Ok so yesterday I had an idea for a traveling alchemist roleplay, it seemed pretty fun to me at the time, roaming the lands of Cyrodiil in search of rare alchemical ingredients, I plan to start off poor living on a beggar's cot or something then upgrade to to the shack in IC and eventually become rich with a mansion in Skingrad showing off all of my treasures I would've accumulated in my journey's to far off lands. I'm having problems thinking of major skills, specialization, race, and what type of combat I should use most often.

I'm thinking of something like roleplaying I have a desperate fear of dying and therefore avoiding combat at all costs so I'll choose sneak so I can get past monsters in dungeons where there may be rare ingredients and using illusion to disappear when I've been spotted. So I'll make my major skills Alchemy, Speechcraft, Mercantile, Sneak, and Illusion, that leaves 2 more and I still don't know what race I should choose and what kind of combat I should fall back on in case all else fails. I also haven't thought of what attributes I should get to 100 as soon as possible.

I'm playing dead-is-dead on the Xbox 360 so no mods, also what difficulty should I set it on? Since I won't be fighting monsters much I was thinking of maxing it out but then again I'll be playing dead-is-dead so I don't want to die. Anybody have suggestions to what I should choose and how I should play my character overall?

As much as your character might like to avoid combat at all costs, I'd say it's all but inevitable at times. I'd probably toss conjuration in there, both to provide you with some meat shields and so to give you a better chance of technically avoiding combat. Sounds like a fun roleplay.

Well if your playing Dead-Is-Dead then max out ur difficulty, thats the point, its meant to make you play the game more carfully + If your not going into combat then you shouldn't need to worry. But what about those minutor horns or those Land Deugh stuff hehe

Oh and races, go for one that gives a +XX to alchemy

For the other 2 ones, why not try acrobatics and the other one that makes u run fast (sorry forgot the name) because u'll be running around a lot and running from monsters

How did I not think of conjuration, that will certainly help me avoid combat a lot. I also just thought about something, how did my character end up in jail? I never fight or steal I just plan on being an average person so how did I end up in jail :facepalm: At least I have a reason for not starting the main quest, my guy is gonna be sort of a coward so he'll be thinking "Why would I jump into a giant fiery portal with various monsters just to help a couple of people I've never met," I'll probably just deliver the amulet to Jauffre or whatever his name is then travel to Kvatch, see that giant fiery portal, and high-tail it out of there. Sorry I started rambling a little bit :mellow:

For the jail thing, someone could've hired you to make a potion but you got it wrong and accidentally killed them. OR someone could've framed you by putting nightshade in a healing potion that you were making for someone.

Oh no, I've been framed! Ok so now I know why I'm in jail, and I know 6 of my major skills (Sneak, Alchemy, Bartering, Speechcraft, Illusion, and Conjuration). I've never played an Argonian or a Khajiit before and they seem interesting to play, which one do you think will fit my playstyle the most? Also need to find out my birth sign and one more major skill, and I've never played a character that actually uses magic (I'm almost always a knight or a marksman) before so some advice for custom spells I should make and enchantments that would help me would be appreciated.

If you're new to magic, then the Mage is probably the best birthsign. Since you want to play a combat-averse cowardly alchemist, I have to imagine the number of custom spells you need will be rather minimal. Custom summoning spells with invisibility on self might be an idea. Fortify speed + fortify athletics may be nice for when you need to beat a hasty retreat.

As for your earlier mention of 100% difficulty, I'm going to advise against it. Aside from the fact that you've never played a caster type before, playing a character who avoids combat at all costs necessarily means you'll be quite bad at it. Dead-is-dead + 100% difficulty + poor combat doesn't sound like much fun.

