since i have played Skyrim for awhile, i thought i would see how other people play with their characters.

i usually play a warrior who kills for his own pleasure. he does not take backtalk too well. i usually just hack and slash though.

im just curious how you (guys and girls) like to play your builds.

I've been having lots of fun playing characters that specialize in just a few skills (like sneak, archery and illusion, or one-handed, heavy armor and alteration). It makes the game more challenging when you don't have every possible advantage. I also like switching from one type of build, such as a squishy mage, to a completely different one, like a heavy hitting melee fighter.

I really enjoy the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs though I sometimes don't play as the Dragonborn, or if I do play the DB, I'll start it very late in the build and 'retire' after defeating Alduin.

My character's a no-melee mystic archer. Sneak, archery, illusion, conjuration, alteration.

She spends her time exploring Skyrim on her horse and clearing dungeons.

I am very similar in builds. I've recently begun limiting what skills and crafts a character will learn. I find it more challenging and I'm not swimming in gold at level 44. I also change up the builds and try to nudge the character into a different direction than any other. For example, my current character isn't some rags-to-riches story or some sob story about parents being killed. Instead, this guy comes from a good family and he wanted to take on the world. Probably like Erik the Slayer. Best description I can give him is a spellsword. I've never played one like this before.

Basically, I try to make each one different. I don't stick to a mold. If I did, I'd always fall back to the stealthy cold blooded killer. That should probably worry me.

Its been a while since I played Skyrim or any Elder Scrolls games, but today I am going to start again and I plan on making a stealth/illusion/mage character. I had one in Morrowind that was a lot of fun, but I mostly just used invisibility and paralyze from the illusion school. Later in the game it felt a bit too similar to standard theif/warrior where I would just hack at people that were paralyzed

In this Skyrim version I will be focusing on Calm and Fury during combat (along with sneak/invisibility) which sounds like a lot of fun.

The only combat perks I plan on taking are the 7 traits in one handed for max back-stab damage (damage traits + backstab traits). I'm contemplating light armor but still not sure.

The rest of the perks will be put into illusion (maxing out this tree), sneak, and other magic trees (besides destruction). Leaning towards conuration because summons should work with illusion well

I plan on only using sneak attack back-stabs and my magic (no destruction or archery at all) to kill stuff. I like limitations like this that make it more challenging. When I play melee brutes with heavy armor and more health I usually put moral restrictions on him to make getting gold harder (no killing random civilian because you know hes got that awesome loot). I find these mroe fun ways of setting the diffculty/challenge than sliding the difficulty bar

You'll do better by skipping the armor. You can sneak more successfully without armor and you can benefit from the mage armor perks. Wearing armor negates mage armor perks. Don't forget to invest in the Sneak tree - especially the right side of the tree.

Thanks for the input. I plan on taking every single Illusion perk and 75-100% of the sneak perks. I will make sure to max out right side.

As for armor- one of the main reasons I wanted to go light armor is for the Wind Walker perk: Stamina regenerates 50% faster in all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet .

My question for you is: What will you generate stamina faster with- No Armor or Light armor with Wind-walker perk? If the answer is "no armor' I think I'll definitely go with unarmored. I will be using "muffle" so its all aobut enchantments/stamina/move speed. Does muffle have no effect if unarmored?

Also, I chose to run a Altmer for the +10 illusion but mainly because I think they're cool and the +50 magicka. What would you recommend for Health/Stam/Magicka spread? I also dont want to gimp myself on magicka and rely on the cheesy enchanting armor/cloths for 0 spell cost.

oops double post

I like to stick to mainly assassin type builds. I'll max out the right side of the sneak tree and use daggers only to one hit kill my enemies. Same goes with archery. Love the one hit kills.

Or on the flip side I'll do a thief only, left side of the sneak tree avoiding combat at all costs.

Right now I'm doing a war priestess, using only heavy armor, one handed, restoration and smithing. It's good to try different things from time to time to appreciate the roles you really like. And who knows, in the process you may just end up finding some new builds.

I can't stand thieving/stealth or 'passive magic' (illusion and conjuration). As archers I'll stand upright while firing, mages use destruction and restoration and I'll complete dark brotherhood contracts out in the open.

Personally, I'd just go with light armor, unless you are RPing a robed mage. You get a hidden 100 AR with real armor over mage armor and it takes three perks to max out mage armor, which you can save and put to something else. If you put perks into light armor, or if you smith your armor, even with no perks in smithing, you can easily get better protection with light armor than you can with mage armor, when you account for the hidden 100 you get with real light armor. In other words, 200 AR from light armor = 300 AR from mage armor.

You will get better stamina regen with light armor with the Wind Walker perk than you will with no armor, and you get your AR protection 24/7 without having to constantly recast. If you are using muffle, it will negate the noise from light armor, so sneaking in light armor is no issue. Once you get Unhindered, which is required for Wind Walker, light armor and no armor movement will be the same. Even before that, the movement penalty from light armor is slight.

The main advantage I see for using robes is the magicka regen enchantment you can get from robes, but a high magicka regen is mostly needed for destruction mages, not sneak illusionists.

I'm not sure because I always associate stamina with power attacking warriors. A sneaky character, especially one without armor to slow him/her down, can get away pretty quickly and quietly so more stamina is not crucial. I've never taken the Wind Walker perk - sorry!

For the sake of experience, I'd say go with the light armor, then switch to plain clothes and see if the stamina regen is an issue.

Edit: Woo Whoo! 2000th post.

Used to always prefer your usual thief/archer/assassin type but recently I'm having a ton of fun playing an evil mage/necromancer who's also a vampire.

