So, lately I have pondered the question of how skilled and power of people like the average soldiers in armies and warriors around Tamriel are. The reason for this is mainly because of Morrowind and Oblivion.

In Morrowind's main game characters like Bolvyn Venim and Sjoring Hard-Heart are recognized as very skilled warriors, but when you actually look at them they are not very impressive(barely around 200 health and around level 20). Same goes for Neloth, as an example of a mage, in Morrowind who is a Telvanni master wizard.

In Oblivion you have townsfolk talk about trainers, even the "Basic"(40 skill) level trainers, as very skilled in their arts, be it combat, magic or stealth skills. The "Advanced" trainers(70 skill) are seen as exceptionally skilled.

So my question is what is really considered powerful in TES? And how powerful woulf a soldier, even a magetrained(spellsword, battlemage etc) soldier, be?