I'm a level 16 imperial, skills are restoration, one-handed mace, and heavy armor.

Just now, I got to a point in the dawnguard questline where I simply can't progress any further, because I have to fight a frost giant that can one-shot me. My stat spread is 4 health, 2 stamina, 1 magicka. And my mace barely does anything to him, even though its enchanted with fire damage. Also the thing one-shots my follower from full.

This is a problem I had with a battlemage character a while back. His ability to fight wasn't progressing, everything was just getting harder and harder. I had to abandon him, after I had to kill a bandit leader that could one-shot me with a bow, when I had over 200 health.

Why is this? I do fine early game, but as I level up things just get harder and harder until I'm forced to quit because I simply can't defeat the boss monsters anymore. I first start to notice this problem when I first encounter sabre cats, those things own me like I'm a joke. And bears may as well be in god mode to me.

Everything just hits for more and more damage and I deal less and less damage to everything as I go along. On my first play-through I was relying on smithing and enchanting to keep up with everything, but I'm trying to avoid doing that because its game breaking. But it seems that if I don't, I can't even get to level 20 before everything becomes hopeless.

I also kinda have this problem with dragons early on, I have to run from every dragon I see just because I can't possibly win. I do eventually get ahead of them, but that was purely because of me grinding nothing but enchanting.

At this rate, I'm actually thinking about turning down the difficulty, because I simply can't handle the game at the standard difficulty. And there's people who seem to think that even master is [censored] easy. I can't make it past level 18 or so on the standard difficulty without grinding enchanting and smithing to give myself overpowered equipment. I mean, how am I supposed to defeat a monster that can one-shot me from full health while my attacks barely make a dent in its hp? I dance around dodging its attacks for 10-15 minutes, and I almost had it dead once, but then it one-shot me. This is just stupid. I don't even know what I could do differently besides quit trying to role-play and just powergame like I used to. This game isn't meant for immersion, you have to exploit the system to play it.

Are you using any mods?

What is your armor rating.

What are the skills at and what perks did you pick.

I'm just kinda wondering how you managed to come up with a frost giant at level 16... unless you mean a frost troll?

Then there is the question of whether or not you're playing "Dead is Dead" style, because that would be much harder than normal, eh?

Finally, it doesn't hurt to know how to run when you're overpowered by your opponent. the game is kind of set up in such a way that you just can't realistically walk in and kill everything in sight. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses, and run. Go back later. Bandit chiefs are classic examples of that, and there are a few that are exceptionally strong even for their class. halted Stream is generally a good example of that.

At the same time, you mention a high smith and enchanting skill, and here's the thing about that... It's just as important or MORE important to build up your weapn and armor skills. so, if you grind away and get up to 50 smithing skill, but your one hand or two handd is still at 20 to 25, and then you go out to kill a bandit chief in your fine new armor, you're toast because you can't use a weapon well enough to hurt him. If you haven't improved your armor skill, you can't take a hit either.

So what do you do? Well, you have to create a balance in your skills. Remember, every time you go up a level in smithing, an enemy somewhere just went up a level in his combat skills.... So, if you go up a level in smithing, make sure you go up a level in your weapon (or fighting) skills too...

Yes. My characters do this a lot.

I'm not using any combat mods. The only thing I have that would affect my character's stats is frostfall and a food mod that requires me to eat and sleep and such.

And after checking, my character is actually level 17.

His restoration is 43. Perks are novice restoration, apprentice restoration, regeneration, and respite.

Heavy armor is 56. Perks are juggernaut 3 and well fitted.

One-handed is 63. Perks are armsman 4, bonebreaker 2, fighting stance, and savage strike.

Armor rating is 262. My mace deals 24 damage, and has a fire enchantment that deals 5 damage.

My stats (without any modifications) are I believe 200 hp, 140 stamina, and 120 magicka.

I haven't smithed any of my gear, and my follower is Serana. Like I said, the frost giant even one-shots her. I have no shouts, haven't bothered with the main quest line since I completed it long long ago.

And what's surprising about me being there at level 16/17? There's no level requirement for quests, you can do any of them regardless of your level, and the system doesn't give you any warning that you're walking into an area that you can not handle. I tried to do that caller quest at level 2 or 3 once, you're supposed to be at least level 7 to do her. Yeah, they botched the quest thing. At least the improved the leveling system over oblivion.

Yes. being unable to handle everything at any given time is a truly botched job it's not like actually being challenged is a good thing /sarcasm.

