the center of the map (Whiterun), the tougher the caves will get. So try to clear out a few caves in Whiterun hold before setting off on a journey to Riften (unless you're travelling by carriage).

Its balance issues, the difficulty constantly jumps and and down like a lunatic Rabbit.
Give it a few more Quests with the companions and you will meet the same guys and be able to kill them without stopping.
At least it was that way when I did their Quests, could as well be totaly random.