So, after 5 playthroughs, 400 hours and 4500 saves, I've finally figured out a hard way to play vanilla Skyrim.

• Master difficulty, of course.
  
• My character is a loner. He doesn't have followers (except when a quest demands it).
  
• His health and stamina are fixed at birth. Only magicka can be increased at level-up.
  
• Standing stones don't affect him, so he doesn't use them.
  
• He is morally opposed to theft, unless a quest obligates him to.
  
• He is not a laborer - he doesn't smith, enchant, or manufacture potions.
  
• He's allergic to potions anyway, and can never drink one.
  
• He lacks the ability to conjure any creatures or weapons.
  
• He doesn't believe in paying for self-improvement - no training for this guy.
  
• He likes to feel light, and so doesn't wear armor of any kind. (or use shields)
  
• He likes to use light weapons, so he only uses daggers and bows.

So, he's kind of a self-righteous, stubborn [censored].

But I have tons of fun playing this character. Every fight is a tactical challenge. Some fights take hours of in-game play and require very creative solutions - luring enemies into traps, dashing into the shadows, etc. Finally a play-through where everything feels like high stakes.

anyone have other tips?

Seems like an interesting challenge.

Maybe an extra thing you can add is to disable the HUD?

Sounds like a lot of reloading to me. You could always try DiD and remove some of the other restrictions. Keep in on master though, obviously

Why not a mod that says "Juggernaut Difficulty"? When everything 1 hit kills you and Armor rating doesn't mean anything in the difficulty?

I tried, but setting HUD transparency to zero gets rid of the crosshair and the interaction prompts too. If I could get rid of just the compass I would. Only so much that can be done on XBox.

No mods on the console. But that's why I'm excited about the "Legendary" difficulty update. Will have to start again with the same restrictions.

Supposedly, you take 4x damage and you deal only 25%.