This really is my own fault, for I have trouble getting hot keys to work right, but I kind of laugh every time my character is in a fight. Imagine, if you will...

Your prey is up ahead. A bandit camp that the Jarl has wanted taken care of. You head on into camp and they do not take kindly to your presence there. Soon, you are in the thick of the fighting. You see that you are injured, so...

Character: "TIME OUT!"

Bandits: "what... the..."

Character: "Time out! I need to drink a potion!"

Bandits: "..."

Character:

Bandits: "Ready?"

Character: "Yes. Thanks!"

If I can, I will use Restoration, instead of potions, for this very reason. It feels more natural as time does not stop as I heal myself up.

The other instance is changing gear/weapons during combat. "Time Out!" is called again while you shoulder your bow and ease your sword/axe/mace into your hand(s). Bandits are frozen in mid power-attack.

I realize if I could get the hang of hot keys, this would not be such an issue. It just gets me smiling when I do this

this has been around since at least morrowind, and probably in Arena and Daggerfall as well.

There are some hilarious live-action videos about Skyrim on youtube showing this.

What I do is assign hotkeys by function. Then I don't have to worry about what is equipped where as I have already made my decisions before the fight. For example, in my games:

1. Primary Weapon

2. Secondary Weapon

5 Healing

8 Ranged/Snipe Weapon

In other games I will use 3 and 4 for Melee or group fighting weapon/spells, 6 and 7 for large scale or explosive type weapons/spells like Fireball or Firestorm. Obviously the functions you will use are probably different than mine. But, this way I don't have to wonder what I need to use in battle in each game I play, the Hotkey is already pulling up the weapon or item that will do what I want when I need it.

ha exactly what I was thinking of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LZhsstWPe8

Yea, I had the same experience in both Morrowind and Oblivion

Yea, I usually do the same thing. "5" is "heal hot key." However, with potions, they run out.

The equipment thing totally throws me off, though. The worst part is that my right mouse button controls my left hand weapon/shield. My left mouse controls my main hand. I have to really think about that before I can continue on Do the items I want equipped go in my left or right hand? Depends on the equipment, I think, but could be wrong here.

Lol yep that is a great one. Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s44mL0sSluQ

yup there has. I recall one where a woman sat there trying to eat a steak while the bandit waited for her to signal she was ready to fight haha

I rarely use potions... breaks the immersion for me. My character does consume a decent amount of ales and mead... but to wash down that mammoth steak dinner.

Love these ones haha

Yeah I wish they would make more. This guy has some great "cartoon" Skyrim parodies as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv3ScKLD1Vc

Those videos were great!

I'm using the 'disablegearedup=0' ini tweak so my character visibly carries a favourited weapon of each type (e.g. bow, arrows, battleaxe, dagger, while she's got a spell and shield equipped). Looks great, feels more realistic than apparently pulling a battleaxe out of, erm, thin air. Only trouble is, it's kind of buggy (presumably why it's not typically active in the game), and if you switch weapons/from a weapon to a spell without 'sheathing' you can get some interesting results. Sometimes it's kind of cool, as if you have a battleaxe in your hands, then equip a spell in the left hand, you generally find yourself blasting ice/fire/etc at the enemy, with your battleaxe still waving around in your right hand. If you switch between bow and battleaxe, it gets... kinda funky, as you try to hold one in each hand and still fight with whichever you take out.

Upshot is, I'm learning to put my hands down to change equipped stuff, which means it adds a couple of moments of vulnerability, which is probably a good thing (but kinda scary, esp with Requiem, even though I've reduced the damage I take). Still have the time out button, though, I shall probably get Looks from my kid for giggling when I use it and remember this post...

Same here. I love having alot of weapons on my character at the same time. One weapon at a time is immersion-breaking for me.

I am about ready to re-mod my Skyrim. I'll have to look into this mod tweak. Thanks

It's great. I believe there is a way to make it work with dual-sheathing so you can have a sword on each hip or crossed sword on your back as well ... but I haven't messed with it yet since I'm afraid I'll break some ini.

That's the beauty of the system, you think this all out before the battles, then just use the Hotkeys. I have tried to do the time out thing and select stuff from my inventory during a battle. Even knowing the enemies will pause and wait for me to get ready, I still am in a bit of a panic mode, and usually end up dropping something or equipping the iron dagger I picked up for some reason.

where have these scribbles been all my life? I just watched 1 through 11 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I can not count the number of times I have done this! I've dropped items, un-favorited them, equipped the wrong item, or drank the wrong potion. That "panic mode" is still there even though I *know* the game is paused

These were some of the greatest videos EVER, in the history of EVER.

why stop there? watch the ones for the DLC also.

The same guy does the same kind of vids for Game of Thrones...

episode 9-10 covered the dlc. of course I was just watching them in the order as I saw them. I didn't see any separate dlc ones.

The civil war stuff made me laugh.

You said it yourself

Ahh I thought he had put more vids out. Gosh they are great!