I recall not too long ago someone posted a method of levelling up 10 levels or so before leaving Helgen Keep. It involved sneaking around the brown bear you pass just before leaving. Can someone give me a how to of this or link me to the relevant thread? Thanks

Why would you want to? I try to not level at all by hanging back and letting others do all the fighting. I want a save just outside of Helgen with all my skills at starting levels for when I start a new game. If only I could change my race/name/face ect at that point for a quick start to a new game.

I want orc gear asap.

Some just sneak attack Hadvar/Ralof repeatedly with a dagger.

you would be unable to CRAFT any orcish gear as you would be unable to get ahold of the stuff needed or raise your smithing at all and does not start appearing semi-common until level 25.

Best way to do it is sneak attack your buddy with dagger in the very first room, not bothering opening locked door. You can also just sneak around the bear, but that is much slower.

Cool how quickly will my sneak skill raise (lvls per hour) if I sneak attack Ralof? I forgot to add I also want my sneak high before entering the world.

Just out of curiosity, what type of character are you creating here?

If you want to grind one hand and/or destruction then follow Ralof, quickly kill and loot the Imperial captain so you have her key and Ralof won't be able to leave the starting area until you unlock the gate...simply hack away at him or burn him with the flames spell as long as you wish.

If PC users do this, they might as well just use console commands, lol.

Why would you do that? Just level up as normal. I don't want to spend hours hacking at Ralof until I'm lvl. 25. I'll get there when I get there, I say.

Doing sneak attacks on Ralof/hadvar is the quickest way to level up in Helgen. It's not really a good thing to do if you play on high difficulties because enemies will be a lot more dangerous than they would be if you mainly leveled up your combat skills.

If you do nothing but level your sneak, you might gimp your character. All the enemies outside will be different.

Off topic, I think you need to empty your message box Michael, tried to send you a pm about an xbox user that could use your help mate.

Heavy armor and Sneak generally do not go together, alongside what everyone else has said about level scaling

Levelling up in Helgen is going to gimp you hard if you play on higher difficulties and/or need loot. I suggest you should play the game naturally and let your skills devolep as you go, always been the core of the TES series. But if you really want to power level, people above aptly pointed out sneak attacking your Stormcloak brother repeatedly.

There's a full set of Orcish armor and shield (perhaps sword as well) on a shrine at Largashbur if you have the nerve to steal from the Orc tribe there

Also if you're blood-kin to the Orcs you can hire Borgakh as a follower and regardless of her level she has an Orc sword and bow that you can take from her inventory, her armor on the other hand is leveled.

benefits a the pc my lad, stay frosty kidda

Indeed. Showracemenu is a very handy tool for on the go race change. To avoid the possible statular changes, I'd recommend leaving your choice of race at its default look and use the face sculptor in riften to change your looks. She also does muscle mass.