Raising fallen enemies to fight for me and lobbing fireballs at everything is really fun. Also trying to sneak around villages at night to feed or luring townsfolk into the woods.

He's currently searching every cave and dungeon for magical relics and items which he likes to hoard.

My favorite type of character lately has been 2h, cloth/light armor, smithing ( more for follower then pc), archery, speech.

I have been doing alot of Bard type play through's, they are wanders looking for a "patron" or just for the fame...or as cover for their other job. One of my bards was 1h instead of two, she was an assassin, sneak instead of speech.

I generally stick to 4 or 5 skills and 1 craft. Depends on the exact build. They lvl kinda fast at low levels, but about 20 to 25 they slow way down, they are specialists. Which is fine, about the time they "slow" my characters have developed a personality and their own quirk's and I really like them. I rarely ever get a character above lvl 45 and to some that sounds kinda low... but it can take as much time getting from lvl 35 to lvl 40 as it did getting to lvl 15 from 1. I generally speaking don't "train" except mage skills that I need higher and is not quiet high enough to balance out with the other skills. ... Restoration comes to mind. I don't grind or spam craft's.

iv been having a lot of issues transitioning to master difficulty, i tried a standard sword and board heavy armored tank but quit when at level 20 with smithed gear a mudcrab still two shot me, ever since then its basically a stealth assassin with a mix of dual wielding, (shields are for bunnies. living, breathing bunnies) archery, and enough poisons to murder a dragon through a mountain and two moons.

Hmmm. At Master, a mudcrab can't quite two-shot a level 2 in plain old steel. It takes him at least three shots.

sorry dont mean to sidetrack the discussion into my own personal character, lets say I go light armor with the stamina regen- will I need to put any points into stamna to be effective? (no power attacks, just backstab and magic)? If so how many/. I want enough HP to not get one shot (but to get 2 shot, I was thinking 200-250) and as much magicka as possible. What would you recommend for this build?

Also- most importantly- since im willing going to have a lot of magicka and dont mind perking half resource cost, what other cool enchantments are there for mage/thief besides resource reduction?

Thanks for youre reply

damn keep double posting wish there was delete option

There are really only four uses for stamina in vanilla Skyrim. Sprinting, power attacks, bashing, and zooming in with a bow. It doesn't sound like you will be doing much if any of those. So, I doubt you will need much stamina. Maybe an extra 50 points would help if you needed to sprint away from a sabercat or something.

As for useful enchants for a thief/Mage, the obvious are muffle, casting cost reduction, fortify pick pocketing or lock picking, and if you are using swords, fortify one handed but that one does not work with daggers. Elemental and magic resistance are useful for any character facing dragons or mages.

There are also some gloves you can find that increase sneak attack bonus but I don't want to spoil anything.

Five if you count increasing your weight carrying.

Birgitte is a Breton fire mage with some decent one-handed skill (she carries a soul trapping axe). She saved the world from both Alduin and Miraak. She is a do-gooder, traveling Skyrim with her loving husband Farkas and helping unify the province as an auxiliary in the Imperial legion. She also happens to commit heinous acts of Riekling genocide. (Destruction gone Legendary - damn Telvanni experiments! Conjuration, One Handed, Sneak, Speech)

Orandir is a thief/archer from Valenwood who does not know which end of a sword to hold, but sure knows how to forge them. Morally ambiguous, he does jobs with little real thought to good or bad, and is well on his way to running the Thieves' Guild. He's a bachelor based in Riften with plans of using his snoring skills to go straight one day... Maybe. (Archery, Smithing, Light Armor, Sneak, Alchemy)

Karsi is a devout Talos worshipper who likes her lovers big and her swords bigger. She has just discovered her gift for the Voice and takes it very seriously, but is currently on her way to Windhelm to join the Rebellion. She's deeply religious and will not loot the honored dead or burial urns. She's not a bad person (at least she doesn't think so) but she is a Nord, and well... ::singing:: "Everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes..." (Two Handed, Heavy Armor, Smithing, a little Alchemy & Speech)

True, but technically that's an indirect effect of increasing stamina rather than a direct use of stamina.

Yeah, I figured you were counting it that way. I tried to word my reply in such a way as not to be "correcting" you.

I finally got enchanting, alteration, and alchemy to 100. I made necklaces and rings in combinations of carry weight, one handed weapons, two handed weapons, bow, fortify armor, smithing. Carry Weight 37 + smithing 25% on both a necklace and ring gives me 74 more carry weight and 50% better smithing. I maxed out Lydia and my daedric armor and weapons with double enchantments and 50% more smithing levels. My carry weight is 999. I did not think these three skills would be great. At level 100, I got bored and worked on them. Alteration at 100 gave me transmute. I buy up all the smithing supplies to increase what I can sell. Dump them off at my house in Solitude and Whiterun to carry less. I turn the iron ore into gold. Steal the silver from Whiterun's keep and buy it in Markarth. I get gold and silver ingots to 100 each. When I legendary smithing back to 15, I use the gold and silver to get back to 70-80 quickly just on jewelry. I just add back the perks to smithing. I can kill off a level quickly. I switch the rings and necklaces out like weapons. 25 Fortify armor, carry weight 37 along with 40% on each weapon and carry weight 37 makes killing quick and easy and I can carry a lot more.

What do you guys think about a Nord samurai, heavy armor (preferably nordic carved for the metalic look) and the Ebony blade as your two hander against bigger creatures. Along with the two hander, you have the blades 1 hander as your secondary. i have though about this for a long time but i want your input. dont worry about any perks or the backstory. I just want your opinions on this type of character.

i also really like the nord sword(DB) so i could use that instead of the blades sword.