If you wanted to make a character that you want to explore all Skyrim with... that you want to play up into the high levels.

What type of character would you choose?

I've really struggled to avoid the urge to restart my playthrough over and over in the past months.

If you want high level's...a hybrid type is the best way to get there.... spellsword or Battlemage... Now if all you care about is exploring, then any type character that you want to RP is good. Both together... Hybrid.

Yes. Many times I get the most playing time from characters that do a bit of everything. The key is to keep your skills as close as possible. Run through ALL the factions (Companions, Thieves, College of Winterhold, and Dark Brotherhood - Join or wipe out if you like) so that you get into all the places with Dragon Walls.

What this does is keep your character level slow in progressing and you try to use whatever skills the Guild you're working for at the time uses (weapons for Companions, subterfuge for Thieves, Magic for CoW, etc). I RP this as my character seeking out Guilds to teach them what they wish to learn, which is everything

OP

Where to begin?

Well, firstly if you are playing as reloader you could in theory use almost any build...weak ones die easy of course, but so what, just reload and keep trying with variations in strategy until you succeed and save after every step forward....easy.


If you are looking at a "Dead is Dead" or "Death with Consequences" or "Death with minimum reloads" scenarios then you are going to need a survivor.


Difficulty selection is obviously a key issue.....the higher it is the more critical your precise skills choices at each level become.


However, the requirements change as you progress and you soon run out of perks and find youself being out paced by your enemies, until about level 50 where you start to have spare perks to place in less vital 'nice to haves'.


So....talking as from a Legendary difficulty perspective...cos that's my long term play on DiD with the Contessa


Early on defence is vital....attacks can be done piece meal....but you have to be able to sponge a hit.

A. Perk your chosen armour and smith it up as best you can....I go Light for speed in retreating!

B. Sprint from bears etc so keep stamina potions in stock always

C. Get a good shield and perk block with 1H for attacks in melee

D. Get a bow...and use poisons....To avoid contact if poss......stick a couple of perks on it....but not at the expense of armour and 1H.

E. Build Sneak to a good level. Hiding puts foes off and avoids dangerous fights

F. Grow your own paralyse poison ingredients.....best way to stop bears, cats and bandit chiefs

G. An flame atronach makes a good distraction during combat...fire it off first, then assist it.


Midgame...with good armour and 1H

A. Archery is less important...really invest in that 1H weapon now

B. Block is now vital since the stronger enemies need toe to toe bashing down

C. Learn to dance! "Tactical Evasive Manoeuvring" aka Don't get hit while dishing it out!

D. Make good use of shouts....esp..UF to blow foes off ledges. MfD to weaken dragons etc. and BE Defensive back stop

E. Poisons are less effective now compared to 1H attacks....just keep a few strong paralyse for toughies

F. Crafting skills should be getting high for powerful poisons/resistance potions and enchanted boosts and resistances.


Later game armour skill near maxed out along with 1h, block.

A. Start to incorporate a few magic tricks to get the edge with real bad dudes....Falmer Warmongers etc.

B. Build some magicka points and use spells like Runes, distant casting atronaches to outflank foes

C. With good armour resistances, a high AR of 700+, strong (90%+) resistance potions, 1h and bow Dmg 400+

You are ready to tackle level 50 Deathlords and tough Falmer

But you are not a god.....and Skyrim will pit increasing numbers of high level foes to overwhealm you.


So....comes the strategic requirement....

Recce ahead in sneak..use muffled boots/ invisibility to check foe locations (aura whisper is good here) ensure you have..

A.. The zone exit clearly noted

B. One or more likely safe zones to run to

C. A retreat plan just in case


Know your foe....

A. What are they weak to

B. What can't they do

C. Their speed, primary attack and how many can gang up on you in any area


Keep your primary objective clear in your focus....

If it is just to obtain something, then fighting may be unnecessary if sneaking will work!

If you desire to kill everything, leave the quest goal until they are ALL dead.....or you might get a nasty surprise afterwards.


This works for me (though I tend to avoid conjuration)

Other methodologies and builds will work, but if you want to go mage...I'd stay on Adept

The most vital piece of advice......stay adaptable and flexible....switch between disciplines to meet the tactical need


I am not an expert, and as I said, other approaches can work, and others may argue their favourites....but I specialise in long run Dead is Dead on legendary plays.....jus' saying


I'm done

thank you

some interesting ideas in there

I think I'll go with the usual One-handed, Conjuration, Smithing, Enchanting route...