You really want some kind of warning that an area is going to be too hard for you, stick your head in and if it gets cut off it's too hard for you. if that's too much of a bother go play a linear rail game. you will never be challenged there. If you can't beat something go level up and come back to it later. Prepare yourself. Use some kind of tactic. He hits too hard? Get an armor potion. Doesn't die fast enough? Get a better weapon or some poison. Still just can not beat him. Run away and go kick around some bandits. Come back when you are stronger and can afford some better equipment and then shove your shiny new sword right up his backside. There's no point in a game that has no challenge you might as well go start a movie, disconnect your mouse and click it everytime the hero does something. You need to learn to utilize all the facets of the game instead of saying well I either do this single OP thing or I guess i have to lower the difficulty. If you want a sword and board hero who doesn't smith, go faceroll enough bandits to buy some decent equipment. If you want to play a smart mercenary buy or make some potions for the tough fights. If you want to play a dandy who gets his ass handed to him and then whines, well you seem to be doing alright in that department. Make the game work for you, figure out how to break the limits, how to bring the gods to their knees and grovel, figure out how the game works and then dominate it. Do you know the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results (sorry had to throw in a Far Cry quote). If just dancing around this guy and poking him isnt working, get out and figure something else out. Hire a merc, buy a potion, kick a peasant's teeth in and take his lunch money and put it towards better gear. Don't just rinse and repeat. Learn from your mistakes, do better. If all else fails, roll an assassin, get the double damage backstab gloves and kill everything.

Well, you CAN do most quests at any level... but sometimes it doesn't pay to start early. Your frost Giant is a base level 50...

I've never encountered one myself, but I play Dead is Dead and haven't gotten higher than level 38 or so. I play on Master, with several mods (though not Frostfall) that make monsters, tougher and smarter.

I didn't see a stat for block, which can be important for a one hander unless you're into dual attack, but your stats look... okay. BAndit Chiefs and high level archers will be nightmare for you though.. 200 health is only one arrow away from dead. My level 22 character just got killed a short while ago (about an hour) by a single fus ro dah, and her health was 285, given fortify health rings and blessing of Arkay, amulet of Arkay, and a fortify health potion took her over 300...

If you haven't already, check this link and read about the 'effects of leveling', located on this page, it can explain some of the problem.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Leveling

I also agree with neildarkstar and Pupp. We've all had to deal with it, hang in there.

I play with fast healing in my left hand. Its worked fine for me so far, but obviously doesn't help against a level 50 monster that can one-shot me.

I'm getting the impression from this game that you shouldn't actually try to do any guild quests until you're at least level 50.

And its normal for archers to be able to deal over 800 damage with one hit??? And my battlemage character I mentioned had a shield, and more hit points. And the perk that made arrows deal less damage. So, his bow would have had to have an attack of over 800 from my math to one-shot me like he was. Honestly starting to think I should be playing an archer.

And I didn't mention my equipment. I admit, I've been trying to go for looks over function, but regardless my equipment should be fine for the level I'm at. The mace is steel, so is my helmet. The rest of my armor is steel plate. I also wear a ring that fortifies stamina, and a necklace that fortifies my restoration. Hey, he's supposed to be a paladin character. He wouldn't be much of a paladin if he ran around in daedric, now would he? Or ebony. Or orcish for that matter. Dragonplate, maybe, but like I said I've avoided doing the main quest so I've seen no dragons (well, with one exception I probably can't mention without spoiling the plot, besides I don't recall looting that one, I don't think you can).

Are you sure that you have to fight the Frost Giant?

Edit: Also, are you absolutely sure that you're playing on Adept? I don't recall ever being one-shot by an archer at the default setting.

IMO, how you lvl effect's your game just as much as what you are lvl'ing. I don't think their is any one way to do it, but you can really goof up a character doing it wrong.