I tend to be cautious in nature in real life so I don't take many risks in-game either, the only times I ever really die is when I want to do something fun but stupid like fight a Xivilai using my bare hands when I have 20 H2H. That's the reason I thought up not fighting at all in the first place, I'm always cautious but I still fight on almost all my characters so I thought "What would happen if I didn't fight at all". The poor combat is null and void because I plan on not fighting myself and instead using magic to control my enemy to fight for me, or cast frenzy on an enemy in a group to lower the numbers and finish them off with a summoned creature, or when all else fails become invisible and get the hell out of there.

a character like that would benefit from some bodyguards, may I suggest the Jemane brothers. Just dont take them home once you get them with you, let them do your killing. My noble character uses the same method, since hes skilled in short blades but is a big [censored]

Unless their essential when the goblins are defeated I don't think that's going to help much, I remember on my first playthrough they were both killed by the goblins on the first wave, I was level 3. Do you know of any other "bodyguards"?

those are not the Jemane brothers, the Jemane brothers cant die. your talking about farm kids, the Jemanes were seperated at birth. sins of a father quest i believe.

Oh I could have sworn the Jemane brothers were those guys from the farm, :facepalm: At what part of the quest do they start following me?

A great build and roleplay idea.
You have all down pat, for the last skill try athletics ( walking everywhere to find ingredients ).
Or security, ( bit of a leap ), lets say security means contraptions, traps and gizmos.
Lastly alteration another off shoot of alchemist training and helpfull for under sea pearl and scale collecting.
Open locks could be you pouring acid into locks to break them open.

once you go to both towns and do whatever they want you to do they ask for you to take them to the old family farm. as long as you dont go back to the farm they will follow you, you can even tell them to wait of fight etc. there are other npcs like this as well, just dont finish there quest once they are with you. there is a list of un killable npc follwers somewhere, hope this helps.

ps I dont think your Alchemist would be above using an invisibility potion to get away from a sticky situation either.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Legacy_Lost here you go, for an added depth make yourself look like the jemane brothers and you could roleplay that they are your brothers/cousins that help you for a cut of your potion profits

Yeah I was thinking of only using illusion magic if I run out of potions in a dungeon or something, and finding ingredients with invisibility as an effect is pretty hard I've only ever seen like 3 or 4, but I also never really actively searched for ingredients before. Also, do any of you think I should roleplay where I have to eat and sleep and that I can't fast travel? I suppose that would help me find ingredients and make it more fun, (having to walk back to the city [so you can get the ingredients you missed going back] after a day of collecting ingredients to sell them and then rent an inn to sleep in). Oh and considering how much money you can make with alchemy (I had over 10k at lvl 4 with another character because of it) what should I spend my money on? Besides alchemy ingredients, apparatuses, houses, etc.

illusion is fun, my run of the mill wood elf used illusion instead of alteration, but if you plan on wearing any armor dont go above level 25 or your illusion spells wont work on higher level enemies. Eating sleeping, no fast travel?, if you want to go for it, thats something i dont do.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Potions
as you can see some potions can turn you into a tank, so with alchemy you can be any type of build really, kinda like how restoration can do the same.

oh and spend your money on training, I never level up without doing all the training I can do.

Really? I've never trained any of my skills even once on any of my characters using the trainers. I guess it would be helpful to raise some of the skills I think are useful but will never actually train, how much does it cost per training session, I think I read somewhere on UESP that it's something like the lvl * 10 but I'm probably wrong.

yeah its something like that, train things that take a long time like athletics or acrobatics.

I would like to point out that major/minor skills are not about defining your character. Rather, they are about defining how rapidly you will level up. If you prefer to advance quickly to the higher levels with their comparable higher rewards, make majors based on the skills your character will actually use during the game. Be aware that the higher levels include progressively tougher enemies.

Making a mix of skills that you will use and skills that you won't use as major skills, can slow the leveling process. You could theoretically stay at level 1 while all of your used skills are maxed out making you bomb-bad against the monsters of Cyrodiil.

I personally prefer a rapid level climb but there are some epic players that have limited their character to low levels and have been rewarded with rich experiences that no game reward can compare to.