And I also had the thought of finally trying a Khajiit playthrough, as I also love cats in real life

Do the armors fit well on Khajiit characters? Did Bethesda do anything to prevent the tail/ears clipping with the armor and the weapons?

Is it actually lorewise alright for a Khajiit to use heavy armor and be a warrior, rather than a sneaky character?

Yes.....it is well known that Khajiiti warrior in heavy armour with a steel battleaxe faught against the Champion of Cyrodiil 200 years ago in the imperial city arena (Ref Oblivion Lore)

My Khajiit badass smithed up a dragonbone dagger to 100 damage and used Close Wounds in his left hand. No glitches or anything. He also snuck and sniped with a bow. He did everything and was pretty unkillable. I think my skills were:


Sneak

One-Handed

Archery

Smithing

Enchanting

Restoration

Light Armor

Good write-up. You covered it well.

I'd just offer a couple of other observations, based on playing dead-is-dead at Adept or Expert.

Since the world is leveled with you, there are two character-development strategies that work. The first is the way Rick described, advancing skills (and character level) to the point where you overtake the advancing enemies.

The other way is to level very slowly, keeping enemies at a more manageable level. This is done by making heavy use of things that don't raise your skills. This would include foods (some of which provide very powerful, stackable buffs), scrolls, staffs, shouts, and followers.

By leveling slowly, and gradually improving your gear, you can become quite powerful without resorting to heavy crafting. The various enchanted gear that you can get as quest rewards are more useful in this kind of play-style than they are in the high-leveling style, where things you can craft are generally better than what you can find.

I'm playing on Master from the start on and always feel like I'm way weaker than the most enemies that aren't in the start-dungeons.

I always felt like I would need to powerlevel to at least level 15 until I'm able to face enemies like bears, tigers, forsworn and dragons ^^

The majority of my first 10-20 hours in a playthrough mostly consists of hiding behind my fire atronach and running away from enemies that the atronach can't beat.

The levels also mostly come from alchemy and smithing at the start.

I also keep losing Lydia in every single playthrough, as she doesn't want to run away if it gets too tough

Sounds about right


You can not expect to walk it on master.....its meant to be tough


But you can see it gets easier as you progress


In time you laugh at stupid bears and walk away from weak sabrecats


But tough bosses are always tough.....never take them for granted!


Level 50 on Legendary with everything maxed out for survival is no harder than level 1 on expert.....cake walk

If by the best build? You mean the most effective? Then a Sneak archer hands downs wins late game. Its not really debatable in my opinion. You would need to invest in crafting perks like alchemy enchanting and smithing to get the most out of it, but far late into the game you can pretty much stealth your way around and out of any trouble and 1 shot kill anything. Magic although more effective early, tends to drift off towards the later levels.

do the block perks actually work with a one-handed weapon + empty hand?

things like Power Bash, Deadly Bash... without a shield, just with a 1H weapon?

I do feel like it's realistic for a spellsword character to go into that type of combat with just a single sword, after having casted his spell.

Are the block perks still useful there?

best = most fun

That answer varies with each player

UESP wiki quote " http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Block To block, hold the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Controls#Left_Hand (block) control. You can block with a shield, a torch, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon. To block with a shield or torch, equip one to your left hand. To block with a one-handed or two-handed weapon, equip it before using the block control. To block with a one-handed weapon, equip it in your right hand, as equipping it in the left hand is considered dual-wielding. You cannot block if you have a weapon or spell equipped in your left hand.

So the answer is basically depending on how you equip your sword. I did a spellsword once that used a shield in the left hand and mace or spell in the right... Kinda "Vigilant of Stendar" type character... with Immersive Creatures there are all kind's of Deadra running around.. so it worked really well.

Yeah, you can't have anything at all in your left hand, if you want to block with a 1-hand weapon. But it will block (I think of it as a crude parry); it's not a very effective block, so it's hard to figure how it would be better than equipping a shield or casting a ward.

2-handed weapons block too. Bows don't exactly "block," but deliver a bash when you use the blocking control with them.

Chuckles

The best shield to block with in your left hand is a weedy bandit

I suppose you could skewer one onto a dagger, and carry it around as a shield, but wouldn't that get a bit heavy after a while?

Oh Glargg sweetie, you really are an absolute scream


No, mostly I need only position the bandit where I wish and simply demand that he take the hits for me. I am not used to being defied darling, especially by common bandits.


Do they complain?

Well sometimes, but do I look like the sort of woman who takes no for an answer hmmm