The RP I just started is DG and happens to be my favorite Questline. My character very similar to yours

1h - mace or shield left hand

Restoration & destruction - spell in the right hand ( mostly sun & fire spells)

Block- but only a very few perks at first

Heavy armor- DG when he get's their, a mis-mash until then ( right now wearing robe with steel boots and gauntlets * magic regen*)

Smithing- he and his wife/ follower.. will need it

Those are my 6 skills, I generally only do 5, but I want the fire and sun spells. He has already trained in Restoration, but his first perk went into smithing, the next will go into 1h, then destruction, then another round then with Restoration and block. Why? mainly because block can become OP if you don't watch it and Restoration won't get the perk til the 2nd and 4th time around also because he will have training in it. He won't get a health point til after his magic is 200, then 2:1

That's just they way I do it, it works for me and I generally have good fights but not insane ones, unless I'm taking on something well above my characters lvl. Now the difference in our RP's is that my guy is starting as a Vigilant of Stendar and won't even start DG until a certain thing happens at the Hall.... then of course he will have to run into a certain Orc. ( somewhere around lvl 8 to 10). Plus he also has a side quest, he will be building Blackthorn ( a mod town). DG and Blackthorn will be spaced out so that while Blackthorn is complete before DG is done ,it will take time for them both. My character shouldn't see any frost Giants til somewhere between 25 & 30, if then.

Plus he has to get married first, Maya ( mod follower) will be his "partner" after that, except when Serana won't allow it ( unless AFT let's me keep both). She may stay in Blackthorn if not to over see the building ( I know it doesn't work that way)...RP...

While I am careful in my lvl up process, it isn't the most important thing to me, my RP is. I think out my characters skills as he or she goes along, I have held on to quiet a few perk points til I decided the best way to allocate them. Sometimes that isn't with the skill that is the highest, but the one that is struggling along, those are also the skills I will seek out training for. That's just they way I do it.

My difficulty is set at adept, I checked. And no, I didn't have to fight the frost giant. I saw no door or route near him, so I explored the area some more. Found out that no, that frost giant is NOT where I was supposed to go.

And I didn't start the dawnguard quest until they decided to recruit me themselves, at about level 10. Before that I just wandered around falkreathe and whiterun (with frostfall, you kinda want to avoid the northern edge of the map early on) doing bounty quests for bandits. After the dawnguard called me however, pretty much the only quest I did that wasn't part of the DG questline was the one from the temple in riften.

Honestly, I'm finding the pure knightly character to be kinda boring. And besides, I was planning on abandoning him after I did the dawnguard quest anyway. After that, I was going to try the main quest again, this time though I was planning on installing deadly dragons so the dragons don't turn into such push-overs after a while (I found the final fight with alduin to be very underwhelming). Oh, and I was also going to install the civil war overhaul, bc that questline as it is svcks. Of course, mods like this can kinda screw up save game files, so I was saving them for after I got through with the dawnguard questline. To be honest though, I don't think I need to be a paladin character to complete that. None of the ppl in fort dawnguard are paladins obviously. I mean seriously, their leader is obviously based off of blade.

Your mace is doing 24 Damage? That's terrible. No wonder you can't do [censored] for damage. And those Frost Giants almost One-Shot me on my Level 40. We're almost 4 years into Skyrim; you should know by now that Giants aren't no joke. I'm sure you've heard about Giants sending players to the moon.

You're simply underpowered. The enemy your fighting is just too tough for you.

Also, I would consider investing into Smithing and/or Enchanting. It's not broken, but you can break it. Just use it normally. Level it up as you go. No need to do the Restoration Glitch or enchant a bunch of armor to increase smithing efficiency. Just grab the perk, upgrade your gear. Maybe take a potion.

Make a new character that is allways the best option.

What your character is, is up to you, if he's well along and you think he's pretty decently balanced ( that mace really svcks). Turn him from Goody-goody knight paladin to slightly fanatic civil war Hero.

But that is up to you. I usually don't do more than one Skyrim questline with one "i made it up questline" or a mod that can be used as a quest. My Avatar did Main Quest along with "Helgen Reborn", that was a blast. Barbarian to Lord Knight. I also used Deadly Dragons and oof, Alduin was no pushover.

I have a character in planning that will be a Dwemer Scholar, no Questline. She will just explore every Dwemer ruin... add in Deadly Dragons, Frostfall and a couple other mods. One I found adds a short "house" quest. It should be a blast.

That is what I mean by my RP is more important than the actual questline. If your not happy with the character, questline or anything else, then delete the character and start over. JMO that being unhappy with some aspect of the game leads to burnout.

Honestly, I have been thinking, going for a specific look makes him seem kinda vain. I still don't like the idea of a goody-two-shoes wearing daedric or ebony, and ironically dwarven would make it look like he's wearing gold.

I have been doing some enchanting with my equipment, though not much. The enchantment on the mace is one I made myself (quite some time ago, obviously). I could make a new one with a better enchantment, and maybe I should smith everything up a bit. I also put a fortify hp 20 enchantment on my cuirass once, but that was with a steel armor piece, I'm now wearing a steel plate. Only enchanted things I'm wearing are a ring and a necklace of mara.