I personally grind to level 30 ( or 25 depending if I use Illusion ) before doing any quests. That way all loot is leveled to me and will never become too weak. Nothing worse than finding an amulet of the acrobat for your wood elf build at level 5 compared to level 25.

you don't need a combat skill, per se. just use command on groups, if you encounter a single opponent that you can't slip past or don't want to simply run past them and have them follow you to another location where there is another enemy then use command to get them to fight each other. typically one will be left standing and wounded enough that a summons and possibly a poisoned dagger is all you need. do the mage's g. get spellmaking and get alchemy and illusion to 50 asap, or visit the jone's stone and get access to inviso, then if you get spell making before level 50 illusion you can still make a custom inviso spell. also make a custom command your level +5 for 5 secs and that will work on everything. throw an invis on self effect on same spell when you can. that will go well with your summon plus inviso spell. i made a non combat character that played like that and even did the mq no problem. she was so scared she didn't leave the imperial city til she had illusion and alchemy both at 50.
oh for skills sounds like we have
Alchemy
Conjuration
Illusion
Sneak
Speechcraft
Mercantile
Athletics/Acrobatics either are fine.

I have a character based on a similar idea, although I haven't played him much lately. He carries a bow and arrows for those times he absolutely has to kill something/someone, and uses Sneak and poisons to make up for his poor Marksman skill. I do not use magic save for a custom Weakness to Poison spell, so I carry a set of apparatus in order to be able to mix up restorative potions on the spot so that I don't have to carry a sackful into each interior. Since I don't use armor I have some additional weight allowance, which allows me to carry out more loot.

His high Speechcraft and Mercantile skills enable him to buy the various specialty items from the merchants relatively cheaply early on, and if said items run low on charges he can readily afford the bloated prices at the Mages' Guild halls to refill them. I did train up his Armorer skill to 50 to avoid repair charges since I am a stickler about item condition and would spend way too much money keeping things 'topped off'. Since he can readily afford more repair hammers I repair everything up that he finds to raise it further and spend the added money on training sessions to help level select magic skills since I don't use them a lot due to being able to duplicate most of the effects via potions.

Since this character spends an inordinate amount of time harvesting ingredients and lives or dies (I don't play D-i-D) by the efficacy of his potions, I modified the plant life to offer ingredients much more reliably, especially the fungi. I also made it possible to earn significantly more money per potion sold because I got tired of seeing my superpotions selling for a mere fraction of stuff that was far less potent. Neither of those is necessary to have a successful Daedra-oil salesman though, so you won't lose out at vanilla settings.

Because the combat skills of such a character will remain rather pathetic for almost his entire career unless you dump a fortune into training them up, I highly recommend stocking up on specialty potions such as Paralyze, Invisibility, and/or Chameleon once you have at least a 50 Alchemy skill (which will happen fairly quickly), since these will come in handy until you can make the more devastating damage poisons or if you have run out of same.

My character is not designed to be level-capped, however in the vanilla game there is something to be said for that because at higher levels some creatures will be far too much trouble to kill even with the best poisons. Whether you choose to do that or not, choosing who to fight when is of vital importance; doing that allows you to use the appropriate potions for the encounter, which in turn reduces the need for restorative ones since the fight will be on your terms.

Heh, I'm playing an alchemist, too. There are a lot of stuff out there to pick up, including Cyrodiilic ingredients + SI ingredients + Oblivion + Tamrielic Ingredients mod (adds 180 extra ones imported from Morrowind) + Advanced Alchemy ingredients (+30).

My char is not quite the travelling guy. He likes to stay in one place and experiment (and believe me, there's A LOT to experiment), although he has 2 laboratories scattered though Cyrodiil (an Alchemist Cave and a Necromantic Research lab), and also two spells which teleports him to several small pocket realms (he uses one as a house, and the other one as a warehouse).

Severus Snape was a custom Alchemist. He had Athletics as a major skill thinking that someone wandering through the woods would sometimes need to make a run for it. As I understand it, major skills are easier to improve by use. He was similar to a standard 'Scout' class but I don't recall the exact setup. I do remember he had blade and light armor as majors. Playing Dead-is-Dead, Severus lasted over 700 hours and was tremendously fun. Before he died, he had pretty much maxed every skill and achieved level 50.