Yeah, thinking I should just start a new character, but I'm already so deep into the DG questline I'm not too keen on having to start it all over again, for a third time. Yeah, i've never finished the DG quest, despite multiple attempts. Really the only questlines I've ever completed are the main questline, the companians, and the civil war.

Don't feel like you have to hurry. I didn't finish Oblivion's Mages Guild and Dark Brotherhood until seven years after the game was released. To this day I still haven't finished the Thieves Guild (despite trying to start it several times) or Shivering Isles.

I have the exact same problem nowadays im taking too long to complete everthing in the recent games I've been playing.

^^^ This, I just "finished" a Bard/ Assassin, only finished isn't really the right word. Her story was done, the Dark Brotherhood questline was not. The DB was her job in a way, but at the same time it wasn't a major part of her story, being a Bard was. I have run two different DB characters and really neither have finished, 5 or 6 TG characters and only one has "done everything". I have started the Companions just for my character to become a werewolf ( pretty sure their are mod's I can use now, but I was on 360) , Started MQ just for Dragons or gone so far just so my character can become a "Dragon Slayer".

These are my last two DG chaacters http://s1254.photobucket.com/user/Trace9569/media/20140216_165756-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=336 and http://s1254.photobucket.com/user/Trace9569/media/20131030_110204.jpg.html?sort=3&o=555 both of them took over 100 hours to finish DG, with no other Questline done, Zyne started MQ for the Dragons and probably had closer to 200 hr's. I did all the radiant quest's and all the side "favors" and such for both. Plus Zyne did some other things that fit her story.

Skyrim isn't a race, don't worry about how quickly you are getting it done. I never worry about how fast my characters lvl up, cause they are specialist's and after awhile they don't lvl quickly and I know they won't. But no matter what I or anyone else says it's your game, do what is most fun for you... or why else would you being doing it?

Your character is very similar to my Imperial character. The biggest difference is that I went with light armor as I wanted to reserve on needing stamina. My Imperial is probably my most effective build. I also use one-handed mace with a shield. As I am light armor and have put a lot of points into magicka, high restoration spells are a major part of my defence, but I have also invested heavily into enchanting and also I have alteration. In combat I use my shield a lot to block before swinging hard with my mace.

So what exactly is your character wearing for armor if i may ask? And weapon? You should definitely upgrade it if you haven′t yet ( in the beginning upgrading your equipment seems like a waste but later if you have high enough skill it really ads up) as for the Dawnguard DLC hell for the Dragonborn DLC as well they are significantly harder than main game. I remember when i went to Solstheim with my fresh dunmer spellsword on level 10 he was demolished because all the tombs were filled with Draugr Deathlords for some reason. I would recommend to either play main questline untill you are atleast lv 30-50 or lower your difficulty setting.

It sounds like you don't have much idea what to do with your character and how the levelling system works, if you going in for restoration magic then you need a mage build, trying to be a mage and a warrior at the same time doesn't really work. It sounds like you're putting your perks into restoration and not into weapons/armour. If you're a warrior you're interested in weapons and armour so you will be interested in smithing, and improving weapons and armour at a smithy will easily double the damage and protection armour and weapons give.

Putting your perks into restoration won't help as it can only restore health once you've lost it, whereas improving your armour will stop you losing it in the first place which is ultimately more important for a warrior. Secondly 24 dmg on a mace? What is that, basic iron or steel? Its pathetic, buy, loot or purchase a better one Steel is better than Iron and Elven is better than Steel. Glass is better than Elven, etc. So you really need to be looking for better weapons and improving them. If you're using the same weapons with the same damage since the start of the game its no wonder its getting harder and harder.

Using restoration with a mace and shield work very well for my Imperial. The big difference for me was that I had light armor. This enable less stamina usage whilst in combat and I could emphasise more with magic. I also had enchanting and alteration to support. Being in light armor, it allowed me to run away and restore if my health fell. I am not so sure this would work as well in heavy armor. As i am high in magicka, I also chose destruction spells to use as a ranged attack and stayed clear from archery.

Restoration works very well with Warriors and the perks as well.

The thing is like you stated that mace is not doing a lot of damage for that character level and especially against a high level Frost Giant

I've only invested in restoration, when I couldn't invest any more useful points into his other two main skills. And besides, I doubt a mage would get much benefit from respite anyway. I'm finding the stamina restore to be quite useful.